The City God

In the shrine of the City God at Qinghe, a new divinity named Tao took his seat; on the night he came to office a cold wind moved the banners. Beneath the shrine lay an old unresolved case: a village girl, A-Xiu, wrongly put to death—the magistrate had taken a bribe, and the sentence of strangling stood, her wrong unrighted these thirty years, her wronged soul crying in the night. That night the God Tao mounted his court and summoned the dead magistrate's soul to face A-Xiu. The magistrate kowtowed: "The law is plain; the girl was indeed guilty, no wrong was done." A-Xiu wept: "I was of a good house, forced by the village bully; the magistrate took gold and turned the charge upon me—let heaven and sun bear witness!" The God bade fetch the Book of Life and Death, and saw A-Xiu was fated for seventy-three years, yet died at thirty; the magistrate, though his mortal span was spent, was heavy-laden in the records of the shades. The ghost-officers thought the magistrate must be severely punished. Yet the God Tao judged: "The magistrate took bribes and shall fall into the mire of hell; but A-Xiu's wrong is not answered by his sharing her doom—it is answered by restoring what was taken. His fields and gardens shall all pass to A-Xiu's kin, to repay the violence done. And a small shrine shall be raised by the temple, where A-Xiu is honoured as the Well-Goddess, receiving the incense of the place." They were astonished. The God said, "That the wronged family regain what was lost, and the violent lose their hold—this is the evenness of judgment." Next day it was told in the village that A-Xiu's old fields, in a single night, all passed to her orphan nephew; and by the temple a small shrine rose, its incense kindling of itself. All marvelled. The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: Those who judge in the world seek mostly the guilt of the doer, and forget the house of the dead. The God Tao's judgment prized restoration above punishment. What the wronged ask is no more than that things return to their owner. Should not those who govern hereafter ponder this thrice?