The wife replied, “He has just gone out.”
The woman laughingly said, “Master Chon and I have been special friend’s for a long time, and I have an appointment with him to-day. Please say to him that I have come.”
Chon’s wife, seeing a pretty woman come thus, and ask in such a familiar way for her husband, flew into a rage and said, “The rascal has evidently a second wife that he has never told me of. What he said just now is all false,” so she went out in a fury, and with a club smashed the crock. When the crock was broken there was the beetle underneath it. Then the woman who had called suddenly changed into a bee, and flew at and stung the beetle. Chon, metamorphosed into his accustomed form, fell over and died, and the bee flew away.
Yun lived at his own house as usual, when suddenly he broke down one day in a fit of tears. The members of his family in alarm asked the reason.
He replied, “My sister living in Chulla Province has just at this moment died.” He then called his servants, and had them prepare funeral supplies, saying, “They are poor where she lives, and so I must help them.”
He wrote a letter, and after sealing it, said to one of his attendants, “If you go just outside the gate you will meet a man wearing a horsehair cap and a soldier’s uniform. Call him in. He is standing there ready to be summoned.”
He was called in, and sure enough he was a Kon-yun-no (servant of the gods). He came in and at once prostrated himself before Yun. Yun said, “My sister has just now died in such a place in Chulla Province. Take this letter and go at once. I shall expect you back to-night with the answer. The matter is of such great importance that if you do not bring it as I order, and within the time appointed, I shall have you punished.”
He replied, “I shall be in time, be not anxious.”
Yun then gave him the letter and the bundle, and he went outside the main gateway and disappeared.
Before dark he returned with the answer. The letter read: “She died at such an hour to-day and we were in straits as to what to do, when your letter came with the supplies, just as though we had seen each other. Wonderful it is!” The man who brought the answer immediately went out and disappeared. The house of mourning is situated over ten days’ journey from Seoul, but he returned ere sunset, in the space of two or three hours.