During the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty, a young scholar named Zhao Shen departed from Jiankang (modern Nanjing) for the imperial examinations in Beijing.
Born into a family of merchants, he had risen through study, mastering the Classics and the Histories. But his learning had made him arrogant. He dismissed superstition, scoffed at folk wisdom, and believed himself too clever to be deceived by spirits or demons.
One evening, as he traveled through the lonely mountain roads of Wuyue, the sun dipped below the hills. A storm gathered. The road, once clear, twisted into an unfamiliar path. The trees grew denser, their shadows long and grasping.
He frowned. Had the path always been this narrow?
Just as he resigned himself to sleeping beneath the trees, a soft golden light flickered through the mist.
Following it, he saw a secluded house nestled in the woods. It was small but well-kept, its wooden beams aged but sturdy. And standing in the doorway was a woman of breathtaking beauty.
She was young, pale, and dressed in fine but modest silk robes. Her long hair fell loose over her shoulders, and her dark eyes shone with quiet amusement.
“Honored scholar,” she said in a voice like flowing water, “you must be exhausted. The road is treacherous at night. Please, rest here until morning. I have hot wine and warm broth prepared.”
Zhao Shen hesitated, but the wind howled through the pines, and rain began to fall. He told himself that foolish men feared ghosts, but the wise sought shelter when needed.
So he entered.
Inside, the hut was simple but strangely empty—there was no ancestral shrine, no storage of grain, no woodpile for cooking. A single flickering lantern cast long shadows against the walls.
She set a bowl of broth before him. The fragrance was rich and enticing, but when he lifted his spoon—
A small white fragment clinked against the porcelain.
His breath caught. He looked closer.
It was a bone. The old legends, warnings, came flooding into his mind.
With unearthly swiftness, the woman reached out and grasped his wrist.
Her fingers tightened like iron bands.
Pain flared through his arm, but not like any ordinary grip—it was deep, searing, reaching into his very bones. His breath hitched. His strength drained from him as if something inside were being pulled away.
His vision blurred. His body grew weak. He struggled, but her grip was inhuman—impossible to break.
Then, through the storm, a voice—thin, quivering, yet unshaken—called from outside.
“Demon! Release him!”
The hut’s door creaked open.
Standing there, hunched beneath a straw hat, was an old Taoist sorcerer (方士, fāngshì). His robes were threadbare, his skin withered like old parchment, and his frame thin as a reed, as though a strong wind might carry him away.
But his eyes glowed like twin lanterns in the dark.
His breath was soft and unhurried, as though he had not walked through the storm, but had simply arrived when the Dao willed it.
“I was passing through,” he murmured, stepping inside, “and I heard the cry of Heaven disturbing the night.”
In his right hand, he held aloft a yellow Fu talisman (符籙), inked in cinnabar with sacred characters.
The Bone-Eater froze.
The moment the talisman’s glow touched her, her flesh withered, her fine features twisting. Her pale beauty melted away, revealing the truth—
Its arms were thin and sinewy, its nails blackened and sharp, its face a gaunt, hollow husk, and its mouth filled with jagged teeth, made not for eating flesh—but for gnawing at the marrow of men.
It let out an ear-piercing shriek, but the talisman had bound it—it could neither move nor flee.
The Taoist exhaled softly and knelt.
Though his limbs were frail, his presence filled the hut like the weight of a great mountain.
He placed his staff before him and began to chant.
Zhao Shen lay motionless, barely conscious. Though the Bone-Eater was bound, its curse lingered—his body was weak, his bones still aching as if drained.
The Taoist chanted through the night, reciting the sacred verses of the Yellow Registers (黃庭經, Huángtíng Jīng).
The hut shook. The air became thick with Yin energy, writhing in resistance.
At midnight, the Bone-Eater screamed and thrashed, its monstrous strength pushing against the talisman’s hold—but it could not break free.
By dawn, its form had collapsed inward, its flesh dissolving, its bones turning to dust.
Only then did the Taoist rise to his feet.
He turned to Zhao Shen, who gasped as if waking from a nightmare.
“You were fortunate,” the sorcerer said, helping him stand. “Had I not been passing by, your bones would have been stripped clean.”
Zhao Shen trembled. His mouth felt dry.
“I should have known,” he muttered. “There was no smoke from the stove, no firewood stacked outside, no signs of life in that house. I ignored the warnings of nature… and nearly lost my own.”
The Taoist smiled—a slow, knowing smile, as though he had seen this mistake many times before.
“Book-learning is fine,” he said, “but wisdom is knowing when to listen to the world.“
With that, he turned and walked into the mist, his frail figure soon lost to the wind.
Zhao Shen never learned his name.
But from that day forward, he never again dismissed the wisdom of the elders, nor forgot that true strength is not always seen—but always felt.
