Bloody Peach

Once upon a time, in a sleepy Japanese village, an old granny was washing her laundry in the river when she spotted a massive peach floating downstream.

“What a lucky day!” she said, fishing the peach out with her laundry stick. It was so large she struggled to carry it home, her back creaking under its weight.

When she arrived, her husband, an old grandpa with a penchant for "practical solutions," grabbed his trusty big axe.

“Let’s see what kind of miracle fruit this is!” he said, splitting the peach in half with a mighty swing.

As the peach split open, a very non-fruitlike thing spilled out: blood. Lots of it. The old couple froze in shock as a severed head and body of a bratty prankster kid tumbled out of the fruit.

“What in the eight hells?!” the granny shrieked.

The grandpa inspected the scene. “Oh, it’s that kid! You know, the one who used to smear ink on everyone's faces while they slept and steal their sandals.”

“Wait, you mean the prankster the villagers cursed to die young?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think the curse involved peach storage,” the grandpa muttered, poking the corpse with the axe.

However, as they cleaned up the mess, the granny noticed something glinting in the kid’s lifeless hands. “Hey, what’s that?”

Clutched tightly in the boy’s fists were two shiny axes—one gold and the other silver.

The grandpa’s eyes widened. “Jackpot! We’re rich!”

“What do we do about the… uh…” The granny gestured vaguely at the bloody peach and the body parts.

“Simple,” the grandpa said. He hefted a shovel.

After burying the boy in a discreet corner of the garden (right next to the rotting compost heap), the couple agreed to never speak of the incident again. They sold the axes for a small fortune and used the money to buy sake, mochi, and a very sturdy door lock to avoid any further cursed fruits.

The Old Man Who Made Dead Trees Blossom

Once upon a time, the old couple was enjoying their newfound fortune from the golden and silver axes. But as fate would have it, their dog, Shiro, had an extraordinary ability: it could sniff out buried treasure.

“Look!” shouted the old man one day as Shiro wagged its tail furiously and barked at the ground. He dug where Shiro indicated and found a stash of gold coins. “This dog is worth more than all the mochi in Japan!”

Word of Shiro’s talent spread quickly, reaching the ill-tempered man next door, which had big pimple on his forehead. Jealous and greedy, he marched over to borrow Shiro, offering a suspiciously sweet smile that didn’t suit his sour face.

The old couple reluctantly agreed, patting Shiro on the head. “Be careful, boy,” the old woman whispered.

But when Shiro went to work in the ill-tempered man’s yard, all it sniffed out was trouble—snakes, rotten fish, and some unidentifiable sludge. Enraged, the ill-tempered man screamed, “Useless mutt!” and… well, let’s just say Shiro’s first death wasn’t a peaceful one.

Heartbroken, the old couple buried Shiro under a cherry tree. To their amazement, the tree grew to an enormous size overnight. The old man marveled. “Could this tree be Shiro?”

“I don’t know,” the old woman said, “but let’s chop it down and see.”

They felled the tree and made it into a beautiful mortar. When they used it to pound mochi, it overflowed with rice! People came from miles around to see this “magic” mortar, unaware that the old man had installed a hidden trapdoor supplying the rice.

Of course, the ill-tempered man heard about this and stomped over again. “Lend me your mortar!”

The old couple exchanged uneasy glances but handed it over. Sure enough, when the ill-tempered man tried to use it, no rice came out—just a lot of smoke and weird noises.

And then, it happened.

The mortar trembled, cracks forming on its surface. From within, Shiro burst out—not as a dog, but as a shape-shifting demon with glowing red eyes and teeth like daggers.

“Miss me?” Shiro growled, looming over the ill-tempered man.

“What the—” the man stammered, dropping his pestle.

Shiro grinned and grabbed the ill-tempered man, shoving him into the mortar. “You like mochi? Let me show you how it’s made!”

The demon pounded him into a squishy pulp, humming a cheerful tune as it worked.

When the deed was done, Shiro transformed into the ill-tempered man, wiped its hands clean, and set the mortar ablaze to destroy the evidence. It waved goodbye to the confused villagers and returned to the ill-tempered man’s house, where it lived comfortably off his ill-gotten gains.

The old couple, meanwhile, never questioned why their neighbor suddenly became polite and generous.

The Tale of the Tongue-Cut Sparrow’s Revenge Against the Greedy Wife

Not long after losing Shiro, the old man found an injured sparrow near their home. Its tiny wing was bent awkwardly, and it chirped pitifully. Feeling sorry for the poor creature, the old man nursed it back to health, feeding it rice and letting it perch on his shoulder. He even gave it a name: Suzume.

Suzume was no ordinary sparrow; she had a beautiful singing voice and entertained the old man with sweet melodies every day.

But the old man’s wife was… let’s call her less of a fan.

“Why do you waste rice feeding that bird?” she growled one day, glaring at Suzume. “It doesn’t even do anything useful! Can it sniff out treasure like Shiro could?”

“It makes me happy,” the old man replied.

“Well, it makes me miserable!” she snapped and stormed off to cook something as bitter as her soul.

One fateful morning, while the old man was away, Suzume accidentally spilled some starch the wife had been preparing. Furious, the wife grabbed the sparrow and screamed, “If you can’t behave, you don’t deserve a tongue!” Then, with a wicked grin, she snipped off the sparrow’s tongue with scissors and threw it into the forest.