《搜神记》

《搜神记》 is the early Chinese zhiguai collection at the center of 06.搜神记： 二十四孝这口锅，干宝不背. The episode presents [[GanBao|干宝]]’s book as a mixed archive of ghosts, omens, gods, animals, disasters, historical figures, local cults, strange natural observations, and story prototypes rather than a single-purpose moral manual.

The source’s main interpretive move is Zhiguai Archive Value. The book can contain [[TwentyFourFilialExemplars|filial-piety]] material, but it also contains [[LiJiSlaysSnake|李寄斩蛇]], revenge narratives, abused women who remarry, harmless or sympathetic nonhuman beings, and stories where rulers kill charismatic or knowledgeable figures. That range makes the book important for Strange Tale Moral Pluralism and Classic Reading Complexity.

Source Position

• The episode treats the book’s contradictions as part of its value: it records folk belief and anecdotal knowledge without reconciling every item into one doctrine.
• Its later influence appears through folk stories, opera, drama, fairy-tale-like motifs, underworld imagination, and famous filial-piety exempla.
• The source keeps belief and skepticism in tension: 干宝 may sincerely believe in omens, while modern readers can still use the record as evidence of narrative, religion, and perception.

Connections

• [[GanBao|干宝]] - compiler-author figure in the episode.
• Zhiguai Archive Value - main archive-value concept generated by this source.
• Strange Tale Moral Pluralism and Filial Piety Story Afterlife - reception and moral-complexity concepts.
• 李寄斩蛇 / Li Ji Slays the Snake, [[TwentyFourFilialExemplars|《二十四孝》]], and [[JiangZiwen|蒋子文]] - key story or reception nodes from the episode.
• Chinese Folk Religion Layering, Story Motif Transmission, and Mythic Source Layering - broader wiki frames extended by the book.