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During the Han dynasty, Wen Ying of Nanyang, whose courtesy name was Shuchang, served as assistant administrator of Ganling in the Jian’an era. Once, while passing through another district, he stopped for the night. At the third watch, he dreamed that a man knelt before him and said, “Long ago, my forebears buried me here. The rushing water has washed into my grave, and my coffin lies half submerged. I have no way to keep myself warm. Hearing that you were here, I have come to seek your help. Might I trouble you to delay your departure a little tomorrow and kindly move me to higher, drier ground?” The ghost opened his robe to show Ying that he was soaked through. Ying’s heart filled with pity, and he awoke. He told his attendants, who said, “Dreams are only empty fancies. What is there to wonder at?” Ying lay down again where he had been sleeping, and once more the man appeared in his dream and said, “I told you of my misery. How can you have no pity for me?” In the dream, Ying asked, “Who are you?” The man replied, “I was originally a man of Zhao. Now I am subject to the god of the Wangmang clan.” Ying asked, “Where is your coffin?” He answered, “Nearby, a dozen or so paces north of your tent, beneath a withered poplar beside the water—that is where I lie. Dawn is coming, and I shall no longer be able to appear to you. You must remember me.” Ying replied, “I will!” Suddenly he awoke. At daybreak, when they were ready to leave, Ying said, “They say there is nothing remarkable in dreams, but how could this one be so precise?” His attendants said, “Why begrudge a little time? Why not put it to the test?” Ying rose at once and led a dozen or so men upstream. Sure enough, they found a withered poplar. “This is it,” he said. They dug beneath it, and before long they found a coffin. It was badly rotted and lay half submerged in water. Ying said to his attendants, “When I heard such things from others before, I thought them false. The tales people tell ought not to be dismissed without testing them.” He had the coffin moved and reburied, then went on his way.