In the twenty-sixth year of the Qianlong era, there was a beggar in Huqiu who raised a large bear, the size of a Sichuan horse, with fur as straight and dense as arrows. This bear could write and compose poems but could not speak. Those who wished to visit were allowed to watch for a fee of one wen. If you brought white paper and asked the bear to write, it would use large characters to write a Tang poem, demanding a fee of one hundred coins.
One day, the beggar went out, leaving the bear alone. People came to watch, and one person gave it paper, asking it to write. The bear wrote, ‘I am a private school teacher in the countryside of Changsha, teaching children to read. When I was young, I was captured by this beggar and his accomplices. They drugged me, making me unable to speak. They first raised a bear at home, stripped me of my clothes, tied me up, and pierced me all over with needles until I bled profusely. While my blood was still warm, they killed the bear, skinned it, and wrapped its fur around me. Human blood and bear blood stuck together, firmly adhering, never to be removed. Later, they used iron chains to deceive people, and I have earned tens of thousands of coins till now.’ After finishing, the bear pointed to its mouth, and tears flowed like rain. The crowd was shocked and quickly apprehended the beggar, handing him over to the authorities. According to the laws of mutilation, the beggar was immediately beaten to death with a cane. Then the ‘bear’ was escorted to Changsha and returned to its rightful family.
I say: In the year of Jiwei, a certain official in the capital raped a servant girl, who bit off his tongue. Mongolian doctors were called to treat him, instructing people to kill a dog, remove its tongue, and set it with hot blood onto the official’s tongue. He was warned not to go out for a hundred days. Later, the official appeared at court to report as usual, showing no difference from before. During the Yuan Dynasty, a general stormed into the enemy’s camp, covered in wounds from knives and arrows, bleeding profusely and seemingly lifeless. A physician ordered the killing of a horse, opened its belly, lifted the general, and had him sleep inside the horse’s belly, with dozens of people shaking it. After a meal’s time, the general, covered in blood, stood up. The principles behind these examples and the fabricated bear are the same.
Translated from《狗熊寫字》in 《子不語》:
乾隆辛巳，虎丘有乞者養一狗熊，大如川馬，箭毛森立，能作字吟詩，而不能言。往觀者一錢許一看，以素紙求字，則大書唐詩一首，酬以一百錢。
一日，乞丐外出，狗熊獨居，人又往與一紙求寫。熊寫云：「我長沙鄉訓蒙人，姓金名汝利。少時被此丐與其伙伴捉我去，先以啞藥灌我，遂不能言。先畜一狗熊在家。將我剝衣捆住，渾身用針刺之，熱血淋漓。趁血熱時，即殺狗熊，剝其皮包在我身上。人血、狗血交黏生牢，永不脫落。用鐵鏈鎖我以騙人，今賺錢幾數萬貫矣。」書畢，指其口，淚下如雨。眾人大駭，將丐者擒送有司，照採生折割律，立杖殺之，押解狗熊至長沙，交付本家。
余按己未年，京師某官姦僕婦，被婦咬去舌尖。蒙古醫來，命殺狗取舌，帶熱血鑲上，戒百日不出門，後引見，奏對如初。元某將軍入陣受刀箭傷無算，血湧氣絕。太醫某命殺馬，剖其腹，抱將軍臥馬腹中，而令數十人搖動之，食頃，將軍浴血而立。皆一理也。