A boatman in Tianjin once dreamed one night of an immortal figure who spoke to him, saying, "Tomorrow, someone will hire your boat to transport bamboo tubes. Ask him for one thousand taels; if he refuses, show him three characters."

The boatman asked, "Which three characters?" The immortal picked up a brush, inscribed three characters upon the wall—"、、、"—and then vanished.

The next day at dusk, a man indeed arrived, driving mules laden with bamboo tubes. He inquired about the fare. "One thousand taels," the boatman stated.

The man burst into laughter upon hearing this. The boatman grasped his hand and inscribed the three strange characters. The man’s face twisted into an expression of shock, and in an instant, he disappeared.

Upon examining the cargo, they found not bamboo tubes, but tightly packed, small coffins, each no longer than a finger.

There were tens of thousands of them.

Later, when Wu Sangui launched his rebellion, all his followers were executed. The number of corpses—tens of thousands—matched the count of the coffins exactly.

(These three characters cannot be rendered: the first character consists of the radical '' above two instances of ''; the second, three ''s; the third, four ''s.)