Original Text
Nie Pengyun, a native of Tai'an, was deeply devoted to his wife, their harmony like that of fish and water. When his wife fell ill and died, Nie was so consumed by grief that he could neither sit nor lie in peace, his spirit lost in a daze of sorrow. One night, as he sat alone at home, his wife suddenly pushed open the door and entered. Startled, Nie asked, "Where have you come from?" She smiled and replied, "I have become a ghost. Moved by your mourning, I begged the King of the Underworld for permission to visit you briefly." Overjoyed, Nie pulled her into bed, and everything was as before. From then on, she came each night and left before dawn, and for over a year, Nie never spoke of remarrying. His cousins, fearing he would have no heir, secretly urged him to take a new wife. Nie agreed and betrothed a woman of good family, but he kept it from his ghost wife, fearing her displeasure. As the wedding day drew near, the ghost wife learned the truth and reproached him, saying, "I risked the King of Hell's punishment to be with you because of your love. Now you break our vows—is this how a faithful lover acts?" Nie blamed his cousins, but the ghost wife remained unhappy and departed. Though Nie pitied her, his plan to remarry went ahead. On the wedding night, as the couple slept, the ghost wife suddenly appeared, struck the new bride violently, and cried, "Why do you take my bed!" The bride rose and grappled with the ghost. Terrified, Nie crouched naked in a corner, daring to side with neither. At cockcrow, the ghost wife left. Suspecting that Nie's first wife was still alive and that he had deceived her, the new bride threatened to hang herself. Nie explained the past, and she realized it was a ghost. The next night, the ghost wife returned, and the bride fled in fear. The ghost wife did not sleep with Nie but pinched his flesh and glared at him silently by the lamplight. This continued for several nights, and Nie grew terrified. A man skilled in sorcery from a nearby village carved peachwood wedges and drove them around the ghost wife's grave, and she was seen no more.
Commentary
This is a story that is both laughable and thought-provoking. Between lovers and spouses, the ideal of a harmonious union lasting a hundred years, being husband and wife for life after life, "in heaven wishing to be birds flying together, on earth wishing to be intertwined branches," is deeply desirable. But what would happen if they were truly inseparable, never giving each other any space, and stubbornly clinging on even when it was time to let go? Nie Pengyun's wife eventually became a resentful woman, and in the end, her husband invited a "skilled practitioner, who carved a peachwood stake and nailed it into the four corners of her grave." Whose fault was it, after all?