A certain young master in Jiaping, seventeen or eighteen years of age, exquisitely handsome, journeyed to the county seat to take the academy examination, hoping to secure the title of Xiucai. By chance, passing by a brothel, he saw a dazzling beauty within the gates, barely fifteen or sixteen, and found himself unable to look away. The woman smiled faintly at him and asked, "Where are you lodged, young master?" The gentleman answered truthfully. The woman inquired again, "Is there anyone else at your home?" The young master replied, "No one." The woman then said, "I shall visit you tonight; tell no one."

After returning, the young master dismissed his servants. As dusk fell, the woman indeed arrived, saying, "My name is Wen Ji. I admire your romantic spirit, so I came to meet you behind the madam's back. If you do not mind, I wish to follow you." The young master was overjoyed. From then on, the woman would visit every two or three days.

One night, the woman arrived through the rain, removing her damp garments upon entering and hanging them on a wooden rack; she then took off her leather boots, asking the young master to help her clean the mud, before climbing into bed and covering herself with the quilt for warmth. The young master inspected the boots and saw they were exquisitely made, now utterly ruined by thick mud, likely beyond repair even after cleaning, which he found a great pity.

The woman laughed, "What is the loss of a pair of boots compared to the joy of meeting you? My affection for you is so deep; how will you repay me?" The young master smiled, "My lady's kindness cannot be repaid with mere words; only by dedicating myself entirely to you, serving you diligently." As he spoke, he walked to the bedside and gently drew the woman near, reaching to unfasten her inner garments.

Outside, the rain pattered down. The woman felt a surge of poetic inspiration and recited, "Bleak winds and cold rain flood the river city." She asked the young master to complete the couplet, but he confessed his ignorance. The woman chided him, "Such talent in appearance, yet you know nothing of elegance! Truly disappointing." She advised him to apply himself diligently to his studies, which the young master agreed to do.

Their visits became frequent, and all the servants knew of them. The young master’s brother-in-law, surnamed Song, also a scion of a noble family, heard rumors and wished to see Wen Ji, asking his brother-in-law to intercede for him, but the woman refused. Mr. Song concealed himself behind the room, waiting for the woman to arrive, then peered through the window, instantly overcome with lust. He cried out and burst through the door. The woman, startled by the stranger, rose to leave and scrambled over the wall to escape.

Mr. Song could not forget her. He subsequently visited the brothel, specifically asking for Wen Ji. The madam told him, "There was indeed a Wen Ji here once, but she has been dead for a very long time." Mr. Song withdrew in shock, and upon relating the matter to the young master, the gentleman finally understood that the woman was a ghost.

That night, the woman arrived as promised. The young master confronted her about her origins. The woman confessed, "I am indeed a ghost. But you admire beautiful women, and I admire handsome men. We each satisfy our needs; what difference does it make if I am human or spirit?" The young master found this profoundly reasonable. Soon after, the examinations concluded, and the young master prepared to return home. The woman followed him discreetly, never leaving his side.

Arriving at his home, the young master housed her in his study, where the family members could not see her. The young master spent his days secluded in the study, rarely coming home, which made his parents secretly suspicious. Later, when the woman left to visit her own realm, the young master finally told his parents the whole truth. His parents were greatly alarmed to learn she was a specter and urged their son to sever ties with her, but the young master refused to listen. Unable to bear seeing him so consumed, they hired a Taoist priest to exorcise the ghost, but all methods were exhausted to no avail.

One day, the young master needed to send a message to a servant and penned a short note, leaving it on the desk. The note was rife with errors: the character for "pepper" ($\text{}$) was written as the character for "beans" ($\text{}$), the character for "ginger" ($\text{}$) as the character for "river" ($\text{}$), and the phrase "truly hateful" ($\text{}$) was written as "can wander" ($\text{}$). The woman shook her head repeatedly, then picked up a brush and wrote upon the note: "Why 'can wander'? 'Bean sprouts grow by the river.' Having a son-in-law like this, it would be better to be a prostitute!" She summoned the young master and said to him, "I submitted to you because I believed you to be a true scholar of a noble house. Who knew you were merely handsome packaging! Judging by appearance leads only to disgrace and ridicule!" With that, she vanished.

The young master was deeply shamed by her reproof, yet he could not understand her poetry and the meaning behind it. He showed the note to a servant, and the matter spread: ten heard it, and a hundred learned of it. It became common gossip among everyone during their leisure time.