The Flayed Bride

The Flayed Bride is a long mystery-thriller novel by the author Tong Liang (pen name Liang Xiong), published by New Star Press in 2012. The story takes place in a closed-off village: a simple, ugly man brings back a beautiful, seductive woman from outside. The villagers first envy his romantic luck and gossip about it. However, when the man's sworn brother returns to the village and sees this woman, he is horrified and insists she is the legendary flaying ghost from the "Skin Yard Temple." After that, strange things happen one after another—people in the village begin to show symptoms of skin peeling off; the skin can be torn off alive without any pain, and the condition gradually spreads, spreading panic through the village. The panicked crowd turns on the man who brought the woman back, demanding he take away this "ghost wearing human skin." The woman is driven to desperation, but the "ghost flaying" phenomenon does not stop. In the end, the truth is revealed: there is no ghost. All the terrifying phenomena point to the furtive sworn brother; what looked like romantic luck was actually the beginning of a conspiracy. With rural folklore as its backdrop, the book uses the horrifying image of "flaying" to create suspense and, amid the horror atmosphere, delivers a revelation about human nature. It is one of the more representative works in the Chinese folk-horror mystery genre.