Secret Behind The Wall (墙后的秘密)

A recent case of a father murdered his son and buried the body under the house kitchen in KL has reminded me of a ghost story told by a friend from Ho Chi Minh city quite some time ago:

My family and I used to live in a double story Chinese style brick house down south of Ho Chi Minh City. Although the house was built with bricks, its staircase and floor was built with black Chinese fir wood. At that time, we could be considered as quite well to do. We had moved from southern part due to unrest.

This is a secondhand house as its previous owner was a rich government officer who somehow became insane and faced horrible ending. As soon as we have moved into the house, we found that there is something not quite right with the house. Due to the fact that we have sold off all our properties in the south, we had to stay put.

It was always after pass midnight that the miserable crying sound of a young girl would be heard coming from a small room upstairs. The room was initially a servant room but since the creepy sound was heard, my servant has resigned with immediate effect.

I initially wanted to find someone to perform exorcism ceremony, but in case you are not aware; majority of Vietnamese Chinese are Catholics. The only way I could think of is to put the holy cross and the image of Saint Mary in that room. Other than that we could only closed an eye and pray. Somehow the crying sound grew louder and intermittently we could also hear sound of water splashing…

If I am to describe the sounds, it was a combination of the sounds of a little girl crying and struggling during bathing in a wooden bathtub and at times the sounds of bathtub banging on the wall could also be heard.

Initially we tried to control our fear by reciting the Rosary and treated the sounds as our own hallucinations until one just past 9pm. All of us were sitting in the living room watching TV programs, suddenly we saw a girl with long hairs about 8~9 years old clad in white sleeping gown gently gliding down from the staircase. I can still visualize that the girl has no facial expression and her face was extremely pale. Somehow the strange girl glided into a wall opposite of the staircase and vanished.

After a few sighting of the similar materializations, I decided to perform some detective work myself. First I pulled out the estate agent and enquired about the house background. With some persuasions, the agent finally told me that the previous house owner had hung himself on a tree beside the house while his daughter was nowhere to be found.

A few days later, I decided to employ a few workers to hack the wall where the little girl was sighted to have vanished. To our surprised, there was a small conceal room behind the wall. It looks like a bathroom of some sort. There was also an overturned wooden bathtub. We were all horrified right after the workers have lifted the bathtub. There we found a human skeleton believed to be of a girl!

Perhaps I have solved the mystery of the missing girl and the haunting has ceased on that night. Of course, I have sold the house as soon as the property market revives in Vietnam.