A juren surnamed Liu often narrates tales from his past lives to his peer, Wenbi (文贲).

[note 1] Many incarnations ago, Liu was an unnamed government official who died aged 62; in the Underworld, he is initially well-received by Yama, but is subsequently condemned to rebirth as a horse when his multiple transgressions come to light.

In a change of heart, Liu/Snake resolves to lead an ascetic lifestyle; one day he slithers towards an oncoming cart and is sliced in half.

Originally titled "Sansheng" (三生),[3][note 2] "Three Lives" is believed to be one of the earlier entries that Pu wrote for his anthology that was published in around 1740;[4] it was fully translated into English by the first volume of Sidney L. Sondergard's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio published in 2008.

[1] As Allan Barr opines in his Comparative Studies of Early and Late Tales in Liaozhai Zhiyi (1985), "Three Lives", like "The Weeping Ghosts", warns "men in high positions to behave according to proper moral principles".