#258: Chinese Live Streamer Died On Stream, Then Someone Stole Her Body & Sold It

27:35because if they have a disability to that extent where they cannot communicate what happened, I imagine that they cannot consent. So he would first reach out to these families, and this was his business model when he first started. But the man was greedy. He was upset that he would have to go through all of this work to kidnap one girl. Then he would be able to sell her just one time. That's a lot of work. So he's like, there's got to be a better business plan. So he creates a way to infinitely sell her over and over again. I literally want to punch these people in the face and honestly bury them alive.

28:05So he decides to start a sex trafficking ring. He's like human trafficking, sex trafficking. Let's do it. He starts a brothel in his house, if you will, where men will come to, quote, meet their needs with these women who clearly cannot consent, but they're also extra vulnerable. He was actually caught doing this. Women were rescued from his house. They were being held hostage. They were rescued by the police. I mean, it was clear that they were forced into this. but he goes to prison for like a few years, gets out, and goes right back to his human trafficking scheme. And this time he's like, you know what?

28:38I've learned my lesson. Dead people don't talk. So he didn't like selling women while they were alive. So he wanted to sell them dead. In some parts of the world, women's bodies are worth more dead than they are alive. It's a statistic that makes you want to gag. Even with dead women's bodies, there are levels, rankings. The best type is what they call a fresh corpse, a fresh one. These are bodies of women that had just died. In fact, negotiations for the sale of these bodies typically happen while the person is still laying in the hospital bed fighting for their lives. Wow. And the parents are usually in on it.

29:16The starting price is, depending on the supply and demand,$12 ,000 on average for a super fresh women's corpse, but can go up to$50 ,000. The second grade is what they call a quote, wet corpse. These are the bodies of people who have died a few weeks to a few months ago, and they range anywhere between$7 ,000 to$12 ,000 on average. Then lastly, you have dried meat. These are corpses that have died years ago, but they still go for a few thousands of dollars. And I kid you not, but the corpses of girls who were more well-off or more educated, they sold for hire even though they're dead okay this is you know what this reminds me of how marilyn monroe's body went missing for hours after she died and this also reminds me of how back in the day when queens would die um usually it was only female attendants that were allowed with her body before she was buried because wow yeah because if you let a man in there some of these men will do some very vile things.

30:19I mean, if you want a whole case on that, please let me know. But that's all to say, a dead woman could sell more than a living one. And you can keep guessing why, but I'll tell you soon enough. So the only problem that this guy had was that he only had living women. You know, where is this going? You know exactly where. He would advertise that a close female young unmarried relative of his had just suddenly passed. He would tell families with dead sons that he was heartbroken, that his niece would never be married. She would be alone for the rest of eternity because she was unmarried, which means she's going to go to the afterlife a single woman.

30:55I mean, how can that be? She was so smart, so beautiful. Surprisingly or not so surprisingly, it worked. For each girl he kidnapped off the street, he would find a family with a dead son that had a few extra thousands of dollars and they would facilitate what is known as a ghost marriage. The dead groom's family buys a dead bride, performs a wedding to bury them together so that they will be married in the afterlife. The business was so good, ghost wedding matchmakers were making tens of thousands of dollars a month if they were really good. But how many young girls were dying naturally? Whose family would allow them to be sold as ghost brides for a cut of the proceeds?

31:31Not many. So these ghost matchmakers would make their own ghost brides by killing women or they would go rob random graves. Side note, the man was arrested by the police and they promised a severe punishment. He was actually found by the townspeople before he was arrested and severely beaten up to a pulp. Like, bandages all over his face. Beaten up. I've tried scouring the internet for what his sentence was, but I just couldn't find it. If you're familiar with this case, please let us know. But he was caught. He was taken in. But the pressing question is still, what the hell is a ghost marriage?

32:03And why is there a robust industry around ghost marriages? Because I get living weddings. you'd like we're in the middle of planning a wedding and it's so expensive there's so much money to be made I guess if you're in the industry but ghost weddings like what is going on also just because it's not part of your culture please a disclaimer if it's not a part of your culture or what you know it doesn't mean that it's backwards or lesser than I do get a little sensitive when a lot of cultures aren't like stereotypical western cultures because people like to think of it as I don't know as less developed it's just a different culture different doesn't make it inferior so let's keep it civil in the comments also this isn't necessarily a chinese thing ghost marriages are illegal in china and ghost marriages happen all around the world there have been cases like this in china and i'm talking about them today but there's a lot everywhere now there is almost this urban legend in china and i wonder if it's like an urban legend to you guys but i've received it on the research end as like an urban legend or maybe a superstition so you know how in china and other places in asia that some cultures give red packets like red envelopes and they're stuffed with cash and it's usually grandparents giving it to the grandchildren or parents giving it to their underage kids and it's a way to celebrate but there are some rules to receiving a red packet.

33:20So red pockets traditionally they're a good thing you know they're very good. So during Chinese New Year you get it and you have to receive it with both hands and it's like a birthday card. You gotta act like there's no cash in there. You act like it's just a token of love a symbol of family right and you can't really open open it in front of people. You got to thank them and be like, oh my God, this is such a surprise. You take it home and then you open it. You get a little peek. It sounds like a blast, right? So one might imagine that if you were walking around and you find a red pocket just laying on the street, you'd be like, oh my God, that's exciting.

33:53I'm going to pick it up. But there are certain parts of China where they tell you, do not ever pick up a red pocket on the street. But you're like, why? I already know what's in there. It's cash. Some little 12-year-old forgot to bring his red pocket. He dropped it. If you pick it up, you might open it up and there might be a little bit of money. And curiously, a couple of strands of someone's hair and someone's nail clippings and horoscope information. And you're like standing there like, why is there hair and nail clippings in this red pocket? Like that is weird. But while you're looking down confused, that's when they might strike.

34:28People might jump out and say, congratulations. You're the lucky one chosen by fate to marry my child. The only problem is my child is dead. In a lot of cultures, it is believed that if your loved one, family member, your child dies single, they're going to spend eternity alone and nobody's going to care for them in the afterlife. But not only that, dead single relatives will bring bad luck to the living family members because they're roaming around. They're lonely. They're anxious. They don't have a partner. or they're not satisfied. So isn't that fantastic? Even in death, nobody is allowed to be alone in peace.

35:04So what do you do if your family member dies before they get married? You find someone to marry them after they die. But it's hard to find a willing participant. It's just not something you ask a favor of. Like, hey, family friend, do you mind marrying my dad and uncle? So you can be fused with him in the afterlife and your souls will be forever intertwined and you can never really be with anybody else in the afterlife? Quick favor on a Tuesday night. It's not a casual IOU situation. So these families will put out red pockets on the ground to lure in potential brides and grooms. If you politely decline, they will tell you that you will be cursed with bad luck for the rest of eternity.

35:39So what do you do? Okay, maybe you marry their dead child. Sometimes it's rather innocent. Like, I don't know if that's the right word to describe it, but you go with them. They throw a little dress on you. You hold a picture of their deceased child and you do this little makeshift wedding ceremony in their home. It's not legally blinding. it's potentially spiritually binding if you believe in it but it's the type of situation where i believe if someone has a hard time saying no you might find yourself in that situation on a really bad day you'd just be getting married to a ghost these are the more innocent forms of ghost marriages and none of this equates to technically anything illegal this is not something that you would want to put out there like china would not support this the government would not support this local authorities would not support this.

36:22Chinese netizens would not support this, but it's not technically illegal. You're just like taking a couple of pictures and you're like, this is really weird. I'm going to leave now. Thanks. But there seems to be a pipeline between these ghost marriages and murder. And that's what we're talking about. But the only way to get to the motive of these murders is we need to understand ghost marriages. And there's two types of them. So the first one is like the one that I just told you, the most common type where a family member dies, they're unmarried, and you find a living person to have this almost fake ceremony with them.

36:57And you're like, okay, I promise to take care of them in the afterlife whenever I die. Haha, we're married. It's not legally binding, nothing. You don't even have to know this person in real life. You don't even have to date them in real life. You're just doing it to make someone happy. Then the other ghost marriage is the one that starts getting illegal, is the one that the government starts being very, very sensitive about, where both parties are dead. Most likely, the two dead parties have never met each other in real life, or they never dated in real life, but their surviving family members will together hold a ceremony for their marriage.

37:30So let's say my daughter dies, his son is dead, they're already buried separately. We're like, you know what? Let's have a ceremony, dig them up, and rebury them together so that they're not alone in their little grave sites and in the afterlife. This is dangerous because when you're digging up dead bodies, that's not only just a biohazard, but it's also there's a lot that could go wrong. There's a lot that just is complicated. And what's interesting is that these two families that have never known each other, their kids have never dated, but they will treat each other like in-laws after the ceremony.

38:07They will genuinely consider each other family. So if I need money, that family might be more generous in giving me money because we're technically family because our kids are now buried together but it's basically a grave relocation and a quick ceremony that's about it but they consider each other family as a non-chinese person i don't really think i can have an opinion on this i just feel like if nobody's getting hurt nobody's getting pressured who am i to tell someone how to grieve like who might be upset but why because i get why some parents might want their kids to get married now in the present life especially in east asia They want to keep the family unit going.

38:43They want grandchildren. But I mean, with all due respect, if you're dead, none of that really matters anymore. Why go through all this trouble and pay thousands of dollars to make sure your deceased relative is married even in death? A lot of people in China believe it goes back to Nua. Nua. Nua. So there is a popular legend and it's not like debated as history or fact. It's not a religious take is what I'm trying to say. It's just a legend that people like to tell. A woman named Nuwa was the creator of humans. She lived in the mountains with her brother. Since, you know, she was just bored all day, she would fiddle with clay.

39:20She'd make these little human shapes out of clay. And eventually all these clay figures would become humans. She would breathe life into them. And they were like her precious children. She's like the mother of humans. But one day the fire god and water god get into this huge fight. and during the fight, they destroy the tallest mountain on earth. This is significant because it is said that the tallest mountain on earth is the one holding up the sky. So now the sky is coming down, crashing down on humans, almost killing all of Nuwa's children, her humans, her precious humans. She does her best to repair the sky, but the human population has dwindled down.

40:01They're so weak, they're barely surviving. And her brother told her, we need to repopulate this earth. it is the only way. She's very disgusted. She's, it's very much giving. What do you mean, step bro? We're literally siblings. She said, absolutely not. But then she thought about it and she said, but these are my precious humans. She was conflicted. So the two of them, they both like it. This is not a weird situation where they both liked each other. The brother was not into it either. They climb up to the mountains and they ask the gods. They both light their own fires and they say, we are the only people left.

40:36What do we do? If the Lords allow us to be husband and wife, may the flames intertwine with one another or else may the flames forever disperse, meaning literally wipe out the population. The flames intertwined into a yin and yang shape. So they got married. They did it, but they always covered their faces while they did it with fans because regardless, they just weren't that attracted to each other. But the whole point of the story is that marriage is so important in this story that it's almost the only thing that can save this world. It is almost directly applied to each family unit. The theory being, if you aren't married before you die, you are killing out your bloodline.

41:12You're wiping out your population. Not even just your immediate bloodline, but it's like bad luck to the whole family bloodline. Because I'm guessing if Nua didn't marry her brother, the humans would have gone extinct. And then sprinkle in misogyny, the sentiment became, and this is back in the dynastic times, that a woman was only supposed to have one husband her whole life for eternity. Meanwhile, men could have more than one wife, but there was a loophole. Like technically men could remarry and sleep with other women, but they would never be his wife. Only his first wife is the wife. These are all just like, whatever.

41:48But women weren't allowed to do that. Okay. So if a wife dies, the husband can basically remarry. But if the husband dies first in some extreme times back in the day, like thousands of years ago, the wife would be thrown into the same coffin as her deceased husband while she was still alive and be buried alive with his corpse because it is her wife wifely life duty to be with him for eternity and forever i don't even want to go with you to the dmv okay and like they're like you got to go with your husband everywhere or if her deceased husband was being cremated she would be thrown into the furnace to be burned alive with her dead husband.

42:27This is like way, way back in the past, okay? But these types of stories popularized the beginnings of ghost marriage. People started to believe that bad shit happens when you have single deceased family members.

42:43So naturally, the introduction of ghost matchmakers starts to emerge. And there's more to it than just burying bodies next to each other there's like a whole ceremony so if both parties are dead it's pretty simple the groom's family will go to pick up the bride's memorial stone like her tombstone okay and it's supposed to be symbolic because in chinese wedding custom the groom and his groomsmen will go pick up the bride from her house and the groom's family picks up the bride's tombstone and it's said that the bride's family is supposed to act very sad oh because like they're departing with their daughter they're like their daughter is getting married off now wow so they're supposed to cry and like put on a whole show and chase after them which is very interesting is that like a thing in regular customs when people are alive like yeah sometimes i guess where it's like a no yeah yeah like parents will cry and yeah goodbye daughter that's very dramatic i'm like i'm right here okay so they bring it to the groom's tombstone play some side by side grab pictures of both the groom and the bride tie the pictures together with red string and the new couple will have to have dumplings to symbolize family reunion and wealth noodles to symbolize longevity which is kind of ironic considering it's a ghost marriage they both died so it's not really longevity and alcohol because in chinese customs you guys do the intertwined alcohol drink during the real weddings so these three things have to be there and this is how they do the whole ceremony then they pick a good day in the month either the second day third six or eight these are typically good numbers, never the fourth of the month, okay?

44:17They will go dig up the two corpses, dig the bride out, and bring her to where the husband is and bury her with the husband. So now they're married in death. It's important to note that this is just one of the ways to do it. It may vary region by region, but you can see, you know, that if one party isn't dead, it gets trickier. It's just weird. There was even back in the day a way to have sex with your ghost marriage partner, which I don't condone any of this and neither does the Chinese population but apparently you could consecrate the marriage if one person was alive and one person is dead so you start with incense and you talk to your dead partner while you use it and you connect the spiritual and the real world and then again I don't condone this but this is what the research said step two if you want certain body parts from the earthly realm to be touched by a certain someone in the spiritual realm you need to put the incense stick on that body part.

45:13This is going to land you in the ER, but I'm just letting you know what I found in the research. So what I'm trying to say is they take this very seriously. Ghost marriages were taken very, very seriously back then, and it was to save your loved one's soul. And I can't say that I wouldn't do strange things if someone genuinely made me believe that I had to save my loved one's soul. So that is then. How about now? Are ghost marriages still a thing? It's very rare and it's only occurring amongst the super superstitious or in the typical small town residents. Even then, it's rare, but it's definitely not happening in like the middle of Hong Kong, the middle of Shanghai.

45:49And it's typically for dead sons. Now, with current times, we get into historical and cultural context because China's one child policy. So in the 80s, China started a one child policy. That's exactly as it sounds. Each family unit was only allowed one child. It was to prevent rapid overpopulation, amongst other things, and it just ended in 2016. And if I'm not mistaken, China is actually having the opposite problem, just like South Korea, where nobody wants to have even one child. So they're really struggling now. But when the one-child policy was in effect, there was this huge, huge, heavy gender bias towards males.

46:25If families were only allowed one child, they wanted a son to, quote, continue the family name and the bloodline. This led to a lot of pregnancies being terminated because the gender was not what they hoped for. And it's sexist. These are also not gender reveal parties where people are like, oh man, I really wanted blue balloons because I want to throw baseballs with my son instead of a girly girl. It's not like that. In China, back then especially, and probably even now anywhere in this world, it's fucking rough to be a girl. Why would any mom want to bring a girl into this world to see her suffer the same life that she's suffered so far.

47:02You get it. It's not. It's a lot of layers of complexity. It's not like China is just filled with moms that are obsessed with putting boy mom in their Instagram bio. It's very dark. And it's said that during this time, a lot of baby girls were abandoned or left to be adopted. It said adoption rates overseas saw a huge uptick in female adoptions from China compared to male adoptions from China. This led to the Chinese population being severely unbalanced. There are way too many men. Like right now, this is a problem that's happening. Way too many men, not enough women. When men grow up and become of marrying age, not enough women to marry, which leads to a lot of problems.

47:40Women, or specifically female bodies, are in high demand. High demand, low supply for the male population historically has been a very, very, very scary combination. Daughters have become commodities. And there's a lot of talk about this. It's insane how one law can so greatly affect so many things, but kidnapping, human trafficking, purchasing brides has gotten so much worse because of this one policy. If there are this few women that want to marry men who are alive, imagine how few women are willing to marry a dead person. In terms of economics on this one, supply for ghost brides got even lower, which made demand go even higher.

48:21This meant there was a lot of money to be made. And this whole system, which originated as people trying to find peace with their deceased loved ones, starts transforming into a really dirty supply chain. Our Mandarin-speaking researcher said, the size of this ghost marriage industry is probably beyond our imagination. Talking globally, not just in China. So the industry is just the sale of dead bodies and corpses. A professor from Shanghai University that had been studying ghost marriages for over 15 years said 2010 was the peak of ghost marriages. The price for a freshly dead female corpse on average that year was$45 ,000.

49:01This doesn't include wedding ceremony fees or plots of lands for the grave. In some of these wedding ceremonies, the families of the groom would still give gifts to the bride's family. And like I said, when there's money to be made, people are going to start abusing the system. It can easily lead to murder. So in 2006, a Chinese woman in the Shaanxi province poisoned her ex-husband with rat poison. He died. She was sentenced to life in prison. The deceased husband's brother, Yuan, was left to pick up the pieces. And he just really wanted his brother to be happy and well cared for in the afterlife.

49:42So he pulled together all this money and got in touch with a ghost matchmaker and he was just looking for a dead corpse bride for his wife. The ghost matchmaker sat down. For his brother, right? For his brother, yes. The ghost matchmaker sat down and asked his brother about the Zodiac sign. Now this is where Zodiacs come into play. Remember the original story where he only wanted like certain Zodiac signs to come to the back with him? Apparently you can't really tell if a dead person is going to get along with certain people. So you just go off their Zodiacs. You're like, okay, well, the person that's deceased is a horse zodiac and they are known for not getting along with the pig zodiac.

50:17Then you just wouldn't let a pig in that room. So the ghost matchmaker will ask about their zodiac sign. This is important because, you know, when both parties are alive, they can get to know each other. But now this is a dead marriage, meaning this is the only way to know if they're going to get along in the afterlife. The matchmaker told Yuan that there was a family whose daughter was terminally ill. She's still alive right now, but she's about to pass away. They were also looking to give their daughter a husband in the death. So this is perfect. A few months later, Yuan receives the girl's coffin and starts digging his brother's grave.

50:48He even called the police to supervise, which side note, ghost marriages are illegal in China. But in more rural areas, police might look the other way. But he just wanted to show them like, I'm doing everything I can to do this in the right way. Like, I'm not killing anyone like those rare once in a while stories you hear. I'm not doing that like I'm literally purchased a corpse and her family is okay with it her family sold her to me and we're just gonna bury her with my brother nothing shady is going on the girl let's call her May May was dead so this much was true the police watch the couple get married and be buried next to each other and for about a year everything was good until it wasn't the matchmakers they went on their merry way patting themselves on the back for creating another blessed union but in 2006, they were busted for killing a girl.

51:38Three matchmakers were working as a team and they would kidnap young women, turn them into corpses. They were arrested for robbery and during the investigation, with enough pressure, they admitted to be involved in ghost matchmaking. The police start connecting the dots with their claims and some of the girls that were reportedly missing in the area, including a girl named May. May's dad had been talking to the police to talk about how he hadn't heard from his daughter in a really long time. They start investigating, and what they found was really, really nefarious. May was a young woman with a severe mental disability.

52:13Her mind would never develop beyond the age of six years old. She wasn't able to fully learn how to use the restroom on her own. Her parents, who were very impoverished, they didn't really know what to do. They felt like this was no future for her, and when she was about to turn 20, they said, look, she should be married. At least maybe she can have kids. Mind you, she can't consent to sexual activity because she can't. They said, I know my daughter can't fall in love with someone like other girls her age, but maybe she can still make babies. So they offered her up as a birthing machine, basically.

52:49They were honest with potential suitors and potential grooms and said, she's not going to be a perfect wife. She's not going to be a companion. She's going to need a lot of care, but she can be R-worded and forcibly impregnated, basically. Like, what is going on right now? A man named Don became her matchmaker to find her husband. She's still alive. She has no terminal illness. He finds a client named P who's interested in buying May. P straight up told Don that his only requirement in his new wife is that she can give birth to his children. He literally doesn't care if they get along. So Don brings P to May's family home.

53:21He meets with the parents, pays them 300 US dollars and buys May. There is no price on humans but from everything we just talked about, 300 dollars? P takes, kidnaps May and brings her home. After a while he demands a refund. He said May is more work than he thought and he didn't want to take care of her because she was and I quote stupid beyond imagination. Again I hate this man. I hate this man. But he said he took her to the doctor who informed him she could never give birth. So he's like, I don't even want to keep our wording her because she can't have my children. He drags May back to the matchmaker, demands a refund and says, she's just another burden.

54:04I want my money back. Don, the matchmaker, pays the money back. And instead of bringing May back to her family, which I don't even know if that would have been a good thing at this point, because are they just going to sell her again? Don tries to sell her again himself, but nobody wants to purchase her as a wife and that's when he bumps into another matchmaker but that matchmaker was not a matchmaker for the living they were a ghost matchmaker and a murderous one side note not every ghost matchmaker is a killer but you know this ghost matchmaker is like hey can i purchase may from you for like a couple thousand usd he's like what a couple thousand do you know how long i've been trying to sell her and you were offering me a couple thousand usd what do you got planned i mean And clearly, clearly you got something planned because she's not worth a couple thousand USD.

54:52I'm getting no hits. So he's like, oh, you don't know? I'm going to kill her. I'm going to sell her as a ghost bride. I'm going to make literally maybe 10 grand. So I'm going to profit a lot from this. And he's like, oh my God, I want to get into this industry. So they both profited about$4 ,000 from murder, from murdering Mei. They found a buyer, which was Yuan. They spooned borax, white powder used for heavy-duty cleaning, spooned it to a piece of bread, and forcibly fed it to Mei. She trusted them and did what she was told. The poison is known to work very, very slowly, which can you imagine how painful that must have been?

55:32It lasted hours. And even when it was time to bring her to the, quote, groom's family, she was still alive. Barely, but still alive. Don didn't want to wait any longer, so he leaned over and strangled her to death. She was brought to Yuan who buried her with his brother who passed. He had no idea that Mei was killed for this. He had no idea that the matchmakers were just murderers. It seemed in his own little way he just wanted the best for his brother. He was devastated to learn what happened to Mei. Mei's family, the parents also blamed themselves. They regretted ever trying to get her to marry and have children which like yeah, agreed.

56:10Mei's parents also said they should just leave her buried with the husband because if they were going to dig her up there was a huge chance her body would be kidnapped her corpse would be taken again robbed and sold in another ghost marriage so again these three matchmakers they were arrested and severely punished in China in China intentional murders can receive a punishment of anywhere between 10 years to the death penalty. Selling dead bodies counts as demoralizing corpses, which is also very, very illegal in China. But the ghost matchmaker said, with zero remorse, I'm just trying to make a living.

56:47Money comes in fast in this job. Like if I didn't get caught, I'd probably just do a few more and retire. But now I'm ruined. The cases we covered today are all from China. But ghost marriages happen all over the world. And most of the times, they just aren't called that. And most of the times, the two parties know each other. In 2017, a 26-year-old in Thailand married her boyfriend after he suddenly died of a heart attack. She wore a white wedding dress next to his body, which was also dressed in white. They were officially married before he was buried. A year earlier in France, a 25-year-old married her boyfriend after he got into a fatal car accident.

57:24The president gave them special permission. She stood in her wedding gown next to his picture as the city's mayor read their vows. It's just interesting. I think there are a lot of stories like this. And if the story is right and they knew each other prior to the marriage, it's almost an endearing story because marriage really is a beautiful thing. To commit to someone is a beautiful thing. And I can see how people would want to be married to someone that they want to spend the rest of their lives with. But maybe they never got the chance to. Like in these international stories where a partner passes away too soon.

57:59But I do think ghost marriages where the two parties don't know each other, I mean, there's so many ways that it can turn into this corrupt, scary system. So again, this is not something that Chinese people condone. Netizens were outraged every time a case like this came out. The Chinese government does not condone this. This happens in other parts of the world as well, but I don't know. What are your thoughts on ghost marriages? Do you think that it has to do with the level of spirituality that somebody has? Because I guess I'm just not that spiritual of a person, so it's really hard for me to put myself in that mindset.

58:34Do you believe it's true? If someone passes away single, they're going to be single in the afterlife? What are your thoughts on today's episode? And have you ever heard of the human trafficking industry of corpses? Please let me know and stay safe. And I'll see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Bye.