Cricket

During the Xuande reign, the court favored the sport of cricket-fighting, levying them annually from the people. This creature was not originally a product of the west. A Huayin magistrate, wishing to curry favor with his superiors, presented one; when tried in a fight it proved skillful, so he was ordered to supply them regularly. The magistrate charged the village headman with the task.

In the marketplace, wandering gallants kept fine ones in cages, raising their price and hoarding them as rare goods. The village clerks, crafty and cunning, used this pretext to levy taxes on every household; each time they demanded a cricket, it would drain the property of several families.

In the county there was a man named Cheng Ming, who pursued civil service examination studies but long failed to pass. He was by nature slow-witted and inarticulate, and so was reported by a cunning clerk to fill the post of village headman, from which he tried every scheme to extricate himself but could not. Within a year, his meager property was entirely exhausted. Just then the levy of crickets came; Cheng dared not collect from the households, yet had nothing to make up the loss himself. Distressed and desperate, he wished to die. His wife said, "What use is dying? Better to search for yourself, in the hope of a one-in-ten-thousand chance." Cheng agreed. He went out early and returned late, carrying a bamboo tube and a copper-wire cage, exploring rocks and opening crevices among ruined walls and thick grass; he tried every means, but all to no avail. Even when he caught two or three, they were too poor and weak to meet the standard. The magistrate set strict deadlines and flogged him; in a little over ten days, he received a hundred strokes, so that pus and blood flowed from both thighs, and he could not even go out to catch crickets. Tossing and turning on his bed, he thought only of suicide. At that time, a hunchbacked shaman came to the village, who could divine by spirits. Cheng's wife prepared money and went to consult him. She saw red-clad maidens and white-haired matrons crowding the doorway. Entering the room, there was an inner chamber with a hanging curtain, before which an incense table was set. Those who came to ask burned incense in a tripod and bowed twice. The shaman, standing beside them, looked up and prayed on their behalf, his lips opening and closing, uttering words unknown; all stood solemnly listening. After a while, a slip of paper was thrown out from behind the curtain, which told exactly what was in the inquirer's mind, without the slightest error. Cheng's wife placed money on the table, lit incense, and bowed. In the space of a meal, the curtain stirred, and a piece of paper fluttered down. She picked it up and looked: it was not writing but a picture. In the middle was drawn a hall and pavilion like a temple; behind it, under a small hill, strange rocks lay in disorder, with thick thorny brambles, and a Green-Head cricket crouched there; beside it a toad, as if about to dance. She studied it but could not understand. Yet seeing the cricket, it secretly struck a chord in her heart. She folded it up, hid it, and returned to show Cheng. Cheng turned it over and over, thinking to himself: "Could this be instructing me where to hunt the creature?" He carefully examined the scene, and it closely resembled the Great Buddha Temple east of the village. So he forced himself to rise, leaning on a staff, and took the picture to the back of the temple. There an ancient tomb rose up. Following the tomb, he saw stones crouching like scales, exactly like the painting. Then among the weeds he walked slowly, listening intently, as if searching for a needle or a mustard seed; but his mind, eyes, and ears were all exhausted, and there was no trace or sound. As he searched on, a toad with a scabby head suddenly leaped away. Cheng was startled and gave chase. The toad entered the grass; following its tracks and parting the growth, he saw a cricket crouching at the root of a thorn bush. He pounced on it, but it went into a stone crevice. He poked it with a sharp blade of grass but it would not come out; he poured water from a bamboo tube into the hole, and then it emerged. Its form was extremely handsome and sturdy. He chased and caught it. Examining it closely: a large body, long tail, green neck, golden wings. Overjoyed, he put it in a cage and went home. The whole family celebrated, as if it were a priceless jewel. He put earth in a basin and raised it, feeding it with crab meat and chestnut kernels, cherishing it with utmost care. He kept it until the deadline, to fulfill the official demand.

Cheng had a son of nine years. Seeing his father away, the boy secretly opened the basin. The cricket leaped and sprang out, too swift to catch. When he finally pounced and got it, its legs had fallen off and its belly split; in a moment it died. The boy, terrified, ran crying to his mother. Hearing this, her face turned ashen gray. She cursed him fiercely: "You root of evil! Your death is at hand! When your father returns, he will settle accounts with you!" The boy went out in tears. Soon Cheng entered. Hearing his wife's words, he felt as if covered with ice and snow. In rage he sought his son, but the boy had vanished—none knew where. After a while, he found the corpse in the well. Then his anger turned to grief; he beat his breast and cried out as if to die. Husband and wife faced the corners of the room; no smoke rose from their thatched hut. They sat in silence, utterly forlorn.

As dusk approached, he prepared to bury the boy in a straw mat, but when he drew near and felt him, there was still a faint breath. Overjoyed, he placed him on the bed, and by midnight the boy revived. Husband and wife were somewhat comforted. But the boy's spirit was dull and wooden, listless and drowsy. Cheng looked at the empty cricket cage, and his breath caught in his throat; he no longer thought of his son. From dusk till dawn, he did not close his eyes. When the eastern sun had already risen, he lay stiffly in bed, sunk in long sorrow. Suddenly he heard a cricket chirping outside the door. Startled, he rose to look—there was the cricket, still alive. Delighted, he caught it. It chirped once and leaped away, moving swiftly. He covered it with his palm, but it felt empty, as if nothing were there; as soon as he raised his hand, it jumped again. He hurried after it, but it turned around a corner of the wall and vanished, leaving him uncertain where it had gone. He paced about, looking in all directions, and saw a cricket crouching on the wall. He examined it closely: it was short and small, blackish-red in color, clearly not the same creature as before. Because it was small, Cheng thought little of it. He only wandered about, gazing around, searching for the one he had been chasing. The little cricket on the wall suddenly leaped down onto his lapel. He looked at it: its shape was like a mole cricket, with plum-blossom patterned wings, a square head and long legs—it seemed quite fine. Delighted, he kept it. He was about to present it to the magistrate, but he was anxious that it might not meet expectations, so he thought of testing it in a fight to see how it would fare.

In the village there was a young man fond of sport who had trained a cricket and named it "Crab-Shell Green." Every day he pitted it against the crickets of other youths, and it never lost. He wanted to keep it for profit, and set a high price on it, but no one bought it. He went directly to Cheng's cottage to call on him. When he saw the cricket Cheng kept, he covered his mouth and laughed. Then he brought out his own cricket and put it into the comparison cage. Cheng looked at it—it was huge and imposing. He felt even more ashamed and dared not match his against it. The young man insisted. Cheng thought to himself: keeping this inferior creature will be of no use anyway; I might as well risk it for a laugh. So he put both into the fighting basin. The small cricket crouched motionless, as stupid as a wooden chicken. The young man laughed again. He tried tickling its antennae with a pig's bristle, but it still did not move. The young man laughed again. After repeated teasing, the small cricket suddenly flew into a rage, charged straight forward, and they leaped and struck each other, raising a spirited din. Soon the small cricket was seen to leap up, spread its tail and extend its antennae, and directly bite the opponent's neck. The young man was greatly startled; he separated them and made them stop. The cricket raised its wings and chirped proudly, as if to announce its victory to its master. Cheng was overjoyed.

As they were both admiring it, a chicken suddenly appeared and made a peck straight at it. Cheng stood in alarm and cried out in astonishment. Fortunately the peck missed, and the cricket leaped away a foot or more. The chicken advanced vigorously, pursuing and pressing it, and the cricket was already under its claws. In his panic Cheng did not know how to save it; he stamped his foot and turned pale. In a moment he saw the chicken stretch its neck, flapping and struggling; when he looked closely, the cricket had perched on its comb and was biting down hard, not letting go. Cheng was even more startled and delighted, and he picked it up and put it into the cage.

The next day he presented it to the magistrate. The magistrate, seeing how small it was, angrily scolded Cheng. Cheng recounted its extraordinary qualities, but the magistrate did not believe him. He tried it against other crickets, and all were defeated; then he tried it with a chicken, and indeed it was as Cheng had said. So he rewarded Cheng and presented it to the military governor. The military governor was greatly pleased and sent it up to the emperor in a golden cage, detailing its abilities in a memorial. After it entered the palace, they tried it against all the tribute crickets from throughout the empire—Butterfly, Mantis, Oily-Smooth, Black-Silk Forehead, and every other remarkable variety—and none could surpass it. Whenever it heard the sound of zithers and lutes, it would dance in time to the music, which made it even more prized. The emperor was highly delighted and issued an edict bestowing fine horses and silken garments on the military governor. The military governor did not forget the source of his good fortune, and before long the magistrate was cited for Outstanding Merit. The magistrate was pleased and exempted Cheng from his corvée service; he also instructed the commissioner of education to have Cheng admitted to the county school. More than a year later, Cheng's son recovered his former spirits and said, "I turned into a cricket—nimble and good at fighting—and only now have I come back to life." The military governor also richly rewarded Cheng. Within a few years, Cheng possessed a hundred acres of fields, countless towers and pavilions, and herds of cattle and sheep numbering in the thousands. When he went out, his furs and carriages rivaled those of the great houses.

The Historian of the Strange remarks: "When the Son of Heaven occasionally uses an article, he may well forget about it afterward; but those who carry out his orders make it a fixed rule. Add to this the greed of officials and the cruelty of clerks, and the people daily pawn their wives and sell their children, with no end in sight. Thus every step the Son of Heaven takes concerns the lives of the people and cannot be neglected. As for young Cheng, he was impoverished by bookworms and enriched by crickets, swaggering in furs and fine horses. When he was village headman and suffered beatings and scoldings, could he have expected to come to this? Heaven was about to reward the honest and generous, and so caused the military governor and the magistrate alike to share in the favor of the cricket. I have heard: 'When one man ascends to immortality, even his chickens and dogs become immortals.' How true!"