There was a man named Mao Ba(茅八) who, in his youth, went to Jiangxi to trade paper. In the deep mountains of Jiangxi, there were many paper mills. The people in the mills would close the doors as the sun set and warned Mao Ba not to go out, telling him, ‘There are many strange things in the mountains, not just ordinary tigers and wolves.’
One night, the moonlight was very bright, and Mao Ba couldn’t sleep.
Scholar Cao Loyin(曹學士洛禋) once told me this story.
In the spring of the forty-third year of Kangxi(康熙)’s reign, he and his friend Pan Xichou(潘錫疇) traveled to Huangshan(黃山) and arrived at the Wenshu Monastery(文殊院), where they dined with monks including Xuezhuang(雪莊). Suddenly, the monks disappeared from the table, leaving only their heads visible. Xuezhuang said, ‘This is the ‘floating cloud atop(雲過),’ no need for the two guests to be surprised.’
The next day, they reached the Yunfeng Cave(雲峰洞) and found an old man living there.
舉父(Ju fu) looks like a monkey. It has markings on its arms, a tail like a leopard, and is good at jumping. It has a habit of stroking its own head. It can pick up stones and throw them. Even tigers and leopards are afraid of it.
《山海經·西山經》
有獸焉，其狀如禺而文臂，豹虎而善投，名曰舉父。
