Among the many ghost stories handed down since ancient times in China is the tale of the Tosaiki (討債鬼), or ‘Debt-Collecting Demon.’ This creature is far more troublesome than your average demon. Even after death, it relentlessly pursues repayment of debts that went unsettled in life—using every trick in the book. And its methods are far from benign. The moral? Always return what you borrow—preferably while you’re still alive.
The tale of Gyoki ordering a mother to abandon her child (from Nihon Ryoiki, middle scroll, story thirty)
What happens if you fail to return something you borrowed in your lifetime? First, let’s look at an old tale of debt from the Nihon Ryoiki (日本霊異記).
This occurred when the monk Gyoki (行基) was preaching the Dharma while overseeing the construction of a canal in Naniwa (難波).
Among the audience was a woman whose infant cried so much she couldn’t hear the sermon. The baby constantly screamed and fed endlessly. Gyoki turned to the mother and said:
“Throw that child into the river—at once.”
But the mother couldn’t bring herself to abandon her child.
The next day, the baby cried again, making it impossible for her to listen to the sermon. Gyoki once again instructed her to cast the child away.
Troubled and suspicious, the mother finally did as she was told. When she hurled the child into the deep pool, the baby floated on the surface, opened its eyes wide and said:
“How cruel! I had planned to leech off you for another three years!”
Gyoki then turned to the woman and said:
“In a past life, you borrowed from this soul and never repaid your debt. That is why it was born as your child—to consume what it was owed. What you just cast into the water was your creditor from a previous life.”
The Tosaiki: a demon reborn for revenge
The character 「討」 means ‘to demand,’ so Tosaiki literally translates as ‘the demon who demands repayment.’ Even today, we hear tales of stolen money or defaulted debts—but assuming a debt disappears simply because the debtor has died is a grave mistake. No matter the circumstances, these spirits will return to reclaim what they are owed. In other words, unsettled debts are carried over into the next world.
There are various methods a restless spirit may use to exact revenge. One such method, as seen in the Nihon Ryoiki, is possessing a child. Others include causing a child to fall ill, forcing the parents to spend exorbitant amounts on treatment, or being reborn as a wastrel who squanders the family fortune. A common pattern is for the spirit to reincarnate as the debtor’s child, waste away an equivalent sum of wealth, and thus exact its revenge. Once their mission is complete, they are said to die young.
The demon’s misery and the parent’s misery
The tales of the Tosaiki, I feel (personally speaking), can be read in two ways. One way is as a story of revenge within human relationships. From the perspective of the one seeking retribution, seeing the wrongdoer suffer is deeply satisfying. The other is as a tale of parental suffering.
To be born a dissolute, unrepentant son, to squander one’s father’s fortune and then die—this is considered the greatest pain a parent can suffer. Thus, to curse a wayward son, one might say, ‘You are a Tosaiki!’
(Nagao Ryuzo (永尾龍造), Chinese Folklore Studies)
As this study of Chinese folk customs observes, what the Tosaiki desires is nothing less than the total ruin of the debtor. Naturally, it is the one who fails to repay the debt who is in the wrong—so it may seem difficult to sympathise with the parents’ misfortune. And yet. No matter the reason for a child’s birth, to the parent, that child is still precious. If the child succeeds in fulfilling their purpose, they die. If kept alive, the parents continue to suffer. I cannot help but feel the weight of the parents’ sorrow in this.
The Tosaiki never gives up
The idea of a victim being reborn as the child of their offender to exact revenge may strike some as far-fetched. But stories of creditors reincarnating as their debtor’s child to seek repayment feel rather modern—deeply rooted in the reality of human society. These ghost stories sound like casual gossip, yet their familiarity hits close to home.
The Tosaiki originates from Chinese ghost lore, and these tales are also stories of reincarnation. Within traditional Chinese beliefs, the injustices of one’s present life are understood as the results of past-life misdeeds—and in the next life, one will reap the appropriate consequences. Out of this worldview emerged the concept of vengeance through rebirth. In essence, the Tosaiki represent tales of karmic revenge, born of emotional debts in human relationships and nurtured in a cultural soil where reincarnation provides the perfect vehicle for settling old scores.
The man beaten by a Tosaiki for failing to repay his debt (Saikaro, 菜花郎)
The Tosaiki are relentless. They will come back again and again to reclaim what they’re owed. But what happens if you still refuse to pay up? There is a story about a man who failed to return what he borrowed—and what became of him.
A man named (undetermined pronunciation) secretly borrowed forty Gen from his nephew. Before 李二 could return it, the nephew died of illness.
Thinking he was off the hook, 李二 smirked to himself—until one night, his dead nephew appeared to demand repayment. In a panic, 李二 promised he’d find the money by midday on New Year’s Eve. The spirit departed, but 李二 had no way of raising the funds.
He consulted a local shaman, who assured him not to worry. On the appointed day, they would erect a statue of a Bodhisattva and perform a purification ritual in the hall—this should keep the ghost outside.
On New Year’s Eve, the ritual was performed. As expected, the nephew’s spirit couldn’t enter and was left waiting outside. Enraged by being ignored, the ghost gathered a group of fellow spirits and began causing an uproar, eventually storming in to beat up both 李二 and the shaman.
李二 ended up giving twenty yuan to the nephew’s elderly mother and used the remaining twenty to purchase paper money for a proper offering. After that, the ghost was never seen again.
The many many ways Tosaiki collect their debt
Stories similar to the Tosaiki stretch far back in history. With every tale comes a new method of collection, a new tone—and many are surprisingly entertaining.
In one, a ghost appears at a government office to formally lodge a complaint about unpaid debt (‘Taipeing Guangi’). In another (‘Katsui-shi’), a monk’s money is stolen, and both thief and child fall victim to revenge. Elsewhere, a ghost possesses a rat and bites its victim (‘Kaho Monkenroku’), or demands a feast from within someone’s belly—and when displeased, tugs at their internal organs (‘Soshu Fushi’). The list goes on.
Even the classic rakugo (落語) tale ‘Mo Hanbun’ (もう半分, The other half) resembles a Tosaiki story. In it, a greedy couple rob an old man, who is later reborn as their child to exact revenge. The child looks exactly like the white-haired old man they wronged. The wife, seeing the face of her former victim in her own baby, is so horrified that she dies on the spot.
In conclusion
The stories of the Tosaiki, steeped in persistent grudge and gloom, lay bare the darker sides of human nature—our greed, our karmic burdens, our shame. Rarely do we find tales that so unflinchingly portray these flaws. In their refusal to forget, these spirits reflect both the obsessive persistence of humankind and the madness of the supernatural.
Some tales even border on self-mockery. What makes them so compelling is how human they feel—like something that might be happening at your doorstep. And in the end, one can’t help but conclude: nothing, in this world or the next, is more terrifying than resentment over money.
[References]
Sawada Mizuho (澤田瑞穂), Kishu Dangi (鬼趣談義): Chugoku yuki no sekai (中国幽鬼の世界), Chuokoronsha (中央公論社), 1998
Tsutsumi Kunihiko (堤邦彦), Edo kaidan to tomi (江戸怪談と富), Rijo ourai (鯉城往来), No. 2, Hiroshima Early Modern Literature Society, 1999
Japanese Classical Literature Series: Nihon Ryiki (日本霊異記), Shogakukan(小学館), 1975
This article is translated from https://intojapanwaraku.com/rock/culture-rock/259376/
