Haunted Houses’ Chronicles – Vol.1, Chapter 3

If you had lived in a house for a long time, it wouldn’t be difficult to walk to the toilet or the kitchen with your eyes closed, but the problem was that I had visited this villa only twice. It was too difficult to get downstairs, let alone reaching the main entrance. I moved forward step by step with my eyes closed, fearful that I might fall. At first, I could still hear the sound of Qin Yiheng walking, yet a few steps later, I suddenly realised that I could no longer hear any sound coming from him. I immediately panicked and wanted to open my eyes, but fortunately I was able to hold back that urge in a split of a second.

To tell the truth, if Qin Yiheng was beside me, I could still retain some confidence. Worse came to worse, I would call him to come rescue me. With that thought, I calmed down and continued to move forward. I held the handrail down to the first floor, where I started to find it challenging. First of all, my energy had completely depleted; I probably would collapse because of hypoxia, and without the help of handrails, I wasn’t even able to tell the direction. It was easier said than done to reach the entrance.

Not even two steps later, I couldn’t help but desperately gasped for air, and that was when I felt something right in front of me. I believed many people had felt this way. Even with your eyes closed, you could feel if something was standing before you, similar to how most people could tell that they were being watched even though they could not see that person.

I thought to myself, Qin Yiheng told me to spit out the thing in my mouth when I hit something, but I technically had not hit ‘that thing’ yet. However, if I took another step, I would have come into contact with it. Should I spit it out or not? I had forgotten about the thing in my mouth because I was too scared, but as I got reminded of its presence now, the realisation of how nauseating it tasted came rushing in. What was this fucking smell? I hesitated for a moment, yet that disgusting taste kept getting more unbearable. I couldn’t hold back anymore and just vomited it out, then coughed uncontrollably.

After such a torture, I subconsciously opened my eyes. I regretted that act almost instantly but it was too late. My eyes had not adapted well to the darkness, and everything looked blur in the dim light. I swirled my hand to the front. Strangely, whatever I felt just now had disappeared. This sent even more chills down my spine, as the feeling just now was too real. It was definitely not an illusion, not to mention I was breathing normally and having both my eyes opened at this very moment. I quickly called Qin Yiheng’s name, but nobody answered me.

I looked around and realised I had reached the main hall. The entrance was just a few steps away. I watched the direction carefully then ran toward the door with all my might. I only dared stop for a few gasps of air once I had passed the entrance by quite a distance.

I still could not find Qin Yiheng. I called him on his cell phone but no one answered. A few moments passed before I saw him slowly walk out of the main door. Once outside, he opened his eyes and saw that I was looking at him, then he spit out the thing in his mouth and started throwing up. I really regretted not bringing a bottle of water. Looking at him retching, fuck, I felt like throwing up too.

Qin Yiheng questioned how I came out before him, which I found puzzling. Just now, he walked forward for a few steps then disappeared. It stood to reason that had to be in front of me, but probably because I had my eyes open, I could run out so quickly. But I was faster than him for only a few steps, thus the time difference was minimal. Now I couldn’t even think about these issues, for the aftertaste left in my mouth was still extremely gross. I asked Qin Yiheng what it was that even he had to throw up. 

He pursed his lips, suggesting that I would have felt even more nauseous if I knew its identity. It was best that I remained oblivious. I thought about how he used the virgin man’s urine on me and was certain that this would be another horrible revelation. 

“Is it some kind of poop?” I asked.

He nodded.

I immediately felt sick again.

Qin Yiheng affirmed that they were balls of goat excretion. For a period of time, only wormwood was given to the male sheep to cleanse its stomach. After its bowel had been completely clean, the faeces and urine that came out would be made into these balls. I felt slightly more comfortable after hearing that, for at least it sounded better than human excretion.

I then asked him, “You said something came back. What was it? An angry spirit?”

He pondered for a moment and finally said, “It likely was.”

As he looked especially uneasy, I was lost. I thought that whatever treasure was hidden, gold or silver, I wouldn’t care anymore. Nothing good would come out from such greed – letting this house go for 200,000 yuan had to be the right choice now. I wouldn’t live to get through this dangerous ordeal. After a short rest, we headed back to the hotel.

On the way back, Qin Yiheng briefly explained it to me that the cleansed goat excretion was believed to calm down human meridians¹ and to exorcise evil presence when spit out. Holding your breath would reduce the leaking of yang² energy and prevent ‘unclean things’ from entering your body. By closing your eyes, you showed respect to ‘that thing’: If you could not see it, it would not provoke you. He said, using that same principle, if you saw ‘unclean things’, it was best to not talk about them. If you questioned their existence at night, you would attract their attention and put yourself in trouble.

¹ 经脉 [jing mai], lit. translated as ‘blood channel’ or ‘meridian’, is a traditional Chinese medicine concept that refers to the twelve paths through which blood runs in the body.

² 阴阳 [yin yang], lit. translated as ‘negative – positive’ or ‘darkness – light’, is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes the two opposite forces that shape the world. Living things are said to hold yang (positive) energy while supernatural presence such as ghosts, spirits and demons are said to hold yin (negative) energy.

After hearing what he said, I confessed that I actually didn’t hold my breath and had my eyes open when I ran out of the house. His face grimaced as he listened to me. He lit up a cigarette, telling me that this house couldn’t be sold anyway. We had to keep it. I asked why, but he just shook his head and refused to let me know.

That feeling of uneasiness kept lingering even as I returned to the hotel. I laid in bed, smoking one cigarette after another and unable to sleep for the whole night. I dozed off several times but woke up again after ten minutes.

Early next morning, the tycoon called me to ask for contract signing. Indeed he seemed really anxious. I made up a weak excuse to postpone the signing for a few days. The tycoon was quite unwilling to wait and tried to persuade me, still I brushed it off. Hanging up the phone, I asked Qin Yiheng what I should do next. He took some time to think and told me we had fallen into a trap.

I cracked up upon hearing that. Let’s say if there were any loopholes in the contract, we would simply lose some money. However, judging by his tone, it had to be more troublesome than I had imagined. I hastily asked Qin Yiheng what the plan was.

Qin Yiheng sighed, “Ancient tombs’ structure usually follows a certain standard. For example, the emperor’s coffin has seven layers, the feudal vassal’s has five layers, the royal official’s has three layers, and so on.”

He continued to explain, “Earlier we were told that the coffin was found in the villa. We know that there is a coffin, but we don’t know where it has been moved to. The tycoon also didn’t talk about this at all when selling the house to us.”

“As such, we were carelessly convinced that there were no possessed items in the house and didn’t think much about it. Now as we visit the place again, ‘something’ appears. This is absolutely suspicious!”

Reaching this point, Qin Yiheng took a sip. My throat also felt dry, but I was in no mood to drink anything.

“If this is to create a very low-level tomb, only one coffin is enough,” Qin Yiheng exclaimed.

As my mind wandered back to the murals on the walls of the villa, I came to the realisation the entire ordeal was really not that simple. In other words, perhaps the entire villa was a giant sarcophagus. When we entered the villa, we might be treated as virgin offerings to be buried with the owner. Even if we came out safe and sound, we might perish soon after.

If there was one thing I did know of, it would be that most coffins were usually decorated with paintings that depicted the owner ascending to Heavens or the dreadful crimes that he had done in his lifetime. But hearing Qin Yiheng say this, I couldn’t put one and two together. In my perception, a tomb had to sit underground. At the very least, the coffin needed to be kept many feet under. Say, if the entire villa was indeed a sarcophagus, why would we not be able to find any coffin at all? Not to mention, the original coffin that held the painter’s corpse had been taken away.

Qin Yiheng pondered the matter. After some time, he affirmed that we had to go back to that villa. Doing nothing would be as good as waiting for death to come. The tycoon probably knew about this since the very beginning and deliberately led us in.

Since I harboured resistance to that villa, I was quite hesitant to go back there. But the way he made it didn’t seem exceedingly frightening, so I had no choice but to tag along with his plan. I wouldn’t lose my life just to make money. Before we headed out, I went yet again through another round of ‘torture’. Qin Yiheng instructed me to shave off all the hair below the neck including my pubic hair, saying it would make me look more like a virgin man. I thought of how funny I looked right now, but I was in no mood to laugh. Whatever he said, I would obediently follow. After that, he applied some sticky substance that felt like a mask onto my face. He told me that it was aged glutinous rice specifically made on New Year’s Eve, and that only this type would work. We were almost ready; the only remaining thing was to wait for nighttime to come. Being in this state, there was no way I would go out to meet people under broad daylight.