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"Painted Skin" () is a famous short story from Pu Songling's ''Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio''. It tells of a scholar who is attracted to a beautiful maiden and brings her home, only to discover she is an ugly female ghoul who puts on a facial mask to look attractive, after "painting" it daily. == Story == Once in Taiyuan there was a scholar called Wang (王). In an early morning he met a girl on the road who had been sold to a rich family by her parents. She could not stand the abuse of the wife of the rich and fled. The scholar agreed to give her refuge, let her stayed in his studio in secret, and slept with her. Suspecting that the girl could have been a concubine in the rich family, Wang's wife asked him to send the girl away without success. One day, Wang encountered a Taoist priest in the market. The priest stared at Wang in surprise and asked him whether something strange had happened to him recently, because Wang looked enchanted by a ghost. Wang denied and left without taking the priest seriously. The priest lamented that Wang was going to die without noticing the precursors. When Wang returned home, he found that the door of the studio was firmly closed. Having been stirred by the words of the priest, he sneaked to the window and peeked in. In the studio was a ghost with a green face and teeth like those of a saw spreading a piece of human hide on the bed and painting it. Then, the ghost lifted up the hide, shook it like a piece of cloth, cloaked itself in the hide, and transformed into the girl. Being greatly shocked, Wang rushed to the priest and knelt before him, seeking help. The priest told Wang that the ghost was also having a hard life finding a victim, and he would not want to hurt it. The priest gave Wang a chowry and made him hang it on the door where he slept. After returning home, Wang dared not sleep in the studio, so he slept in another room and hanged the chowry there. Every night, Wang heard sounds outside the door. Too fearful to investigate, he had his wife check in his place. At first, in fear of the chowry, the girl stood outside the door for a long time before she left. Shortly afterwards, scolding the priest, the girl returned. She took off the chowry, destroyed it, broke into the room, went to the bed directly, opened Wang's chest, and went away holding his heart. Wang's wife yelled. A maid came with candle light. Wang was found dead with messy body. His wife was too scared to cry with sound. The next day, the wife of Wang made his younger brother Erlang (二郎) tell the priest. The priest was angry and went with Erlang to Wang's house, but could not find the girl. The priest looked around and found that the ghost was in the house near the south yard, which turned out to be the house of Erlang. The priest told Erlang that the old woman, who came to Erlang's house in the morning saying that she wanted to work as a servant, was the ghost. Erlang returned home together with the priest. Seeing the priest, the old woman was very scared and fled through the door. The priest chased and attacked her. The old woman fell down. The human hide slipped away, and the old woman turned into the ghost, lying on the ground and crying like a pig. The priest beheaded the ghost with a wooden sword. The body of the ghost dissipated into smoke on the ground. The priest took a gourd out and pulled out the plug, and the smoke was sucked into the gourd. Then, the priest plugged the gourd and put it in a sack... 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Painted Skin (short story)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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