Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Hong Kong Horror. I'm your narrator, Simon. Tonight, we're heading over to Taiwan.
This story was shared by a Taiwanese man. Let's call him Ao. At the time this happened, Ao was in his mid20s working as a real estate agent in Taipei.
This was actually a career change for him. Before that, he had worked in the funeral home business for many years. But because he's always had this unusual sensitivity to the supernatural, he couldn't do it for more than a few years due to everything he's seen there.
He doesn't fully have Yumyong on, meaning he can't physically see the spirits standing in front of him, but he can feel them. He can sense when someone is watching nearby. He can pinpoint exactly where they are in the room and could tell when they're there.
During his time working in the funeral industry, he experienced more than most people ever would. Enough that it began to weigh on him. Enough that he decided he [music] needed a new job that wasn't constantly surrounded by death.
So, he took on this real estate agent job. He thought stepping into the real estate [music] field would be a nice change. He would be around normal clients, which would finally give [music] him some distance from all of that.
But what he didn't realize was that changing jobs doesn't necessarily change what he could sense. After the story, as always, we'll break it down together from a Chinese cultural perspective, and see if we can figure out exactly what happened here. So, are you ready?
Let's turn on the lights, get comfortable, and let's dive right into this one. Au was still fairly new to the real estate world when this incident happened. He was about 8 months in, still fresh and not having a single sale to his name.
Pressure was starting to build up by now. If he didn't close on a deal soon, he might have to swallow his pride and go back to the funeral home business, back to the one industry he was trying so hard to get out of. Then one day, his boss handed him a listing.
A thousandqt luxury apartment in Taipei. Newly renovated with modern designs and high-end finishes. The kind of place young professionals dream about.
But there was something that stood out to him. The price for this property was far below the market value of similar properties. For something like this in that location, it didn't make any sense.
until you hear the reason. A woman had taken her own life inside this apartment. She slid her wrists in the bathroom while wearing a bright red dress.
Despite knowing all this now, Ao was desperate to close any deal at this point. He went to check out the unit. He arrived during the afternoon and the building itself was gorgeous.
There was a grand lobby with multiple security guards working there. After signing in, Haho tried to strike up casual conversation with the guards to see if he could get some more information about this unit. The security guards that checked him in wouldn't look him in the eyes as he brought this topic up.
They just waved their hand and looked away and said they don't know. It was strange. Before a hoe talked about this unit, these guards were super talkative and friendly.
But as soon as he wanted to talk about the apartment, they seemed like they had to get back to work and wouldn't disclose anything else. Trying to brush it off, Ao made his way over to the elevator to head upstairs by himself. It was on the 27th floor.
Everything in the building seemed extremely normal and well-maintained. The elevator ride up was smooth as can be. [music] He made it to the 27th floor without a hitch.
Ding. He arrived. The metal doors slid open and a hoe made his way over to the unit on the right.
He slid the key into the lock and it clicked open. As he opened the door, he could feel that the door fought back a little bit. It felt a little bit rusty and it didn't open smoothly.
The door stuck on the frame as if it hadn't been opened in a while. Now, once he made it inside the unit, there was nothing really out of the ordinary. AO could smell the muskiness of the [music] unit.
This was to be expected, though. The unit's been sitting empty for a while now, so a bit of stale air is to be expected. He snapped on all the lights and watched them all flicker to life.
Then, he stood in the middle of the gorgeous living room, looking at the pristine floors. It was actually really beautiful, though a little bit dusty, but it had a great frame. The last owner renovated everything before she died, so everything still looked brand new.
But as he started walking around the apartment to look around, he felt it, the feeling of being watched, like there was a pair of invisible eyes digging into the back of his neck. He sensed her. He knew she was there.
the previous owner of the home. [music] A host stood there still looking out the living room window. He could sense the spirit of this woman lurking in the corner by the bathroom, just staring at him.
Hi, miss. I know you can see me. I can sense your presence as well, even though I'm not able to see you.
Please, please, let's end this on good terms. You're no longer a part of this world. Please move on.
Ao said to the empty air, "You're gone now. Clinging to these four walls is useless. You should move on to the next state of existence.
" More silence. But the air grew thicker and the heavier. You could almost cut it with a knife.
I started walking around a little bit, running his fingers through the dust on some of the old furniture left behind. Before he left, his spiritual pride got the better of him. Because of his sensitivity to spirits, he got a bit cocky.
He looked at the corner of the apartment where he sensed this woman was standing and said, "If you don't leave, I will make you leave. " As soon as he said this, bathroom door, which was originally opened, slammed shut with a loud bang. Ao jumped back, startled, not expecting that.
Regretting what he said now, he decided to leave for the day. He turned the lights back off, locked the front door, and went home. After that visit to the unit, strange things started happening.
On his drive back to his home, Ao was stopped at a red light. He was looking at the windshield mindlessly, watching pedestrians cross the street at the zebra crossing in front of him. Everyone seemed to have somewhere to be.
People getting off work, rushing home to get back to their families or housewives and domestic helpers rushing back to cook dinner after buying groceries. As Ao was watching all these people going about their lives, he noticed that on the sidewalk standing at the corner was a young woman wearing a red dress just standing there and not crossing the street like everyone else. They had the right of way yet she was standing [music] there as if still waiting to cross.
Ao's attention turned to her as he stared trying to figure out exactly what she was doing. Why was she just standing there staring blankly into the crowd and not crossing? It was as if she knew Ao was looking at her.
She turned her gaze onto him, tilted her head at a strange angle, and smiled back at him. But it wasn't a nice, innocent smile. It was a stiff, unnatural smile.
A smile that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. Ao was shocked by this. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest from the shock.
He sat up straight in his car seat and rubbed his eyes to make sure he was seeing this correctly. But when he looked again now, that woman in red was nowhere to be found. He scrambled to find her again among the crowd of people crossing the street, but she was nowhere to be found.
"No, no, no, no. That's impossible," he thought. [music] He's had plenty of supernatural experiences before in his career, but he's never been able to physically see them before, ever.
A ho was so focused on locating her again amongst the crowd, he didn't even notice the light turned green. The cars behind him started honking. That snapped him out of it, and he was forced to move.
That night, Ao didn't sleep well at all. It didn't even feel like a normal sleep. He kept drifting in and out.
Then he started having really vivid and intense nightmares, very strange dreams that felt extremely real. He found himself in a dream where he was at that stoplight again. He saw the same woman in red.
This time there were no other pedestrians crossing the street. There were no cars behind the hole. It was just him sitting in his car at that same red stoplight and her standing on the same corner looking down at the floor.
Her long black hair covering her face. Ao yelled out, "What do you want? Just go cross the street already.
" The woman didn't budge. The traffic light then turned green. The woman suddenly looked up now.
Her face was grotesque and horrifying. It was rotting. Yet, she had that same unsettling smile, looking directly at a hole.
Before a hole could scream, the woman suddenly appeared right in front of him now, right outside the driver's side window, and she grabbed the hole by the throat with her rotting right hand. Her grip was immense. It felt like a vice grip.
[music] A ho felt the air leaving his body as she pulled her face closer to his "I'm not leaving. My husband destroyed everything. This home is all I have left.
" She screamed. "He had an affair. He ruined my dreams.
He ruined my life. These things belong to me. " The rage was palpable.
Ao felt himself passing out from the lack of oxygen. He started [music] seeing stars. As he passed out inside this nightmare, he woke up in real life.
He shot up in his bed, grabbing his neck, gasping for air. He was drenched in sweat. He got up and ran to the bathroom to wash his face.
As he looked in the mirror, he froze. his neck. It was red and inflamed as if someone really physically choked him recently.
That next morning at work, Ao pulled his boss aside to try to get a little bit more information about the history of this unit. His boss side, AO, I'm sure you already know about this unit. It's a semi-ha ominous property in Chinese.
Why is it a semiha and not officially hung? Well, the woman actually didn't die inside the house. Her family found her in the bathtub, but the ambulance actually brought her to the hospital where she died a few hours later.
So, technically, since she didn't die inside the property, it's not 100% considered a hung. Somehow, this news made a whole feel a little bit better. He thought, "Ah, well, if she died in the hospital, that means her resentment isn't anchored to the unit itself.
This should be manageable to get rid of her. Big mistake. Aside from the reoccurring nightmares where Aaho kept seeing this woman in red, he started sensing her in his own home as well whenever he was awake.
Later, he started having extreme insomnia. But whenever he was able to fall asleep, he would either have sleep paralysis or more vivid nightmares to the point where he felt like he was going crazy. Terrified and drained, a hoe ran to a local temple where he goes from time to time.
He was pretty close with the master there. The master took one look at him and started shouting, "You absolute fool. Why didn't you come to see me sooner?
Do you even know what you did? Just because you could sense spirits doesn't make you an exorcist. You can't even exercise normal weak spirits.
And you go out and pick a fight with a ghost in red. Are you seeking death? [music] You're a property agent.
Ao, not a toist master. Stay in your lane. Ao bowed his head low.
He knew the master was right. He had opened his mouth and picked a fight with something he didn't understand. Please help me, Sefue.
If I leave her there, she'll eventually harm someone else. Doesn't the Buddha save all souls? The bastard sighed, shaking his head.
He entered the inner sanctum and disappeared for about an hour or so. He then reappeared, looking drained, as if he just ran a marathon. It's done.
It's taken care of now. Ao thanked the master and gave a donation to the temple. [music] A ho went home that night and fell into a deep sleep as soon as he lay down on his bed.
It was a dreamless sleep at first. Then he started dreaming again, but this time it was different. He dreamt of a wisp of red smoke drifting into his room through his window.
He panicked. But as the smoke took shape, the woman appeared again. Her face wasn't hideous anymore.
The rage was gone, replaced by a strange quiet peace. Thank you, she whispered. I have decided to go with Guyam.
Guyam is the bodhic sappa of compassion. She has taken me under her guidance to practice. I have decided to go with her.
I won't linger here anymore. Ao asked, "What are you practicing for? " She smiled faintly.
I'm practicing for my next life. I hope I can meet you again in another life so I can repay you. " And just like that, she turned away and slowly vanished.
Ao woke up and for the first time in a week, the weight on his chest was gone. The [music] next morning, Ao went back to the apartment. Someone reached out and wanted to see the space.
So, he figured he would go over early to give the place a quick wipe down to clean the dust. When he walked in, that heavy feeling of being watched that was there the first time he visited was gone. The space felt light.
Ao took out his pack of wet wipes and started wiping everything down. Everything was extremely dusty. As he was getting into the nooks and crannies, he accidentally found something behind the dresser in the bedroom.
It looked like it was a diary, as if it had fallen back there. It must have belonged to the woman in his streams. Previous owner, her family must have knocked it behind the dresser as they were clearing her things out and didn't notice.
Ao picked it up, dusted it off, and opened it. There was a photo of her used as a bookmark on one of the pages. Hah looked at the photo and immediately recognized her.
It was absolutely the woman from his dreams. She was in her 20s and she was quite beautiful. She had a seahorse tattoo on her arm and she was posing in front of an ocean.
It seemed like she loved the sea. Ao held the photo inside thinking that it was such a shame for a beautiful young woman like this to have her life cut short. He then read through the page of the diary where the photo was bookmarking.
The woman's name was Sally. She was a banker. With the money she made from her high finance banking job, she funded her husband to open a bakery.
Her husband was unemployed for a long time and she wanted to help him get back on his feet. At least this way they could tell friends and family that he was a business owner, an entrepreneur. But once the bakery opened, things started to go downhill.
Her husband only hired female staff, saying that it would help bring business in when you have attractive girls working there. Eventually, [music] Sally found out that he was having an affair with one of these staff, and even got her pregnant. Sally, rightfully so, was devastated.
Because of this, she couldn't focus on her job anymore. She started making huge mistakes at her high pressure job, causing her company to lose lots of money. She was ultimately let go because of this.
Her marriage was falling apart. Her career was in the gutter. She felt like she had nowhere else to turn.
She felt used. She felt like an idiot for not being able to see any of this earlier. Tragically, her mind led her down a horribly dark path, a path of no return.
The apartment sold shortly after the initial showing to a happy family, and they never complained of any strange activity even after moving in. Many years later, long after a got married and had a beautiful baby girl. [music] The first time he held her in the hospital, he noticed that this baby had a birth mark on her ankle shaped like a seahorse.
Au's daughter was the most well- behaved baby that anybody could ask for. She was his treasure and his everything, the biggest daddy's girl in the world. Even after a hoe and his wife had divorced, he thankfully got custody of his daughter.
They still do everything together now, even though she's all grown up. You see, Hong Kong horror family, none of us can take our bank accounts or our luxury apartments with us when we close our eyes for the last time. We also can't take our fancy job titles or status in life with us.
None of it follows. The only thing that travels with us are the memories we've created and the karma we've accumulated over our lifetimes. Some people are born into comfort and riches.
Some are born gifted. Some seem to move through life with doors already opened for them. In Buddhist thought, those blessings aren't random.
They are simply the dividends of merit cultivated and passed to lives. And if that's true, then every word we speak matters. Every action we take matters.
So be kind. Do good when you can because you never really know who might be watching. And you certainly don't know who might be waiting in the next life.
All right. So, what do you all think of this one? Heavy, right?
What do you think happened here to Aaho? Please pause the video here and let us all know what you think. Okay, so what do I think happened here from a Chinese cultural perspective?
There's quite a lot to break down in this one, so I'll try my best. The first thing some of you might be thinking is why are there so many female vengeful spirits in Chinese ghost incidents reported to be wearing red? It seems like in a lot of stories they're wearing this, right?
Great question. There's actually a very good reason for this. In our culture, red is a very powerful color.
In life, red is a wedding color, a color worn for celebrations. It's a life energy yang heavy color. But when red is worn by a woman who ends her life, the meaning becomes flipped.
A woman who ends her life wearing red intends to return as a powerful and vengeful spirit. Do you know why this is? Red amplifies resentment.
Yinhi, it strengthens the emotional imprint at the moment of death. So in [music] this story, Sally isn't just a tragic ghost. She's actually something we call Hungi, a fierce ghost wearing red or a vengeful spirit, Yun Lingling.
It's no wonder that the temple master called Ao an idiot for picking a fight with this type of spirit because these types of spirits are extremely dangerous and stubborn because they all died with some sort of injustice, betrayal, and rage. The next point I want to touch on is why Sally followed Aaho home. It was obvious that Ao was sensitive to spirits to begin with.
So this alone made it dangerous for him already. Because he made it known to her that he could sense her. She was probably thinking, "Oh, so he can sense me, huh?
He's receptive to me. " But then Ao also challenged the spirit and [music] threatened to get rid of her. He acknowledged her, then challenged her, which is a double mistake.
Doing so confirmed to her that he could sense her. It engaged her spiritually, and his threat triggered her rage. In folk belief, spirits gain more power when they're acknowledged, which is why you should never let them know you can see them if you are one of the few people who can see them.
A ho basically declared war on her. You would probably be mad, too, if a stranger came into your home and told you to get out. So, what about the master at the temple?
What exactly did he do in that back room? He must have done some sort of ritual back there to get Sally to agree to move on, right? Another great question.
So, in Buddhism, Towism, and local spirit practice, dealing with these types of spirits is not always about overpowering them because they're extremely powerful. So sometimes the best method is to not try to overpower them but is actually more effective to contain the resentment, break the attachment and redirect the karmic momentum. The master looked exhausted after he was done because these types of rituals require the master to use their own cultivated spiritual energy.
It's not physical exhaustion but rather a depletion of cultivated merit and spiritual energy. This is why he yelled at Aaho because you don't provoke something unless you actually have the spiritual capital to handle it, which Aaho didn't. What the master likely did in the back room is something called tudo fatsi, spiritual deliverance ritual, [music] where the end goal is not to overpower, but to persuade and elevate.
He most likely see Sally out by calling her karmic identity, located her through incense divination or spirit invocation, and established a boundary circle that creates a contained spiritual space. Female spirits in red are fueled by emotions such as betrayal, injustice, loss of face, and emotional humiliation. All of these are related to resentment, which is a real energetic substance.
It thickens the spirit's body, preventing reincarnation. The master most likely recited sutras that reminded her of impermanence, exposed attachments as suffering, and mirrored her own karma back to her. Most likely, he recited the heart sutra or the diamond sutra.
It doesn't always work depending on how stubborn these spirits are. But these sutras help loosen the attachments they have to the mortal world, helping them willingly release the resentment. It's a karmic momentum shift.
You can't drag a resentful spirit upward. If you force it, they just become more violent and [music] aggressive. You need them to want to move on themselves.
The master didn't force her to do anything. He probably showed her that her husband's actions, his betrayal is already karmically recorded. He didn't get away with it.
That revenge binds her to suffering. That clinging to the apartment trapped her hair as well. When Sally appeared again in a dream, she told him that she will be going now.
I think that the ritual that the master did worked. It got through to her and she understood that she shouldn't remain here anymore. She accepted a refuge.
In Buddhist cosmology, when a resentful spirit encounters a monk or master with strong merit where they're offered a path forward, they may or may not choose to take it to enter a transitional realm to study dharma where they prepare for a better rebirth. She used the word practice which signals to me that she did not go to heaven but rather she went to cultivation which means she was redirected to a lower heavenly realm or a guided intermediate state under bodhicam. This is why she looked peaceful in the final dream rather than horrifying.
When resentment dissolves, the spirit form changes to reflect that. The face restores to how they looked before death and the rage aura disappears. Sally in that last dream said to Aaho, I hope we can meet again in the next life.
This means that a karmic debt had been formed. It was because of Ao that she was rescued and shown the path to move on. She felt indebted to him.
This creates a karmic thread. I think that Sally reincarnated as a host daughter years later. Beings are often reborn among those that they share strong karmic ties with.
[music] It's never random. Like we've covered in past episodes, children come to repay debts or collect it. Loan, I believe Sally came to repay a ho for ultimately saving her and redirecting her path.
In her past life, her suffering was centered around betrayal, losing her role as a wife and losing stability. Being reborn as his daughter gives her the stability she never had, a karmic reset in a safe container. It's almost karmic symmetry.
You might also be wondering now, if Sally ended herself, doesn't that mean she will be punished for this forever with no chance of reincarnation? This is not always the case. In short, to my understanding, the answer is no.
A person who ended themselves does not lose their chance to reincarnate as a human again eventually. It depends on the case, though. Rebirth as a human again in the future life depends on karma and is very layered.
When a person perishes by ending themselves, they're still within the cycle of samsara, reincarnation, where they can in theory be reborn as a human, an animal, a hungry ghost, or stay in one of the many layers of hell. This is where it gets a bit more layered, as there's no instant heaven or hell framework that many people are used to. When I say that someone can remain within Samsara, I'm talking about the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
Ending oneself doesn't eject someone from the system, but it's one karmic act within a much larger stream of causes and conditions. And what determines the next rebirth isn't just based on the last act itself, but rather on a person's entire accumulated karma from past lives. Now, ending oneself is definitely considered a very negative mark on this karmic scale.
But Buddhism doesn't frame people who end themselves as evil or beyond redemption. The core idea is that taking one's life does not end suffering but merely shifts it into another form within Samsara. Being born as a human again in your next life is considered rare and precious.
Requires a balance of both wholesome karma and certain moral foundations like basic ethical conduct in past lives. So yes, even people who have offed themselves could in theory be reborn as a human again if their overall karmic store is still strong. Thank you Hokahara family for making it all the way to the end.
I want to end with this. Our lives are like the ocean. Waves crash, storms rage, things break apart, but eventually the water becomes calm again.
But these waves never really disappear. They just return in a different form. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode.
Until we speak again next week, stay safe and good night.
