The Dengzhou sea route began at Penglai. In ancient times it was the most prosperous harbor in the north. Though it has long since declined, the fish market of old Dengzhou Port remains famous, and rare treasures from all directions still often appear there. One year an old woman arrived at the ancient port market with a tabby cat in her arms. On a sheet of paper before her were written two characters: appraise treasures. When people asked how she appraised them, the old woman said nothing, only pointed to the cat she was holding. Some busybody borrowed a pair of porcelain cups and placed them before her. She gently stroked the cat behind the ears. At once it leapt to the ground and stretched itself out to nearly two feet in length. On its back were seven or eight yellow spots the size of tea cups. First it arched and stretched, then crouched over the porcelain cups, sniffing them without stop and even licking them with its tongue. After a while the cat jumped back into the old woman’s arms, cried “awu” three times, and shut its eyes. The old woman pinched her fingers in calculation and said, “These porcelain cups are celadon from the official kiln of Jade Emperor Mountain, made in the second year of Jingding under Emperor Lizong Zhao Yun of the Southern Song.” The owner of the cups was astonished and filled with admiration. The pair had come down through his family, and though he knew they were Southern Song ware, he had never known the exact date. The antique dealers gathered around began bringing their own objects to be appraised, and there was not a single one the old woman failed to identify correctly. From then on her fame spread far and wide, and merchants from distant places came in an endless stream to seek her judgment.
Now and then some forgery would be exposed on the spot, and certain owners, humiliated and enraged, hired street ruffians to make trouble at night. When they tracked the old woman to the fishing boat where she was staying, they dimly saw in the night that she slept with her head pillowed on a brilliantly striped tiger more than a zhang in length, and fled in terror. Yet when they returned after dawn, it was still only that same little tabby cat. The old woman remained at the old port appraising treasures for more than two years. Then one day she overheard a merchant in the crowd say to his companion that this cat was no ordinary house cat, but a chi cat once kept in the imperial palace, able to distinguish antiquities by tone. The moment the old woman heard this, she stood up and left at once, abandoning even the fishing boat and never returning. The local merchants blamed the speaker for frightening her away, but he did not defend himself, and after concluding his business he too departed.
The chi is first mentioned in the Rites of Zhou. It was originally a kind of folk bamboo wind instrument, but later it was performed together with chime bells, stone chimes, standing drums, xiao flute, sheng, and se to become one of the principal instruments used in ritual offerings and banquets. When I was young, I once saw a small cat at the Qiao family residence in Qi County with eight spots on its back. I was told this symbolized the chi’s eight finger holes, enabling it to recognize the tones of the twelve pitch pipes and imitate them with uncanny exactness in its cries. I knew only that chi cats were born in the deep palace, not that they possessed the ability to appraise antiques. The old woman may merely have used the chi cat as a pretext, but to identify so many antiquities so accurately and cite texts and allusions for them, she too could not have been an ordinary person. Since ancient times there has also been the phrase “like xun and chi.” If that cat truly was a chi cat, then the old woman would have been a xun crone, one who specially rears chi cats. Legend says that the xun crone makes her living by recognizing objects. All her life she fears most of all having her identity exposed, because chi cats are not loyal to a single master, and once people know what they are they will try by every means to lure them away. For that reason few people know of xun crones, and records of them are hard to find in books. I heard this story only by chance, and thought that if it is true, then the old woman’s departure was entirely understandable, and the tale of the chi cat that becomes a tiger by night must indeed have some basis.