Twenty Years a Dream
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| "Twenty Years a Dream" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Short story by Pu Songling | |||
 19th-century illustration from Xiangzhu liaozhai zhiyi tuyong (Liaozhai Zhiyi with commentary and illustrations; 1886) | |||
| Original title | 連瑣 (Liansuo) | ||
| Translator | John Minford | ||
| Country | China | ||
| Language | Chinese | ||
| Genre | Chuanqi | ||
| Publication | |||
| Published in | Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio | ||
| Publication type | Anthology | ||
| Publication date | c. 1740 | ||
| Published in English | 2006 | ||
| Chronology | |||
| |||
"Twenty Years a Dream" (simplified Chinese: 连琐; traditional Chinese: 連瑣; pinyin: Liánsuǒ; lit. 'Locket') is a short story written by Chinese author Pu Songling in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (1740). One of the earlier entries in the collection, it revolves around a bachelor's romantic relations with a female ghost. The story was favourably received by literary critics.
Yang Yuwei (杨于畏), a bachelor who resides in a derelict apartment next to a cemetery, is visited by a female ghost one night.[1] She introduces herself as Locket (连琐), a Gansu local who died of sickness in her teenage years some twenty years ago, and is now fated to live as a desolate soul.[2] Yang immediately takes a liking to her and they strike a friendship. However, she warns him to never reveal her existence to anybody else.[3] On a daily basis, Locket spends the night with Yang, teaching him how to play either Go or the liuqin,[2] and vanishes by cock-crow.[3]
Gradually, Yang's behaviour changes; his friends notice this and quickly learn of Locket, thanks to her signature on a poem she wrote for Yang.[4] They demand to meet her and behave rowdily while attempting to lure out the ghost.[5] Infuriated and disappointed, Locket severs her ties with a hapless Yang.[5] She backtracks on this a month later, however, when she returns to Yang and beseeches him to help her – a "vile monster" wishes for her to be his concubine against her wishes.[6] Yang readily agrees to defend her; the following day, he dreams of a hideous being "with bristling moustaches, wearing a red hat and a black gown" attacking him and Locket.[6] They are saved when his friend Wang, who had previously wished to meet Locket, passes by and slays the creature with his bow and arrow.[7]
Yang wakes up and corresponds with Wang to learn that he had a similar dream.[7] Locket confirms that the events of the dream were in fact real, and presents Wang with her father's dagger as a token of appreciation. Locket then informs Yang that for her to be resurrected, she requires "the seed and blood of a living man", to which he gladly obliges.[8] She tells him to dig up her grave a hundred days later; Yang dutifully carries this out and finds her in the coffin, living and breathing. Locket exclaims, "Those twenty years were like a dream."[9]