My name is Chen Mo. Two years ago, after losing my job, I went to work at my childhood best friend's store.
He's a real estate agent who runs two branches, and I work at one of them. Blessed with a silver tongue, I've done pretty well in this line of work. I bought a brand-new car worth over $42,000 in full payment in my first year, and saved a tidy sum in the second.
I thought to myself—if I keep at this for another decade or so, I'll definitely reach the pinnacle of my life.
But just recently, disaster struck our store.
It all started with a house I'd sold. Less than six months later, the couple who bought it came demanding a refund, claiming I'd sold them a haunted house.
What exactly is a haunted house?
Typically, it refers to a property where an unnatural death has occurred—say, a murder, suicide, or fatal accident.
To homebuyers, though, any house where someone has died, regardless of whether it was a natural death, qualifies as a haunted house.
Our industry has clear-cut rules about this. If a property being listed has had a death on its premises—again, no matter if it was natural or not—this fact must be explicitly stated in the contract for the client. Selling such a house without the client's knowledge is not only a violation of industry regulations, but also a stain on the reputation of the entire profession.
There are always unscrupulous folks who flout these rules, but I've always been a stickler for them.
I reassured the couple over and over that no one had ever died in that house. I even called the seller right in front of them to verify this.
The seller, of course, confirmed that it wasn't a haunted house—no one had passed away there.
But the couple were acting as if they'd lost their minds, insisting that someone must have died in the house. They said that every time they slept in the master bedroom, they felt like a pair of eyes was watching them, plaguing them with nightmares every single night for half a year.
The couple showed up at our store to make a scene every day, seriously disrupting our business. In the end, we had no choice but to call the police to intervene.
Later, I went to the police station with my best friend Meng Yifan and the couple.
After hearing the whole story, even the police looked dumbfounded.
After all, the couple had no concrete evidence to prove that someone had died in the house—only their vague claim of feeling watched while they slept.
Our store's business had taken a nosedive because of this, and Meng Yifan was livid. He called the couple crazy, saying they should check themselves into a psychiatric ward.
Naturally, this led to another screaming match between the two sides at the police station.
To be fair, the police were quite responsible. They assigned two officers to go door-to-door in the neighborhood to investigate whether anyone had died in the house, and even checked their internal system for any homicide cases reported in that area.
The conclusion was definitive: no one had died in that house, and there had never been any homicides in the vicinity at all.
My name was finally cleared. The police warned the couple not to harass our store again.
We all thought this ridiculous farce was over—until the couple showed up again less than two days later.
This time, they resorted to straight-up hooliganism, demanding a full refund plus compensation for emotional distress.
"Unbelievable! These two are out of their minds!"
Meng Yifan was so furious he was practically foaming at the mouth. He rounded up all of us and yelled, "We need to figure out a way to stop this! If they keep this up, we'll be out of business, and all of us will be broke next month!"
The rest of our colleagues were just as helpless. After all, if even the police couldn't resolve the issue, what could they possibly do?
If assault weren't a crime these days, those two troublemakers would've been lying in a hospital bed with broken bones long ago.
"I've got an idea," I said. "If they claim the house is haunted, then some of us should stay there for two nights. If we all think it's perfectly normal, then the problem isn't with the house—it's with them."
As soon as I finished speaking, everyone nodded in agreement.
"Way to go, Second Boss!"
"Let's see how they can weasel their way out of this after that!"
Meng Yifan also approved of my plan. He clapped me on the shoulder and said, "Since you were the one who sold the house and you came up with this idea, this tough job falls to you, Second Boss."
I didn't hesitate for a second—it didn't sound like a big deal to me.
Even if it were a haunted house, I wouldn't have been scared.
Meng Yifan then invited the couple into the store and talked them into agreeing to our plan: letting someone from our agency stay in the house for two nights.
They looked oddly confident, saying that if we encountered anything out of the ordinary, we had to bring the seller in to negotiate a refund.
We also prepared for the worst-case scenario. If we really did end up having to refund their money, we'd just return the commission fee—even if it meant I'd lose my $1,400 cut. After all, letting them continue their harassment would only cost us far more in the long run.
But one thing really puzzled me.
The couple were so absurdly confident, as if they were 100% certain we'd experience something weird during our stay.
I thought to myself—even if we did run into something out of the ordinary, I could just lie about it. Then they'd have no grounds to demand a refund, right?
Besides, their explicit promise put us in a very favorable position.
I've never believed in such superstitious nonsense anyway.
That night, Meng Yifan brought several high-definition cameras to the store.
If we were going to prove the house was fine, we needed solid evidence to back it up.
The footage from these cameras would be exactly that—they weren't just high-def, but also capable of recording audio.
"Thanks for taking one for the team, my man," Meng Yifan said, handing me the cameras with a grin. "If you do run into a ghost, give me a call immediately—preferably a female ghost. I'll rush over there and take care of her myself."
Meng Yifan and I were so close, our bond was stronger than the one he shared with his girlfriend. That's why we always joked around like this.
What's more, he'd never treated me like just an employee—that's why everyone at the store called me "Second Boss".
"Come on, it's no big deal," I said. "Might as well think of it as a two-day vacation."
I grabbed the bag of cameras and drove to the house.
The couple had moved out half a month earlier and hadn't been back since. They'd handed over the keys to us right before we made our arrangement.
Half an hour later, I arrived at the gate of the residential complex.
It was an old neighborhood, built twenty years ago, with large single-story apartments.
Back in its day, it was considered quite a nice place to live. Even though it was originally a walk-up building, elevators had been retrofitted a few years ago, and the whole complex had undergone a renovation, making it look quite decent now.
I found a spot to park my car and walked into the complex.
The house in question was Unit 2, 5th Floor, Building 3. As I was walking toward the entrance of Building 3, I noticed an elderly woman staring at me intently.
She was quite advanced in years, leaning on a cane, and looked at me with a curious gaze.
"Young man, you don't live in this complex, do you?" she asked.
"No, I don't," I replied.
Out of professional habit, I was always happy to strike up a conversation with people, so I told her, "I sold a house here, but the buyers are claiming there's something wrong with it. I'm going to stay there for two nights to check if that's true."
The old woman's expression suddenly froze. "Which house is it?" she asked sharply.
I pointed upward. "That one—Unit 2 on the fifth floor of this building."
The old woman's face visibly paled. She took a step back and stared at me. "Unit 2, fifth floor… Was it sold half a year ago?"
I nodded quickly. "Yes, it was. You've lived in this complex for a long time, haven't you? Do you know anything about that house?"
The old woman was quite chatty. "My husband and I moved in here as soon as the complex was built. I've lived here for twenty years now," she said.
So she was a long-time resident—perfect.
I pressed further, "Then do you know if anything ever happened in this complex? Specifically, in Unit 2, fifth floor?"
The old woman lifted her head, her eyes fixed on the fifth floor as if she could see through the walls. Then she said slowly, "That house has been sold twice. Once was the time you sold it, and the first time was fifteen years ago. After it was sold the first time, though, it's been empty ever since."
I was stunned. The house had been sold before?
The seller had never mentioned this to me at all.
Of course, it was his right to keep that information to himself—how many times a house had been sold didn't affect its subsequent transactions, after all.
But still… why would someone buy a house and then leave it empty all those years?
If you weren't going to live in it, why buy it in the first place?
"Ma'am, was the house never rented out all that time?" I asked.
The old woman shook her head. "Not once. It's been sitting empty, gathering dust. Young man, that house is no place to stay. You'd better go back home while you still can."
With that, she turned and walked into the elevator of Building 4.
The retrofitted elevators were all installed on the exterior of the buildings—transparent glass shafts that let you see everything outside as they went up and down.
I stood there watching for a moment. I noticed that the old woman lived on the fifth floor too.
She stepped into the elevator of Building 4, and I walked into the entrance of Building 3.