The Tea Merchant of Shaanxi

A certain tea merchant from Shaanxi was selling tea in the Jiangnan area and on his way back stayed overnight in a traveler’s inn in Wenxiang County. The people already staying in the east room were two cloth merchants from Shandong. When they had finished their evening meal, they closed the door to sleep. The tea merchant dreamt that there was a guai-monster. Its hair was untied, it had a short red beard, and its face was indented. Knocking down the door, it entered holding an iron chain in its hands, with which it tied up the two cloth merchants in the east room. Then it tied up the tea merchant. The three of them were tied up together like fish moving about in single file. The monster tied them up on a willow tree outside the gate. The monster also knocked down the door to another inn and disappeared. The two cloth merchants were tied up extremely tight and couldn’t move. The tea merchant was tied up a little looser. After a painful struggle he was able to escape. Frightened, he woke up, but he took it all for a dream. He told the innkeeper, who for his part was not terribly afraid. The next morning at the fifth watch, the innkeeper screamed loudly that the two merchants from the east room were dead. At a hotel a half a mile away, a muleteer was also found dead.