In Hubei, China, a man suddenly died in the prime of his life. He miraculously returned to life three days later and said that at death, he was taken away by a ghost in the underworld because he had the same name and birth date as a man who killed someone.
From ancient times to the present day, many out-of-body experiences have been reported. While near-death events in the West often lead to arrivals in heaven and encounters with God and angels, experiences in ancient China often lead to encounters with ghosts in the underworld and trials to determine where to go next.
Near-death experience
Yet even by the 20th century, there were still people who had made trips to the underworld and encountered similar experiences as described in ancient records. For example, an older man Xie, born in 1925 in Langjun Town of Yingcheng City, Hubei Province, said he had an incredible near-death experience when he was 39 years old, a genuine resurrection from the dead.
In 1964, in the prime of his life, Xie suddenly suffered a cardiac arrest one day and was rushed to the hospital, where he died. At that moment, his family realized he was gone, so they arranged his funeral. Only Xie’s mother felt warmth in her son’s hand. She decided to wait a few more days to see if a miracle would happen.
An underworld journey
Xie’s heart started beating again on the 3rd day of his collapse. Finally, he returned from death and told people what he had seen and heard in the underworld. At first, the ghosts from the underworld took Xie’s soul to an unknown city.
He followed them to a public hall where a magistrate was sitting with officials beside him. The magistrate asked Xie for his name and place of origin, and Xie answered truthfully. It was only after he had asked the official to look through the records of the Book of Life and Death that the magistrate exclaimed: “Wrong person, wrong person!”
In the same instance, a scholarly-looking man appeared by his side. He told his story, complaining how he had to carry a load of bags into the city by himself, and as he passed a field, he came upon a strong red-faced man and hired him to take his bags; unbeknown to him, this transpired into a deadly mistake.
As they passed through a wooded area, the red-faced man, seeing no one around, plotted to kill the scholar for money; thus, he beat him to death. As the scholar looked at Xie, he acknowledged that someone else had killed him, not Xie.
After a while, a strong red-faced man, the real murderer of the scholar, was brought into the public court. This man was from Moon Bay of Tianmen City, Hubei Province, and had the same birth date as Xie and the same name. This high degree of coincidence led the ghosts to arrest the wrong person mistakenly.
The red-faced man admitted to his crime before the court. The magistrate immediately gave him a death sentence – death by frying in a pot. Several ghosts threw him into hot oil to deep-fry. The once-human appearance of the man instantly became a miserable sight, receiving his well-deserved punishment for killing people.
At this point, Xie snuck out of the hall. He wandered around the city and found that everyone in the underworld had a sign on their body that recorded their actions and how they performed. If they did good things, they were destined to make a good living; if they did terrible things, they had to pay for their sins and suffer a complex sentence.
Resurrection and warning to others
Then Xie stumbled upon a massive wall in the city, on which each person’s date and time of death was recorded according to the provinces and cities of the human world. He found that his cousin Huowang and his neighbor Yiren were on it. He fondly remembered the time of their deaths. Later, a ghost found him and took him back to the human world. What followed was his resurrection.
A few days later, to ascertain whether his experience was authentic, Xie made a memorable trip to Tianmen City, where he enquired about the man with the same name and birth date. The man had indeed existed, as just a few days earlier, he had fallen ill and died!
As for Xie’s cousin and neighbor, they also died at the exact time and date he saw recorded on the wall in the underworld. This unusual experience has always led Xie to warn others that they must refrain from doing evil in life; since ancient times, it has been known that goodness is rewarded and evil deeds are met with retribution. So everyone’s earthly life will inevitably close at their predestined time.
