A certain Zhang died suddenly and followed the ghost-messenger to see the King of Hell. The King examined his registers and, angry that the messenger had seized the wrong man, ordered him sent back. Zhang, as he withdrew, privately begged the messenger to show him the prisons of the underworld. The ghost led him through all the nine abysses, pointing out the Mountain of Knives and the Tree of Swords one by one. At last they came to a place where a monk hung suspended by a rope passed through his thighs, shrieking in unbearable agony. Coming closer, Zhang saw it was his own elder brother. In grief and astonishment he asked, "For what crime is he brought to this pass?" The ghost said, "He is a monk, but he begged money far and wide and spent it all on lechery and gambling, and so is punished. To be freed from this torment he must repent of himself." When Zhang revived, he suspected his brother was already dead.
Now his brother lived in Xingfu Temple, and Zhang went to visit him. As he entered the gate he heard the man's cries of pain. Going into the room, he saw sores on his thighs with pus and blood running, his feet hung up against the wall, exactly like the upside-down hanging in the underworld. Astonished, he asked the cause. "By hanging them up it is a little better," said the brother; "otherwise the pain pierces to my heart." Zhang then told him what he had seen. The monk was greatly alarmed, and from then on gave up meat and wine and recited sutras and spells devoutly. In half a month he was well again, and became a monk of strict discipline.
The Historian of the Strange says: "The prisons of the ghosts are vast and dim, and evil men often make use of this to excuse themselves—not knowing that the calamity visible in the light of day is but the punishment meted out in the dark. Should one not be afraid!"