HELL MONEY

   

 

            Its called hell money - its used as an offering during the chinese festival of the hungry ghosts

 

A Chinese man flees through San Francisco's Chinatown, entering his apartment. There, he is confronted by someone telling him its time to pay the price, and is overtaken by three figures wearing masks. A security guard later finds the three figures near a crematory oven, where the man is inside, on fire. Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate the case, working with Detective Glen Chao, who tells them that the chinese character for 'Ghost' is written inside the oven. They also find some 'Hell Money', burned paper used to pay off spirits during the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts. Using the money they identify the victim as Johnny Lo, a recent Chinese immigrant. The agents find blood stains under the carpet in his apartment.

An older Chinese Man, Hsin, tends to his ill daughter and attends a type of lottery where each participant puts their personal tile in a vase that is selected by one of the lottery leaders. The winner then has the opportunity to pick a tile from another vase and either win money or lose an organ based on the tile selected. A man wins the lottery but selects a bad tile and his body is found later that day. Scully, performing an autopsy on his body, thinks that the man had been selling body parts, as he has numerous surgical scars. The agents question Chao, who claims that the local community maintains a code of silence and doesn't reveal anything to even him. Chao finds information that leads them to Hsin, who put the carpet in Lo's apartment. Hsin has a bandage over his eye, having lost it to the lottery earlier. Returning to his home, Chao is confronted by the three masked figures.

The agents visit Chao at the hospital. Meanwhile, Hsin visits the Hard Faced Man, one of the heads of the lottery, wanting to end his participation in the lottery. The man warns him that ghostly fire will consume him if he leaves the lottery. The agents return to the hospital, finding Chao gone. They trace his blood to that on the carpet in Lo's apartment, finding a match. This causes the agents to visit Hsin, but find only his daughter at his apartment.

The agents find Chao outside a nearby Chinese restaurant and follow him inside. Hsin wins the lottery, but selects the tile representing his heart. Chao comes in, demanding the lottery end, and knocks over the table with the vases, revealing the lottery to be fixed. Mulder and Scully stop the Hard Faced Man seconds before he is about to operate on Hsin. They interrogate him, but because no one who participated will testify against him, it is unlikely he will be prosecuted. Hsin is brought to the hospital and his daughter is placed on an organ donor list. Chao disappears, awakening in a crematorium oven, being burned alive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright(c) 2007 - 2025. All rights reserved

 

                       

 

Episode no. Season 3
Episode 19
Directed by Tucker Gates
Written by Jeffrey Vlaming
Guest Stars
Original Airdate March 29, 1996
Theme(s) Sales of body parts