Bizarre Beijing: The Last Bus to Fragrant Hills

Jim Nobles theBeijinger

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According to traditional Chinese belief, the seventh month of the lunar calendar is Ghost Month 鬼月 guǐ yuè, a time when the gates of heaven and hell open, allowing ghosts and spirits to visit the mortal world. This year, Ghost Month will take place from Aug 19 to Sep16.

For a little background, check out our article about the ten no-nos you should observe during this holiday, then indulge in a spooky story courtesy of our friends at Bizarre Beijing (WeChat ID: BizarreBeijing), which they'll be sharing once a week until the gates of heaven and hell shut back up – aka Sep 16.

The Last Bus to Fragrant Hills

This story happened on Nov 14, 1995, in Beijing. At midnight, Bus 375 pulled out of the Yuan-Ming-Yuan bus terminus. This was the last bus of the night and its destination was Xiang-shan (Fragrant Hills).

Onboard were the driver and a female conductor. The night was bitterly cold and a harsh wind was blowing. It stopped at the South Gate next to the Summer Palace and when the doors opened, four passengers got on. An old lady, a young couple, and a young man.

The young couple sat up at the front, behind the driver, while the old lady and the boy sat on the other side of the bus, beside the doors. As the bus drove through the night, all they could hear was the drone of the engine. It was a quiet, remote area and there were no other vehicles on the road.

After a while, the driver spotted two shadows by the side of the road, waving at the bus. The driver stopped and when the doors opened, three people got on. There were two men who were supporting a third man between them, holding him up by his shoulders. The man in the middle looked disheveled and his head was bowed, so nobody could see his face. All three were dressed in traditional Chinese robes from the Qing Dynasty and their faces were deathly pale.

The wheels on this bus go round and round... hell!

The other passengers on the bus were scared and glanced nervously at each other as the driver pulled off and continued down the road. The female conductor tried to calm everyone down by saying, “Don’t be afraid. They could be just actors shooting a costume drama in the vicinity. Maybe they got drunk after work and forgot to change clothes.”

The old woman kept turning around and staring at the three strangers who were seated at the back of the bus. There was an eerie silence. None of the passengers said a word. All they could hear was the wind whistling outside.

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After three or four stops, the young couple got off the bus. The bus driver and the female conductor were chatting and laughing. The old lady suddenly jumped to her feet and hit the young man sitting in front of her. She was shouting and making a big fuss, telling everyone that he had stolen her purse.

Next stop... a watery grave! Muahahaha!

The young man stood up and started arguing with her, but the old woman grabbed him by the collar and demanded that the driver let them off at the next stop, so she could bring him to the police station. The young man was speechless.

When the bus stopped, the old lady dragged the young man out. They watched as the bus drove off into the night and the old lady breathed a sigh of relief.

“Where’s the police station?” asked the young man.

“There is no police station,” the old lady replied. “I just saved your life!”

“What? How did you save my life?” the young man said, puzzled.

“Those three people were ghosts!” the old lady replied. “Ever since they got on the bus, I had my doubts about them, so I kept looking back at them. It so happened that there was a wind blowing through the window and I saw everything. It lifted their long robes and I saw that they had no legs!”

The young man stared at the old lady in surprise. He started sweating. He couldn’t say a word.

The old lady called the police and told them what she had seen.

Could any of these men be the ghosts who rode bus 375?

The next day, Bus 375 failed to report to the station. It had vanished along with the driver and the female conductor. The police searched the entire city but could find no trace of it. They questioned the old woman and the young man, but they dismissed their story and decided that they were mentally ill.

That night, The Beijing Evening News and The Beijing News reported on the story. The old woman and the young man were both interviewed live on TV.

Two days later, the police eventually found the missing bus. It was submerged in the Miyun Reservoir, about 100km from Fragrant Hills. Inside the bus, they discovered three badly decomposed bodies: The bus driver, the female conductor, and an unidentified man.

There were a number of other mysteries surrounding this case:

The bus did not have enough gas to drive all the way to the Miyun Reservoir and when the police opened the petrol tank, they found it was filled with blood.
Even though the bodies were found only two days after they disappeared, they were very badly decomposed. Even if it was summer, the process of decomposition could not be this quick. An autopsy confirmed that there had been no intentional meddling with the bodies. How could they decompose so quickly?
The police did a strict inspection of all the security camera tapes on each entrance leading to the Miyun reservoir, but the bus wasn’t seen in any of them. In fact, they found nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever. How could the bus get there without being seen?

To this day, it remains an unsolved mystery.