Haunted Shanghai: Crazy people and thieves

In the end of a tiny alley off Sichuan Bei Lu stands a prominent Gothic building with a bell tower. The perfect location for another haunted Shanghai tale.

The structure was a Baptist church built in 1929 by Cantonese Christians. The vault is now divided into four floors with residences, a laundry and a chess parlor.

At the top of the building is a cavernous attic filled with wooden boxes. Mr Shen has lived and worked up here for almost half a century. He dismantles old furniture and uses the wood to make burial caskets.

The emperor died and the petition scroll was locked away in a lacquer casket, never to be thought of again -- until now.

The coffin maker tells a story: One winter night in 2005 he awoke hearing scratching sounds. When he checked the attic, he found a boy covered in white dust, crouching behind the coffins.

The boy was panting and shivering. His nails were red: he’d been clawing at the old furniture, and one box in particular.

“The little creep had obviously fallen through the roof trying to break in and steal my power tools,” said Mr Shen. “He kept repeating ‘Liu Jizi’ and grabbing for the box -- said it contained evidence for his court case.”

So what did Mr Shen do?

“I threw him out. The kid was nuts. He stood on the street and screamed he was the emperor! When the sun came up, he disappeared.”

Did the name Liu Jizi ring a bell? Well a look back in the history books suggests it should.

Mr Shen probably didn't know it, but almost exactly 2,000 years before this haunted Shanghai visit, teenage Emperor Ping of Han Dynasty drank poisoned wine offered by his closest advisor. While he was on his death bed, it is said that a government minister published a petition asking the gods to take his life instead of the Emperor’s -- he thought this act would place him above suspicion. Of course, the gods did not intervene, the emperor died and the petition scroll was locked away in a lacquer casket, never to be thought of again -- until now.

“What happened to the box, the one the boy was trying to open?”

“I decided not to pull it apart. It looked pretty old, so I took it to a dealer. It must have been a real antique: I traded it for a TV and a VCD player.”

And here ends a true haunted Shanghai tale.