It was the year 1934, Sexagenary Year of the Wood Element, Zodiac Year of the Dog on the Chinese Calendar, in the first month of autumn, when it all began. At the tomb of the Bian Clan alongside Huan Xiang River which flowed at the foot of Mount Yan, the swift galloping of horses broke the silence of the night. Horse bandits were riding fast, holding flaming torches in their hands.
One of the bandits was barking hoarsely, ordering his men to round up the family, who had been the keepers to the graves, before restraining them with ropes, gagging them and covering their heads with black bags. A few of the men tied a thick rope to a tree before lighting it on fire. Some of the rest ran for the cluster of graves in the mausoleum of the Bian Clan, with shovels, pickaxes, and other tools.
Not far away, a large man, with a face covered by a beard, sat on his horse. With proud eyes and a stern gaze, the man, who seemed to be the leader of the bandits, pointed to a mound and spoke to the man who was barking orders:
"Send some of our men to take that vantage point. Fire some shots and warn the villagers off. We do not need curious onlookers crowding around here!"
The man with a hoarse voice replied meekly to his chief, "But sir, won’t the gunshots attract the nearby soldiers?"
The chief waved off his subordinate's fear dismissively and replied, "No. This area is the demilitarized zone as sanctioned by the Tanggu Truce. Neither the Japanese or the Chinese military will be within a hundred miles from here. Tell the men to relax and do as they will!"
"Yes, sir!" His lieutenant croaked an assent and ran off, heading towards the clump of graves.
"Wait!" called the chief again. "Have men guarding every road that leads here. They are to drive away anyone who comes near. Shoot them if they must!"
"Bang! Bang! Bang!" Three gunshot sounds were heard from a distance. The people from the village nearby all slammed their doors shut, fearing that trouble would come knocking. The light spots shuttled through the cluster of graves and the smoke of the burning rope filled the air.
"Boss, this is not the one!"
"This one too!"
Numerous reports came from the bandits who were plundering the graves. They had not found the one they were after.
The chief took out a pocket watch and looked at it in the firelight. He leaped down his horse and walked quickly to his men still digging the graves.
"Time is running short! We must find it before dawn!" The chief shouted to his lieutenant.
Just then, another bandit came over to him, looking more mild-mannered than the others, although he carried a holstered pistol. He seemed to be the strategist of the group. The man spoke to his chief, "At this rate, Boss, we will not find it even when daybreak comes. The item we're looking for is ancient, so if we filter out newer coffins, we can find the oldest graves as soon as possible."
The band of robbers then split into groups, moving in several directions as directed by the strategist who checked the age of the coffins to decide which tomb would be further dug up.
"There's a stone tablet here!" One of the robbers cried out. The strategist hurried over and dusted off the dirt from the tablet. "It's an epitaph! Let's see the date..."
"It's among these graves here, Boss! The year inscribed here is not more than thirty years from the year of the item we're looking for."
They kept digging.
Time passed and the chief grew more restless.
"We've found it!"
A few of the men whisked off the soot from the burial items in the grave and placed them into a bag. The men then lifted a coffin from the grave and threw it outside. Another man, tall and large, hopped into the hole and pulled a knife out of his pants to test the earth beneath the coffin. He rose to his feet, saying, "This is it."
A few more men leaped into the hole.
"Enlarge it, but do not damage the item!" Their leader warned.
Carefully, the men slowly shoveled off the earth, revealing a trench filled with fresh soil. Digging further, they found the item that they had been seeking: an old and gnarly casket made of wood.
The casket was cautiously removed from the hole. Once opened, they found a bundle of silk wrapped around a sheathed sword.
"We've got it!" One of the men presented the sword to his chief.
He drew the sword for just a little to examine its blade, his eyes glimmering from the reflection off the steel blade. Satisfied, the chief chuckled and called for his lieutenant, signaling for the men to get ready to leave.
The lieutenant barked, "Let us go, brothers!" and the bandits left on their horses, fleeing the vicinity with the bounties they had found from the graves.
"You just don't know! A ghost put me up to this!" The man panted. I handed him a cup of tea and said, "Relax. Have a drink and tell me everything slowly." The man took a swig of tea and wiped the sweat off his forehead before he set off on his tale: "My name is Hao. I'm a construction worker. I am known for my courage, hence my nickname, Fearless Hao. I was out many miles away last month, working on some construction job and the patron of the project I was working brought us out for dinner. “I had a voracious appetite, so I returned home late that night. It was really dark outside. The roads were rough, and my electric scooter had run out of power! I could do nothing but slowly push it. “Normally I would not be afraid. But I felt someone, or something, was following me. When I looked back, there was no one! “I continued on. Still, I could not shake off the feeling that someone was following me. When I turned back again, there was no one ther
A sudden disappointment filled me as soon as I heard the woman mention that her husband had encountered a "white fiend". I thought I would have an opportunity to demonstrate my skills, but it was only a "white fiend". "White fiends" were different from "black fiends". "Black fiends" sought to endanger humans but "white fiends" did not. I spoke to the woman, "Lady, 'white fiends' do not harm humans. Are you trying to say that your husband is bothered by one?" The woman grew worried. "No. No. Well, it's my husband himself..." The discrepancies of her statements somehow annoyed me. I bellowed, "Please be frank, lady. What has happened and how is your husband now!" The woman became stunned by my sudden uproar. With no other way, I invited the woman to sit and poured her a cup of water. "Be calm and tell me everything slowly." The woman swallowed a gulp of water and relaxed before she began. "My family lives in Yellow Soil Ridge, and there is thi
What do some people feel when they confront something frightening? Anger. What comes after anger? Trauma. And this man was the perfect example of one who has had a traumatic experience. Seeing that the man had reached the most harrowing point of his encounter where he tried to strike at the unknown entity with anger, my father observed that blood had but all left the man's face. He offered the man another cigarette and lit it for him. The man took a few more swigs off his cigarette, his agitation slowly subsiding. He continued, "It looked like a living thing to me, but it did not seem so when I hit it. How could a living thing feel like cotton when I hit it? I must have missed, I first thought. “I tried hitting it again. It ducked, again and again. I kept missing it, and this filled me with rage. 'I don't care what you are,' I told myself and took another swipe with my flashlight. But this time, my torch passed cleanly through it and hit the rock behind it!
As usual, my father never failed to amaze. The husband was clutching the iPad in his hands as he looked incredulously at my father:"Impossible! It's impossible that anyone was around there! Why did you not call out to me if you were there?" My father shook his head gently, still wearing his smile. He lifted his finger and pointed at the person in the video clip playing on the tablet, saying:"This video clip was recorded using an infrared camera, hence the black and white color. The bag you had there was blue, and the flashlight you were using was red, right?" The man was stunned. But still, he could not believe my father even though my father had pointed out correctly the color of the items he carried that night. My father then said again, "You've seen my Nocturnal Sight technique just now. In truth, there's nothing special about it, other than allowing me better clarity in the dark. But I have a hobby. I love to set traps to catch wild hare
"T-that... That cart is moving on its own!?" Mr. Lee gasped with astonishment, staring wide-eyed at my father, who smiled in turned at him and said:"Don't be anxious. Continue." Everyone was curious now, standing around Mr. Lee to have a look at the video footage. In the video, Fearless Hao was just passing by Mr. Lee's car with his electric scooter when a concrete cart sprang to life and began darting and banging around senselessly like bumper cars before it returned to its original position. Everyone, Mr. Lee included, was gaping with shock, their eyes as large as the saucers on the table. Mr. Lee stared disbelievingly at my father who then said, "I believe now the truth is clear, Lee. This object knocked your car." Mr. Lee nodded willingly and was quiet for moments before he confessed, "In truth, the parts where my car was knocked were stained with cement and concrete. At the time, I myself was sure this could never be the work of an electric sc
What my father said sent everyone into surprise and bewilderment, including me. But Mr. Lee was first to break the silence, asking hesitantly, "But Brother Hai? Did I just hear you say 'one-night-stand'? Can one-nighters be owed?" "Of course," said my father, nodding matter-of-factly. He turned to the female ghost and said, "Let me elaborate on your past since you refuse to accept... "You were a servant girl of a wealthy and prosperous household. One day, the young lady and the madam of the family you served wanted to go to a temple outside the city to offer some prayers and offerings. You helped the young lady with her dressing and make up before the madam took her daughter out, leaving you at home. But when you were clearing up the young lady's dressing table, a golden hairpin caught your sight. You put on the pin and admired your looks with a mirror. But you should know that everything has its owner in this world, so you should not covet what
Aunt Fen and the female ghost Xiao Qi hugged each other suddenly and collapsed into tears together, right before all of us. Mr. Lee, who felt deeply moved, asked hesitantly, "This woman is..." My father sighed and answered, "Ah... She's the wife of Zhang Baoguo." Stunned by the revelation, Mr. Lee stammered, "Z-zhang... Z-zhang Baoguo? The Zhang Baoguo of the prominent business group, Zhang Group?" My father nodded. Mr. Lee was instantly petrified, staring at his wife before he turned to stare at Aunt Fen who was still on the ground, hugging Xiao Qi as they wept. He murmured, "But I remember Zhang Baoguo is already more than fifty, even older than me. I had long known that Zhang Baoguo had taken a young lady as his wife, but I did not expect his wife to be this young..." As he spoke, he was still eyeing Aunt Fen so intently that his wife elbowed him, displeased and jealous as if meaning to say, "Are you envious of others having a wife so
"The old man paused and stopped for a moment before he went on with his tale, 'Despite feeling astonished, I paid little care to it. I'm an old man. I might have been seeing things or hallucinating. After completing my purchases, I saw my wife leaving the house, her eyes straight ahead as if in a trance as she continued walking, ignoring me even though I asked her where was she going. But she just kept on walking and walking. I tried calling her, but she continued ignoring me, so I rushed forth and pulled her back. Strangely, she seemed to have more strength that she usually had, sending me into a tumbling fall with just a swing of her arm. Therefore I could only follow behind to see what's happening. " 'We continued walking until she stopped and began stretching her arms and grotesquely flailing her legs that I felt so horrified. Not knowing what to do, I called my son with my phone, and it did not take long for my son and his wife to come. My daughter-in-law is us