The Fisherman Who Drank with a Drowning Ghost / 王六郎

A friendship across the river of the dead — and the mercy that cost a man his rebirth

From Liaozhai Zhiyi · Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (聊斋志异)

By Pu Songling (蒲松龄, 1640–1715) · Translated with annotations

Hook: Every night, an old fisherman in Shandong poured a cup of wine into the river before he cast his net — "for the drowned ghosts down there." Other men caught nothing. He always came home with a full basket. One night, one of those ghosts came up out of the river and sat down beside him to drink.

The Story

There was a man named Xu (a fisherman from north of Zichuan, in what is now Shandong) who took his nets and a jar of wine down to the river every evening. Before he drank, he would always pour the first cup onto the ground and say, For the drowned ghosts in the river. Come drink. He had done this for years.

Other men along the river often went home empty-handed. Xu's basket was always full.

One night he was drinking by himself when a young man walked up out of the dark and stood at the edge of the firelight, hesitating. Xu waved him over. They drank together. The young man was quiet, polite, easy company.

When dawn came, Xu realized he hadn't caught a single fish all night. He sighed. The young man stood up. Let me drive some fish toward you from downstream, he said — and walked off into the dark before Xu could refuse.

A minute later he came back. They're coming, he said.

Xu heard the water suddenly come alive — a soft sucking sound, fish mouthing at the surface. He cast his net and pulled up seven or eight fish, every one of them over a foot long.

Xu tried to give him some fish. The young man wouldn't take any. I've drunk your good wine many times, he said. This is nothing. If you don't mind the trouble, I'd like to keep coming.

Xu was startled. We've only just met tonight. Why do you say "many times"? — but if you'll really keep coming, I'd be honored. I just don't know how to repay you.

The young man laughed. My surname is Wang. I have no formal courtesy name. Just call me Wang the Sixth — Wang Liulang.^{[1]Liulang (六郎) literally "Sixth Brother" — a friendly way to refer to a young man as the sixth-born son in his family. The man is offering Xu the kind of nickname only friends and family use.}

And he was gone.

The next evening, when Xu came down to the river, Wang Liulang was already there waiting. They drank, and Wang drove the fish into Xu's net, and Xu sold the fish and bought more wine, and they did this every night for half a year.

Then one night Wang Liulang said, very quietly, Old brother, we two have come to feel like blood. But we have to say goodbye soon.

His voice was strange. Xu asked what he meant. Wang opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. Finally he said:

If we're as close as I think we are, then maybe what I'm about to say won't frighten you. We have to part because — I am a ghost.^{[2]In Chinese folk belief, a drowned person could not be reborn until another person drowned in the same place to take their position — a kind of cosmic queue. The "replacement" was called tì sǐguǐ (替死鬼), the substitute-corpse ghost.} I loved wine too much in life. I got drunk one night and drowned in this river. It's been a few years.

Those nights when you caught more fish than anyone else — that was me, driving them into your net. To thank you for the wine you poured for me.

Tomorrow my term down here is up. Someone is coming to take my place — and I'll be allowed to be reborn. Tonight is our last night.

Xu was terrified for a moment. Then — they'd been friends so long — the fear passed, and what replaced it was a kind of grief. He poured a full cup, held it out, and said:

Six, drink this. Don't be sad. Of course it hurts to part. But your term of suffering is up. By rights I should be congratulating you, not weeping. To grieve now would be wrong.

So they drank, and Xu asked, Who is replacing you?

Wang Liulang answered, Watch the river tomorrow at noon. A woman will cross and drown. That's the one.

The village rooster crowed. They wept and parted.

The next day Xu sat at the river and watched. At noon a woman came to the bank carrying a small child. She stepped into the water and went under.

The child was flung onto the bank, kicking and screaming.

The woman went under once. Came up. Went under again. Came up. Xu's whole body wanted to run in and save her — and then he remembered: this is the one taking Liulang's place. So he didn't move.

Then, dripping, the woman dragged herself up onto the bank. She sat for a minute on the wet ground catching her breath. She picked up the child and walked away.

Xu sat staring. He half-suspected Wang Liulang had been making the whole thing up.

That evening he went back to fish. Wang Liulang was already there.

We're together again, Wang said. Let's not talk about parting tonight.

Xu asked what had happened. Wang Liulang answered, That woman was supposed to take my place. But she had a baby in her arms. To save myself, I would have killed two people. I let her go.

I don't know when my next chance will come. Maybe never. Maybe our karmic time together isn't finished.

Xu was so moved he could hardly speak. A heart like that, he said finally, can reach all the way up to Heaven.

So they kept fishing and drinking together, as before.

A few days later, Wang Liulang came again to say goodbye.

Xu assumed someone else had come to replace him. Wang shook his head.

No. That moment of mercy by the river — Heaven heard it. I've been appointed Earth God^{[3]The tǔ dì gōng (土地公), Earth God, is one of the lowest-ranking deities in the traditional Chinese spirit bureaucracy — typically responsible for a single village or town. Every village had a small shrine to one. Unlike sky-gods or city-gods, the Earth God is supposed to know every household by name. For Wang Liulang — a drowned drunk who showed mercy — this is exactly the right promotion: small, local, practical, full of care.} of Wu Town in Zhaoyuan County. I leave tomorrow. If you don't forget me, come visit sometime. Don't mind the distance.

Xu was happy for him, then troubled. You'll be a proper deity — that's a fine thing. But men and gods live on different roads. Even if I came, what good would it do?

Just come, Wang Liulang said. Don't worry.

He said this twice more, and then he was gone.

Xu went home and started packing for the journey east. His wife laughed at him. It's hundreds of miles. Even if the place exists, you'll just be staring at a clay statue. What are you going to talk to it about?

Xu went anyway.

He reached Zhaoyuan County. He asked the locals — and yes, there was a Wu Town. He found his way to a roadside inn and asked the innkeeper where the Earth God's shrine was.

The innkeeper's face changed. Is your surname, by any chance, Xu?

Yes. How did you know?

And — by chance — are you from Zichuan?

Yes. But how did you know?

The innkeeper didn't answer. He ran out the door.

A few minutes later men were arriving with their wives, neighbors were bringing children, and a crowd had pressed up around the inn like a wall. They told Xu: Several nights ago the Earth God appeared in our dreams. He said: my old friend Xu from Zichuan is coming. Help him with his expenses. We've been waiting.

Xu was stunned. He went to the shrine and made a small offering. Six, he said, since we parted I haven't stopped thinking of you. I came all this way to keep the promise. And then to find you'd already prepared the village to receive me — I can't tell you what that meant. I have nothing fine to bring you. Just a cup of wine. If you don't mind, let it be like our old nights on the river.

He poured the wine and burned spirit-money.

A whirlwind rose up from behind the altar and circled there for a long time, then dispersed.

That night Wang Liulang came to him in a dream — beautifully dressed, very formal, very different from the young man at the river. I'm so glad you came, he said. I'm both happy and sad. As a god on duty, I can't meet you face to face — that's the rule. We're close as paper and still I feel like there's a mountain and a river between us. The villagers will give you a small gift on my behalf. When you're ready to leave, I'll come see you off.

Xu stayed a few days. The villagers wouldn't let him leave — every household took a turn feeding him. When he finally insisted, they piled gifts on him until his bags were full, and the whole town walked him to the road.

A whirlwind rose and followed him for ten li.

Xu turned, bowed to it, and said, Brother Six — take care of yourself. Don't trouble yourself going farther. Your heart is good. You'll bring blessings to your village without any reminding from me.

The whirlwind circled him for a long time, then went back.

Xu came home with enough that he never had to fish again.

For years afterwards, people from Zhaoyuan would tell travelers that the Earth God of Wu Town answered prayers like an echo answering a shout.

The narrator, Yishi shi^{[4]Yìshǐ shì (异史氏), "the Recorder of Strange History" — Pu Songling's own pen name for the editorial comments he appends to many Liaozhai tales, modeled on Sima Qian's Tài shǐ gōng yuē ("the Grand Historian said") in the Records of the Grand Historian.}, adds:

To rise into high places and not forget the poor friends of your past — that is what makes a true god. Today's grandees in their carriages — would they even recognize the man in a straw hat?

A retired scholar in my village was very poor. He had a childhood friend who'd become a great official. He scraped together everything he had, walked a thousand li to visit him, and was so coldly received he had to sell his horse to afford the trip home. His clever younger cousin wrote a little parody of the Yueling^{[5]The Yuèlìng (月令), "Monthly Ordinances," is a chapter of the Confucian classic Liji that lists the proper rites and activities for each lunar month. The retired scholar's cousin is parodying its solemn formula — "In this month the X happens" — to mock his uncle's humiliating trip.} about it: "In this month elder brother returns. The sable cap comes off. The umbrella is folded away. The horse has turned into a donkey. The boots, at last, fall silent." Worth a laugh.

Translator's Reflection

I came to this one expecting a simple ghost story and got something quieter than that.

The thing that stuck in my head was the part where Xu sits on the riverbank and watches the woman drown. He knows she's the one who's supposed to die so his friend can be free. He doesn't move. And then — she gets out. The story doesn't tell you what was going through his head in those minutes between knowing and not knowing. There's just one sentence: he half-suspected Wang Liulang had been making the whole thing up. That's it. No long inner monologue. The Chinese is just five characters: 疑其言不验.

Then Wang Liulang shows up that evening and explains he chose not to take her. And Xu doesn't praise him with anything elaborate — he just says, basically, a heart like that reaches Heaven. Six words. A small, true thing said by one friend to another.

What I wasn't expecting was the ending. Pu Songling — who lived seventy-six years and failed the imperial exams over and over and watched friends grow into officials who forgot him — uses this ghost story to take a shot at every wealthy man who ever pretended not to recognize an old friend at the side of the road. Would they even recognize the man in a straw hat? That line was sitting in his throat for decades, I think. Wang Liulang, the drowned drunk turned village god, is the moral counter-example. Even after he gets promoted he sends dreams ahead asking the village to feed his old fisherman friend.

I had to look up húxiān and shénxián and a dozen other terms when I started doing this work. Tu di gong — Earth God — is one of the small ones in the Chinese spirit bureaucracy. Most villages had a little shrine on the edge of the fields for him. He's not a sky deity. He's the guy who knows everyone's name. That's exactly the kind of god Wang Liulang would have made.

The story ends with a whirlwind circling a man on a country road, refusing to turn back. I love how Pu Songling writes ghosts. They're never quite gone.

Next tale: The Jade Carver Who Married a Ghost — a Southern Song love story that doesn't notice it has died. → [Coming soon]