A scholar named Wang of Taiyuan was walking abroad one morning when he met a young woman hurrying along alone, clutching a bundle, with difficulty in her step. He hastened after her and found her a beauty of sweet sixteen. He took a liking to her and asked, "Why do you walk alone at such an hour?" The girl said, "A traveler cannot lighten another's sorrow—why trouble to ask?" Wang said, "What sorrow is yours? Perhaps I can help, and would not decline." The girl said, darkly, "My parents, greedy for a bride-price, sold me into a great house. The chief wife is so jealous that she reviles me by day and beats and humiliates me by night. It is past bearing, and I am running far away." "Where to?" he asked. "One who is fleeing has no fixed abode," she said. Wang said, "My humble house is not far; pray do me the honor of a visit." The girl was pleased and followed him. Wang carried her bundle for her and led her home. The girl, seeing no one in the house, asked, "How is it you have no family?" "It is but my study," he answered. "This place is very good," she said. "If you pity me and will give me life, you must keep it secret and tell no one." Wang agreed, and lay with her. He hid her in a secret room, and several days passed without anyone's knowing. Wang told his wife a little of it. His wife Chen, suspecting she was a concubine of some great house, urged him to send her away, but Wang would not. One day he happened to be in the market when a Taoist, seeing him, stared in astonishment. "What have you met with?" he asked. "Nothing," answered Wang. The Taoist said, "A baleful aura surrounds you—how can you say nothing?" Wang insisted again that there was nothing. The Taoist went away, saying, "Infatuated creature! There are indeed those in the world who, when death is at hand, do not perceive it!" Wang, struck by the strangeness of his words, began to suspect the girl. But then he thought—she was plainly a beauty; how could she be a demon? He took the Taoist for a charlatan who lived by exorcisms. Before long he came to the gate of his study, but it was bolted from within and he could not enter; suspecting something, he climbed over the broken wall and found the chamber door shut. Stealing to the window and peeping through, he saw a hideous ghost with a green face and saw-like, jagged teeth spreading a human skin upon the couch and painting it with a colored brush. Then it flung down the brush and, lifting the skin as one shakes out a garment, threw it over itself—and it became the girl. At this sight Wang was seized with terror and crept out on all fours like a beast. He hurried after the Taoist but could not find him; seeking everywhere, he met him at last in the fields and, kneeling at length, begged for his life and to be rid of the thing. The Taoist said, "This creature has had a hard lot too; only lately has it been able to find a substitute, and I have not the heart to destroy it." So he gave Wang his horsetail whisk, bidding him hang it over his bedroom door, and agreed to meet him at the Green Emperor's Temple before parting. Wang went home, but dared not enter his study and slept in the inner room, hanging up the whisk. After about the first watch he heard a rustling outside the door. He would not look himself, but made his wife look. She saw the girl come, who, seeing the whisk, dared not approach; she stood gnashing her teeth, and after a long while went away. In a little she came again and cursed, "The Taoist frightened me! After all, do I take it into my mouth to spit it out again?" She seized the whisk and tore it to pieces, broke in the bedroom door, went straight to Wang's bed, ripped open his belly, and, scooping out his heart, went away. His wife shrieked. The maids came in with a light and found Wang dead, his chest a welter of gore. Chen, weeping in terror, dared not cry out.
The next day she sent her younger brother, Erlang, running to tell the Taoist. The Taoist was angry. "I meant to spare it, but the demon's brat dares do this!" He came at once with the brother. The girl was gone. He raised his head and looked about, saying, "Luckily it has not fled far." "Whose house is in the southern court?" he asked. "It is mine," said Erlang. The Taoist said, "It is in your place now." Erlang was astonished and thought it could not be. The Taoist asked, "Has any stranger come to you?" "I went early to the Green Emperor's Temple," said Erlang, "and truly know nothing; I will go home and ask." He went and returned after a while, saying, "There is one indeed. This morning an old woman came, wanting to hire herself out for work in the household; my wife kept her, and she is still there." The Taoist said, "That is the thing." So they went together. Standing in the middle of the courtyard with his wooden sword, the Taoist called, "Demon! Give me back my whisk!" The old woman, in the room, turned pale and lost her wits; she ran for the door to flee, and the Taoist pursued and struck her. She fell, and the human skin slipped off with a rending sound; she had turned into a fierce ghost, lying there howling like a pig. With his wooden sword the Taoist struck off its head. The body changed into a thick smoke, settling in a heap about the ground. The Taoist brought out a gourd, drew the stopper, and held it in the smoke, which rushed into it like a breath being sucked in; in an instant the smoke was gone. The Taoist stoppered the gourd and put it in his bag. They all looked at the human skin—brows, eyes, hands, and feet, nothing missing. The Taoist rolled it up like a scroll of painting, with a rustling sound, and put it in his bag too; then he took his leave and was about to go.
Chen, the wife, knelt at the gate and, weeping, begged the art of bringing the dead back to life. The Taoist declined, saying he could not. Chen wept the more and would not rise. The Taoist thought for a while and said, "My art is shallow; I cannot truly raise the dead. But I can point you to one who perhaps can." "Who is it?" she asked. "In the market there is a madman," he said, "who often lies in the filth and earth. Try knocking at his door and entreating him. If he madly insults you, madam, do not be angry." Erlang too had heard of him, so he took leave of the Taoist and went with his sister-in-law. They found a beggar singing crazily in the street, with snot running a foot long, too foul to approach. Chen crept forward on her knees. The beggar laughed and said, "Does the pretty lady love me?" Chen told him her errand. He laughed the louder, "All men are husbands—why revive him?" Chen begged him earnestly. He said, "Strange! A man is dead and begs me to bring him to life—am I the King of Hell?" In anger he struck Chen with his staff, and she bore the pain patiently. The crowd gathered thicker and thicker. The beggar spat a great gob of phlegm and spittle, held it to Chen's mouth, and said, "Eat it!" Chen's face flushed red and she showed her reluctance; but thinking of the Taoist's words, she forced herself to swallow it. It went down her throat hard as a wad of cotton, sticking in her chest. The beggar laughed aloud, "The pretty lady loves me!" Then he rose and went on without looking back. She followed him into a temple and pressed him, but could find no trace of him; searching everywhere before and behind, she found nothing at all, and went home ashamed and grieved. She mourned her husband's cruel death and repented the shame of swallowing spittle; she wept, looking up and down, and wished only to die. She was about to wipe up the blood and gather the corpse when the family stood watching, none daring to come near. Chen embraced the body, gathered the entrails, and, arranging them, wept as she worked. She wept till her voice was hoarse, and suddenly retched; she felt something knotted in her diaphragm burst forth—before she could turn, it had fallen into the open chest. In surprise she looked—it was a human heart, still leaping within the cavity, with hot vapor rising like smoke. Greatly amazed, she hastily pressed the chest together with both hands, squeezing hard. When she slackened a little, the vapor seeped out through the join, so she tore strips of silk and bound it up tightly. She felt the body—it was growing warm; she covered it with a quilt. In the middle of the night she looked again and found it breathing. At dawn he was actually alive. He said, "It was all a blur, as in a dream; I only felt a dull ache in my belly." Looking at the rent, they found a scar hardened like a coin, which in time healed. The Historian of the Strange says: "How foolish are men of the world! A thing that is plainly a demon they take for a beauty. How blind are fools! Plain loyalty they take for folly. Yet he who loves another's beauty and preys upon it—his wife too will eat another's spittle and find it sweet. Heaven's recompense is sure, but only the foolish and blind do not see it. Alas!"