Haunted Houses’ Chronicles – Vol.1, Chapter 2

The first place we looked at was a villa in another city of the same province. The villa was relatively old, likely built in the early 1990s. The owner of the villa was a wealthy showoff surnamed Wang. It was a coincidence that Qin Yiheng and I met him. One day, Qin Yiheng chanced upon a House for Sale post on an online real estate forum and gave the poster a call just to try his luck, but he totally didn’t expect that he’d receive a response right away. Qin Yiheng then immediately made an appointment.

This tycoon still carried the aura of someone who just became rich last night even though his business had been growing for a while by now. When I met him, I could make a rough estimate that all the gold ornaments on his body had to weigh several pounds. When he spoke, he pointed his fingers at the table, the gold watch on his wrist shining so brightly my eyes tweaked. He boasted that when the country opened its door after the reform, he caught an opportunity to make a huge ‘dirty’ fortune. Later, when he had so much money on hand, he naturally developed a liking to indulging in luxuries. He bought the villa after he started his business. After living there for a few years, he moved to another new house, but because there was no shortage of money, he didn’t sell the villa and just sublet it to a painter to use as a creative studio. The painter wasn’t well known and was said to be very weird. People who lived in the area were all aristocrats and basically didn’t like to get close to their neighbours, as such, this painter always remained mysterious and secretive, and he never appeared since the day he moved in.

More than a year later, when the owner came to collect the rent, he discovered that the painter had died in the villa quite a while ago. The next detail was the strangest thing, to the extent that talking about it gave me nightmares. The entire villa had been decorated by the painter to resemble a tomb. The walls were filled with murals depicting visions of ascending to godhood, and there were both coffin and outer coffin¹ lying in the middle of the hall. The place now gave off the feeling that it was a tomb belonging to someone of superior status. The whole villa’s doors and windows were locked, and there were only a few everlasting lamps² that had long been extinguished. At that time, Mr. Wang was so frightened that he pissed his pants, then he called the police. After the police came, they couldn’t find out the cause of death and determined the case to be suicide, and the house was left uninhabited ever since.

¹ Outer coffin, also called a “sarcophagus”, is a container commonly made of wood or stone, which is used to hold the actual coffin inside.

² 长明灯 [changming deng], lit. translated as “eternal flame” or “everlasting lamp”, is a type of oil lamp commonly found in ancient tombs across many locations in the world. It is believed that these lamps could burn infinitely unless they are intentionally extinguished.

Today, as property prices had risen, even though he was remarkably rich, he still felt distressed to see such a beautiful house left unused. He thought that no matter how little money he could sell it for, it was better than getting annoyed at seeing its state. Thereafter, he had the assistant post the information online and share it with real estate agencies, preparing to sell the villa away even at a cheap price.

The tycoon also mentioned that this house indeed posed quite a few mysteries. Qin Yiheng proposed to first see the house before making a decision, after all, for now we were just doing paper talk. The tycoon seemed very scared of the villa, so he handed over the key to let us see the place ourselves. We didn’t hesitate one bit and took off with the key and the address.

The coffin had long been moved away when we went there, but the murals on the wall were still intact. Needless to say, all haunted houses had one thing in common: the air always felt gloomy the moment you entered the door.

The villa wasn’t considered large compared to other buildings in this area, having a size of about 230 square meters. The living room was very magnificent, befitting the aesthetics of the rich. Qin Yiheng and I first made one round around the house. He inspected the place for a long time, then his expression lit up as he told me that this house wasn’t a haunted house at all, for there were absolutely no items possessed by angry spirits. Thus, we could buy this to earn profits without having to do anything. I was very happy to hear him say that. Being in no hurry, I went to examine the murals on the wall with curiosity.

The murals were indeed peculiar, entirely adopting an oil painting technique to depict very realistic elements. However, the details were rather scribbled. The content looked like the artist fantasised himself ascending to godhood while being surrounded by a group of boys and girls who would protect him on the path to the Heavens. Because an oil painting technique was used to showcase traditional Chinese elements, the murals looked a bit out of place. After looking at a few murals, I could feel something wasn’t quite right, for the person ascending to godhood was in fact a female. This wasn’t a question of hair length, although many male artists also had long hair, but because of the realistic painting style, you could clearly tell the person had a nice female figure.

Although it was strange, I didn’t think much about it as the thoughts of an artist were difficult for us laymen to figure out. Besides, I didn’t have much interest in painting; I just liked making money. I discussed further with Qin Yiheng and planned to sign the contract with the tycoon in the afternoon. The contract was signed smoothly and the price was within our expectations. The market value of this villa should be more than 900,000 yuan yet we only spent more than 100,000 yuan, and even better, both sides thought that they had made a profit. The tycoon not only relieved himself of his worry but also earned some money, and we ourselves picked up a good bargain, so all of us happily went to enjoy a feast together to celebrate.

The remaining issue lied on whether the villa could immediately be used. I really liked this villa. Although it was rather old, it was at least a villa. For someone from a humble background like me, being able to live in a villa within this lifetime was something I never thought of. Therefore, I hoped to be able to renovate the place and keep it for myself.

“I won’t oppose to that idea,” Qin Yiheng said. “However, even though this house doesn’t have any ghosts, the feng shui should be looked at more carefully,” he continued. “I don’t understand this aspect very well, so we’d better consult a feng shui master.”

Neither of us would expect that the very next day, when we had not even managed to bring in any feng shui master, the tycoon came to find us to buy the villa back. As a businessman, of course I was happy to do so as long as the price he proposed was suitable. After all, this was like getting money for doing nothing. Following a discussion, the tycoon was willing to offer 200,000 yuan. A profit amounting to 100,000 yuan pretty much aligned with what I had expected, so I agreed with the deal. However, I was very curious: why would the tycoon be so eager to buy it back when he just barely sold it to us? In the evening, Qin Yiheng and I talked about it and felt that it did seem suspicious, so we decided to delay the signing of the contract to have more time to explore what the issue with the vila was.

Thereafter, I went to the neighbouring buildings like the mahjong hall and the tea house to investigate. From there, I learnt that the painter wasn’t the only person to have died. A lady, who acted as a nude model for the painter at that time, was also found dead in the same coffin. Now we could tell who the subject of the murals was, but why did the tycoon tell us that only one person died in the villa? Did he not know? Obviously, this shouldn’t be the case. The place was already a haunted house, so it would not make much difference whether one person or two persons died there. He was apparently lying.

I was hooked onto this mystery, and Qin Yiheng was also very interested. It was decided that we looked into this very carefully. In the end, we figured that we should head to the villa again.

It was already afternoon when we reached the villa. We actually had no excuse to turn the entire place upside down. Nothing strange was found, so I even went to see the murals again but couldn’t identify any new clue. We then stood on the balcony of the second floor to smoke and discuss the whole ordeal.

“It seems that the owner is afraid we might discover some secrets,” he said.

I agreed with this. If that was indeed the case, then the owner himself likely learnt of this secret only recently, otherwise he wouldn’t have sold the house to us.

I guessed it might be that the owner killed the lady. He also happened to know that the artist was transforming the villa into a tomb, so he placed her body into the place to mess up the evidence. In that way, he could escape being found out.

Qin Yiheng felt that this reasoning wasn’t logical, because then, the lady on the murals would be difficult to explain. He was more inclined to the possibility that somewhere in the villa, something of value was hidden but the tycoon wasn’t too passionate about it. Only when the house was sold, he suddenly realised its value or was reminded of it, thus he rushed to buy it back.

Something hidden in the house? I was kind of excited upon hearing that, and said to myself that if it was some antique or treasure of sorts, legally speaking, should it not belong to me? Then if I accepted the 100,000 yuan difference, would I not be penny wise and pound foolish? If so, I would definitely not sell the house.

We stood there chatting until sunset, by then both of us had talked until our mouths turned dry. We decided to go home, planning to come back the next day to find the hidden ‘treasure’. If it so happened that what we thought was true, we wouldn’t carelessly throw this opportunity away. After lingering for a while, we were ready to head downstairs. As soon as we reached the stairs, Qin Yiheng suddenly turned to me, winking and making a ‘hush’ gesture.

“Something is coming back. You must follow what I do. Be quick!” he hurriedly whispered into my ear.

What he said almost had me piss my pants. By this time, it hadn’t been completely dark outside. I looked down, but as my vision wasn’t very good, everything seemed blurred in the dim light. Qin Yiheng stuffed something into my mouth.

“Do not swallow it and hold your breath. Keep your eyes closed and follow me,” he commanded. “If you feel that you hit something, spit out the thing inside your mouth.”

Before I even digested his words, he had already headed down, so I had no choice but to follow suit.