Old Man An of Changshan loved to work at farming. In autumn, when the buckwheat ripened, he cut it and piled it by the field's edge. As thieves from the neighboring village were in the habit of stealing crops, he bade his tenants haul the sheaves to the threshing floor by moonlight; when they had loaded and gone, he stayed behind himself to watch. So he lay in the open, pillowing his head on a spear. His eyes had barely closed when he heard someone treading on the buckwheat roots with a crunching sound. Suspecting a robber, he raised his head in haste and saw a huge ghost, more than a fathom tall, with red hair and a bristling beard, already close to him. In great fright, with no time for other plans, he sprang up and lunged fiercely with his spear. The ghost vanished with a thunderous roar. Fearing it would return, he shouldered his spear and went home. Meeting his tenants on the way, he told them what he had seen and warned them not to go there. They did not much believe him. The next day, as they were sunning wheat on the threshing floor, they suddenly heard a sound in the air. "The ghost is coming!" cried the old man in alarm, and fled; the others fled too. After a while they gathered again, and the old man bade them set up many crossbows to wait for it. The next day it indeed came, and a flight of arrows was loosed at it; the thing took fright and fled. For two or three days it did not return.
When the wheat had been stored in the granary and the straw lay in a jumble, the old man had it piled into a stack and mounted it himself to trample it firm, until it stood several feet high. Suddenly, looking into the distance, he cried out in alarm, "The ghost is here!" The others hurried to find their bows, but the thing had already rushed at the old man. He fell, and it bit into his forehead and left. When they climbed up to look, his frontal bone had been bitten away as large as a hand, and he was unconscious. They carried him home, and he died. The thing was never seen again, and no one knew what monster it was.