Tai'an, Nie Pengyun, enjoyed a harmonious relationship with his wife. Not long after, his wife passed away from illness, leaving Nie Pengyun steeped in grief and utterly lost. Alone in his house one evening, his wife suddenly pushed the door open and entered. Nie Pengyun was greatly startled and asked, "How have you come here?" His wife replied, "Though I am a spirit now, because my husband misses me so deeply every day, I am profoundly grateful. Therefore, I pleaded with the ghost messenger for leniency and came specially for a secret rendezvous with you." Nie Pengyun was overjoyed. The two retired to bed, their intimacy as familiar as ever. From then on, they were inseparable every night, and a year passed in the blink of an eye.

The clan members, seeing Nie Pengyun widowed and living alone, urged him repeatedly to remarry and take a concubine. However, they worried about his deceased wife becoming jealous and kept the matter completely secret from her spirit.

Before long, as the wedding date drew near, his wife caught wind of the news. Her expression soured, and she scolded him, "I risked punishment to meet with you in secret because of your loyalty and affection, yet you now disregard our pact and take a new love? Is this your true face?" Nie Pengyun apologized profusely, and his wife's anger subsided somewhat, but the resentment lingered deep within her heart.

On the wedding night, his wife suddenly burst in. She seized the new bride by the collar, yanked her up from the **, and slapped her across the face, raging, "How dare you contend with me for favor?" The new bride argued her case vehemently, and the two began to wrestle, which soon devolved into a flurry of fists and feet. Nie Pengyun, naked, squatted in the corner of the bed, trembling uncontrollably, daring neither to move nor to speak a word of remonstrance.

Presently, the sound of a rooster crowing drifted in from outside the window. His wife cast a hateful glare at Nie, then swept out in a flurry of anger. From that night forward, his wife came to harass him every evening. Sometimes she would stare him down with blazing eyes, other times she would use her sharp nails to pinch his flesh. The torment became unbearable. Fortunately, a local sorcerer, renowned for subduing demons, drove forty-nine peachwood stakes into his wife's grave, finally quelling the haunting.

After that, the trace of his wife was never seen again.