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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.
The Night Toll Booth
Lao Chen works the night toll booth on the ring road. At 3:07 each night a dark-windowed sedan pulls up and hands him a fistful of water-soaked old coins. He later learns a car went into the river there twenty years ago.
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.
Midnight Records: The Paper Child
Gou the paper craftsman breaks his own rule and models a paper child on a dead boy; on the seventh night the cut paper flowers lie in a ring, and the paper sleeve sways as if to reach them.
Midnight Records: The Porcelain Mender
Zhou the porcelain mender mends a celadon bowl for a widowed old man at night — and beneath the glaze a tiny picture of a lantern-bearing child appears, the very image of the man when young.
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.