In 1895, in a small village in Japan, the wife of the litter carrier Gisaburo (Takahiro Tamura), Seki (Kazuko Yoshiyuki), has an affair with a man twenty-six years younger, Toyiji (Tatsuya Fuji). Toyiji becomes jealous of Gisaburo and plots with Seki to kill him. They strangle Gisaburo and dump his body inside a well in the woods, and Seki tells the locals that Gisaburo moved to Tokyo to work. Three years later, the locals gossip about the fate of Gisaburo, and Seki is haunted by his ghost. The situation becomes unbearable to Seki and Toyiji when a police authority comes to the village to investigate the disappearance of Gisaburo.