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I posted earlier about the jiangshi, the qi-sucking Chinese vampire (that’s also kind of a zombie).
I figured it was only right to share one of my favorite ghost stories: the awful legend of a mountain town consumed by horrible tragedy.
Without further ado, here is that legend.
There’s a story in China about a small village in southern Hunan.
This was in the early years of the Qing Dynasty, and like most rural towns, the people there lived simple lives. They woke up early and went to bed at sunset, tending to their fields and hunting for game in the nearby mountains.
But on a quiet night many years ago, the village was struck by tragedy. The town’s entire population was wiped out at once; for a long time, it was considered improper to discuss the details of what happened. These are the events that occurred that day.
First, you should know that of all the villagers, a young man named Chengsan was the most-loathed by far.
Chengsan gave no thought to the community, choosing instead to terrorize it. He cheated and stole before doing an honest day’s work, and spent most of his time camped out in the mountains around town, only sneaking in at night to steal food and livestock. Besides that, he was a lecherous wreck, and was constantly harassing other villagers’ wives. There wasn’t a single person in town who didn’t have some gripe with Chengsan.
It was a common occurrence for Chengsan to be driven out of town by his neighbors. No matter — he would simply wait until tempers had died down before making his return.
On one of these days, Chengsan was passing time in the mountains surrounding the village, when he felt his stomach growl and decided to dig for some wild sweet potato.
He had only been digging for a few minutes when he felt his fingers wrap around something rough. Chengsan grabbed on tight and pulled out…
…a human fist, still attached to an arm.
Chengsan turned pale and dropped the hand. Even with an empty stomach, he couldn’t help but retch up a spurt of clear liquid. He scrambled to his feet, clawing and fumbling to get away from the aura of death that surrounded the corpse.
But suddenly, he stopped. There could be some valuables on that body, he thought.
A reluctant Chengsan approached the body, holding his breath as he knelt down beside it. He raked through the soil with his fingernails until he’d dug out the rest of the corpse.
It was barely recognizable as human. Its sunken eyes retreated into its skull, and its pale blueish skin seemed to be stretched tight across its bones.
Looking at the unfortunate man, the first thing Chengsan noticed was that he was remarkably well-preserved. His tattered clothes seemed to indicate that his death wasn’t recent, but there was a remarkable clarity to his facial features. Maybe thanks to the dry soil he was in, thought Chengsan, or the cool mountain climate.
Chengsan searched the body up and down, checking each of its pockets thoroughly. But in the end, there was no treasure to be found. Chengsan felt disgusted and foolish for having spent so much time there.
“Stupid corpse!” he shouted, frustrated. “If you’ve no gift for the living, just stay buried!”
It was then that Chengsan saw a faded piece of paper affixed to the man’s forehead. There was something scrawled on it, but the text was no longer legible. He snatched it off the man’s face, tossing it onto the ground.
Suddenly, as though a hundred years had been waiting to pass in an instant, the sickly bones began to creak and crumble away into dust.
Good riddens, thought Chengsan, wiping human residue off of his fingertips. He felt ill, and made up his mind to forget the whole ordeal.
But in the days that came, Chengsan never started to feel better. His skin turned cold and pale, and his eyes faded into a dull stare. His teeth began to rot, and he felt stricken with overwhelming tiredness. Eventually, he had no choice but to enter back into town and ask for help.
When he got there, Chengsan was hungry and weak. All the villagers turned a blind eye, except for Old Man Zhang.
“The past is the past,” he said. “Say what you will about Chengsan, but he’s still a person. We can’t stand by and watch him die like this.”
After a warm bath and some hot soup in the old man’s home, Chengsan began to feel a little better. But as soon as his blood started to flow a little, his old ways crept back out of him. When the old man was gone, Chengsan climbed up into his daughter-in-law’s room. When the villagers heard her shouting, they ran up to find Chengsan holding her by the wrists.
They dragged Chengsan out into the street and threw him onto the ground. They beat him to a pulp, until Chengsan managed to get to his feet and flee back into the mountains.
But it wasn’t long before he wandered back down, looking even worse than before. His hair was scraggly, his body was covered with open sores, and he moved with a limp, hunched over in pain. He begged the villagers for food and medical attention, but this time, they were fed up.
One man named Li was angrier than anyone else.
“You dare to come back here, time and time again!” he shouted. “If no one’s taught you a lesson, this time I’ll be your teacher!”
He beat Chengsan within an inch of his life. When he was done, he picked up a long rope and brought Chengsan to the outskirts of the village. There, Li tied him to a tree and left him.
The townspeople objected at first. They said the act was too evil, and would bring misfortune. But Li had been a soldier and it was not easy to stand against him — a few days later Chengsan died, tied to that tree.
His whole body turned black and blue, and his eyes turned to plaster. A horrible stench hung around the tree, and the sight of it frightened the village’s women and children.
The town’s leaders decided to give Chengsan a proper burial. It was a busy day, so a plan was made to perform the burial after nightfall.
But that evening when they returned with a lit torch, their stomachs fell — the corpse was gone.
The rope that held Chengsan was ripped clean through, not untied from the outside. Immediately the townspeople were stricken with fear, as the clues pointed to one thing: Chengsan had become a jiangshi.
When word got back to the village, panic broke out. Fearful arguing ensued, and houses were boarded up and nailed shut. Nervous young men armed themselves with kitchen knives and farm tools in preparation for what might come.
An old woman stepped forward and addressed the situation. Eighty years ago, she said, this town had another encounter with a jiangshi vampire. The monster was injured in battle with a Taoist priest, who used a talisman to seal its power. The creature used the last of its energy to flee into the mountains, and it was never seen again.
Now, it seemed, Chengsan had somehow unsealed the creature. Upon hearing this, the townspeople regretted not seeing the situation through to its end. They could have burned Chengsan’s corpse to ashes, or performed a ritual to cleanse it. But now, the jiangshi had to be dealt with as an autonomous, evil entity.
An eerie quiet fell over the town. A late night watch was assembled and the townspeople searched all over for Chengsan, but there was no trace of him.
“Maybe there’s no jiangshi,” someone said. “Maybe we’re all just being nervous.”
But just then, a terrible sound rang out from Old Man Zhang’s house.
The townspeople rushed over, but when they pried open the door, what they saw made their blood run cold.
Old Man Zhang’s body hung over a large beam in the center of the house. Blood was splattered across the floor, and his daughter-in-law lay mangled in the corner. Beside her, the remains of her three-year-old son.
The terrified villagers hardly had time to recover from the shock, when screams were heard at another house, then another. The town’s strongest men chased after the sound until they came face to face with Chengsan — or at least, what appeared to be Chengsan.
This creature moved differently than Chengsan, traveling like a flash in the darkness. Its eyes glowed like the moon, and its teeth were long and sharp, glistening with chunks of flesh and hair. On seeing it, several men threw down their weapons and fled.
Those who stayed didn’t last long. Chengsan’s strength was otherworldly, and even after being sliced by the blades of by several men, he showed no signs of slowing.
That night, over half of the village was killed. Those who fought were slain immediately; others hid in terrified silence, waiting for an end to the bloodshed.
A strange odor began to drift from the corpses that littered the streets. When the remaining villagers caught a waft of that odor, they too passed out into a sickly sleep.
At this point, the village had been slaughtered, and its residents lay strewn about on the streets and in their homes.
That is, until the next day. That morning, one by one, the townspeople stood up and began to walk.
This is the origin of China’s jiangshi village. Those in neighboring towns moved away, fearing an attack. Some say that a priest was hired to purge the whole village of vampiric energy; others say that, without humans to prey on, the creatures fought one another to their own extinction.
But still others tell a different story, one that isn’t as satisfying. They say that the villagers are all still out there together, moving from mountain to mountain, sleeping underground, and emerging at night to feed.
If you visit the area today, you’ll find that life has returned to it — children playing, grandparents sipping tea, and farmers hard at work. But don’t mention anything about jiangshi; even in the light of a new day, people still fear the darkness of that night so long ago.
Photos: 太上老天狼666, sasint, lamarsos, “Rampant” and “Kingdom” (both based on “gangsi,” Korean jiangshi)
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