Excerpt from the ''Qin Dadi Waishi'', fuller version with footnotes here: [[attachment:qddwsh1.pdf]]

Now, there are many extraordinary tales told about [[Avatar/Qin's Rebellion|Qin the Great and his family]], and having duly considered them as to their plausibility and evidentiary basis, I have not given credence to many of them. But this one is not so unusual as to invite a learned reader to scoff, and it was confirmed to me by the honorable Ning Chonger, the grandson of Ning Haoyu, who is a virtuous scholar who even now attends the Agate Throne.

So then, this was the extraordinary event that attended Nongfu and Haoyu’s trip to Nanguanshi. As they were sleeping, and the storm continued raging around them, Nongfu was woken up by a voice.

“Hello there, sirs; would you be so kind as to allow me to shelter under your earth tent?” the voice said.

Nongfu looked out and saw there was an old man in the rain. He felt bad for the old man and at once invited him to come in and dry himself off by the fire. Nongfu and Haoyu introduced themselves and tried to make a little conversation with the old man, but he wasn’t very talkative, and it was late, so Nongfu went back to sleep.

No sooner had Nongfu gone back to sleep, than another voice woke him up.

“Excuse me, sirs, would you mind very much if I got out of the rain in your earth tent?” the voice asked.

Nongfu got up and saw a young woman dressed in rags making the request. Well, that was an indecorous request, he thought, but the earth tent was spacious, and the storm was still raging outside. “Alright, you may stay, but you sleep over there; I’m a married man and I won’t put up with any funny business between you and my brother-in-law, or our hired men either.” He supposed she must be in desperate straits to want to share a tent with strange men and several pack animals. The young woman, who was soaked to the bone, took a place by the fire on the opposite side and dried herself off. For his part, Nongfu promptly went back to sleep, his mind more on the muddy state of the roads they would find in the morning than these visitors.

No sooner had Nongfu gone back to sleep, than the snorting and baying of a pig-dog woke him up. The animals got up in his face and dragged him firmly back to the waking world.

“Oh, now what!” Nongfu said as he sat up with a start. There was a swineherd there, already in the earth tent, with a dozen of his animals. He was chewing a piece of dried meat.

“Sorry to wake you, sir,” the swineherd said, “but I was taking my pig-dogs to market in Nanguanshi, when we were caught in this awful storm, and I saw this earth tent, with nothing around for miles. I beg you not to send me out into this weather.”

Nongfu sighed and acquiesced. “Fine; fine. You keep those animals on the other side and don’t let them get in my face, and you give us some of that dried meat for our gruel tomorrow, and you can stay the night.”

“That’s more than fair,” the swineherd said, and bowed deeply to Nongfu to express his gratitude. He tied up his animals for the night and Nongfu went back to sleep.

Now, no sooner had Nongfu gotten to sleep, that he was again woken up. His blanket was pulled off of him and he woke up with a start. There, next to him, was a mangy leper, wrapping himself in the blanket.

“Well, this really is too much!” Nongfu shouted. “Who do you think you are, stealing my blanket?”

“Pardon me, sir, but I am a poor and sickly man, who was begging for alms village-to-village when this storm blew in, and I was caught in the rain. I lost my own blanket in the wind and thought to borrow yours.”

“No, you can’t!” Nongfu said, and pulled the blanket back. “And you can’t stay here with your disease. Go away!”

“But sir, I fear I’ll catch my death if I stay out in this weather; my health is delicate.”

Nongfu stood up; he was not a tall man, but he was of a stout and muscular figure and looked intimidating even as he was. “Well, if you’d asked politely, I’d have made you a little earth tent of your own. But this stealing my blanket is just too much; I ought give you a stone or two, you mangy bum. Get out!”

The leper cowered before Nongfu and pleaded, “sir, please, you are within your rights, but for the sake of the Spirits, forbear; saving my sorry life will be your merit.”

Nongfu stamped his foot and raised up a stone column to meet his hand. “I’ve made enough merit for tonight, do you see all these strangers and their wet pig-dogs I’ve taken in tonight? Go! If you dare utter half a ‘no,’ I’ll give you a thrashing!”

“Alright, alright, I’ll go, so be it,” the leper said, and turned to leave.

Nongfu watched him go, and felt a twinge of pity for the leper. He took his blanket and threw it to the man. “Here; you may as well take this! I wouldn’t want to use it now anyway, now that you’ve had it on you!”

The leper caught the blanket, and met Nongfu’s gaze. Rather than thanking him, though, he just nodded his head and walked off into the storm, out of sight.

Nongfu laid his head down and went to sleep, and he slept until morning. When he woke up, Haoyu was already awake and eating breakfast with the hired men; the storm had cleared. Nongfu looked around, and couldn’t see any trace of the old man, or the young woman, or the swineherd, though his blanket was gone.

“Haoyu, where did all the guests go?” Nongfu asked. “Did they set out early?”

“What guests, brother? No one was here all night except for us.”

“What? There was that old man, remember, sheltering from the rain? We tried to talk to him?”

Haoyu shook his head. “I was so tired, it must have completely slipped my mind. I don’t remember it at all; I suppose he must have left early?”

“What about the young woman?”

Haoyu looked perplexed. “I’m sure I would have remembered that! I don’t remember a young woman at all.”

“And the swineherd? Did you sleep through that? He promised me dried meat for our gruel, did he leave without giving it to you?”

“There was a swineherd? I must have been sleeping deeply indeed, brother. I’m sorry, I don’t remember any swineherd either.” One of the hired men also volunteered that he had seen no swineherd.

“What about that awful leper who stole my blanket? Did anyone see him?”

Haoyu looked at Nongfu confusedly and shook his head again. “You kicked off your blanket in your sleep. Since it’s already warm out this morning anyway, I packed it for you. It’s in the cart. Have a look, if you like.”

Nongfu got up and went over to the cart, and sure enough, there was the blanket, rolled with some of their other traveling provisions.

“I must have been dreaming,” he said. He recounted the events to his brother in law in detail.

“Maybe it’s a message from the spirit world,” Haoyu said as they finished their breakfast. “You should ask a diviner about it when we get to Nanguanshi.”