Two days later, on the fourteenth or fifteenth of the second month, I went to the village of Xiangbaichi, fourth district, and stayed with my disciple Xia Zunxiang, who was over sixty years old and had a family of over thirty people. He was one of the richest landowners in the area and had never believed in Buddhism or anything else. But when he saw me, he believed in me and wanted to take refuge with me. He and his whole family took refuge, and every time I went to the village I'd stay at his house. His family of over thirty was extremely happy to see me this time. I stayed with them for ten days, and about seventy-two people came to take refuge. On the twenty-fifth, I set out in Mr. Xia's cart for Shuangcheng County. Since it was over seventy li [25 miles] away, we left at three o'clock in the morning.

Although it was early spring, the weather was bitter cold. The driver and the attendant were dressed in fur coats, trousers, and hats. Being very poor, I wore only my usual rag robe made of three layers of thin cotton cloth, trousers made of two layers of cloth, open Arhat sandals with no socks, and a hat shaped like folded palms that didn't cover my ears. That was the kind of hat that Master Ji Gong wore. We rode from three in the morning until dawn, reaching the city at seven in the morning. The driver and the attendant thought I would freeze to death, since I was so insufficiently dressed. They had stopped repeatedly to exercise and keep warm, but I had remained in the cart from the beginning of the trip. When we arrived at the eastern gate of Shuangcheng County and I got out of the cart, the driver exclaimed, "Oh, we thought surely you had frozen to death!"

I stayed with friends, Dharma protecting laymen, for more than ten days, and on the ninth of the third month, I returned to Xia Zunxiang's home in Xiangbaichi. When I arrived, he told me that one of my recent disciples, the daughter of Xia Wenshan, had fallen dangerously ill. She hadn't eaten or drunk water for six or seven days. She did not speak, and she looked fiercely angry, as if she wanted to beat people. Then her mother came. "Master," she said, "my daughter became very ill a few days after taking refuge. She won't talk, eat, or drink, but just glares and sticks her head on the bed. She doesn't sleep either. I don't know what illness she has."

At that time I was with Han Gangji, who was able to look into people's past lives and could know their causes and effects. I said to the mother, "I can't cure her, so it's useless to ask me. However, my disciple Han Gangji has opened his five eyes and knows people's past, present, and future affairs. You should ask him."
Han Gangji had also taken refuge on the twenty-fifth of the second month. At first I had refused to take him as a disciple, because before I had left home, the two of us had been good friends and had worked together in the Virtue Society. After I left home and Han Gangji opened his five eyes, he saw that, life after life, I had always been his teacher. And so he wanted to take refuge with me.

I said, "We're good friends; how could I take you as a disciple?"
"But if I don't take refuge with you, I shall certainly fall in this life," Han Gangji said, and he knelt on the ground and refused to get up. I was just as determined not to accept him, but after perhaps half an hour, I finally said, "Those who take refuge with me must follow instructions. You have talent; you know the past, present, and future. Is it possible that it has caused you to become arrogant? Will your pride prevent you from obeying my instructions?"
"Master," he said, "I'll certainly obey. If you tell me to throw myself into a cauldron of boiling water, I'll do it. If you tell me to walk on fire, I'll walk. If I get boiled or burned to death, that's all right."
"You'd better be telling the truth," I said. "If I give you instructions, you can't ignore them."
"No matter what it is," he said, "if you tell me to do it, I will do it, and fear no danger whatsoever."
And so Han Gangji was one of the seventy-two people who took refuge on the twenty-fifth.
Hearing that one of my disciples was sick, I told Han Gangji, "You can see people's causes and effects, and you know how to diagnose illnesses. Now my disciple is sick. Take a look at her."
Han Gangji sat in meditation and made a contemplative examination of the illness. Suddenly his face blanched with terror. "Master," he said, "we can't handle this one. It's beyond our control."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"There's no way we can subdue this demon," he said.
"What kind of demon is it?" I asked.
"The demon who is causing the illness is extremely violent and can assume human form to bring chaos into the world and injury to humankind."
"What makes the demon so fierce?" I asked.
"The demon was a ghost long ago in the Zhou Dynasty," he said. "Because it didn't behave properly, a virtuous man with spiritual powers shattered it with thunder. But the ghost's spirit did not completely disperse, and through gradual cultivation it later fused into a powerful demon that could fly and vanish and appear again, at will. Now it has taken the form of an old woman and it goes around capturing people for its retinue. I don't think we're any match for her. We can't deal with this one."
"What would happen if we tried?" I asked.
"We might lose our lives as well," said Han Gangji. He was really scared.
"The demon has refined a magic weapon," he continued. "It's an exclusive anti-thunder device: a black hat made out of the thin membranes that cover the bodies of newborn children. When she wears the hat, the thunder cannot hurt her, because thunder has a great aversion to filth."

Westerners think that thunder has no one controlling it, and while that may be the case for ordinary thunder, there is a special kind of thunder that is used by gods to punish the goblins, demons, and ghosts who wander throughout the world. In addition to the black hat, which protected her from thunder, she had refined two other magic weapons: two round balls, which were originally the eyeballs from a human corpse. If she put her hat on someone, his soul would fall under her control, and he would become one of her followers. If she hit someone with one of the two round balls, he would immediately die.

Han Gangji saw that she was such a fierce demon and said, "Master, we can't handle this one."
"Then what will become of the sick girl?" I asked.
"She will certainly die; there's no way to help her," he said.
"I can't allow her to die. If she weren't my disciple I'd pay no attention, but she took refuge with me on the twenty-fifth of last month.. If she hadn't taken refuge with me, I wouldn't care whether the demon took her life or not. But she took refuge with me, so I can't allow the demon to take her life. I've got to do something."
"You take care of it, then," said Han Gangji, "but I'm not going."
"What?" I said, "When you took refuge, you promised me that you would jump into boiling water or walk on fire if I asked you to. Now it's not even boiling water or fire; why have you decided to back out? If you're afraid to go, then you don't have to be my disciple anymore."
Han Gangji had nothing to say. He thought it over. "If you appoint some Dharma-protecting gods to take care of me..."
"Don't shilly-shally!" I said. "If you're going to go, go. But don't vacillate!"
He said no more and followed me. When we arrived, the girl was lying on the bed with her head on the pillow and her bottom sticking up in the air; it was an embarrassing sight. Her eyes were as wide as those of a cow, and she glared with rage at me.

I asked the girl's family, "What is the cause of the illness?"
They told me that seven or eight days earlier, an old woman, about three feet tall and in her fifties, had been sitting beside an isolated grave outside the village. She was wearing a dark blue gown and had braided her hair backwards in two plaits that went up her head in back and hung down across her temples. She was wearing yellow trousers and shoes and holding a black hat, looking quite strange, and she was crying mournfully beside the grave.
Hearing her cries from the road, the elderly Mrs. Xia (who was also my disciple) went to comfort her, saying, "Why are you so sad? Please don't cry." What was she crying about? Mrs. Xia heard her crying in a barely audible voice, "Oh my person, oh my person..." She kept looking for her "person." Mrs. Xia asked her, "Where are you from?"
She said, "Don't talk to me, I'm a ghost!" Mrs. Xia was so frightened that she left. But the old woman walked behind Mrs. Xia and followed her all the way to the village gate. There must have been a spirit guarding the gate, because the old woman wouldn't go in. The village was surrounded by a wall and had a gate on each of the four sides. Mrs. Xia went in, but the old woman stayed outside the gate, crying. I think the spirit guarding the gate must have kept her from going in.

At that moment Xia Zunxiang's horse cart returned to the village. When it reached the gate the horse saw the woman and shied in fright, for horses can recognize things that people cannot see. As the horse cart went careening through the gate, the old woman followed it in. Probably the spirit who guarded the gate had his back turned, and in the confusion, she went sneaking through.
The old woman ran to the house of Mr. Yu Zhongbao and continued to look for her "person." She looked at Mr. Yu and then ran out of the house onto the street, where she was surrounded by thirty or forty curious onlookers who asked her, "What's your last name?"
"I don't have a last name."
"What's your first name?" She didn't have a first name, either. "Where are you from? What are you doing here?" they asked.

"I'm a corpse--a ghost. I'm looking for my 'person.'" she said. Because there was such a crowd, they were not afraid when they heard her say she was a ghost. They called her "stupid old woman" because of her crazy talk. They looked at her as if she were a freak. She continued to walk as if in a stupor until she reached the back wall of Xia Wenshan's estate. She then threw her black hat over the eight-foot dirt wall, and in one jump, leapt right over after it. No one else could have jumped over the wall, but she made it.
"The stupid old woman knows kung fu!" the crowd screeched, and they ran around and went in through the front gate to watch her.

Xia Wenshan's son Xia Zunquan, who had also taken refuge on the twenty-fourth, ran in the door. "Mama! Mama! The stupid old woman is in our house, but don't be afraid."
His mother looked out the window, but saw nothing strange. When she turned around, there was the old woman crawling up on the brick bed. She was halfway on the bed and halfway on the floor, looking for her "person."
"Whom are you looking for? What do you want?" shouted the mother, but the old woman made no reply.
Seeing the old woman's strange behavior, the mother said to her daughter, "This woman is really weird. We'd better recite the Great Compassion Mantra."
When those people had taken refuge, I had taught them to