Judge Lu

Overview

Judge Lu is the otherworldly official befriended by Chu Erh-tan in Pu Songling’s tale, here followed in Herbert A. Giles’s1880 translation. At Ling-yang, Chu accepts a drinking companions’ challenge to bring a temple’s wooden judge figure to their gathering. The image has a green face, red beard and fearsome expression. Chu carries it back after offering wine and inviting the judge to visit. Lu subsequently arrives at his house, accepting the invitation rather than punishing the apparent irreverence. They become drinking companions and discuss literature; Lu also judges Chu’s compositions. The tale connects image and visitor without explaining a mechanical animation of the wood.

Finding Chu’s learning inadequate, Lu opens his body while he sleeps and substitutes a more intelligent heart obtained from the otherworld. Chu’s wound heals and his scholarship improves; he passes the examinations Lu predicted, but never advances beyond their stated limit. At Chu’s further request, Lu replaces his sleeping wife’s head with that of a recently murdered young woman. The woman’s father initially suspects Chu, but identical parental dreams identify the real murderer and explain the exchange. The narrative attributes the murder to that burglar, not to Lu. The father thereafter accepts Chu as a son-in-law, while the displaced head is buried with his daughter’s body.

Thirty years later Lu announces that Chu will die in five days and says that Heaven’s decree cannot be changed. After dying, Chu returns as a disembodied visitor: Lu has secured him an otherworldly registrar’s appointment. The two still drink together, and Chu manages family matters and teaches his son Wei until a distant posting ends regular visits. Wei later encounters his father in an official procession; before disappearing, Chu sends him a sword bearing an ethical injunction. A subsequent dream directs Wei to pass it to his own son Hun, who becomes a capable viceroy. This long family ending makes Lu a continuing patron, not merely the operator in an isolated head-exchange episode.

This account is bounded to Giles’s selected translation of Pu Songling’s literary collection. Giles supplies the English term “Chamber of Horrors” for the temple display and explains it as foreign usage, not the judge’s own designation. The translated story gives Lu no further name and does not make him ruler of all the dead. Its bodily operations and posthumous offices belong to the narrative; they are not evidence of surgery or administrative institutions outside that setting.

Origins & earliest records

Pu Songling’s literary collection, in Giles’s selected English translation.

Records & interpretation

Complete English story, attached notes and translator introduction read. No independent Chinese-text collation.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

   Pu Songling; translated and annotated by Herbert A. Giles · 1880

   XIV, Judge Lu, volume I pp.92–105; electronic notes93–106; complete story and attached notes read.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Historical literary translationStrange Stories from a Chinese Studio — XIV, Judge Lu, volume I pp.92–105Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.