Main Text Based on Painted Skin Written by Pu Songling, translated and annotated by Sidney L. Sondergard, published by Jain Pub. Co, 2008 *
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In Taiyuan, a scholar named Wang was out walking one morning, when he met a young woman carrying a bundle of belongings by herself as though running away, and having a very difficult time with it as she went. Moving more briskly to catch up with her, he noticed she was about sixteen and quite beautiful. Enjoying the sight of her as his heart filled with love, he asked, “Why are you walking alone so early in the morning?” 💬
The young woman replied, “A passerby can’t solve my unhappiness, so there’s no point bothering yourself to inquire.” 💬
“What’s making you so upset?” Wang asked. “If I can do anything in my power to help, I won’t say no.” 💬
Despondent, the young woman explained, “My parents, in their greediness, sold me as a concubine to a rich, influential family. The first wife was so jealous, all day long she insulted me and humiliated me with beatings, to the point that I couldn’t take it any longer, so I’m heading for someplace far away.” 💬
“Where to?” he asked. 💬 “An escapee,” she said, “alas, has no certain destination.” 💬 Wang then declared, “My home isn’t far, and if it wouldn’t trouble you too much, you might join me there.” The young woman, delighted, agreed. Wang picked up her bundle of belongings and led her home. 💬 Seeing there was no one else in the room, the young woman inquired, “Sir, why isn’t your family here?” 💬 “This is just my study,” he explained. 💬 She observed, “This place is really nice. If you pity me and want to save me, you must keep my presence here a close secret, and not let it out.” Wang promised not to tell. Then they slept together. 💬 He set her up to hide in a secret room, and several days passed without anyone knowing she was there. Then Wang mentioned it privately to his wife, Chen. She suspected that the girl had been given as a concubine to some family, so she advised Wang to send her away. Wang wouldn’t hear of it. 💬 In the market one day, Wang met a Daoist priest who turned to stare at him in amazement, and asked, “What have you gotten yourself into?” 💬 “Nothing,” Wang replied. 💬 The Daoist declared, “There’s an evil presence wound around you—how can you say it’s nothing?” Wang reasserted his innocence. 💬 The Daoist then left, muttering, “Idiot! Some people just refuse to recognize when death is coming after them.” 💬 Wang thought his words strange, and entertained brief doubts about the young woman; then he considered that since she was obviously such a beauty, she couldn’t possibly be an evil spirit, 💬 meaning that the priest must have been hoping to offer his prayers for averting evil in exchange for the price of a meal. 💬 Not much later, arriving at the door of his study, he found it barred from the inside, so he couldn’t get in. This made him think that something was going on inside, so he clambered over a ruined wall. The door to the inner room was also barred, so he crept quietly to a window and peered inside, spotting a hideous demon, its face bluish-green, its teeth as jagged as a saw’s. It spread a human skin out on the bed, holding a brush, and began to paint on it; when it was done, it tossed the brush aside, held up the skin, and shook it out like it was a cloak, then wrapped it around its body, immediately transforming it into the young woman. 💬 When he saw it take her shape, Wang, terrified, scurried away like a wild animal. He anxiously sought out the Daoist, but didn’t know where to find him. Looking all over for traces, he finally found him outside the city, and went down on his knees to beg for rescue. The priest said, “Let me drive it away for you. This thing must be suffering pretty significantly, and just found a way to rest itself—so for that reason, I couldn’t be hard-hearted enough to take its life.” 💬 Then he gave Wang a fly swatter, ordering him to hang it above the door of his bedroom. As Wang was about to leave, the Daoist arranged for them to meet at the Qingdi Temple. Wang left, but didn’t dare enter his study, so he slept in the inner room and hung the swatter above the door there. 💬 About the time of the first watch, he heard something rubbing at his door, but he wouldn’t venture to sneak a look for himself, so he sent his wife to take a peek. She simply saw the young woman draw near, stare at the swatter, and then come no closer; she stood there grinding her teeth for a very long time, then left. A short time later she returned, growling, “The Daoist hopes to scare me off. But I can’t spit out what I haven’t yet put in my mouth!” She grabbed the swatter and broke it into pieces, wrecked the bedroom door, and in she rushed. 💬 Leaping directly onto Wang’s bed, she ripped open his chest, took his heart in both hands, and fled. 💬 His wife screamed. A maid servant rushed in with a candle, but Wang was already dead, his chest cavity a bloody ruins. Chen, horrified, wept, but dared not make a sound. 💬 The next day, she sent her husband’s younger brother to inform the Daoist. The priest, furious, fumed, “I originally took pity on this demon, then it dares to do this.” He left immediately, following Wang’s brother home. The young woman was already gone, but the priest raised his head to look in all four directions, and said, “We’re lucky—she hasn’t gotten very far!” Then he asked, “Whose home is that in the southern courtyard?” 💬 The young brother replied, “That’s my place.” 💬 “That’s where she is right now,” said the Daoist. Wang’s brother was dumbfounded, and didn’t think it even possible. The Daoist then asked, “Haven’t you recently had a stranger show up there?” 💬 The brother answered, “Early this morning I left for Qingdi * Temple, so I don’t know. Let me go and find out.” He went out and shortly returned, reporting, “Someone’s there, alright. This morning an old woman showed up, hoping to be hired as a household servant, and my wife hired her, so she’s still there.” 💬 The Daoist said, “That’s the monster.” Consequently, he went there with the younger brother. Brandishing a wooden sword, he stood in the middle of the courtyard, shouting, “Accursed demon! You owe me for my swatter!” 💬 The old woman froze in the house, pale with fright, then ran out the gate, hoping to escape. The priest thereupon struck her. The old woman fell, her human skin peeling up and flaking off, changing her back into a horrible demon that lay on the ground, squealing like a pig. With his wooden sword, the Daoist beheaded the abomination; its body turned into a dense smoke, 💬 spread over the ground, and then collected into a single pile. 💬 When the priest took out a bottle gourd, pulled out the stopper, and placed it in the smoke, there was a sucking sound, like someone drawing in a breath, until in the blink of an eye, the smoke was sucked into the gourd. The Daoist replaced the stopper and put the gourd back in his bag. 💬 Together they looked at the human skin with eyebrows, eyes, hands, and feet painted on, all ready to be worn. The Daoist rolled it up, with the sound someone would make rolling up a scroll painting, also put it in his bag, then took his leave of the others and went on his way. Chen knelt respectfully to him at the gate, weeping and begging him for a way to bring Wang back to life. The priest explained that he lacked the ability to do so. Chen increased her pitiful pleading, throwing herself on the ground and refusing to get up. 💬 The Daoist then pondered carefully and said, “My magic is superficial, so I really can’t raise the dead. But I can point out a man who probably can do it, so if you go and make your request of him, he’ll surely try to help you out.” 💬 She asked, “What man?” 💬 The priest replied, “In the marketplace, there’s a mad beggar, who’s always resting on dungheaps. Try kowtowing, and then make your plea to him. If the madman insults you or your husband, don’t give way to anger.” Wang’s younger brother had heard of the man. He and his sister-in-law bid farewell to the Daoist and headed off together. 💬 They found the beggar singing agitatedly beside the road, long strands of snot hanging from his nose, stinking so foully that it was almost impossible to force oneself near him. Chen crawled before him on her knees. 💬 The beggar, laughing, cried, “Is this beauty here because she loves me?” Chen then informed him why she’d come. Again he laughed, and said, “There are plenty of men who can be your husband out there, so why do you want this one alive?” 💬 Chen remained steadfast in her pleading. Then he exclaimed, “How strange! A man dies and she comes to beg his life from me. What am I, Yama, the Hell King?” 💬 Furious, he struck Chen with his stick. Chen endured the pain patiently. Bystanders began gathering like a wall around them. The beggar coughed up phlegm, spit a large glob of it into his hand, then raised it in the direction of Chen’s lips, demanding, “Eat it!” Chen turned red in the face, refusing to do it; but once she recalled the Daoist’s advice, she successfully choked it down. She felt it enter her throat like a wad of cotton being forced there, extremely resistant to going down, until it finally stopped to form a knot in her chest. 💬 The beggar roared in laughter, exclaiming, “The beauty really loves me!” He then stood up and walked off, without even glancing at her. She pursued him until he entered a temple. Chasing after him to beg his assistance, she couldn’t tell where he’d gone; she hunted everywhere yet there was no sign of him, so she left, ashamed and angry. Already mourning her husband’s death, now she also regretted having eaten the phlegm, and felt humiliated, hanging her head as others watched her crying pitifully, just wanting to die. 💬 Then she decided to lay out her husband’s corpse and drain the blood from it, while household members stood by, looking on, without daring to approach. Chen held the corpse in her arms, and placed the intestines back in it, sobbing all the while. 💬 Just when she had gone hoarse from the wretched extremes of her crying, she suddenly felt the urge to vomit. She became aware of that knotted thing in her chest suddenly forcing its way out, and before she could turn her head, it dropped into Wang’s chest cavity. She was stunned, for it was a human heart. 💬 There it sat in the cavity, rhythmically beating, 💬 warm vapors rising off it like mist. It was astonishing. 💬 Anxiously, with both hands, she closed the cavity, using all her strength to squeeze it shut as she held him in her arms. If she relaxed even a little, a dense cloud of vapors would seep through the edges of the wound. Thus she tore up some silk and wrapped it tightly around Wang. With her hands, she warmed his body, which gradually began responding. She covered him then with a large quilt. In the night, when she looked under it, she found faint breath coming from his nostrils. 💬 By daybreak, Wang was whole and alive. He told her, “It was oddly like a dream, but I could feel some mysterious pain in my chest.” When she examined the place where he’d been torn open, she found a scab had formed there the size of a coin—and soon he recovered. 💬 The collector of these strange tales remarks, “How foolish some people are! What are obviously demons they take for beauties. How deluded such fools are! What is obviously devotion, they treat with disregard. 💬 When men are lured by the appearances of love, their wives are obliged to eat what others have spit out. The way of heaven is to repay love, yet the foolish and deluded are oblivious to this. What a pity that there are such men!” 💬 *