The Tea Hag

Deep in the Taihang mountains stood a ruined posting-station called Lone Pine. The road was abandoned, weeds taller than a man. Yet an old woman had raised a thatch shed there, hung a tea sign, and each night lit a pine torch to await travelers. Those who passed, seeing the faint glow, would stop to rest. The hag asked no price, only poured bitter tea from a coarse pot. By her hearth, drinkers found her face like withered wood, eyes sunken, lips near blue—yet she spoke gently, telling old tales of the hills, and they forgot their weariness. A medicine peddler surnamed Zhou arrived alone at midnight, drank three cups, and talked till the cock crowed. As he left she smiled: "Walk well, sir; in these hills, do not look back at deep night." He promised and went. Next day, ten li on, he met a hunter and spoke of where he had lodged. The hunter paled: "Lone Pine has had no living soul these ten years. A wildfire two years past burned the shed; the old woman died in it. What you saw—was it her ghost?" Zhou was stricken. He remembered: by the hearth her feet never touched ground, and her shadow on the wall bore no shape of legs. He fell ill a month, then mended. Ever after, passing there, he still saw one point of pine light, a bean of glow—though the shed was rubble. The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: In a deserted village, burned to ash, even a dry bone pities the traveler's cold; yet the living, in the world of light, often shut their doors against men a thousand li away. That a ghost should have feeling shames the heartless among the living—pitiable indeed.