Strangest Ghost Stories From Ancient China

What's up guys? Welcome up to Great Wall. I'm Dan. Hey, I'm Mike. So, after looking at a lot of comments from the scariest Asian urban legends, we saw that a lot of you wanted a sequel. And because we love our loyal fans, we are here to deliver on that request. Yeah, and some of you wondered, where did the Chinese urban legends get? Well, there are plenty of supernatural stories from China that are quite famous. Today, we have selected three strangest stories from a collection of stories appropriately titled, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. Is that kind of like Chinese Tales from the Crypt? Yes. But, it's all about romance. Almost every story has something to do with romance. That's not scary, nor is that like Chinese Tales from the Crypt. So, anyways, just saying. It's our version. We bring it to the Chinese world, we make it romantic. Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, which in Chinese is called, Liaozhai Zhiyi, is written by the scholar, Pu Songlin. Throughout his life, he collected over 500 ghostly stories that he published in the early years of China's last dynasty. Even though there are stories of the supernatural, many of his stories contain some sort of moralism. So, our first story is perhaps one of the more famous ones called, Painted Skin. Now, you may have already seen the popular movie adaptation, Painted Skin and Painted Skin the Sequel, but those only loosely follow the original plot. Yeah, those two movies were entertaining, but pretty weird. But then again, the original story is kind of weird too. Yeah, kind of like you. You're weird. Yeah, kind of like me. Anyway, we start out with a man named Wang, who is walking on the road when he sees a beautiful girl traveling alone. There's always a beautiful girl traveling alone. And don't go up to her, guys, because something bad is going to happen. Although this gentleman, Mr. Wang, has a wife, he takes liking to her and brings her home. Yeah, that's a good idea. Because she says she has nowhere to go. So again, guys, the beautiful people... Oh yeah, dude, just wait until you hear what happens. So she goes to his house and finds that he has a nice little library where no one ever goes and settles in quite comfortably. Then he goes walking again. He sure walks a lot. You know, Chinese people in their walks after dinner supposedly helps with digestion, living longer or something. So anyway, while Wang is walking again, he meets a Taoist priest who looks at him in astonishment and tells him of someone to beware, because death is knocking on his door. How ironic. He's trying to live longer, but he actually is dying. Maybe walks after dinner aren't that good for you after all. Well, Wang goes home and checks up on the girl, but the door is locked. So he climbs over the courtyard wall separating the library from the main house to see if something is wrong. He looks through the window unnoticed, not creepy at all again, and sees a hideous devil with a green face and jagged teeth carefully painting a suit of human skin spread out. Dude, that is gross. The skin had eyebrows, a nose, lips, and everything. That's a majorly creepy makeover. Like I said, the beautiful people curse is a very real thing. Not just a Japanese urban legend thing, a really real thing. So Wang runs back to the Taoist priest begging for help. The Taoist master gives him a Taoist brush for protection. Wang goes home and hangs it over his bedroom door. At first, the girl with painted skin is afraid to go into Wang's room, but after a little while, she comes back cursing and screams, Do you think I'm going to give up what is already in my grasp? She then tears the brush to pieces and bursts into the room. She proceeds to rip out his heart and storms off with it. Ew, do you think she's going to eat that? Maybe that's how she keeps her skin so beautiful. Ladies, don't try this at home because it doesn't work. Ripping off a guy's heart and, I don't know, rubbing it against your skin doesn't make it softer, okay? So the moral of the story is don't take walks and don't talk to beautiful people. Now there's another story called the painted wall. What's with the paints? That also has a beautiful girl in it. So two gentlemen, a Mr. Chu and his friend Meng, randomly wanders into a monastery one day. On two opposite walls of the temple are painted lifelike depictions of people and scenery. On the east wall, there is a painted young lady of considerable beauty whose hair has not yet been tied into a knot. Uh, why is that important? I mean, I don't really care about a girl's hair unless it's like painting hair. You know how flowy they are? They're all like, you know, smooth and stuff. That's like what I use. To clarify, the hair has an important detail because in ancient China, women tied their hair into special knots to show that they are married. Ah, okay, that makes sense. Go on. So Mr. Chu is so enchanted by the beauty that as he stares at her, he loses all track of time and becomes unconscious of what's happening around him. Then he feels himself floating in the air and passes through walls. He then finds himself walking through a hallway with wonderful pavilions on either side. Here, a Buddhist monk is teaching the law of Buddha with a large group of people gathering around him. Mr. Chu mingles in with the crowd, but suddenly he feels a tug on his sleeve. He turns around and sees the same young lady laughing as she walks away. He follows her and after they hang out together and they have a pretty good time, they decided to get married. All right, this is starting to sound like a Disney movie. You meet someone and then two seconds later, they're the love of your life and you live happily ever after. Yeah, dude, I don't get that. Like, you don't even know this chick and you're going to marry her? What if she's some crazy person? Or worse, a heart-eating devil like the one in the painted skin. Yeah, and this girl is from a painting too? I mean, I don't even know if she's real or if he's dreaming. After Mr. Chu married the lady, her companions come and tie her hair in the proper fashion of a married lady. Then her friends leave to give the newlyweds their space. Suddenly, they hear a heavy tramping of boots and a voice says, If any mortal is concealed amongst you, denounce him at once. Hearing this, the young lady jumps up in fear. She tells Mr. Chu to hide under the bed. Then she herself disappears into an opening in the wall. As he lay cramped up under the bed, his ears start to sting and his eyes burn like fire. Yet he still patiently waits for his wife to come back. Meanwhile, back in the monastery, his friend Meng is admiring the temple's painted walls and notices that Mr. Chu is missing. Worried, Meng asks an old monk where Mr. Chu is. The monk says he has gone to hear the preaching of the law. Then the monk taps the painted wall and a painted Mr. Chu descends from the wall. Mr. Chu looks dazed and doesn't really know what is happening. All at once, they notice something. The young lady on the painted wall now wears her hair in the knotted style of a married woman. The two confused scholars got very frightened and hurried away from the temple without ever looking back. Whoa dude, what if Mr. Chu got stuck in the painting? He could have been trapped in a whole new world. A whole new world Trapped in a painting with you A beautiful painting Our last story also has to do with a whole other space and time. We call it Mr. Che in the World in the Cave The story goes that after getting his master's degree, a Mr. Che decided to follow his mysterious friend into the practice of Taoist cultivation. Because, you know, get a college degree and go be a Taoist monk. That's what you do. Right, what's cultivation you ask? Our viewers might not be familiar with that term. Cultivation is the practice of constant self-improvement. The word cultivation in Chinese 修 literally translates to fixing and refining. In ancient China, many people practiced cultivation in the Buddhist tradition or the Taoist tradition. Buddhist monks and Taoist priests were highly respected by people due to their upstanding and virtuous hearts. Anyways, Mr. Che follows his friend called Long to the hills in the distance and they find themselves in front of a large cave. After they walk in, they find that there is a whole other world inside the cave. You mean a whole new world inside the cave I go with you. Anyways, I don't mean that metaphorically. There is literally a separate world from the one we live in. One with earth and trees underneath a different sky. It is here in this new world that Long and Mr. Che find an old Taoist master sitting beside a tree. Long tells the Taoist master, My friend Mr. Che is determined. Please receive him as your student. The Taoist master agrees and Long takes Mr. Che to a bedroom where he is to stay at. Just when Mr. Che takes off his shoes and sits on the bed, he hears the sound of a cat scratching itself. He looks out the window and sees a tiger outside his window. Mr. Che's first thought is to run away of course, but he remembers that he must stay in order to receive the Taoist teachings he had traveled so far for. So he stayed on his bed. But then the tiger walks through the door. Mr. Che is quite frightened but with determination stays on his bed as the tiger walks closer and closer to him. The tiger stops within inches of his face. Yet instead of eating Mr. Che, the tiger merely bends down its head and sniffs Mr. Che's feet. Then as if bored, the tiger leaves. Mr. Che breathes out a sigh of relief then lies on the bed preparing to sleep because you know, after a tiger is inches from your face, you go to bed. Instantly, a young lady who smells like fragrant flowers entered the room. Dude, no. Oh man, this is bad. Is she beautiful? Of course she's beautiful. Just get up and walk away. But he doesn't know that because his eyes are closed. Well, he hears this lady's voice and sounds a lot like his wife at home. No matter what she says, he does not move because he remembers that his wife had trouble walking long distances and he was far away from home. But when she finally calls him by his nickname, he opens his eyes and sees that it is his wife. Suddenly, Mr. Che hears the Taoist master shout out in anger. His wife got so scared that she jumps out the window. The Taoist master then enters the bedroom while beating Long with a stick. Ouch. The master tells Long to take his friend Mr. Che away. Long proceeds to do so and tells Mr. Che, I thought you were ready, so hurry things up a bit. But I guess not. We shall meet again someday. So Mr. Che returns back to his house but finds that everything is in ruins and nobody is there. A passerby then tells him that over a hundred years ago, a Mr. Che who ran away from home right after getting his master's degree used to live here. Hey, that's kind of like Rip Van Winkle, isn't it? Yup. But we didn't call it the Rip Van Winkle story because it would spoil the ending. Wow. I gotta say, I love these Chinese ghost tales because these are awesome. These are way better than Tales from the Crypt. And they all have love in there. Yeah, barely. Somehow they all have the song A Whole New World in there. I don't even know why. No, we actually made that one up. No, I think they had it in there. A whole new cave. Let us know what you think. If you got some other stories, if you want to hear some other stories. Oh, and from the other comments, don't watch these at night because you guys are getting spooked. Don't do that. See, we put a warning. Yeah. Like we warn you every single time. But some of you are really brave individuals. I think some of you are a little bit like you'd like to bring the pain because you purposely watch these at night. Don't do that. See, that's why we're throwing a little Disney music in there for you. We're trying to brighten you up after you've been a little scared. We're trying to help you. All right, guys. Thanks so much for watching. See you later.