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New Liaozhai: The Eastern Hedge
The hermit Shen Baiyi loves mums; each autumn a plain-clad Tao tends his hedge and shares his verse. Years pass, his hair turns white and hers does not — she is the chrysanthemum. When he dies, one cluster by his grave holds through winter.
New Liaozhai: The Charred Paulownia
A poor scholar buys a charred, broken-stringed qin; a woman's voice from within teaches him 'Flowing Water,' and at the county gathering a weeping guest knows the piece as his late sister's.
The Red Thread
A tailor hides a red thread in every mend for the family's peace. After the lonely old neighbor dies, her pillow hides a lifetime of those threads — warm, in someone else's dream.
The Abacus
An old pawnshop abacus clicks itself at night, settling accounts no one else remembers. When the books are finally even, it disappears.
The Umbrella Guest
An old umbrella-seller gives a stranger a paper umbrella in the rain. After his death, dry umbrellas appear across the rainy city — Grandpa Zhou, still lending.
New Liaozhai: The Eleventh Floor
A food delivery rider keeps getting orders for Apartment 02 on the eleventh floor of a ten-floor building — the old woman who waits there died years ago, but her hot meal still needs delivering.
The Lamp Maid
A maid whipped to death for letting a lamp go out keeps a self-lighting flame through the ages, waiting only to light a poor scholar's way.
New Liaozhai: The Umbrella
A widow's oil-paper umbrella shelters a traveler from more than rain; each plum-rain season it remembers him, and in the grave only the umbrella remains.