The Tragedy of the Yin Family

In a district of one of China’s central provinces there once lived a man named Yin. He owned a good deal of property, and he burned with ambition. More than anything else in the world, he wanted his family to rise into the ranks of the great.

As far as Yin knew, not one of his forefathers had ever been a famous scholar or won honors in the great examinations held every three years. His was a family of common people, and no mandarin had ever come out of it. How, he wondered, could he bring to his own house and his own grandsons the kind of fame and high office that some of the other clans nearby enjoyed?

He was rich, but he could neither read nor write. Every coin he had was earned in trade. When he was a boy there had been no time for schooling, because all his strength went into simply staying alive. He had done better than anyone could have hoped, yet the honors of a scholar would never be his, and he would never serve as an official of the Empire. Then it struck him that, even if he could never be counted among the learned men of China, his sons and grandsons might be. If they succeeded, some of their glory would shine back on him, and people would speak of him as the founder of a family famous for learning and high rank.

After much thought he decided that the surest way to bring this about was to find a lucky burial ground for the bodies of his father and grandfather, who had died some years before. Yin firmly believed that the dead have a mysterious power to rain down wealth, honors and good fortune on their living families. This belief, he thought, showed him the road out of the plain, dull path his ancestors had trodden and onto the one where an emperor’s favor and official rank would mark out his descendants.

Yin had given up business, so he could spend almost all his time searching the countryside for one of those places where certain unseen forces are said to gather so strongly that anyone buried there will pour boundless riches and honors upon his closest relatives. He took with him an expert in this art, a professor whose long study of its difficult rules let him recognize such places at a glance, and together they made trip after trip through the country around Yin’s home.

They explored every valley where a stream ran, where the water could be heard singing day and night on its way to the sea. Wherever hills and water met in a pleasing way, the two men could be seen bending over the ground. The professor carried a compass in a cloth bag, and with it he checked whether the lines of the land showed that the mysterious Dragon was living underneath.

They studied a great many places with care. Some would have suited a man of ordinary ambitions very well, but none of them matched the enormous hopes Yin had for the future. Rolling knolls, winding streams and distant hills fading into the mist might promise a comfortable life to the families of those buried there. But there was no sign of brilliant scholars, and no sign of mandarins riding on horseback or carried in sedan chairs through the streets of the cities they governed, with long trains of servants marching proudly behind them. So all these places were turned down.

Days turned into months as the search went on for the spot that would bind the fortunes of the Yin family for generations to come. Yet every place fell short in one or two points, and those flaws would have spoiled the splendid picture that ambition had painted in the rich man’s mind.

At last, one day, as they strolled along with their eyes sharp and watchful, they paused to rest on the top of a low hill they had just climbed. They had barely glanced at the lovely countryside spread out below them when the professor’s eyes lit up.

“Look!” he cried, his voice shaking with excitement. “This is exactly the place we’ve been hunting for all this time! You couldn’t find a better spot anywhere in China. We are standing in the middle of a huge natural theater where the finest powers of Fung-Shuy have gathered. Behind us the hill curves around in a half-circle. It will guard the grave from the north winds and from the fierce, spiteful spirits that ride in on the great icy gales.

“Down on the plain in front of us, all those gentle swellings in the ground show where the Dragon lies resting, ready to hand out his gifts to everyone within reach of his magic. And look at how the river winds back and forth, as if it hated to leave a place where hidden powers are at work to make the people here rich and happy. See how it rushes off toward the sea and slips around that headland out of sight. Then see how something seems to swing it around against its will, so that it comes curling back across the plain, sparkling and cheerful, as if it were glad to head toward the far mountains where it was born.

“What all this means,” he went on, “is that the good fortune the Dragon gives the living, through the dead who lie in his land, will not quickly fade. Like that wandering river, it will stay and bless its owners for many long years. Wealth will certainly come, and rank and honors too. Just look at that ridge shining in the morning sun, and at the shape standing up so clearly on top of it. It’s only a rock, I know, but study its outline, and you’ll see it turn before your eyes into a mandarin in full official robes, standing with his face toward us.

“I strongly advise you,” the professor finished, “to buy the very piece of land we are standing on, whatever the price. In time the Dragon and all the spirits who serve him will join together to fill your home with wealth and honors, and every ambition you’ve ever had will be satisfied.”

Yin was enchanted by the picture the professor had painted. He gladly agreed to end his search and buy the ground beneath their feet as a burial place for his family.

Just then a man came wandering up to see what two strangers were doing in such a lonely spot, where no road led and no paths ran on to the villages beyond.

“Tell me, my good fellow,” said Yin, “who owns this land?”

“That’s easy,” the man replied. “See that tumbledown cottage by the river? A man called Lin lives there with his wife and their daughter, who is about nineteen. As you can tell from their house, they are very poor. This plot is the only thing Lin owns. It came to him from his ancestors, and he hopes one day to sell it to some wealthy person as a burial ground that might bring him luck.”

“I would happily buy it, if the price is reasonable,” said Yin. “Would you act as go-between and settle it for me? Go and see Lin straight away, and find out on what terms he will let me have it.”

The next day the go-between came back with bad news. Lin would not part with the land under any circumstances. “The truth is,” he explained, “Lin has a plan, and this piece of land is part of it. He and his wife are growing old, and once their daughter is married, he fears their branch of the family will die out. So he means to find her a husband who will come and live with them and be a son to them as well as a son-in-law.”

But Yin was set on having that land. The bargaining dragged on for a long time, and it seemed the old father would never change his mind. In the end, though, they agreed that Lin’s daughter would marry Shung, Yin’s eldest son, and that her parents would move into rooms in Yin’s great house, where he would keep them in comfort for the rest of their lives. The agreement promised security to Lin’s household, but Yin’s conduct would betray it. Pearl’s own wishes had not been asked.

The moment the papers for the land were in his hands, Yin had his father’s body dug up from its old grave, far from the Dragon’s influence, and moved to the new site. There, he believed, his father would be close to the higher spirits of the world below. And there he could catch the eye of the stone mandarin, who would gaze toward him day and night. As a bond grew between them, the mandarin would surely give him the secret power to turn his grandsons, and their sons after them, into scholars who would win high posts in the service of the State.

Meanwhile, preparations went ahead for the wedding of the humble young woman to a man from a much wealthier household. Her name was Pearl. She had grown up in a poor rural household with little schooling and was unfamiliar with the wealthy family’s customs. Those differences gave her future husband an excuse for contempt; they did not make her less deserving of respect.

Her father and mother had doubted all along whether it was right to marry their daughter into a family so far above them, and for a long time they had held out against every argument. In the end Yin’s pushing wore them down, and they were dazzled by what the match promised, both for Pearl and for themselves, since they would be cared for to the end of their days. So, unwillingly, they agreed.

So that Pearl would be shamed as little as possible in front of her new relatives, her father sold everything he could spare to buy her proper wedding clothes. But his idea of what was proper came from the humble world he had always lived in. He had never even dreamed of the silks, satins and costly jewels that rich brides wear. Still, Pearl was lovely. Her bright black eyes always seemed full of laughter, and her smile was like a flash of summer sunshine. She needed few ornaments, and she would have won the heart of any man with the willingness to look beyond her clothes.

At last the day arrived, hurried along by Yin’s eagerness to have the matter settled, when the family would leave their poor cottage for the rich house just beyond the next hill.

A splendid bridal chair, glowing crimson against the gray countryside, wound its way toward the cottage, where the bride waited in her finery, ready to step in as soon as it reached the door. A band marched in front, filling the countryside with strange, bold music that echoed up to the hilltops and down into the quiet valleys. Crowds of the rich man’s servants and followers came too, dressed in robes that looked almost official, laughing and cheering as they went. It was a day of celebration, and as the cheerful procession went to fetch the bride, their heads were full of fine dishes and of the feasting that would go on for days. On the way back they were noisier still. The musicians seemed carried away by the occasion, and their instruments rang out with joyful tunes.

A grand company had gathered to welcome the bride as her husband led her from the crimson chair. With timid steps and a trembling heart she went into the room prepared for her. But as she came into the house, something in the air sent a chill through her, and the hopes of happiness she had been holding close died almost at once.

Her husband, Shung, had a mean and narrow mind, and he had always hated the idea of marrying a woman so far beneath him. When he saw his bride, with her country ways and her plain, badly made clothes, his face burned with shame, for he knew that everyone gathered to look at her was secretly sneering.

A deep hatred took root in his small heart. As the days went by, his only aim in life was to humiliate this gentle young woman, who had been sacrificed purely to serve her scheming father-in-law’s ambitions. For a few weeks he simply ignored her. Little by little, though, he treated her so cruelly that she often felt she could not go on living. It soon became clear that father and son had a plan to get rid of the whole family.

Pearl’s old father and mother, whom Yin had promised to care for as long as they lived, found life in their wretched rooms so unbearable that they left of their own accord and went back to their empty cottage. Every piece of furniture had been sold to pay for their daughter’s wedding clothes, so there was nothing at all inside. They made a bed of straw on the floor, but they had no food and not one comfort in their darkest hour.

Grief for their daughter, and the bitter knowledge that Yin had tricked and cheated them to get their land, weighed so heavily on their spirits that they both fell ill with a fever and lay helpless on their bed of straw. Because they lived far from anyone else, no one knew they were sick. Day after day passed without a visitor. When at last a kind farmer came by to ask after them, he found to his horror that husband and wife were lying side by side in their poor hut, both dead.

The news delighted the miserable man who had truly caused their deaths. He was free now from his promise to look after them, and he would save all the money he would have spent on their food and clothes. For several days after the old couple were buried on the hillside near their cottage, a cold, wintry smile stayed on his hard face. That was the only sign of mourning he ever showed.

From then on, Pearl’s life grew heavier and heavier. Love was the one thing that could have filled her heart with happiness, and it was the one thing no one ever gave her. Instead, the heartless man who was called her husband gave her cruel, cutting words, scornful looks and hard blows.

At last, to show how much he despised her, Shung arranged with his father’s help to bring a second wife into the house. She came from a fairly respectable family, and she agreed to take this lower position because a large sum of money was paid to her father. Her arrival only made Pearl more wretched. The newcomer followed her husband’s lead, and because the household accorded Pearl, as first wife, a higher position, she grew jealous and used every spiteful trick she could think of to make Pearl’s life even harder.

Her parents’ deaths had filled Pearl with such sorrow that life no longer held any joy for her. She also saw, from the way the Yins openly rejoiced at her parents’ sad end, that they would never be content until she too had gone to the Land of Shadows. Isolated and overwhelmed, she came to believe she had no escape from their cruelty. One midnight, while the rest of the household slept and the only sound outside was the wind moaning as if it were already singing a funeral song for her, she took her own life in her room.

When she was found the next morning, Yin and his son let out a cry of joy. They congratulated themselves on being free of the family they despised, ignoring the abuse that had led to this death, and at very little cost they now held the land that was to make their descendants rich and noble. So while the poor young woman lay dead, driven to an early grave by spirits fiercer and more spiteful than any demon of the air, the living tormentors who had made her gentle life unbearable laughed, smiled and congratulated each other.

But punishment was on its way. The narrator presents the events that follow as Heaven’s delayed revenge.

One pitch-black night, when clouds hid the moon and stars and a storm of unusual fury was roaring, a terrifying thing happened at the grave of Yin’s father. Dreadful wailing and shrieking rose from it, as if every demon of the underworld had gathered there for a wild festival. The cries rang out louder than the storm, cutting through the shrillest gusts, and people far away in their homes woke up chilled with fear. At last a thunderbolt crashed down from the dark sky, louder than any sound a human being had ever heard. The lightning struck with all its force at the very spot where the coffin lay. It tore a great pit in the earth, seized the coffin in its fiery fingers and flung it contemptuously onto a hillside a mile away.

The next day, after a long search, Yin found the coffin lying in that lonely place. He was on his way home to arrange for it to be buried when, on a deserted stretch of road, two ghostly figures suddenly rose up in front of him. To his horror he knew them: they were the spirits of Pearl’s father and mother, whose deaths he had as good as caused. Yam-lo, the king of the dead, had let them come back to earth to torment the man who had destroyed them. Their faces were so wild and threatening that Yin fainted on the spot, and that was how his son found him, hours later, when he came out to look for him.

For days Yin was nursed with the greatest care, and the most famous doctors were called in. But he never got better. There was always a vague, haunted look in his eyes, as if he were seeing some terrible sight that drove away his reason and kept him from waking. In that state he died, without recognizing those he loved and without a word to explain the cause of this tragic end to a life still in its prime.

The eldest son now owned all his father’s wealth. But instead of learning from the dreadful judgment that had fallen on his home for the wrongs done to an innocent family, he grew even harder toward everyone in his power. He never thought of making up for the cruelty that had driven his wife to her death. Yet Fate was still coming for him. Its feet might be slow and heavy, but they were moving steadily and surely toward him to carry out the vengeance of the gods.

Before long the room where Pearl had died became haunted. Her ghostly figure could be seen at dusk, drifting about and peering out of the door with a look of agony on her face. Sometimes she appeared at dawn, restless and troubled, as if she had been pacing up and down all night. At other times she floated through the moonlight and slipped into the shadows of the houses, always with a faint trace of the look that had made her face so sweet and charming in life.

When everyone understood that it was Pearl’s spirit haunting the house, the whole household was gripped by terror. Nothing is more dreadful than the spirit of someone who has been wronged, people believed, because it always returns for revenge. The tale imagines this spirit seeking vengeance even though she had been gentle in life. Everyone knew how cruelly Shung had treated Pearl to drive her to her death, so no one was surprised that she had come back to punish him. Still, they were all terribly afraid of being caught up in the punishment that was sure to come.

As the ghost stayed on and showed no sign of leaving, Shung at last began to fear that some disaster was about to strike his house. To protect himself from a sudden attack by the spirit drifting through the darkest, most out-of-the-way rooms, he had a sword ground to a very sharp edge, and he carried it with him, raised and ready to strike at Pearl if she dared to come at him.

One evening he walked into a room where the shadows lay thick, not knowing that his second wife was sitting there. Suddenly the spirit of Pearl seized his hand with a strength he could not resist and forced him to strike at the defenseless woman again and again, until she fell to the floor and died.

When the ghost let go of him and he was free to see what he had done, Shung was horrified beyond words. He stared at the dreadful scene and understood that judgment had come upon him for the wrongs he had done to Pearl and her family.

As soon as the young woman’s father heard of her murder, he brought a complaint before the nearest mandarin, who sent out an order for Shung’s arrest. At his trial Shung tried to defend himself by saying that he had not killed her: an evil spirit had gripped his arm and guided the blows.

The magistrate smiled at this strange excuse and said that Shung must take him for a great fool if he thought he would accept such a ridiculous story for so terrible a crime.

Shung was rich and could bribe the lesser officials of the court, so his case was put off to see how much money could be squeezed out of him before the final sentence. The killing of a woman from a well-known family, for no reason anyone could see, made people everywhere furious, and public opinion strongly condemned Shung. Everyone felt he must be punished as an example. Otherwise, any man with enough money could defy the great laws Heaven had set down to govern society and prevent crime.

To make prison easier for him, Shung’s mother had to pay huge bribes to everyone connected with the court. Never before had those greedy servants of the Emperor, trusted to give justice to his people, had such a chance to reap a golden harvest. In her worry for her son, the poor woman sold one field after another to raise the money they demanded. One of them had only to drop a dark hint that Shung’s life was in danger, and more land would be sold to bribe the mandarin into going easy on him.

At last nothing was left to sell. When it became known that there was no more money to be had, the sentence was given: Shung would stay in prison for life. This was a cruel blow to his mother, who had hoped all along that he would be set free. Grief-stricken and without a penny, she died of a broken heart within a few weeks. And her son, seeing nothing ahead of him but hopeless imprisonment, took his own life ending another life in the ruined household.

Only one short year before the end, this family stood at the height of its wealth. Everyone who heard how it was wiped out agreed that it was a just and righteous punishment from Heaven. For Heaven guards human life so carefully, they said, that whoever destroys it must in turn be crushed beneath the wheels of avenging justice.

Where this tale comes from

“The Tragedy of the Yin Family” is chapter IX of Chinese Folk-Lore Tales by the Rev. J. Macgowan (London: Macmillan, 1910). It turns on a funerary use of Fung-Shuy, or feng shui: choosing a site believed favorable for a grave, which the tale describes as the belief that the dead can send wealth and honors to their living families when they are buried where the Dragon’s hidden forces gather.

Macgowan tells it as a story of greed and of Heaven’s slow but certain justice. This retelling retains the deaths of Pearl, the second wife and Shung. It omits suicide methods and removes the narrator’s endorsement of class boundaries and his description of a life as worthless.

Read the original: Macgowan’s Chinese Folk-Lore Tales (Project Gutenberg)

For older readers: coercive marriage, sustained domestic abuse, neglect and death of elderly parents, suicide without method details, ghostly revenge and the violent death of a second wife. Death is not a necessary escape from abuse or proof that a life lacked value.

Reading the story closely

Yin seeks a burial site that will bring rank to his descendants, but obtains it by breaking obligations to living people. Map the bargain into three promises: marriage to Pearl, housing for her parents and lifelong care. Then place the family’s actual actions beside each promise. The contrast makes the wrong intelligible without accepting the geomancer’s prediction as fact.

The ending calls the family’s destruction justice, but its costs extend beyond the two men. Pearl’s parents die without help, a second wife is killed, and Shung’s mother loses her property to officials’ demands. Compare the narrator’s confident final verdict with those individual outcomes. Punishing the perpetrators cannot restore the people lost, and the corrupt court profits from suffering rather than simply correcting it.

Talk about it

• Why did Yin want the land so badly, and what did he promise to get it?
• How did the Yin family break its promises to Pearl and her parents?
• The story says Heaven is slow but sure in punishing the wicked. How does that idea shape the ending?

Related stories

• The Reward of a Benevolent Life — another Macgowan tale where Heaven repays good and evil
• The Heartless Husband — a Wilhelm tale of a husband who wrongs his faithful wife
• The Fairy Bonze — a gentler Macgowan tale from the same book