Chapter Eight: The Unfilial Son Reincarnated as a Monstrous Hound

Luo Zhifu continued, “After those three sons and their wives died, their wandering spirits drifted to the Underworld and arrived at our Transmigration Consultation Office, wishing to inquire about their future reincarnations. They wanted to know if they could choose a good place to be reborn into, and asked whether, should they find their place of rebirth unsatisfactory or end up in the wrong body, there would be a way to correct it. At that time, Yang Zhijin and I hadn’t been assigned to work here yet; it was the previous colleague who told me this story. My colleague said he was quite surprised to see six spirits come to consult all at once, for it was far more common for ghosts to come alone—never in such a group of six.”

“My predecessor noticed that among these six spirits, there were three men and three women, walking in pairs, side by side in three rows, each row a man and a woman, and all of them behaving very intimately. What’s more, the three men looked remarkably alike. My colleague found this odd and grew cautious, because the Human Transmigration Consultation Office has a rule: never more than two spirits may consult at a time, and at minimum, only one. If more than two come together, their earthly lives must be reviewed to see if they committed any grave violations of morality. If so, the case is reported to higher authorities for judgment on whether they should be allowed to reincarnate, and if so, where they would go and what they would become as punishment.”

“My predecessor investigated their past lives and indeed discovered the most outrageous acts of filial impiety toward their parents—crimes that enraged both mortals and gods. Unable to endure it, my colleague reported the matter up the chain, and so it went, all the way to King Yanluo himself. Upon seeing the case, King Yanluo flew into a rage, slamming the table before immediately issuing his judgment: the three sons would be reborn as dogs, punished further by having only one body for their three heads to share; similarly, their three wives would also be reborn as dogs, with three heads sharing a single body.”

At this point Wei Xiaoping, astonished, asked, “Why did King Yanluo choose to punish them by turning them into dogs? Wouldn’t flogging or hard labor suffice? And what was the purpose of making the three heads share one body?”

Luo Zhifu replied, “King Yanluo’s meaning was this: even beasts like dogs are capable of gratitude to their masters and those who treat them kindly, but these three, as humans—a supposedly higher form of life—treated their own parents, who gave them life and raised them, worse than animals. Hence, he turned them into dogs, to teach them gratitude by learning from dogs. As for making the three heads share a single body, it was because these three brothers, born of the same parents and bound by blood, failed to cherish each other, often quarreling and fighting. With three heads on one body, they’d no longer dare attack each other, for any injury would bring pain to all. In time, they would learn to value and protect one another.”

Hearing this, Wei Xiaoping was suddenly enlightened and praised King Yanluo, saying, “What an ingenious punishment! Only King Yanluo could conceive such a positive and transformative penalty!”

Yang Zhijin added, “I never realized King Yanluo’s sense of justice and discernment was so keen. The punishment is perfectly fitting. Luo Zhifu, had you not told General Wei this story today, I might never have grasped King Yanluo’s intention behind punishing these unfilial sons so.”

As Yang Zhijin spoke, the three of them had already reached the entrance of the Human Transmigration Consultation Office.

Luo Zhifu continued, “At first, these six hellhounds weren’t stationed here as gatekeepers. King Yanluo first reincarnated them into the world above as three monstrous dogs, sending them to a remote, bitterly cold mountain region. There, they toiled for the locals, pulling sleds, hauling firewood, hunting, and plowing fields by day, and keeping watch outside the doors at night in the freezing cold. They did all manner of hard labor for humans.

At birth, each was a dog with three heads sharing one body, born of a local mother dog. The villagers had never seen such a creature—three heads on one neck—and believed the two three-headed pups were some kind of demonic omen. The mother dog’s owner, Luo Wenguang, was an honest man in the village. But after the birth of those two monstrous pups, the villagers gossiped, and Luo Wenguang felt his dignity wounded. He beat and cursed both the mother dog and her strange offspring.

The mother dog, angered by the beatings for bearing such odd pups, often bit them and refused to feed them.

In the end, one night Luo Wenguang stuffed the two three-headed pups into a black sack and carried them far into the mountains, abandoning them to fate.

The two abandoned pups, still young and unable to hunt, survived only by eating the droppings left behind by wild beasts and monkeys in the forest. Years passed, and the two grew into massive, formidable dogs. Hardened by hardship and life in the wild, they became consummate hunters, the most skilled among dogs, and no longer feared any wild animal.

Despite their abandonment, they bore no grudge against their mother or owner—after all, what fault was it of theirs to be born so strange? To repay their mother and master, the two three-headed dogs returned to the vicinity of their old village, hiding in caves or forests by day, hunting by night, and leaving their half-dead prey at their former master’s doorstep.

The first morning Luo Wenguang found a wounded hare at his door, he assumed it had been chased there by another animal and, thinking nothing of it, butchered it for the pot. The following day, he found an injured wild pheasant nearby and again thought little of it, eating it that night. Day after day, he woke to find another half-dead creature at his door.

This continued for about a month. Eventually, Luo Wenguang grew suspicious of the recurring appearance of wounded animals and resolved to keep watch at night to uncover the cause. For several nights he hid near the house as darkness fell, hoping to catch whoever was leaving the prey, but saw nothing, and when he gave up, the animals stopped appearing as well.

On the seventh night, however, Luo Wenguang awoke to relieve himself and, passing the gate, heard a strange slapping sound outside. He crept quietly to the door and peered through a crack. It was the sixteenth night of the lunar month, the sky was clear, and the moon shone bright and full. By its light, he saw, not far from his door, two beasts the size of yearling calves, staring toward the house. Each beast’s three heads gave off six glowing, bead-like, blue lights in the night. Before them, a huge wild pheasant flapped helplessly on the ground, unable to stand or fly.

Witnessing this, Luo Wenguang understood at last: it was these two beasts who had been delivering the prey. Realizing they meant him no harm, he opened the door and stepped out to meet them.