The Headless Corpse

Once, in Wukiang, there was a young student of literature. He was an aspiring teacher, in charge of students from the Tsiang family (who must, we assume have had some prominence), and so had many duties, and worked long days. It was during a particular season that he took a holiday to "sweep out the ancestral tombs."He told his wife one morning, "Prepare my lunch for me as I have much to do today and will be famished by the time I should get in! " Then he left for the day, and his wife went about doing the thing he had commanded.

She went to the garden to pick some vegetables and prepared a pot of rice when, suddenly, hearing what she thought to be her husband rustle around in the next room, she went to see what was the matter.

At first, it was difficult for the woman to even comprehend what she was seeing. Then, her hand flew to her lips to stifle a scream.

There, stretched across the bed, was the body of her husband, dripping a pool of fine crimson red beneath him, which puddled across the shiny surface of the floor. Of course, she knew it to be her husband's body because of the clothing it wore. For you see, it could otherwise very well have been the mutilated corpse of anyone, for, IT HAD NO HEAD!

Someone had come in and killed her husband. They had taken his head with them as if it were some sort of macabre trophy.

Well, the woman screamed, running out of the house with her hands above her head, and the rest of the village roused itself to come to her aid. She gestured at the door of her humble home, and soon enough, someone bravely went inside, and saw, to their horror, the dripping, headless cadaver of her murdered beloved.

Well, some were shocked and astounded, but a few seemed to suddenly be suspicious of the woman, saying, "How could anyone have possibly slipped into her house while she was there, and done this awful deed, without her knowing about it? I don't think it's possible!" said one, scratching his hairy chin. Another said, "I think she may have been having an affair behind her husband's back, and she has done this to get rid of him and make it look as if someone else came in and murdered him!"

This was very soon the consensus of the other villagers. And so, instead of going out to find who might have killed the man, the village constable came and arrested the woman, taking her and casting HER in jail instead!

"Oh please," she begged of them, "her hands folded. "You are making a terrible mistake. I am innocent of this wrong for which you have accused me!"

But the constable only said, "That will be for the magistrate to decide!"

The woman, thinking that her fate had been sealed, began to despair (doubly so, perhaps, for also having lost her husband in such a horrible fashion). But, as it were Fate had another ending in store for her.

The local sexton was walking across the grounds of the cemetery when he spotted a strange sight. A coffin had been dug up from the earth, and the lid was slightly open. Curious (and perhaps not a little apprehensive), he went over to it, moved the heavy lid aside, and peered inside. What he saw startled him.

There was the corpse of a man, weirdly covered in long, straggling, white hair that seemed to grow all over his body. But that was not the worst of it.

Clutched in the man's hands was a severed head.

The sexton went to fetch the constable, and it was not long before a crowd had developed around the strange coffin. The head, it was plain for all to see, was that of the murdered husband of the woman they had just cast into jail.

The sexton said, " It's a kiang shi, It's a 'corpse-demon.' They refuse to die like normal men, but batten on the flesh and blood of the living to survive!"

The magistrate, much perplexed by this, ordered that the arm of the corpse be removed after which fresh gushes of blood were said to flow freely from the wounds. By comparison, the head grasped so tightly in the clutches of the corpse was completely bloodless. The corpse-demon had sucked the head dry like a piece of rotting fruit.

The magistrate ordered the corpse to be immediately burned, after which the grateful widow was released from jail.