Catching corpses is a folklore of the Miao people in western Hunan, which belongs to the witch culture, and is also said to be related to Zhuyueke. During the Qing Dynasty, rumors of "corpse catchers" in western Hunan were widely spread, that is, corpse catchers used "secret techniques" to bring the bodies of people who died in foreign lands back to their hometowns, so that they could be put to rest in peace. Though never scientifically verified or confirmed, the story has become the basis for many thriller movies and has been widely known ever since.

In China, as early as the late Paleolithic period (about 10,000 years ago), people have already developed the concept of "burying the dead". To this day, earth burial is still the most common way of burial in China. However, for those who have died in other places, "returning to one's roots" may only be a luxury. However, in Hunan province, there is a special way to realize this luxury - "corpse driving", a legendary spell that can drive corpses to walk. If you type the word "zombie" into the Baidu search engine, most of the results will point to a specific place: western Hunan.

The legend of Xiangxi's zombie-driving is inseparable from that of the Miao people. Legend has it that thousands of years ago, Chi You, the ancestor of the Miao people, led an army to fight the enemy at the Yellow River. After the end of the battle, the troops need to withdraw to the rear, after carrying away all the wounded, the battlefield left a lot of dead soldiers corpses. Chi can not bear to compatriots bodies thrown into the wilderness, but to carry all the corpses away is not enough manpower, and therefore begged to accompany the army's military division so that the dead return to their hometowns. The master of the army had a plan, let Chiyu holding a runic festival in front of the road, their own spell so that the battlefield corpses all stood up, followed by Chiyu high-rise runic festival behind the rules and regulations back to the hometown. This is the earliest legend of the corpse.