Section: Miscellaneous Chapter (杂篇) | Chinese Title: 徐无鬼 (Xú Wúguǐ)

Named after a hermit who visits Marquis Wǔ of Wèi, this chapter is a miscellaneous collection of anecdotes, dialogues, and philosophical fragments. The unifying thread — where one exists — is the relationship between conventional social interaction and the Dào, and the ways in which masters subvert ordinary expectations.

In the opening episode, Xú Wúguǐ gains an audience with Marquis Wǔ by not offering political advice, military strategy, or moral instruction — instead, he talks about a horse expert's methods. He describes how the finest horse judge evaluates animals: the supreme judge looks once and perceives the whole — the "heavenly form" beyond any particular quality. The marquis laughs with genuine delight. What the court ministers have been unable to provide through flattery and formality, the hermit provides through naturalness.

The chapter contains a passage on the mason and the plasterer. The mason can shave a spot of plaster off the tip of a man's nose with a single pass of his axe, without the man flinching. Lord Yuan of Sòng asks the mason to demonstrate this skill. The mason refuses: his partner, the plasterer, has died. Without the plasterer's perfect trust and stillness, the mason's skill has no context. This is a parable of partnership — skill exists between two people, not within one.

A further episode describes the monkeys and the monkey keeper. When their keeper dies, the monkeys scatter into the forests. Their collective behaviour depended on a relationship, not on any single member's qualities.

The chapter also features Zhuāng Zhōu visiting Huì Shī's grave and lamenting that since Huì Shī died, he has no one to talk to — the mason has lost his plasterer. This is the most personal and emotional moment attributed to Zhuāng Zhōu in the text.

For the martial artist, the mason-plasterer parable describes the training partnership required for Tuīshǒu: the skill of one partner can only manifest through the perfect trust and responsiveness of the other. Without a genuine training partner, even the most advanced practitioner cannot express their full capability.

Scholarly Classification

Mixed: Transmitter + other voices (Graham/Liu). Miscellaneous anecdotes with Transmitter-school characteristics.

Key Passages in Chinese

匠石运斤成风，听而斫之，尽垩而鼻不伤。
Jiàng Shí yùn jīn chéng fēng, tīng ér zhuó zhī, jìn è ér bí bù shāng.
— Mason Shí swung his axe so fast it made a wind. He shaved away every bit of plaster without harming the nose.

自夫子之死也，吾无以为质矣！吾无与言之矣！
Zì fūzǐ zhī sǐ yě, wú wú yǐ wéi zhì yǐ! Wú wú yǔ yán zhī yǐ!
— Since the Master died, I have no one to test myself against! I have no one to talk to!

Parables and Key Episodes

• Xú Wúguǐ charms the marquis by talking about horse judging — naturalness succeeds where flattery fails
• The mason and the plasterer — skill requires a partner's perfect trust
• Zhuāng Zhōu at Huì Shī's grave — the mason who has lost his plasterer
• The horse judge who perceives the "heavenly form" — seeing beyond particular qualities
• The monkeys scatter when their keeper dies — collective behaviour depends on relationship

Key Terms

• Tiān Jī (天机) — Heavenly form or heavenly mechanism, the totality beyond individual qualities
• Jiàng Shí (匠石) — Mason Shí, whose skill requires the plasterer's perfect trust
• Zhì (质) — A sounding board, a partner against whom one tests and refines oneself