Shui-mang ghosts

Overview

Pu Songling’s story, in Giles’s1880 translation, opens with a tradition that people killed by the shui-mang plant become ghosts who need another person poisoned by the same plant to take their place before rebirth. The herb is described as a bean-like creeper with a red flower. Giles only tentatively identifies it in a note; neither that identification nor the tale’s supposed antidote is established botanical or medical evidence. The narrative gives these ghosts individual choices rather than an unvarying appetite for victims.

A traveller named Chu accepts tea from the attractive San-niang after rejecting an older woman’s drink. He takes a ring and some leaves, then learns from his friend that San-niang of the K’ou family died from the same poison. Her parents refuse an old pair of her shoes that someone proposes as an antidote, because they want their daughter to obtain her substitute. Chu dies, leaving a mother and small son. Later he returns as a spirit with San-niang as his wife, explaining that he drew her back from rebirth as an official’s baby daughter. The tale subsequently establishes that this infant died. It does not present their union as an ordinary living marriage.

San-niang helps her mother-in-law, reconciles with her own parents and brings material assistance to Chu’s household. She identifies the original older accomplice as Ni, now reborn in a soy-shop household. More significantly, Chu rescues another poisoned man by driving away the ghost Li Chiu. Asked why he will not seek his own substitute, he says he wants to end the system rather than benefit from it, and is content to tend his mother. Others then appeal to him for protection. These actions explicitly complicate the opening account of predatory substitution.

After his mother’s death and his son’s marriage, Chu announces appointment as Keeper of the Dragons in recognition of his service. A carriage arrives with four horses wearing scale-like trappings; he and San-niang depart, and she separately bids farewell to her parents. The son Ngo later buries her bones beside his father’s. The trappings do not make the horses dragons, and the appointment supplies no separate dragon anatomy. This grouped entry retains the complete change from entrapment to household care and rescue, without treating every named ghost or reincarnation as a different species.

Origins & earliest records

Pu Songling’s literary collection, in Giles’s selected English translation.

Records & interpretation

Complete English story, attached notes and translator introduction read; no independent Chinese collation.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

   Pu Songling; translated and annotated by Herbert A. Giles · 1880

   XVII, The Shui-mang Plant, volume I pp.136–142; electronic notes126–129; complete story and all attached notes read.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Historical literary translationStrange Stories from a Chinese Studio — XVII, The Shui-mang Plant, volume I pp.136–142Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.