Today I want to share a sad story from Ban Bao’s In Search of the Supernatural , which will probably appear in my next book:
In the Jin dynasty1, a man in Wuxing, Zhejiang Province had two sons. Whenever they worked in the field, the two young men often saw their dad come to yell at them. He sometimes even smacked them and shooed them away.
The sons at last told their mother, who later asked the father about it. The father was shocked. Knowing it wasn’t him, he wondered if some kind of monster took his form. He told his sons if the fake father showed himself again, they shall hit it with an axe.
Ever since then, the thing stopped showing up. One day, the father, worried that his sons would be bewildered by the evil monster, went to the field to check on them. The sons, mistaking him for the imposter, attacked and killed him. They then buried the body and went home.
The imposter later went to their home in the father’s form and told the family that his boys had already taken care of the evil monster. When the sons returned, the whole family celebrated.
Years had passed without anyone noticing anything unusual.
One day, a sorcerer travelled by the family and told the two young men that he noticed the father had strong evil vibes around him.
The sons went to tell the father, who got outrageous. The sons then came out to warn the sorcerer and told him to leave. Instead, the sorcerer entered the house while casting some spells.
The father instantly transformed into an old fox. The fox went under the bed but still got caught and killed.
The brothers then realized that the one they’d killed in the field was their real father.
They reburied their father and gave him a proper funeral.
Soon after that, one of the sons killed himself. The other, suffering from regret and anger, also passed away before long.
–From Gan Bao’s In Search of the Supernatural (The Jin Dynasty)
1. The Jin Dynasty (266–420). It’s a little strange for the author to refer to their own dynasty in this way. Perhaps this story was said to have happened in the Western Jin (266-316) whereas Gan Bao (315-336) lived in the Eastern Jin.
p.s. For more translated ancient Chinese strange tales or zhiguai stories, please check out my book: Head Flyer and 100 More Ancient Chinese Strange Stories, which is free for Kindle Unlimited members. For non members, you can still get a free sample which contains 11 stories.
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