Bizarre Beijing: The Painted Skin

Jim Nobles theBeijinger

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According to traditional Chinese belief, the seventh month of the lunar calendar is Ghost Month 鬼月 guǐ yuè, a time when the gates of heaven and hell open, allowing ghosts and spirits to visit the mortal world. This year, Ghost Month takes place from Aug 19 to Sep16.

For a little background, check out our article about the ten no-nos you should observe during this holiday, then indulge in spooky stories courtesy of our friends at Bizarre Beijing (WeChat ID: BizarreBeijing), which they'll be sharing once a week until the gates of heaven and hell shut back up – aka Sep 16.

To kick things off we present you with this classic story from Pu Songling’s “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.”

The Painted Skin

At T'ai-yuan there lived a man named Wang. One morning he was out walking when he met a young lady carrying a bundle and hurrying along by herself. As she moved along with some difficulty, Wang quickened his pace and caught her up, and found she was a pretty girl of about 16.

Much smitten, he inquired whither she was going so early, and no one with her.

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"A traveler like you," replied the girl, "cannot alleviate my distress. Why trouble yourself to ask?"

"What distress is it?" said Wang, "I'm sure I'll do anything I can for you."

"My parents," answered she, "loved money, and they sold me as concubine into a rich family, where the wife was very jealous, and beat and abused me morning and night. It was more than I could stand, so I have run away."

Wang asked her where she was going, to which she replied that a runaway had no fixed place of abode. "My house," said Wang, "is at no great distance. What do you say to coming there?"

She joyfully acquiesced and Wang, taking up her bundle, led the way to his house. Finding no one there, she asked Wang where his family was, to which he replied that that was only the library. "And a very nice place, too," said she, "but if you are kind enough to wish to save my life, you mustn't let it be known that I am here."

Wang promised that he would not divulge her secret, and so she remained there for some days without anyone knowing about it. He then told his wife, and she, fearing the girl might belong to some influential family, advised him to send her away. This, however, he would not consent to do.

One day, going into town, Wang met a Taoist priest who looked at him in astonishment, and asked him what he had met. "I have met nothing," replied Wang.

"Why," said the priest, "you are bewitched. What do you mean by not having met anything?" But Wang insisted that it was so, and the priest walked away, saying, "The fool! Some people don't seem to know when death is at hand." This startled Wang, who at first thought of the girl, but then he reflected that a pretty young thing as her couldn't well be a witch, and began to suspect that the priest merely wanted to do a stroke of business.

A ghostly abode

When he returned, the library door was shut and he couldn't get in, which made him suspect that something was wrong. And so he climbed over the wall, where he found the door of the inner room shut too. Softly creeping up, he looked through the window and saw a hideous devil with a green face and jagged teeth like a saw, spreading a human skin upon the bed and painting it with a paintbrush. The devil then threw aside the brush, and giving the skin a shakeout – just as you would a coat – threw it over its shoulders, when lo! It was the girl.

Terrified at this, Wang hurried away with his head down in search of the priest, who had gone he knew not whither, subsequently finding him in the fields, where he threw himself on his knees and begged the priest to save him. "As to driving her away," said the priest, "the creature must be in great distress to be seeking a substitute for herself. Besides, I could hardly endure to injure a living thing."

However, he gave Wang a fly-brush, and bade him hand it at the door of the bedroom, agreeing to meet again at the Ch'ing-ti temple. Wang went home, but did not dare enter the library. So he hung up the brush at the bedroom door, and before long heard a sound of footsteps outside. Not daring to move, he made his wife peep out and she saw the girl standing looking at the brush, afraid to pass it. She then ground her teeth and went away, but in a little while came back, and began cursing, saying "You priest, you won't frighten me. Do you think I am going to give up what is already in my grasp?" Thereupon she tore the brush to pieces, and bursting open the door, walked straight up to the bed, where she ripped open Wang and tore his heart out, with which she went away. Wang's wife screamed out, and the servant came in with a light, but Wang was already dead and presented a most miserable spectacle.

His wife, who was in an agony of fright, hardly dared cry for fear of making a noise, and next day she sent Wang's brother to see the priest. The latter got into a great rage, and cried out, "Was it for this that I had compassion on you, devil that you are?" proceeding at once with Wang's brother to the house, from which the girl had disappeared without anyone knowing whither she had gone. But the priest, raising his head, looked all around and said, "Luckily she's not far off." He then asked who lived in the apartments on the south side, to which Wang's brother replied that he did, whereupon the priest declared that there she would be found. Wang's brother was horribly frightened and said he did not think so, and then the priest asked him if any stranger had been to the house. To this he answered that he had been out to the Ch'ing-ti temple and couldn't possibly say, but he went off to inquire, and in a little while came back and reported that an old woman had sought service with them as a maid-of-all-work, and had been engaged by his wife. "That is she," said the priest, as Wang's brother added she was still there, and they all set out to go to the house together.

My, what beautifully painted skin you have

Then the priest took his wooden sword, and standing in the middle of the courtyard shouted out, "Base-born fiend, give me back my fly-brush!" Meanwhile, the new maid-of-all-work was in a great state of alarm and tried to get away by the door, but the priest struck her and down she fell flat, the human skin dropping off, and she became a hideous devil. There she lay grunting like a pig, until the priest grasped his wooden sword and struck off her head. She then became a dense column of smoke curling up from the ground, when the priest took an uncorked gourd and threw it right into the midst of the smoke. A sucking noise was heard and the whole column was drawn into the gourd, after which the priest corked it up and put it in his pouch. The skin, too, which was complete even to the eyebrows, eyes, hands, and feet, he also rolled up as if it had been a scroll, and was on the point of leaving with it, when Wang's wife stopped him, and with tears entreated him to bring her husband to life.

The priest said he was unable to do that, but Wang's wife flung herself at his feet, and with loud lamentations implored his assistance. For some time he remained immersed in thought, and then replied, "My power is not equal to what you ask. I myself cannot raise the dead, but I will direct you to someone who can, and if you apply to him properly you will succeed." Wang's wife then asked the priest who it was, to which he replied, "there is a maniac in the town who passes his time groveling in the dirt. Go prostrate yourself before him, and beg him to help you. If he insults you, show no sign of anger." Wang's brother knew the man to whom he alluded, and accordingly bade the priest adieu, and proceeded thither with his sister-in-law.

They found the destitute creature raving away by the roadside, so filthy that it was all they could do to go near him. Wang's wife approached him on her knees, at which the maniac leered at her and cried out, "Do you love me, my beauty?" Wang's wife told him what she had come for, but he only laughed and said, "You can get plenty of other husbands. Why raise the dead one to life?" But Wang's wife entreated him to help her whereupon he observed, "It's very strange: people apply to me to raise their dead as if I was king of the infernal regions." He then gave Wang's wife a thrashing with his staff, which she bore without a murmur, and before a gradually increasing crowd of spectators.

After this, he produced a loathsome pill which he told her she must swallow, but here she broke down and was quite unable to do so. However, she did manage it at last, and then the maniac, crying out, "How you do love me!" got up and went away without taking any more notice of her. They followed him into a temple with loud supplications, but he had disappeared, and every effort to find him was unsuccessful. Overcome with rage and shame, Wang's wife went home, where she mourned bitterly over her dead husband, grievously repenting the steps she had taken, and wishing only to die. She then bethought herself of preparing the corpse, near which none of the servants would venture, and set to work to close up the frightful wound of which he died.

3D demons are the scariest demos

While thus employed, interrupted from time to time by her sobs, she felt a rising lump in her throat, which by-and-by came out with a pop and fell straight into the dead man's wound. Looking closely at it, she saw it was a human heart, and then it began as it were to throb, emitting a warm vapor-like smoke. Much excited, she at once closed the flesh over it, and held the sides of the wound together with all her might. Very soon, however, she got tired, and finding the vapor escaping from the crevices, she tore up a piece of silk and bound it round, at the same time bringing back circulation by rubbing the body and covering it up with clothes. In the night she removed the coverings, and found that breath was coming from the nose, and by next morning her husband was alive again, though disturbed in mind as if awaking from a dream, and feeling a pain in his heart. Where he had been wounded there was a cicatrix about as big as a cash, which soon after disappeared.

He peeped through and saw the most hideous site.