After such a proof of his depravity his aunt had no room in her house for her orphan nephew, neither did he himself wish to stay with people who suspected him of theft.  So he left the home which had sheltered him for years, and wandered out alone into the cold hard world.  Many a hardship did he encounter, but with rare pluck he persevered in his studies, and at the age of twenty odd years became a mandarin.

In course of time our hero returned to Yen Ch’eng to visit his uncle and aunt.  While there he betook himself to the temple of the deity who had dealt so hardly with him, and prayed for a revelation as to the whereabouts of the lost hairpin.  He slept that night in the temple, and was rewarded by a vision in which the Ch’eng-huang P’u-sa told him that the pin would be found under the floor of his aunt’s house.

He hastened back, and informed his relatives, who took up the boards in the place indicated, and lo! there lay the long-lost pin!  The women of the house then remembered that the pin had been used in pasting together the various layers of the soles of shoes, and, when night came, had been carelessly left on the table.  No doubt rats, attracted by the smell of the paste which clung to it, had carried it off to their domains under the floor.

The young mandarin joyfully returned to the temple, and offered sacrifices by way of thanksgiving to the Ch’eng-huang P’u-sa for bringing his innocence to light, but he could not refrain from addressing to him what one is disposed to consider a well-merited reproach.

“You made me fall down,” he said, “and so led people to think I was guilty, and now you accept my gifts.  Aren’t you ashamed to do such a thing? You have no face!”

As he uttered the words all the plaster fell from the face of the idol, and was smashed into fragments.

From that day forward the Ch’eng-huang P’u-sa of Yen Ch’eng has had no skin on his face.  People have tried to patch up the disfigured countenance, but in vain:  the plaster always falls off, and the face remains skinless.

Some try to defend the Ch’eng-huang P’u-sa by saying that he was not at home on the day when his temple was visited by the accused boy and his relatives, and that one of the little demons employed by him in carrying off dead people’s spirits out of sheer mischief perpetrated a practical joke on the poor boy.

In that case it is certainly hard that his skin should so persistently testify against him by refusing to remain on his face!

The Origin of a Lake

In the city of Ta-yeh Hsien, Hupei, there is a large sheet of water known as the Liang-ti Lake.  The people of the district give the following account of its origin: