7 How Mr. Zhu Gained a Fortune by Taking the Place of a Corpse

In Hangzhou, during the Song Dynasty, there lived a certain Mr. Zhu. He was known as an unrepentant graverobber, and with the use of his planchette, he discovered many ancient tombs filled with grave gifts. The majority of these stolen artifacts he sold off to increase his wealth, but some he displayed in his home, either because they were pleasing to the eye, or because the story of their discovery was something that he did not want to forget.

One evening, Zhu was entertaining guests when a Mr. Li drew the group’s attention to a beautifully carved coffin lid that Zhu had against a wall.

“Zhu, I can understand taking from the treasures of graves,” said Li (the group was not a virtuous one, as one may expect from friends of such a thief), “but why take the coffin lid itself?”

“Ah, my friend,” Zhu replied, “That is a tale worth telling.”

Zhu said that many years ago, his fortunes had been on the decline. He had recently been called before the magistrate, and his acolytes had scattered rather than be found in association with him. In hopes of renewing his wealth, Zhu set out alone to find a grave with impressive valuables within. After some time, his divinations led him to a particular grave in the Ningbo province. There, he found the opening to a tomb carved into a cliff’s face.

Zhu could tell that this was a strange tomb even before entering. It was the only one carved into the cliff that he could see, and though the stone slab blocking the opening was decorated with elaborate patterns, there were no surrounding edifices to suggest an imperial burial. Additionally, the slab was already half-open, wide enough to let a person through. Zhu was grateful that he would not have to move it himself, but worried that other graverobbers had already plundered what he had set out to steal.

Holding out hope, Zhu slipped past the slab and into the tomb beyond. The tomb was dark as pitch, but Zhu was not one to come unprepared and he lit the torch that he had brought with him. In the light, the tomb was even stranger. The initial passageway seemed to stretch on far in front of him, and more carvings like those on the slab outside adorned the walls. When he brought the light closer, he could see that the patterns were interspersed with human figures, though not in a style that he recognized or much cared for. Zhu was no artist, but the look on their faces did not appeal to his aesthetic sensibilities. There was something twisted and unpleasant about it.

Determined to not look at the walls, Zhu moved onward down the passage. It was even longer than it had seemed in the first feeble light from his torch. He had hoped it would be a short corridor, leading directly to a chamber filled with grave goods that he could take and leave. Instead, it seemed to lead on and on, occasionally hitching one way or the other, but never branching off.

Finally, just as he was considering going back the way he came, the passageway bloomed outwards into a burial chamber. To Zhu’s great satisfaction, sacrificial vessels, weapons, precious metals, and other grave goods lined the edges of the room, all surrounding a huge central coffin carved of stone. Hoping to find jewelry buried with the corpse, Zhu shoved aside the coffin lid. The coffin, however, was empty. This puzzled Zhu, but there were still enough treasures in the chamber that he was not unduly disappointed by the corpse’s absence.

It was just as he had gathered up all the grave goods that he could carry that he heard the distinct noise of shuffling footsteps from the passageway behind him. Terrified that an official had discovered his enterprise, Zhu looked frantically for a way to escape, but the only exit from the chamber was down the passageway that the footsteps were coming from. As he was about to fall into despair, his eyes lit upon the empty coffin. With nowhere else to go, Zhu extinguished his lantern and leapt into the coffin, pulling the lid over him.

A few moments later, he heard footsteps enter the room. To his horror, they moved directly to the coffin, and began to pull off the lid. Zhu froze in sheer terror, not daring to even bat an eyelid. As the lid was moved aside, Zhu got a look at the newcomer.

It was much worse than the official that Zhu had expected. A monstrous corpse stood above him, staring into the coffin. It wore the tattered remains of imperial garb, and was otherwise covered in a thick coating of white moss. Its elongated hands, tipped with purplish talons, had moved the heavy coffin lid with ease. Small yellow eyes blazed in the darkness.

Neither of the two moved for a moment, both startled by the presence of the other. Then the corpse let out a dreadful noise and reached into the coffin. Now, if Zhu had been an average citizen, surely at this point he would have met with some sort of terrible fate. Luckily for the old criminal, this was not his first experience with a jiangshi 殭屍, and he had come prepared. The amount of protective charms and religious scrolls that Zhu carried on him at all times could supply a small Taoist temple, and half a Buddhist one on top of that. For this reason, when the corpse’s talons drew near to his chest, there was a sudden flash of yellow light, and the corpse hopped backwards, clearly in pain. It regarded him balefully from across the room.

All this time, Zhu had remained stock still. If it wasn’t for the jiangshi’s hideous appearance, any onlooker would have assumed that it was the living being and Zhu was the corpse. This seemed to be the corpse’s thought, for it mewled, “Why have you taken my coffin? Go to your own, I have no other.”

At this point, a wily man may have thought to go along with the corpse’s suggestion, pretended to be a jiangshi, and left while he could. Zhu considered himself to be a wily man, and the possibility did occur to him. He was, however, also a man who prided himself on his mental acuity rather than on his daring deeds—to be more plain, he was too frightened to move. And so the corpse remained outside the coffin while he remained inside it.

After some minutes, the corpse tried again. In a voice that sounded like it came from the bottom of a well, it said, “I am a high official, and can offer you status and power if you leave my coffin.” This was a challenge that Zhu could face—he knew enough about jiangshi to remain where he was. Seeing no response, the corpse tried again.

“I am a great emperor, and can offer you wealth beyond measure if you leave my coffin.” As greedy as Zhu was, he remained still. They continued this way for some time, the corpse bargaining and Zhu calculating exactly how long-term he could expect this plan of his to last. The calculations weren’t promising.

It was to Zhu’s great relief, then, when the chamber began to become noticeably brighter, and the corpse shifted from bargaining to pleading. Hours had passed, and the night was at its end. The rising sun struck the entrance to the tomb and in a flash illuminated the whole of it. At the same moment, the corpse let out a cry and fell to the ground.

Not looking to be deceived by a trick, Zhu stayed where he was a few moments longer, then cautiously peeked over the lip of the coffin. The massive corpse lay sprawled on the floor, motionless. He thought it was no longer animate, but if it was, he had just given it a perfectly defensible reason to haunt him. Luckily, he remembered a legend that a corpse would no longer be able to haunt anyone if its coffin lid went missing. With strength borne out of fear, he hoisted the coffin lid onto his back and dashed out of the tomb.

The legend must have been true, for Zhu was never again bothered by the corpse from the cliff grave. The grave’s goods sold for a fine profit, and he was soon back on high standing (of course the actions of a thief are never rewarded for long, and so Zhu would eventually meet his fate in prison, as you may have heard). This story of Zhu’s was told in the presence of the gambler Mr. Yin, who later related it to the great magistrate Bao Zheng in the year 1042.