Pocketing one of Sanniang's rings and promising to return, Zhu suspects that something is amiss upon reaching home.

After experiencing chest pains, he confides in a friend, who deduces that Sanniang belongs to the Kou (寇) family and had died of shuimang poisoning herself.

One day, Zhu (now a ghost) visits his mother and announces that he had located Kou Sanniang's reincarnated self and "went thither and dragged her spirit back".

She tells them that the old woman, Ni (倪), had also died of shuimang poisoning but was "too ugly to entrap people herself",[4] and has since been reborn.

[6] The story was also included in the first volume of Strange Tales from Liaozhai by Sidney Sondergard published in 2008.