I stood still, waiting for her to come and ask for money. "You have come back?" she asked me first. "Yes." "That is very good. You are scholar, and have travelled too and seen a lot. I just want to ask you something." Her lustreless eyes suddenly gleamed. I never guessed she would talk to me like this. I stood there taken by surprise. "It is this." She drew two paces nearer, and whispered very confidentially: "After a person dies, does he turn into a ghost or not?"The next two questions were related to the first. In answer to her question about people becoming ghosts after death, the narrator sputters forth an answer--maybe, it is the tradition to believe that. So Xiang Lin's Wife continues to enquire: that means there must be a hell, and do family members see each other after death. The narrator doesn't know what to say.
"Well, as to whether they will see each other again or not...." I realized now that I was a complete fool; for all my hesitation and reflection I had been unable to answer her three questions. Immediately I lost confidence and wanted to say the exact opposite of what I had previously said. "In this case ... as matter of fact, I am not sure.... Actually, regarding the question of ghosts, I am not sure either." In order to avoid further importunate questions, I walked off, and beat a hasty retreat to my uncle's house, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable.The next day Xiang Lin's Wife dies. Later we learn more of Xiang Lin's wife's life, how she came to be a beggar and the reason for her questions about the afterlife.
Thanks to Tan Hsiao Wei for putting it up.