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 |
|