Okiku works as a maid at the home of the samurai Tessan Aoyama\u0005. One day while cleaning a collection of ten precious ceramic plates--a family treasure--she accidentally breaks one of them. The outraged Aoyama kills her and throws the corpse into an old well. Every night afterwards, Okiku's ghost rises from the well, counts slowly to nine and then breaks into heartrending sobs, over and over and over again, tormenting the samurai. Finally, vengeance is wrought when Aoyama goes insane.