Yang Ziyang of Hongnong heard a sound from within the earth, and dug up a jade pig which was perhaps a foot or so long. Inside of his house, millet started to pour down. It was like this for three years, not stopping day or night. After the cascade of grain stopped, suddenly there was a green snake several feet in length residing up in the rafters of the house. Whenever its defecation dropped down, it would turn into shards of silver. Ziyang gathered the silver grains and thereafter became quite a wealthy man. He melted the silver down to make utensils, and his sales increased tenfold. Because of this, the other merchants were run out of business.
Since Qin times, there has been an altar to the Guanting river god ten li outside Zhongsu county. The god is unusually powerful. Anyone who passes by it without paying their respects will run wildly into the mountains and transform into a tiger.
In the middle of the Jin dynasty, an emissary had been sent back to Luoyang. When he was on the road home, he saw a traveler. The traveler handed him a letter that said, “My home is in Guanting. It is the place where vines hang among the stones in front of the temple there. When you arrive, all you have to do is knock against the vines and there will be a response.”
When he returned, he did as the letter instructed, and two people emerged from the water. They took the letter and disappeared back into the depths. A moment later, they returned and said, “The Earl of the River wishes to see you, sir.” Without thinking, the person followed them back into the water. He then saw a house that was refined and beautiful, was given food and drink that was fresh and fragrant, and entertained with pleasant conversation, it was no different from the world above. Nowadays all of the common people say that Guanting has its own River Earl god.
During the Yuanxing reign of the Jin dynasty, Zhu Yazhi was the governor of Dongyang. Once, an old man suddenly came out from under the bed of Dong, his concubine. The man was wearing a yellow robe and a hat that was tied to his head. The pit he crawled out of was slippery and wet, with spring water coming out of it. After this, he got on quite well with Dong. If there were going to be any auspicious or inauspicious events, he would report them to her.
Zhu Yazhi’s son got malaria. The old man said, “To cure this you should ingest tiger testicles.” He carried a halberd into the mountains, and returned with a tiger’s genitals, which were still giving off warm vapors. He had the son roast and eat them, and his malaria was instantly cured.
The man once had Dong comb his hair, and it was like the bristles of a wild boar. After this, Zhu Yazhi went to the Daoist libationer to have him send up a petition to the otherworld, and then the man was not seen again. They tried pouring boiling water into the pit, which flushed out enough ants to fill several barrels.
Not long after this, a person from the town was walking out in the wilderness carrying a large blade, when he encountered a man. The man saw the blade, and offered a large lump of gold in exchange for it. The townsperson lost all trace of the man as soon as he took the blade. When he looked at the gold again, it had turned to cow dung. He figured that his was the demon from Zhu Yazhi’s household.
[I like to think of this one as a Wario origin story]