The Beauty Wearing a Painted Skin / 画皮

A scholar's affair, a demon's costume, and a wife who had to swallow a beggar's spit

From Liaozhai Zhiyi (聊斋志异 · Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio), Volume I

By Pu Songling (蒲松龄, 1640–1715) · Translated with annotations

Hook: A scholar in Taiyuan picked up a beautiful runaway girl on the road and hid her in his study. Days later a Daoist on the street took one look at him and said his body was wrapped in evil. The scholar climbed the broken wall behind his house and peeked through the window — and saw a green-faced demon with sawtooth teeth painting a fresh human skin on the bed, then shaking it out and putting it on like a coat.

The Story

A Girl on the Road

A man named Wang lived in Taiyuan^{[1]Taiyuan (太原) — the capital of Shanxi province in north China, an old garrison and trading town that had been a regional seat since the Tang. In Pu Songling's setting it stands in as a generic northern city: respectable, large enough to have neighborhoods of literati with private studies, small enough that an unfamiliar new servant attracts notice.}. One morning, walking out before dawn, he came across a young woman on the road. She was carrying a bundle and hurrying along on her own, struggling with the weight of it.

He hurried after her. When he caught up, he saw she was about sixteen — strikingly pretty. He fell for her at once.

Why are you out alone on the road in the dark? he asked.

A traveler can't lift a stranger's worries, she said. Why bother asking.

Maybe I can help. Try me.

She lowered her eyes. My parents took a bribe and sold me to a great house as a concubine. The first wife is jealous — she curses me in the morning and beats me at night. I can't take it anymore. I'm running.

Where to?

A runaway has nowhere to go.

My place isn't far, Wang said. Come stay there.

She agreed gladly, and Wang took the bundle from her and led her home. She looked around the empty room.

You don't have a household?

This is just my study, he said. My family lives elsewhere on the property.

Good, she said. If you take pity on me and let me live, you have to keep this secret. Don't tell anyone.

He promised. They slept together that night.

He kept her hidden in a back room. Several days passed and no one in the household noticed. Then he let it slip to his wife. Chen^{[2]Chen (陈氏) — the wife is named only by her surname plus shi (氏), the standard Qing-era convention for referring to a married woman by her father's clan name. She has no personal name in the original; she is "the wife of the Wang family, born a Chen." This is part of the story's irony: the unnamed wife is the one who actually does the moral work.}, the wife, suspected the girl was a runaway concubine from some powerful family and urged him to send her away. He refused.

The Daoist on the Street

One day Wang went out to the market and ran into a dàoshi (道士, a Daoist priest — a wandering exorcist trained in classical magic and herb-medicine, the closest classical Chinese equivalent to a folk witch-finder)^{[3]dàoshi (道士) — a Daoist priest. The classical Chinese exorcist figure: knowledgeable in classical magic, herbal medicine, ritual, calligraphic talismans, and sword-craft against demons. By the Qing dynasty, wandering Daoists were a recognizable street figure in northern cities, often lumped with mendicant Buddhists and street fortune-tellers as marginal but useful specialists.}. The man stopped, stared at him, and looked alarmed.

What have you encountered? the Daoist asked.

Nothing, Wang said.

Your whole body is wrapped in evil energy. How can you say nothing?

Wang denied it again, more forcefully. The Daoist sighed and walked off, muttering, Strange. There really are men so close to death they cannot see it.

The words rattled Wang. He started to suspect the girl. Then he reconsidered — she's clearly a beautiful woman. How could she be a demon? The Daoist must be one of those grifters who cries out about evil spirits to drum up business. He kept walking back toward the house.

When he reached the study door, it was bolted from the inside. He couldn't get in. Now genuinely uneasy, he climbed over a section of broken wall in the courtyard. The inner door of the study was also closed. He crept up to the window.

What he saw through the paper:

A green-faced demon with sawtooth teeth, like a saw blade, was sitting at the bed. A human skin was spread out on the mattress. The demon was bent over it, holding a colored brush, painting it.

After a while it tossed the brush down, picked the skin up, and shook it out — the way you shake out a coat before putting it on. Then it slipped the skin over its body. The demon was gone. The pretty girl was back.

Wang dropped to all fours and crawled out of the courtyard like an animal. He ran for the Daoist.

The Fly-Whisk

He couldn't find him. He searched everywhere, finally caught him out in open country, and went down on his knees in the dirt.

Please, he begged. Get rid of it.

The Daoist hesitated. I'll send it on its way. But the truth is, the thing has worked hard to get this far. It's only just managed to find a substitute body to replace itself in the next life. I don't have the heart to actually kill it.

He handed Wang a fúchén (拂尘, a horsehair fly-whisk — the standard tool of a Daoist priest, used both as a teaching prop and as a low-grade ritual barrier against evil)^{[4]fúchén (拂尘, fly-whisk) — a horsehair brush mounted on a handle, used by Daoist priests both as a teaching prop and as a low-grade exorcism tool. It originated as a literal fly-swatter in Buddhist monasteries and was adopted by Daoists as an emblem of detachment. In ghost stories it functions as a portable ward — a small ritual barrier you can hang on a doorway.}. Hang this on your bedroom door, he said. Meet me at the Qingdi Temple^{[5]Qingdi Temple (青帝庙) — a temple to the Green Emperor (青帝), one of the Five Emperors of Daoist cosmology, associated with the east and with spring. By the Qing dynasty most Qingdi temples were small neighborhood shrines, the kind of place a wandering priest could plausibly meet a visitor without arranging it through anyone.} later.

Wang went home. He didn't dare go back into the study. He slept in the inner rooms with his wife, with the fly-whisk hanging from the door.

Around the first watch — about nine in the evening — there was a dry rustling outside the door. He didn't dare look. He had his wife look.

Chen saw the girl approach. She stopped at the sight of the fly-whisk and didn't come closer. She stood there grinding her teeth for a long time, then finally left.

A little later she came back. This time she was furious.

The Daoist thinks he can scare me, she said out loud. I'm not going to spit out food once I've already taken it.

She tore the fly-whisk apart, smashed through the bedroom door, climbed onto Wang's bed, ripped open his chest, scooped his heart out in her hand, and walked away.

Chen screamed.

The Madman in the Marketplace

At dawn, Chen sent Wang's younger brother, who was called Erlang, running for the Daoist.

I told it to be careful, the Daoist said when he heard. And it dared do that? He went straight back to the house with Erlang.

The girl was nowhere to be seen. The Daoist looked around, lifted his head, and said, Lucky. It hasn't gone far.

He pointed at a building. Whose place is that, the south courtyard?

Mine, said Erlang.

Then it's there now.

Erlang was startled and didn't believe him. Has any stranger come to your house this morning? the Daoist asked.

I went out early to the temple to find you. I don't know. Let me check.

Erlang ran home. He came back shortly. There was someone. An old woman came at dawn asking to be hired as a household servant. My wife took her in. She's still there.

That's it, the Daoist said.

They went to Erlang's house. The Daoist took out a wooden sword and stood in the middle of the courtyard.

Demon! he shouted. Give me back my fly-whisk!

Inside, the old woman went pale. She bolted for the door. The Daoist met her with the sword. She fell. The human skin tore open with a sound like splitting cloth and slid off her body. What was left was a fanged demon, sprawled on the ground, howling like a pig.

The Daoist took the head off with one stroke. The body collapsed into a heap of black smoke pooled on the courtyard floor. He pulled out a gourd, popped the stopper, and laid the gourd on its side in the smoke. The smoke drained into the gourd, whoosh whoosh, like someone breathing in. In a few seconds it was empty.

He corked the gourd and put it back in his pack. Then he picked up the human skin off the ground. The eyebrows, the eyes, the hands, the feet — all of it was still there. He rolled it up — like rolling a painting scroll, with that same dry rustling sound — and put it away.

He turned to leave.

The Beggar in the Filth

Chen ran after him and threw herself in the doorway, weeping, begging him to bring Wang back to life.

I can't, said the Daoist. That's beyond me.

She sobbed harder and refused to get up. The Daoist stood there thinking. My powers are shallow. I genuinely cannot raise the dead. But I can point you to someone who might be able to. Go ask him. Carefully — he might insult you. Don't get angry no matter what he does.

Who? she asked.

There's a madman in the marketplace, he said. He sleeps in the dunghill sometimes. Go kneel to him and beg.

Erlang knew the man. They left and went to find him.

The beggar was on the road, singing nonsense at the top of his lungs. He had snot dripping three feet down his chin. He stank so badly no one would go near him. Chen knelt and crawled toward him on her knees.

The beggar laughed at her. Pretty lady, do you love me?

She told him what had happened.

He laughed again. Plenty of men in the world. Why do you need that one alive?

She kept begging. He looked at her with an odd expression. Strange. Someone dies, and you come asking me to bring him back. Am I King Yama^{[6]King Yama (阎摩 / 阎罗) — the lord of the underworld in Chinese folk Buddhism, the judge of the dead. The beggar's joke ("Am I King Yama?") is the Qing-era equivalent of saying Do I look like Saint Peter to you?}?

He hit her with his stick. She took the blow without flinching. By now a small crowd had gathered, watching.

The beggar coughed up a great mouthful of phlegm into his palm. He held it up to her lips.

Eat it.

She turned bright red. She hesitated. Then she remembered the Daoist's warning and forced it down. It went down her throat hard, like a wad of cotton, scraping the whole way, and finally lodged behind her sternum and stopped.

The beggar burst out laughing. Pretty lady really does love me! he said. He stood up and walked off without looking back.

She and Erlang followed him into a temple, but when they tried to corner him there, he was gone. They searched the whole compound — no sign. They went home, ashamed and angry.

The Heart That Came Back

Once she was home she had two griefs at once. Her husband, butchered and gone. Her own humiliation in the marketplace, choking down a beggar's spit in front of strangers. She wept on the floor and wished she would die.

She had to wash and shroud the body. The household was watching from a distance. No one would come close to it.

She picked up the corpse herself, gathered the loose intestines back inside the chest cavity, and worked on the body while sobbing. She cried until her voice cracked, and then she felt it — the lump in her throat coming up. Whatever was stuck in her chest was being forced back out.

She didn't have time to turn her head. Whatever came up out of her mouth dropped — straight down into Wang's open chest.

She looked. It was a heart. Wang's chest. Beating. It was beating, and giving off heat, like steam.

She gasped. She slammed her two hands together over the wound, pressing the chest closed. As soon as she relaxed, faint warm steam began to leak out around the seams. She tore strips of silk and bound the wound tightly. Then she put her hand on the body — it was getting warm. She covered it with a quilt.

In the middle of the night she lifted the cover and looked. There was breath at the nostrils.

By morning, Wang was alive.

He spoke. I feel like I was dreaming, he said. My stomach hurts a little.

She looked at the wound. The skin had closed and a callus was forming, the size of a copper coin. In a few days it healed completely.

The Author's Verdict

The Recorder of Strange Tales^{[7]The Recorder of Strange Tales (异史氏 Yìshǐshì) — Pu Songling's pen-name in the editorial comments at the end of his stories. The phrase echoes the tài shǐ gōng yuē ("the Grand Historian remarks") signature of Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, signaling that Pu Songling is consciously taking on the role of a moralist-historian — only of strange events, not of dynasties.} adds:

How foolish people are. The thing was clearly a demon, and the man took it for a beauty. How blind. The man's friend gave him true counsel, and he took it for a hustle. But this is the way it works: a man hunts other women for their looks, and his own wife, in the end, has to swallow a stranger's filth and call it sweet. Heaven keeps the books. The fool just doesn't see them being kept. What a sorrow.

Translator's Reflection

The first time I read this story, I thought it was just a horror story. Painted Skin — the demon paints a human skin every day and wears it like a coat to seduce men. Pu Songling has a real talent for that single image, the green face bent over the bed, working with a brush. I'd seen it referenced everywhere in modern Chinese horror movies and didn't know it came from him.

But that's not what the story is actually about. The story is about Wang's wife.

Wang sees a pretty stranger on the road and brings her home into the room where he sleeps. He hides her from his wife at first. When his wife finds out, she begs him to send the girl away. He refuses. A Daoist warns him on the street that he is dying. He decides the Daoist is a con artist. The demon eventually rips his chest open and takes his heart.

Then the wife — who did nothing wrong — has to do all the work. She has to send for help. She has to kneel in the dirt of the marketplace in front of a crowd. She has to let a filthy beggar slap her with a stick. She has to swallow his spit while strangers watch.

That's where Pu Songling's last paragraph hits like a blow. A man hunts other women for their looks, and his own wife, in the end, has to swallow a stranger's filth. The disgrace bounces. He cheats — she ends up choking on a stranger's mouth.

What I notice on a careful reading is that Pu Songling doesn't actually punish Wang very hard. Wang dies for one night and comes back. He gets to wake up and say, I had a strange dream and my stomach hurts a bit. That's it. That's his entire experience of being murdered.

The wife, on the other hand, lives every minute of it. She holds his torn-open body. She walks to the market. She kneels. She gets hit. She eats the spit. She vomits the heart up. She binds the wound. She sits up half the night with the corpse, watching for breath at the nostrils.

The horror of Painted Skin isn't really the demon. The demon is honest, in a way — it tells Wang the rules from the start (don't tell anyone), it warns the Daoist before it kills (I'm not spitting up food I already swallowed), it does what demons do. The horror is what an ordinary man's appetite makes a faithful wife do, while the man himself sleeps through most of it.

There's one detail in the original I didn't want to flatten in translation. When Pu Songling describes the demon shaking out the skin, he uses 如振衣状 — the way you shake out a coat. The most chilling thing about the painted skin isn't that it's painted. It's that it's worn. Casually. Like clothes. That's the real picture you can't get out of your head.

Next tale: A Qing dynasty fox spirit terrorized a magistrate's household — until an illiterate servant woman walked in. The fox was on the next coach out. → [Coming soon]