Xiong's Wife

This is based on a true story back in Laos.

Back in Laos when Hmong people were still wearing Hmong clothes, a sister and her sister-in-law went to the farm early in the morning. Each of them wearing two xauv (the silver plats around the neck).

When they got to the farm, the SIL told the sister to go pick cucumbers from the top of the hill, and SIL herself will go pick cucumbers from the bottom of the hill. The sister did as she was told and went up the hill to pick cucumbers.

Once her back basket was filled with cucumbers, she returned down to the spot that her SIL directed her to go up hill and called down hill to her SIL.

She called, "SIL, is your back basket full yet? If it's full, come up, and let's go home." But there was no reply.

She called a few more times, yet there was still no reply. Fearing something had gone wrong, she quickly set her back basket down and rushed downhill to check on her SIL.

When she reached downhill, her SIL was no where in sight, but next a tree stump was her SIL's back basket filled with cucumbers. Next to her SIL's back basket was one of her SIL's Xauv. She scanned the surrounding again, checking to see if there has been any struggles within the area but noticed no difference.

More downhill, there was a small river, so the sister thought to herself, maybe her SIL went down to the river after picking cucumbers to wash her hands. So the sister decided to go down to the river to look for her SIL. But after about ten steps forward, the sister saw the other xauv of her SIL.

By now, her heart started racing, but she quietly told herself to be brave and ran all the way down to the river.

Once she reached the river, she called out to her SIL again, and once again, there was no reply. Now, she was really scared, so she turned back and started running up the hill, grabbing both her SIL's xauv as she passed them all the way to her own back basket and put it back on, and rushed home.

When she reached home, she told her parents and Xiong, the brother that married her SIL, what had happened. Xiong, quickly went and gathered about 15-16 men in town to go look for his wife. Each man carrying guns and knives in their hands.

However, after a whole day of searching, there was still no sign of his lost wife. Night started covering over the hills. A couple of men, started saying, "It's getting dark, and we can't find any sign of her, so let's go home and return back tomorrow to look again."

Crying,

Xiong replied, "No. We are men here with knives and guns. There is nothing to fear. We should continue this search 'til we find my wife."

Although most of the men wanted to leave because they were starting to fell chills, seeing Xiong crying, they felt bad for the man, so they decided to continue the search with him. But the deeper they went into the woods looking for Xiong's wife, the more chills they started feeling. With each chill, goosebumps started rising on their fleshes, and their heart beats started racing.

About ten minutes later, Xiong heard his wife's voice echoing in the air, "Xiong....I'm over here. Come over here."

Xiong turned to the rest of the men and said, "I hear my wife calling me over there. She said she's over there. Did you guys here it too?"

All the men now stopped dead in track and glanced at each other;: they shook their head and replied, "No, we did not hear anything."

Before Xiong could say anything else, he heard his wife's voice calling him again. He looked towards where his wife's voice was echoing from and pointed ahead, "My wife is calling me from ahead, so we are going to move ahead."

Before anyone could stop Xiong, he pushed on forward. Hearts racing faster and fear beaming on all the men's face, they trailed closely after Xiong.

Five minutes later, everyone, including Xiong stopped dead in track again. For this time they all heard Xiong's wife's voice ranging in the air, "XIONG...I'M OVER HERE. COME OVER HERE."

One of the men noticed the voice was too close to them, so he quickly said, "Your wife sounds very nearby. Let's get our guns ready."

Everyone started pulling bullets out of their pockets and stuffing it in their guns.

As Xiong reached into his pockets for his bullets, he pulled out instead, his wife's ring. By now, Xiong's heart shook with chills as he said quietly, "This is my wife's ring. She wore it this morning. How did it get into my pocket?"

Upon hearing this, everyone now shook with fear of what was going on, but they pushed forward. However, after three to four steps only, they saw on the ground in front of them, Xiong's wife's dead body, which was torn and eaten all by something. The only parts left were the head connected to half her neck and left shoulder to her arm.

By now, night had covered every inch of the woods. One of the men turned to Xiong and said, "Now that we have found your wife's body, it's too dark to do anything, so lets cut down some wood and bamboo and make tree house above ground to rest. When morning calls, we will take your wife's body home for burial. If not, we will bury her here tomorrow morning because her body is not a good sight to bring into town anymore anyway."

Everyone agreed with the man that said this, so every one quickly helped chopped down trees and bamboos, and by 11:30, managed to make three tree houses. Once every one was up in each tree house, they could still look clearly down at Xiong's wife's body on the ground.

By now it was around 12:40ish, Xiong's wife's head started turning to look at everyone and smiling at them. Even though they were all men, seeing this sight made them feel lifeless.

After Xiong's wife's head turned and smiled at everyone, it turned back to its dead position and laid still again.

Now the man that told them all to make the tree house directed that no one is allowed to go to sleep. They are all going to stay awake and see what's going to happen next.

An hour later, Xiong's wife's head turned again and smiled at them. This time, her hand, too, raised up as if pointing to them.

By now, some of the men peed in their pants without shame. Another man in the group thought for a while and said, "It looks like she is trying to tell someone or something that we are up here."

Once those words were out, everyone started shooting guns down below around Xiong's wife's body.

Another man said, "This is too scary. We all have to man up and stay 'til dusk. We are not going to take her body home. We will just bury her here."

After talking about it amongst themselves, everyone agreed. By 4 in the morning, they climbed down, divided the men into two groups: a group to dig Xiong's wife's grave and a group to guard the surrounding. They managed to buried Xiong's wife's half body.

Before leaving, Xiong kneeled in front or his wife's grave and cried, "I loved you so much when you were alive. Why did you treat me so nasty now that you are gone? Is it because there is something or someone I cannot see forcing you to do this to me? No matter what, even though you scared me like this, I will love you always. Our life together will end this way. Sorry I'm not able to take you home with me."

After that, everyone came home, and the story of Xiong's wife echoed throughout town. This story was first told by one of the men that went with Xiong that day, and since then, it has been passed down generations after generations.