Free Censored by Confucius by Mei Yüan Page B

a short while. Perhaps your Miss Zhou is a fox fairy who is impersonating my daughter."
    Zhou's wife said, "This fox fairy will blacken the family name by pretending to be our daughter and carrying on in this way. Why don't we present our real daughter to Kaxiong for marriage and see what happens then?"
    The two brothers thought this a superb idea and immediately began the betrothal arrangements.
    On the eve of the wedding Kaxiong returned to his room and was stunned to see his bride-to-be already there.
    The woman smiled and said, "Why are you so flustered?" She then related the following story.
    "I am a fox and I have come to repay a debt of gratitude for a kindness your father once bestowed upon me.
    "When your father the general was alive he often went hunting and one day I was shot by his arrow. Instead of killing me he pulled the arrow out and set me free. Since that day I have been seeking a way to repay his kindness and today I have succeeded.
    "When I discovered that you were having difficulty realizing your love for Miss Zhou, I decided to become your matchmaker and help you achieve your desire. Of course, if you and Miss Zhou had not already been destined for each other, I would have been unable to help.
    "Now that my matchmaking is done, I will leave."
    And with this she disappeared.

Freak Wind
    The Dajing military camp was based in Liangzhou at Mount Song, in the middle of a gravelly desert. The site was that of an old battlefield, and one day General Ta Siha led his troops farther into the desert on routine surveillance.
    As far as his eyes could see the landscape was barren, spotted here and there with low scrub and disturbed only by wisps of yellow dust.
    Suddenly a huge mountain reared up from the ground, eventually blocking out the sun. As it rose before them, the terrified soldiers and their startled horses could hear a tremendous crackling and thunderous roars.
    General Ta was just as frightened as his men, particularly when he noticed that the mountain was advancing towards them.
    It approached so quickly that there was no hope of escape. So the men leaped off their horses, formed a tight circle, closed their eyes, and waited for the worst.
    Seconds later they were enveloped in pitch darkness. The men and their horses were knocked to the ground and tossed around mercilessly by this dark force for quite some time. But eventually all was calm once again.
    The entire troop of thirty-six men emerged covered in blood with little pebbles embedded in their skin, some half an inch deep. When they turned to look at the departing mountain, it was already dozens of miles in the distance.
    That evening they returned to the Dajing base camp and reported this phenomenon to the chief of staff, Ma Chenghu.
    Ma laughed at General Ta, saying, "That wasn't a mountain! It was just a freak windstorm. You'd all be dead now if it had really been a mountain.
    "This sort of windstorm occurs quite regularly out there during the winter months. You've all survived the storm, but it's obvious your faces are badly pockmarked by the flying stones.

    "The scars will probably be permanent, so I suggest you make sure the troop's personnel records are updated to incorporate these changes to your men's appearances."

The Old Woman Who Was Transformed into a Wolf
    In Aizhou County, Guangdong Province, there was a peasant by the name of Sun, whose mother had lived well into her seventies. One day, completely out of the blue, she started to grow hair on her arms. The hair spread to her back and then to her stomach and hands. Eventually she was entirely covered with inch-long hair. It was then that her body began to shrivel and a tail began to grow from her buttocks. Soon after the tail had formed she collapsed to the ground and before everyone's eyes was transformed into a white-haired wolf.
    The wolf dashed out of the house and was gone. There was nothing the startled Sun family could do but wait to see if she would return. As it turned out,