Wang Sheng of Taiyuan, early in the morning, met a woman on the road, she was holding a bag, alone in a hurry, walking very hard. Wang Sheng accelerated his pace to catch up, turned out to be a sixteen or seventeen-year-old beautiful girl. He was very fond of his heart, and asked her: "Why do you rush alone early in the morning?" The woman said, "You are a passerby, can't share my sorrows, why bother to ask?" Wang Sheng said, "What sorrows do you have? If I can help, I will never excuse myself." The woman looked sad and said, "My parents were greedy for money and sold me to a rich family as a concubine. The first wife is very jealous and either beats or scolds me, I can't stand it and am ready to run away far away." Wang Sheng asked, "Where are you running away to?" The woman said, "Where is there a certain place for one who is running away?" Wang Sheng said, "My home is not far from here, so please condescend a little and come with me!" The woman was very happy and agreed. Wang Sheng took her bag for her and led her home with him. When the woman saw that no one was in the house, she asked, "Why don't you have a wife and family?" Wang Sheng replied, "This is the study." The woman said, "It's quite nice here. If you have pity on me and let me live, you must keep the secret and not divulge it." Wang Sheng promised her. So they lived together. Wang Sheng hid her in a secret room, and no one knew about it for several days. Later, Wang Sheng revealed a slight hint to his wife. His wife, Chen, suspected that the woman was a young wife or servant girl of a rich family and advised her husband to send her back. Wang Sheng did not listen. One day, Wang Sheng came to the market by chance and met a Taoist priest. The Taoist priest looked at Wang Sheng with a startled expression and asked him, "Have you met anything recently?" Wang Sheng replied, "No." The Taoist priest said, "Seeing that your body is haunted by evil qi, how can you still say that you haven't?" Wang Sheng tried his best to defend himself. The Taoist priest walked away, saying, "You're obsessed with ghosts! There are really people in the world who don't come to their senses at the end of their lives!" Wang Sheng heard him talking strangely, so he was a bit suspicious of the woman. But on second thought, it was obviously a beautiful woman, how could it be a demon spirit? So he thought that Taoist priests were just people who borrowed the exorcisms and ghosts to make a living.
Not long after, Wang Sheng returned to the door of the study, found the door locked from the inside, could not enter. He was a bit skeptical, not knowing what was going on inside, so he climbed over the crumbling courtyard wall and jumped in. See the door of the secret room is also closed, then tiptoe over, from the window to look inside, only to see a hideous ghost, green face, teeth as sharp as jagged, put a human skin on the bed, holding a color pen on it tracing; a moment after the painting, the pen threw up, picking up the human skin, like shaking the clothes like shaking, draped over the body, and immediately turned into a beautiful woman. Wang Sheng saw this terrible scene, scared to death, lying on the ground half a day before crawling out, rushed to find the Taoist priest, but did not know where the Taoist priest went. He searched everywhere for his trail, and when he finally met him in the wilderness, he knelt down and asked the Taoist priest to save his life. The Taoist priest said, "Well, let me get rid of it. This fellow has also taken great pains to find a substitute, and I cannot bear to harm its life." After saying this, he handed Wang Sheng a fly-repellent duster and told him to hang it on his bedroom door. When they parted, they agreed to meet the next day at the Qingdi Temple.
Wang Sheng returned home, do not dare to enter the study, sleep in the bedroom inside, put the duster hanging on the door. Around the first watch, he heard the sound of "rustling" walks coming from outside the door. Wang Sheng himself did not dare to peep, so he asked his wife to go out to see. Only to see the woman came, looked at the duster, do not dare to go in, stood there gritting her teeth, a long time before leaving. After a while, she came back and scolded, "Taoist priests scare me. I don't want to go in, is not to eat into the mouth of meat and spit out not!" Said the duster ripped off and tore, crashed through the door and broke in, straight up the bed of Wang Sheng, tore open Wang Sheng's chest, dug out Wang Sheng's heart, and went away. Wang Sheng's wife shouted loudly, alarmed the maid, came in and lit a candle to shine, only to see Wang Sheng is dead, his chest bloody. Chen was so scared that her tears flowed, but she didn't dare to say anything.
The next day, Chen told Wang Sheng's brother Er Lang to run and tell the Taoist priest. The Taoist priest was furious when he heard about it and said, "I had pity on it, how dare this ghostly thing!" Immediately followed Erlang to Wang's house. But the woman was nowhere to be found. The Taoist priest looked up and around and said, "Luckily it didn't escape far." Then he asked, "Whose house is the southern courtyard?" Erlang said, "It is my dwelling place." The Taoist priest said, "That evil spirit is in your house right now." Erlang was stupefied at hearing this, thinking that there was none in his house. The Taoist priest asked him, "Has a stranger come to your house?" Erlang replied, "I rushed to the Temple of the Green Emperor early in the morning, and I really don't know. Have to go back and ask." Erlang went away for a while, returned and said, "Indeed there is such a thing. Early in the morning an old woman came and wanted to come to my house to be a servant and do housework; my wife left her behind, and she is still at my house at the moment." The Taoist priest said, "That's the fellow." So with Erlang they went to the south courtyard. With his wooden sword in his hand, the Taoist priest stood in the middle of the courtyard and shouted, "Sinful ghost! Give me back my duster!" The old woman panicked in the house, her face suddenly turned pale, and she rushed out the door of the house and tried to escape. The Taoist priest chased after her and aimed a sword at her. The old woman fell to the ground, and her human skin fell off with a crash, turning into an evil ghost that lay there howling like a pig. The Taoist priest used his wooden sword to cut off its head; its body turned into smoke, circled around the ground and then balled up into a pile. The Taoist priest took out a gourd, took off the stopper and put it in the smoke, only to hear a gurgling sound, as if inhaling with his mouth, and in the twinkling of an eye, the smoke was sucked out. Taoist priest plugged the gourd mouth, put into the bag. We all look at the human skin, there are eyebrows and eyes, hands and feet, all complete. The Taoist priest rolled it up, like a scroll, and put it into the cloth bag, and said goodbye to everyone, ready to go. Chen greeted the Taoist priest at the door and kowtowed to him, crying and begging him for a way to bring the dead back to life. The Taoist priest said that he had no such ability. Chen became even more sorrowful, kneeling on the ground and refusing to get up. The Taoist priest thought for a while and said, "My magic is not deep enough to bring the dead back to life. I'll recommend someone to you who may be able to do it, go and beg him and it will surely work." Chen asked, "Which one is it?" The Taoist priest said, "There is a crazy man in the city who lies in the dung from time to time. You go and try it, bow to him, and beg him. If he goes mad and humiliates the lady, she must not be annoyed." Erlang Soo knew of such a man, so he bade farewell to the Taoist priest and went with his sister-in-law to seek him.
To the city, only to see a beggar on the road crazy singing, snot dragged a long, dirty call people dare not approach. Chen kneeled down and walked to him with two knees. The beggar smiled and said, "Has the little lady fallen in love with me?" Chen told him the reason for her coming. He laughed again and said, "Everyone can be a husband, why do you have to save him?" Chen begged bitterly again and again. He then said, "Strange! A man is dead but begs me to come and bring him back to life, am I the King of Hades?" When he finished speaking, he annoyingly hit Chen with a stick. Chen endured the pain and let him beat her. The people watching in the city gathered more and more, surrounded like a wall. Beggar even spit with spittle, clucked out full of a large handful, stretched to Chen's mouth, said: "Eat it down!" Chen's face reddened, revealing a difficult look; then thought of the Taoist priest's instructions, so he ate it. Only felt it like a ball of hardened cotton wool, after entering the throat, grating hard to go down, it stayed, tangled in the chest. The beggar laughed and said, "The little lady is in love with me!" After saying this, he walked away without looking back. Chen's in the back followed, see him into a temple, busy to chase up to him again to plead, but no sign of him; temple before the temple after the hidden places are searched, but even a little trace is not, had to return home with shame and hate. She not only grieved for her husband's tragic death, but also regretted the humiliation of eating phlegm, and cried until she wished that she would also die immediately. Chen began to wipe dry blood stains, the corpse, the family are standing and staring, no one dares to approach. Chen's holding the body, the intestines packed in, while organizing while crying. Crying to sadness, voice is hoarse. Suddenly wanting to vomit, she only felt the lump that was stuck in her chest, suddenly rushed out, and before she could turn her head, it had already landed in the chest cavity of the corpse. She was taken aback, and upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a human heart. That heart was fluttering in the chest cavity, steaming like smoke. She was so astonished that she hastily closed the chest cavity with both hands and held it together as tightly as she could, and as soon as she loosened her hands a little, a stream of hot air came out of the cracks. Then she tore off a piece of silk and hastily tied the chest cavity of the corpse tightly. Running her hands over the corpse, it gradually grew a little warmer. And tucked him in again. In the middle of the night to lift the quilt to see, nostrils have breath. At dawn, Wang Sheng actually came to life. He said, "I was in a trance, as if I had a big dream, but I felt a vague pain in my stomach." When he looked at the torn place, the scab was as thick as a copper coin. It was soon healed.