Two tales from the Ming Dynasty suggest that hidden silver may vanish not through theft or decay — but through moral consequence. Both stories were recorded in Jinglin Xuji, a 17th-century collection of anecdotes, and offer curious examples of how greed can lead to loss in unexpected ways.
A buried treasure nearly stolen — then miraculously returned
During the Ming Dynasty, a wealthy man named Li Rong lived in Wanping County. Over the years, he had accumulated a fortune of 10,000 taels of silver. Of that, 2,000 taels’ worth of silver ingots were placed in a stone pool and buried beneath the flowerbed in front of his bedroom. He covered the spot with stone slabs and planted flowers over it. Only his wife knew the treasure existed; even their son was unaware.
After Li Rong’s death, his son descended into a life of indulgence, squandering the family fortune. Eventually, he was forced to sell the family home to an elderly man named Chen. Disappointed by her son’s behavior, Li Rong’s wife never told him about the hidden silver.
As time passed, their poverty deepened. The once-wealthy son had to work as a hired laborer, enduring great hardship. During a bitter winter, hungry and cold, he finally began to regret his past. Seeing his remorse, his mother revealed the secret of the buried silver.
Overjoyed, he gathered a group of men with shovels and returned to his former home to retrieve the treasure. But the gatekeeper, hoping for a bribe, refused to let them in. Enraged, Li Rong’s son began shouting until Chen himself came out to see what the commotion was about. After hearing the story, Chen asked where the silver was hidden. Upon learning it was buried beneath the flowerbed in his bedroom, he said: “Since the silver belonged to your father, I would never dare claim it. But as the spot is inside my room, please wait while my wife moves elsewhere — then you may dig.”
Chen invited them in and had his servants prepare food and wine. Meanwhile, he whispered instructions to a young servant to quickly gather the household and dig up the silver before the others could reach it. As the guest was urged to drink, Chen tried to delay their departure until the silver was safely recovered.
Soon, the young servant returned and discreetly signaled that the task was done. Confident, Chen led Li Rong’s son and his men to the flowerbed. But the young man immediately noticed signs of freshly disturbed soil. Suspicious, he ordered his men to dig.
As they neared the stone slab, two silver ingots suddenly appeared. Chen’s family watched in shock, unable to explain it. When the slab was removed, they discovered the entire pool beneath was filled with silver. After counting, there were 1,998 ingots — exactly as his mother had said. With the two found earlier, the total came to 2,000.
Grateful, Li Rong’s son gave two ingots to Chen as a token of appreciation and took the rest home. Since Chen had agreed to the excavation, he had no grounds to argue, but he lashed out in frustration at his household for failing to follow his instructions properly.
His wife, however, was bewildered. “We dug up that exact spot,” she said. “I watched over it myself. All we found was a pool of clear water. I even dipped my hands in it to rinse off some dirt, then we covered it up again. We were just mocking the young man for chasing fairy tales. Who could have guessed the water would suddenly become silver?”
At her words, Chen could only sigh and accept the strange outcome.
According to Jinglin Xuji, this story was passed to the author Zhou Yuanwei by a friend who had personally witnessed the events while working in the capital. The friend, Min Xiaozhou, was known to be an honest man, and Zhou included the tale in his records as he believed it to be credible.
Another case of silver turning to water
In another case from the same collection, a merchant named Lu Tingxuan traded between the Sichuan and Hubei regions. Whenever he made a profit, he added silver ingots to a large jar. Once the jar was full, he placed a pair of gold hairpins on top and buried the jar in a hidden chamber beneath the soil. One day, his young son happened to see him do this.
After Lu left home on a business trip, the boy secretly unearthed the jar, hoping to take some silver. But when he reached in, all he found was water — no silver at all. Baffled, he covered the jar back up.
Later, when Lu Tingxuan needed the silver, he dug up the jar and was alarmed to see the gold hairpins missing. Suspecting someone had tampered with it, he checked the contents — but the jar was full of silver, just as he had left it. As he removed the ingots, one of the gold hairpins appeared halfway through. The second was at the very bottom. The silver was untouched, but he couldn’t understand why the hairpins were now buried upside down.
One day, Lu casually recounted the strange occurrence to his sons. Hearing the story, the youngest turned pale. Though he refused to confess when questioned, he later confided the truth to a friend, and the story eventually spread.
A lesson from the past
In both stories, the silver turned into water for those who acted with selfish intent — and returned only when approached with humility or rightful claim. If even Lu’s son, who sought only a handful of silver, could not take what didn’t belong to him, how could Chen hope to seize another man’s treasure?
Whether one believes these stories literally or views them as metaphors, they reflect traditional Chinese ideas of moral retribution. As Jinglin Xuji concludes, these tales were preserved to warn against greed — and remind us that not all treasure can be taken by force.
Translated by Cecilia, edited by Laura Cozzolino
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