Peter is a friend of mine from Wuxi, China. He does not believe in ghost, but he really likes to collect ghost stories by checking the local ghost story forum. In fact, he knows nearly all the ghost stories in his hometown. Therefore, I asked him to tell me one of the most scary ghost stories that he knew. After hearing my request, Peter smiled and said, “I’ll tell you one that will definitely scare you.”

As peter said, there is a mountain in Wuxi named Mountain Lotus, which is said to be a place to execute the condemned criminals in earlier times. It is now definitely haunted by ghosts of those who died there. Strange things often happen there, like, many people go missing in that mountain. There is a highway around that mountain, and local residents NEVER drive on that highway at night. But there is once a foreign couple who don’t know the rules. They drive on that highway late at night to rush to another city. While the husband is driving, the wife is complaining about the husband’s failure in business. The husband wants the wife to shut up, but the wife just never stops. The husband is pissed off, so he kicks his wife out of his car, and drives away. After driving a while, he starts to worry about his wife. After all, it is not safe to leave her alone on the highway at night, so he drives back and gladly sees his wife waiting at the same place. He apologizes and the couple sets off again, while soon they witness a lady with long hair waving her hand towards them on one side of the road. The wife suddenly says, “That lady is so poor, we should give her a ride.” But the husband hesitates because it is really weird for a woman to be alone on the highway at this time. The husband then notices that the lady is waving her hands with the palm facing her face (Peter waves his hand in the same way here). The husband suddenly realizes something and says “No! We cannot give her a ride! Look at the way she waves her hand! I’ve heard that only ghosts wave hands like that!” (Peter adds here:”You know that in Wuxi we have tales that ghost’s palms are the opposite side of their hands”). Hearing what the husband says, the wife slowly turns her face towards him, and makes a horrifying smile, “You are right!” She then claps with the back of her hands (Peter claps his hands in the same way here, which freaks me out)

According to Peter, he knew the story by watching a ghost story video on a local ghost story forum. He said that he was freaked out too at the first time he saw the video, especially by the horrifying gesture. He then loved to share this story to others, because it could successfully frighten people(at least succeeded on me). I personally had two interpretations of the story’s ending. The first was that when the wife is outside of the car, she is possessed by a ghost; another explanation was that the husband actually never finds his wife at all, but instead finds a ghost taking the shape of his wife. However, I doubted the authenticity of this story. In my opinion, it could not be the real experience of anyone in the story because the ending was too ambiguous. If the story was real, at least we should be told what happens to the husband at last. I think it was just a horror story made up by people to remind couples to live harmoniously, or otherwise they would end miserably like the couple in the story.