Chu, the good-for-nothing, was a regular rascal, prepared to play pranks on all and sundry. One day the sun was blazing in the sky, and he called out: ‘Sunshine P’usa, I never sent for you. How dare you come uninvited into my room! I will complain to Yu-huang ti.’ The Sunshine P’usa was very frightened by this threat, and said: ‘Please don’t complain. There is a pot of silver in front of your house, you can take that,’ and when Chu really found a pot of silver, he no longer wanted to accuse the sun.
The next night the moon was shining, and he said to it: ‘Moonlight P’usa, I never sent for you. How dare you enter my house without permission! I will complain to Yu-huang ti.’ ‘Please don’t do that,’ said the Moonlight P’usa in a terrible fright. ‘Take the pot of gold behind your house and say no more about it,’ and as he did dig up the pot of gold, Chu the Rogue kept silent.
One day he went into the temple of the Plague Gods. ‘You are jumbled together in threes and fours,’ he said to them. ‘You are certainly bad men. I will complain to Yu-huang ti.’ But the Plague Gods were not so meek as the Sun and Moon Gods. When they heard Chu’s disrespectful words, they complained to Yen-lo-wang, the King of Hell. Yen-lo-wang happened to be in the Judgment Hall at this moment and he sent the bee spirit up to earth to fetch this wicked man. But Chu was very clever and pasted paper over all the holes in the doors, walls, and windows. He only left one small hole, which he covered with a pig’s bladder. When, therefore, the bee ghost arrived, it searched in vain for some opening until it came upon the small hole. ‘Trapped!’ it cried out, as it found itself inside the bladder, but Chu chortled with glee.
When Yen-lo-wang noticed that the bee spirit had been gone for several days, he ordered the one-legged spirit to go up to Earth and catch Chu. Unfortunately Chu also knew about this. and filled his house with prickly things, and sat down in the middle of the thorns. The one-legged ghost found Chu sitting in his house doing nothing and dashed in; but the thorns ran into his foot, and being unable to run away, he was taken prisoner by Chu. Yen-lo-wang soon noticed that the one-legged spirit also failed to return, and mounting his thousand-league horse, he went together with Oxhead and Horseface to the house of Chu. Chu knew beforehand of his coming, and gave his wife exact orders what to do. She went to greet Yen-lo-wang herself with a smile on her face and invited him to dinner.
After the meal, Chu took an old water-buffalo out of the stable. As he got on to the animal to ride down to the Underworld, as he had arranged with Yen-lo-wang, his wife hung two glowing arrows on its back, with the result that the buffalo, maddened by the sudden pain, rushed away so fast that Yen-lo-wang’s thousand-league horse could not keep up with it. Yen-lo-wang called out to Chu to stop, and then asked him: ‘What kind of buffalo is that? I never knew that they could run so fast.’ ‘It is a thousand-league buffalo,’ answered Chu without turning a hair. Yen-lo-wang was very surprised and begged Chu to allow him to try it. Chu agreed, but warned him casually: ‘My buffalo only knows its master. It only runs fast with me.’ ‘Is there nothing to be done to make it think I am you?’ asked Yen-lo-wang. ‘Perhaps it would be deceived if you put on my clothes,’ answered Chu, and he gave his clothes to Yen-lo-wang, who put them on and got on to the water-buffalo, which refused to move a step. Chu, however, was seated on the thousand-league horse, dressed in Yen-lo-wang’s clothes, and he gave it a blow and soon arrived in Hell, where he placed himself on the throne and said to the Rakshasas and other small servant ghosts: ‘Chu the Rogue is following me on a water-buffalo. Beat him the moment he arrives.’
The spirits did not know that the man on the water-buffalo was the King of Hell. They did not ask his name, but pulled him off his mount and thrashed him, until Oxhead and Horseface arrived and explained what had happened. Don’t you think it was a good joke, to give the King of Hell a good beating? But mad with rage, he climbed onto his throne and ordered the little spirits to heat up the cauldron of oil for Chu to be boiled in.
When the spirits brought the oil, Chu asked them: ‘Do you want to become rich?’ And when they all asked him how it could be managed, he continued: ‘You see, Yen-lo-wang is a stupid man. One only needs a few pints of oil to boil one man. I suggest that you leave enough oil to roast me and then sell the rest. Won’t you become rich then?’ The little spirits were very pleased at this idea, and sold the spare oil at once. Just at this moment the order came to boil Chu, and burning to show their zeal, they cast him into the cauldron. But he did not cry out, because he held himself up on one side with his head and on the other with his feet, and although Yen-lo-wang went on stoking the fire, he could not boil him to death. In despair he ordered the little ghosts to drag him along to the Yin-Yang River and leave him there to freeze to death.
On the bank Chu called out as loud as he could for someone to ferry him across. There was a carp in the river, who was so sorry for Chu that he offered to carry him himself to the Upper World. Chu looked at the carp and thought: ‘What a fine carp. I must catch it and sell it for wine,’ and he called out: ‘Brother Carp! Please tell me how I can cross over.’ ‘It’s very simple,’ answered the carp. ‘You get on to my back and are carried across.’ ‘But your back is so slippery,’ said the rascal. ‘I am afraid of sliding off. I don’t think I dare go, unless you agree to a suggestion of mine. I shall tie a rope round your body, and hold one end myself. Then I won’t drown if I fall in.’
The carp allowed itself to be bound, and Chu rode safely over the river with the rope in one hand. But when he arrived in the Upper World he dragged off the poor carp and sold it to buy wine.