In rural China a few decades ago, belief in karma was deeply rooted. People often spoke of “immediate retribution” — cases where good or evil deeds seemed to bring swift consequences. Such stories were seen not merely as superstition but as compassionate warnings from Heaven, reminders to live with conscience and avoid wrongdoing.
When I was a child, I often heard elders recount these tales of retribution, and I later witnessed a few myself. The following stories, still remembered in our village, reveal how swiftly fate can answer one’s actions.
Killing frogs and facing a fiery end
During the Republic of China era (1912-1949), before the use of pesticides and fertilizers, rice paddies in southern China teemed with frogs. My grandfather used to catch them every summer to eat or sell. After skinning the frogs, he would give the skins to his neighbors to make use of.
One day, disaster struck at the coal mine where he worked. A gas explosion left his entire body severely burned. When he returned home for treatment, his body was wrapped in medicine and bandages as new skin slowly grew and old skin peeled away.
Bedridden, he would often dream that he was tearing off his own skin and stacking it beside his bed, calling out to neighbors to come collect frog skins — just as he once had. After more than a year of agony, he passed away at the age of thirty-eight. Villagers later said that strange sounds and shadows haunted his home long after his death, frightening people so much that few dared to pass by at night.
The cowherd who cursed the Buddha
In my mother’s hometown, there lived a young cowherd during the time when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched its campaign to “smash the Four Olds” — old ideas, culture, customs, and habits. Across the country, temples were destroyed and Buddha statues were torn down.
One day, this boy took a small wooden Buddha statue from a ruined temple and used it as a stool while herding cattle. Wherever he went, he carried the statue to sit on and cursed it as he worked. On his way home one evening, he hurled the statue into a rice paddy while swearing at it.
That night, he suddenly complained of intense pain in his buttocks and cried out in agony until dawn, when he died. His family later discovered dark bruises all over the lower half of his body. Villagers said it was Heaven’s warning not to mock the sacred or take part in destruction driven by political madness.
The cruel brigade leader and his family’s downfall
About forty or fifty years ago, the CCP promoted a massive campaign in the countryside, urging people to “struggle against Heaven and Earth for endless joy.” Each village formed a production brigade, and one man in our area became its leader. Empowered by his position, he often abused others — arresting teachers and former landlords, persecuting villagers, and using violence to display loyalty to the Party.
Once, a higher official visited his brigade and asked to eat chicken. The leader demanded that a poor villager kill his only chicken to serve the guest. The man protested, saying the leader had several chickens himself. Enraged, the brigade leader branded him a “counterrevolutionary” and paraded him through the village for public humiliation. Unable to endure the shame, the villager hanged himself that night.
In the years that followed, the brigade leader’s two sons died young. After the Cultural Revolution ended, he himself died suddenly of high blood pressure while on a work trip. His wife lived on for a few years in loneliness before dying as well. Even his younger brother suffered mental hallucinations before death, insisting that a stage had been set up to denounce him before he passed away in delirium.
A lesson that echoes across generations
These stories, passed down in quiet villages, may seem like relics of another time. Yet they reflect an enduring moral truth that transcends belief or disbelief: every deed carries a consequence. Whether one calls it karma, divine retribution, or the law of cause and effect, life has a way of restoring balance.
For those who witnessed these events, they served as vivid reminders that good and evil never go unanswered — and that the heart’s integrity is the truest measure of safety in this world.
Translated by Patty Zhang
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