Here’s the translation: What are some local folk legends, or have you personally experienced anything particularly eerie?

There has always been a legend in our area: if you see a red bridal sedan chair while walking at midnight, it means the King of Hell is getting married, and you should run away.

But running won't help; he will find you at your home. If the King of Hell has chosen you, do you think you can escape?

When we were kids, we thought it was just a legend until a woman from our neighbor's house went missing. Some said she encountered the red bridal sedan chair and was taken by the King of Hell.

The adults all said it wasn't true, but my mother told me that she had actually seen the red bridal sedan chair herself.

1、
My mother was 15 years old when she encountered the red bridal sedan chair.

That night, she was heading to the town market. Halfway there, she saw a red bridal sedan chair quietly placed in the middle of the road. It was still the early 1990s at the time, and transportation wasn't very convenient. If you wanted to buy something good in the countryside, you had to get to the market early. If you were late, you might not even be able to buy anything. Of course, for sellers, it was even more crucial to arrive early.

How early would you need to get up for the market? That depended on your distance, but walking one or two hours was pretty normal. After all, in our area back then, not everyone owned a bicycle.

My mother’s village was particularly remote, and it took her at least two or three hours on foot to reach the market. So that night, my grandmother woke her up very early, and she carried two chickens in a basket on her back to sell at the market.

Because the family was poor, my mother had already dropped out of school at that time. The reason she was selling chickens was to provide living expenses for my uncle. My grandmother wouldn’t let him go because he had to study during the day and needed more rest.
2、
My mother rubbed her sleepy eyes, got out of bed, quickly washed her face, and set off with the chickens on her back.

It was already autumn by then, and the weather had turned chilly. Even though there wasn't much wind in the early hours of the morning, my mother was wearing thin summer clothes, so she still felt cold. But there wasn’t much she could do about it. Back then, everyone lacked food and clothing, and complaining wouldn’t solve anything. Besides, the whole family was trying to prioritize my uncle's education, which made finances even tighter.

Fortunately, the night was quite clear, with a bright moon hanging high in the tree branches, illuminating the fields below.

Maybe it was because she had woken up too early, or perhaps for some other reason, but the usual village road, which typically had one or two companions, had only my mother that day.

Though she was alone, my mother wasn’t afraid. She had grown up in the mountains and fields, catching fish in the rivers and climbing trees to catch birds. For someone used to the wild, there was naturally a sense of boldness in her heart.

However, as brave as she was, walking alone on a long road with no one around inevitably made her feel uneasy. The fields on both sides were planted with corn and sorghum, making it hard to see inside, and whenever a gust of wind blew, strange noises would come from the endless "green gauze" of crops.

At first, she managed to convince herself it was nothing, but after a while, even she couldn’t believe it. Listening to the wild pheasants clucking, she felt like it was the sound of the “Wooden-Legged Old Lady” walking. The Wooden-Legged Old Lady was another local legend, a tale about an old woman who had lost her legs and used wooden prosthetics that made a knocking sound as she walked. Growing up, my mother knew it was meant to scare children, but as a child, she had been genuinely frightened by it.

There was also something running through the green gauze fields. My mother knew it was likely a wild rabbit or some other small animal, but the way the noise would start and stop made it feel like someone was crouching inside, watching her.
Even the chirping of the autumn insects on both sides of the road started to sound, to my mother's ears, like someone laughing behind her.

At this point, my mother didn’t dare stop. She quickened her pace, but the faster she walked, the more she felt like there were footsteps following her. When she walked fast, the footsteps were fast, and when she slowed down, the footsteps slowed down too. The more this happened, the more my mother didn’t dare to look back. She could only pray silently in her heart, all the while adding more wild thoughts to her imagination.

For some reason, at that moment, the legend of the red bridal sedan chair popped into her mind. The red sedan chair was said to only appear at night, especially when a woman was walking alone in the dark.

The more my mother thought about it, the more terrified she became. Just then, something suddenly dashed across the road in front of her. She was so startled that she tripped and fell to the ground. When she got up, she saw a black cat sitting by the roadside, holding a mouse in its mouth.

It turned out to be a wild cat hunting a mouse, and my mother had been frightened for nothing.

After getting up, my mother quickly retrieved the two chickens that had fallen out of the basket. Taking this chance, she glanced back at the road behind her. It was completely empty, with nothing but the cold moonlight.

She breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it had all been her own imagination.

However, just as she put the basket back on her shoulders and was about to set off again, she noticed something at the crossroads ahead—a bridal sedan chair.

She hadn’t noticed when the sedan chair had appeared. After the scare with the wild cat, my mother had been much less afraid, but the moment she saw the red bridal sedan chair, her tension returned immediately.
3、
According to my mother, it was around three or four in the morning. Although the moon was out, she was in the wilderness, surrounded by nothing but corn and sorghum, with no one else around. When she saw the red bridal sedan chair appear, she was absolutely terrified.

She told me herself that her legs turned to jelly. She wanted to run, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't move. She stood there frozen for a long time in the middle of nowhere before she finally snapped out of it and turned to run in the opposite direction.

She ran like her life depended on it, not caring about anything else. All she could hear was the wind rushing past her ears, and she didn’t even feel the basket on her back anymore.

My mother had no idea how far she had run, but she only stopped when she was completely exhausted. She couldn’t take another step, her legs felt too heavy to lift. It was chilly in the early autumn morning, but after running so hard, my mother was drenched in sweat.

She crouched down, resting her hands on her knees, gasping for breath. After catching her breath for a long while, she looked back and realized that the red bridal sedan chair had vanished.

Even though the sedan chair was gone, so were the chickens in her basket. She had no idea when the chickens had escaped. Back in those days, two chickens weren’t worth much, but they could still sell for over ten yuan, which was supposed to be my uncle’s living expenses. If she returned without the chickens, she would definitely get beaten. And my grandmother was particularly harsh when it came to beatings. Getting slapped was considered merciful. According to my mother, my second aunt's leg had been broken by my grandmother, and after breaking it, she didn’t even get it treated, leaving my aunt permanently crippled. That’s why my second aunt hated my grandmother and never returned home after she got married.

So, if my mother couldn’t find those two chickens, she knew she was in for a brutal beating. But at the same time, the thought of the red bridal sedan chair terrified her. Torn between the sedan chair and the chickens, my mother hesitated for a long time before finally deciding to go back and find the chickens.

However, the journey back was especially difficult. On one hand, she was worried about the sedan chair, and on the other hand, she was already scared out of her wits. She kept imagining that something else might emerge from the "green gauze" of crops on either side of the road. But the fear of my grandmother’s punishment made her push forward, even though her nerves were stretched to the breaking point.

Luckily, on the way back, she didn’t encounter the red sedan chair again. As for the two clumsy hens, because they had red cloth strips tied to their feet, they couldn’t run far and were sitting in a ditch by the roadside, happily pecking at grass seeds.

My mother was overjoyed when she saw the chickens. She jumped into the ditch, grabbed them, and put them back into her basket, then climbed out again.

But just as she got back onto the road, she saw the red bridal sedan chair appear once more at the crossroads not far ahead. This time, my mother panicked. She knew for certain that during her earlier escape, she had been running toward home. To reach home, she had to make two turns, and she had already made both turns. The place where she had just found the chickens was at the first corner. She clearly remembered that the sedan chair should have been at the crossroads ahead. So how had it ended up here?

The joy of finding the chickens was immediately replaced by terror, and once again, she didn’t know what to do. But standing there doing nothing was not an option—she had to run. Snapping out of her panic, my mother turned and ran again.
But this time, my mother couldn't run as fast as the first time. She was utterly exhausted, having been up since early morning without eating anything. After running such a long distance earlier, her legs were too weak to carry her.

However, the second time she ran, she wasn’t as terrified as before. So, she would run for a bit, then look back. Each time she glanced back, the sedan chair was still there, standing motionless in the same spot. Seeing herself get farther and farther away from it, my mother finally breathed a sigh of relief and gradually slowed her pace.

When she turned a corner and the red bridal sedan chair was out of sight, she stopped.

The first thing she did was check if the two clumsy hens were still in her basket. Thankfully, they were still there, and she exhaled in relief.

After such a frightening experience, going to the market was no longer an option, so she had no choice but to head home. She was worried about getting a beating when she got back, but at that point, even if she did, there was nothing she could do. My mother said she had already made up her mind to tell the truth if my grandmother beat her. If my grandmother didn’t believe her, that was beyond her control. Either way, she certainly didn’t want to go back to the market.

But what my mother hadn’t expected was that as she approached the next crossroads, she saw the red bridal sedan chair again. This time, she felt truly hopeless. She had no idea what was going on. But my mother had no courage to pass by the sedan chair. Her only choice was to turn around and walk back the way she had come. However, by now, she had no strength left to run.

Without a second thought, she turned and began walking quickly back in the opposite direction. Although she wasn’t running, she was moving as fast as she could. In her hurry, she even took a nasty fall.

My mother said that at that point, she wanted to shout for help, but it was the dead of night, and she was in the wilderness—there was no one around to save her.

After falling, she got up and continued walking, but she didn’t dare follow the same path. She decided to take a detour home, even though that route passed through a small grove of trees. There were many graves in that grove, and normally she wouldn’t go through it, because the villagers said the grove was not a “clean” place. But at this point, she had no other choice and could only head for the grove.

As she neared the grove, my mother wondered, “What if the bridal sedan chair appears in the grove?” And just as she feared, the moment she reached the middle of the grove, the red bridal sedan chair appeared again.

This time, the sedan chair’s curtain was lifted, and inside was a person dressed in a red wedding gown, with a red veil covering their head.
Seeing this, my mother could no longer hold it together. She bolted out of the grove, running for her life while screaming for help. According to her, that was the fastest she had ever run, even faster than the first time. She even lost her shoes along the way but didn’t dare to go back for them.

Luckily, this time she was fortunate. As she made it out of the grove and onto the main road, she ran into a great-uncle from the neighboring village who was also heading to the market. When he saw my mother screaming, crying, and flailing her arms wildly, he thought she had encountered a criminal. This great-uncle, who had served in the military when he was younger, wasn’t afraid of anything. Seeing my mother in such a state, he grabbed her and asked what had happened.

By then, my mother was terrified and out of breath from running, so she couldn’t speak properly. She was also so overwhelmed with relief at seeing the great-uncle, as if she had found her savior, that she started sobbing uncontrollably, unable to get any words out.

This made the great-uncle even more anxious. He comforted her for a while, and only then did my mother begin to calm down a little. Even though she still couldn’t speak clearly, she pointed toward the grove. Steeling himself, the great-uncle took my mother with him, pushing his bicycle, and returned to the grove.

In the grove, they found my mother’s lost shoes, but aside from the autumn wind, the grove was completely empty.

After putting her shoes back on and catching her breath, my mother finally told the great-uncle that she had seen the red bridal sedan chair.