Cai Yi of Chenzhou came from a poor family; his parents both dead, he hired on under the prison warden Chen San and so learned the trade. His nature was both cruel and pitiless, and all he saw with his eyes was wickedness, so in time he was pushed by the evil men to become their tool.
Every prisoner who fell into his hands, even for the slightest offense, he tormented with poison and cruelty, his face utterly loathsome; the commandery came to call him “the life-taking ghost.”
Past forty, one night as he guarded prisoners in the jail, past midnight the others heard what seemed a voice calling Cai Yi, furious; they rose to look and found him already hung upside down on the wall. His companions, most of whom disliked the man, were pleased and pretended to sleep, not interfering.
At dawn they saw his four limbs and nine orifices oozing blood, and only then helped him back. That night it happened again: he moaned and wailed as if whipped, sometimes stalking and bracing himself exactly as if bound; he prayed for death but could not die. The agony lasted a year; as he neared his end he lowed like an ox and vomited several pints of blood, then gave a great cry and died.
