Minxiong Haunted House

The three-story baroque mansion built in 1929 used to be the residence of a great landlord family—the Liu family. In those days, it's quite common for wealthy families to hire a few servants, and it is rumored that the landlord himself fell in love with a maid and slept with her as their love grew. Unfortunately, the landlord's wife found out this and started torturing the maid whenever it's possible. Finally, unable to bear the physical and mental torture, the maid threw herself into a well in the garden. Since then, peace was never found in the family. Every night when the landlord and his wife fell asleep, the wronged spirit appeared in front of their bed. As a result, the Liu family was forced to move, while the mansion was emptied and left behind. In the following years, whenever people visit here in the middle of night, they always heard shrilling howls of ghosts. Those who came near the well were struck by bad luck. After they left the old Liu’s mansion, they were either killed by a car or suddenly died in an accident. Those who were less unfortunate would at least suffer from a serious illness. As a consequence, the notoriety of Minxiong Haunted House spread like wildfire.

However, it was later verified that these rumors were not the truth. The Liu family moved to the downtown and left the ancient mansion for their business. Later, after the KMT retreated to Taiwan, an army stayed here for a while, yet some of them killed themselves due to incurable homesickness. After that, rumors got around, distorting the truth even more, and the mansion got the name of a haunted house. In recent years, there are even some businessmen trying to take advantage of the wandering ghosts. Building a cafe beside the haunted house, it provides convenient parking spaces and a place to sit down for a rest and chat for people visiting here.

Today the walls of the mansion are sprayed with the phrase "Namo Amitabha." There are also young couples using stones to engrave proofs of their trip. The whole building is almost fully covered by giant trees. Despite of these, the red-brick main structure remains quite intact, and so do the appealing balconies and windows. Yet the floors inside have all collapsed, and the interior walls have been crumbled. But that's what makes the historical building even more sad and beautiful.