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| Mr. Shen Qianju, a native of Jingzhou, passed the provincial
examination in the fifty-second year of the Kangxi reign just as my father
did. He was mild in temperament and never flared up in anger, but he was
also a forthright, proud gentleman. He always wore clothes made of coarse
hemp and ate coarse meals. Occasionally, when a disciple gave him some
meat, he would take it to the market to trade for bean curd. “It isn’t
that I want to seek fame by acting differently,” he said. “I simply do
not like to eat this.”
After taking the examination in Hejian, he rode a donkey on his way back and hired a young boy to hold the halter. When the boy got tired from walking, he would change places with him. Caught in a rain at duck, they had to take shelter in a deserted temple, which had only one room. It was stripped of everything, and the floor was too dirty even to step on. Shen took down a door plank and lay down on it in front of the gate. At midnight he was awakened by a whisper in the temple. “I want to leave the temple to avoid you, but I can’t get out with you blocking the gate.” “With you in the room and me out at the gate, we won’t disturb each other,” Shen replied. “Why do you need to avoid me?” After a while the voice whispered again, “There should be a prudent preserve between a male and a female. You’d better let me get out.” Shen said, “The reserve between the sexes is well maintained by keeping one inside and the other outside. It would not be convenient to let you out.” With this he rolled over and went back to sleep. The next morning a villager was astonished to find him there. “In this temple lives a fox who occasionally comes out to seduce young men,” he said. “Those who follow her inside will be attacked by bricks and tiles. Why were you able to pass the night here in safety?” When Shen told my father of the incident, he raised his head and chuckled, “Fancy that! A fox trying to seduce Shen Qianju! What a joke! You must be the last person in the world the fox-woman wanted to seduce.” My father said in jest, “At the sight of your monstrous visage, she took you for an unknown demon and ran as fast as her legs could carry her.” From this incident one can get an idea of Mr. Shen’s character. |
