True TAIWAN Horror story

One time, when Alice was home alone, she felt someone tap her shoulder while walking from the bedroom to the living room.

Another night, with her big pregnant belly, she went to the bathroom. Their bathroom had a transparent glass panel separating the shower from the toilet. As soon as she stepped in, she saw a black dog lunge at her from the shower corner, crashing hard into the glass. But when she turned on all the lights, there was nothing there.

Then there were the nightmares almost every night.

And the smell of dogs everywhere.

But Albert still hadn’t explained the “Lord Zhao/Wutong” situation to his wife.

He was afraid that if he didn’t tell her, Alice would keep feeling like she was facing it alone.

But if he did tell her—that he’d once promised to “give” their firstborn to that thing—he worried she’d either lose her mind or leave him forever.

Or lose her mind, chop him up with a knife, then leave him forever.

“Not impossible!” Albert said with a laugh, puffing on his cigarette, and told me. Albert said during that time, he practically turned into a folklorist.

He read every article about the Wutong he could find online and devoured stacks of books from the library.

But the more he read, the more hopeless he felt.

He thought the concept of a “true name” was humanity’s most naive and foolish invention.

Every exorcism, ghost-banishing, or curse-breaking ritual loved to demand that the evil spirit or demon “state its name first,” as if knowing the name meant you’d won half the battle—same thing across cultures, ancient and modern.

But how much of reality or existence can human language and logic actually grasp?

These rituals and story patterns kept repeating themselves.

“After a while, you get it—it’s all just self-deception,” he said.

“It’s just plugging the gaps in that darkness.”

“Take something incomprehensible, build a temple around it, slap on a title or a human rank, and then clap your hands and tell the villagers, ‘It’s fine now, it’s fine, go back to work. It’ll bless the place.’”

Then there’s some record claiming the Wutong were five ghosts, and a hero once killed them down to just one.

Later, another story popped up saying that last one got tricked again, leaving only “half a Wutong.” Relax, everyone!

Albert said he realized the only thing that got it right was the Cthulhu Mythos.

---

Albert said that on the day it happened, he was feeling off. He was crossing the street when he dropped his phone, and it got crushed. The whole day after that, he felt restless and on edge.

That evening, Albert came home from work and pressed the buzzer downstairs. (If someone opened the front door with a key directly, Alice would panic.)

Within a few seconds, the building door clicked open. But when he got to his apartment door, no one came to let him in.

He unlocked it with his own key and found the house empty.

His gut told him Alice was in labor, even though it was still a while before her due date. And then he knew there was something else in the house.

Albert said he’d never felt so “clear” as he did that night.

He knew “that thing” was there, waiting to see how he’d react.

Albert said in that moment, he was absolutely certain his wife was either giving birth in that hospital right then or about to. But rushing over in a frenzy wasn’t what he needed to do.

So he started cleaning the house (What?).While cleaning, he didn’t think about anything, but a few possible outcomes flashed clearly in his mind.

“It’s like you already knew,” he said.

After tonight, one possibility was that his son would be taken. But just like at the wedding, Albert said while he was sweeping, he suddenly realized he loved this son he hadn’t even met yet so, so much—more than anything in the world.

Another possibility was that both his wife and son would die. Or there was a chance that he’d die, and his son would live. But those choices weren’t up to him.

After tidying up the house, Albert took a shower. He put on clean clothes and sat in the living room.

“And then I suddenly understood what dignity is—human dignity.”

“I’d never felt so full of dignity before.”

“I was powerless against all of this, completely powerless, but I could sit here, facing that thing I couldn’t see.”

“Even though after today, I might live the rest of my life in unbearable grief.”

“Forget it, I don’t know what I’m saying. Hum”

“But I could sit here, not crying or begging or bargaining with it.”

“Can you bargain with a natural disaster? No, you can’t.”

“But I could sit here, looking at it.”

“Of course, I couldn’t actually see it.”

Albert fell silent. He quietly smoked for a minute. Then the phone rang. He picked it up—it was Alice’s parents calling from the hospital. They yelled at him, saying they’d been calling for hours and couldn’t reach anyone. Neither his cell phone nor the home phone had picked up.

Of course, Albert said he’d been home the whole time, and the phone hadn’t rung once.

The baby was born without a breath.The umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck, and its body was completely purple. But they brought him back.

Mother and child were both safe.

---

Later, Alice always said it was her fighting hundreds of battles that let her wrestle the baby back from the hands of the “Wutong.”

Albert didn’t deny that possibility.

“Damn, I’m genuinely grateful and amazed she pulled through.”

“You could say she won, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration.”

But Albert said after going through all this, he realized,

“There really are massive things in this world, and the greatest dignity humans have is knowing they’re human.”

It hit me that he’s still just a guy in his twenties. But to say something a bit cheesy and dramatic, in that moment, I really felt Albert was a true, authentic human being.

Albert said he never found out if the Wutong had actually left or not.

Did it let them go? Could it come back someday to take the kid? For years, he and Alice didn’t even dare to get pregnant again.Though last year, they still had their second child.

I asked him if maybe the Wutong was testing him or Alice, and they’d passed some kind of trial. He said it didn’t feel like that. He didn’t think “that thing” cared about human morality or courage.

His business has still been good.

“Because the kids are still young! Gotta earn as much as I can, lol.”

“I’m not slacking off, either. I just don’t know if Lord Zhao’s still pulling strings behind the scenes.”

“But I’m ready—when the time comes, if it wants to take it all back, I’ll just have to hand it over, principal and interest included.”

“But if one day I really go bankrupt or mess things up,”

“I’ll go farm.”

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