Chen Xiuhuan was tormented by the ghost of a child in her mum’s house for 4 years

One spooky encounter with a ghost is enough to scar a person for life, so can you imagine living with one for close to four years?
Since it’s the Hungry Ghost Month, 8days.sg reached out to our fave stars to get to them share their spookiest encounters with the supernatural. 
First, we had 987 jocks Germaine Tan and Avery Aloysius Yeo’s creepy elevator ride. Now it’s Chen Xiuhuan’s horrifying experience when she was in her teens.
When Xiuhuan was 16, she shared a room with her older and younger sister in their Ang Mo Kio flat. 
“I slept on a single spring mattress, the kind that would make a squeaking noise whenever you move. And every night, I felt someone strangling my neck,” she recalled. 
Whenever that happened, Xiuhuan said she couldn’t scream. Things got so scary that she would run to her mum’s room to sleep. 
“My mum would ask me why, but I didn’t dare tell her,” said Xiuhuan. 
Xiuhuan also recalled how sometimes when it happened, she would be able to open her eyes slightly and see her sisters sitting at the study table in the room. 
“I would try to ask them to save me, but no sound came out of my mouth. Afterwards, I would ask them if they heard me crying for help, and they would say they only saw me fidgeting.”
Even after that, Xiuhuan still didn’t dare to tell her family what she was going through.
And that was when things got worse.
Xiuhuan said this was when she started feeling the ghost crawling on her bed and towards her.
“I could hear the bed squeaking. It was so scary because I could feel its presence but I couldn’t see it,” she said. 
The ghost would also try to pull her pants down when she’s trying to sleep.
One night, Xiuhuan was in bed with her niece, who was only three or four at that time, when she suddenly heard giggling.
“It was around 3am. I woke up and saw my niece sitting on the floor playing with her toys. I found it weird because she sounded like she was talking to and laughing with someone,” she said.
When Xiuhuan asked her niece who she was playing with, the kid replied: “I’m playing with this jie jie.” 
That incident confirmed her suspicions that the ghost in her house was a kid. 
Xiuhuan continued to keep mum about the spirit for close to four years. 
During one Hungry Ghost Month, Xiuhuan, who was filming 1988 Mediacorp drama Star Maiden at that time, was living alone in the house as her entire family went overseas.
“I was still sleeping on that same spring mattress, and as usual, was terrified. That night, I heard someone slowly walking out of the toilet in my room. I heard it getting closer to me, and it suddenly giggled in my ear,” said Xiuhuan. 
She immediately hid under her blanket and started crying.
“At first I could only feel its presence, but that was the first time I heard its voice. I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew sooner or later I would be able to see it,” she said. 
As soon as morning came, Xiuhuan rushed out of the house and went straight to the artiste resting room in the old Mediacorp campus at Caldecott hill.
“I told Hong Huifang and some of the colleagues whom I was close to about what happened. They started sleeping in the resting room with me every night from then on,” recalled Xiuhuan.
Thankfully, a director heard about what Xiuhuan was going through, and told her: “Don’t worry, I’ll bring a priest to your house to talk to the ghost.”
The priest, however, insisted Xiuhuan be in the house when the ‘negotiation’ happened.
“So I went home with them. The moment I opened the door, I could feel how chilly the house was even though I closed all the windows before I left,” she said. 
Xiuhuan pointed the priest to her room and he told her to wait outside while he went in to investigate. 
She could hear a lot of noise, and the priest came out shortly after with a gourd in his hand. 
“He told me: ‘Don’t worry. I spoke to it and captured its spirit inside this gourd. Everything’s going to be fine’.” 
Xiuhuan was also told that the ‘kid’ ghost had targeted her because she was down on luck at that time. 
“I got a shock because I didn’t tell anyone that the ghost was a child, but the priest knew. After that day, the spooky things never happened to me again.”
Xiuhuan said this incident remains one of the scariest things she has experienced in her life.
“My mum still stays there, and whenever I go back to her place, I still don’t dare to be alone in that room.”
Catch Xiuhuan in Star Maiden on mewatch or in the video below: