Ge Wenlin(葛文林) said: In the area around Dongting Mountain(洞庭山), there are many starving ghosts who sneak into people’s homes to steal food. One day, in his house, they steamed a basket of buns. Just as they were done, upon lifting the lid, they saw the buns making a ‘chirping’ sound while gradually shrinking. What was originally the size of a bowl mouth quickly shrank to the size of a small walnut. When eaten, it tasted like a lump of gluten because all the essence in the buns had been lost. Initially, no one knew what was happening. Later, an old man said, ‘This is the ghosts stealing the steamed buns. As long as, when opening the basket, you use a red pen to mark a red dot on each bun, the ghosts won’t take them.’ The Ge family followed the old man’s advice. However, despite marking the buns, as soon as the steamer was opened, while they marked, the ghosts stole, and the buns kept shrinking bit by bit. It was later understood: One person marking the red dots was ultimately too slow—how could they compete with numerous starving ghosts all trying to steal at the same time?
Translated from《鬼搶饅頭》in 《子不語》:
文林言：洞庭山多餓鬼。其家蒸饅頭一籠，甫熟揭蓋，見饅頭唧唧自動，逐漸皺縮，如碗大者，頃刻變小如胡桃。食之，味如麵筋，精華盡去。初不解其故，有老人云：「此餓鬼所搶也，起籠時以硃筆點之，便不能搶。」如其言，點者自點，縮者仍縮。蓋一人之點，不能勝群鬼之搶也。