A 70-Year-Old Man Lived Alone for 50 Years and Forbade Women from Entering His House. One Midnight, I Sneaked In, and What I Saw Inside Made Me Shudder for Life…

I was born and raised in a small village. At the end of the village road stood an old wooden house, where a 70-year-old man had lived alone for decades. People called him “Old Hạc.” No one in the village knew much about his past, only that he had set a strange rule: absolutely no women were allowed inside his house.

Whenever a woman passed by, he would slam the door shut. If anyone accidentally touched the steps, he would scold and chase them away. Because of this, the house became forbidden, shrouded in mystery. Adults avoided it, and children were curious. As for me, the older I got, the stronger my curiosity grew.

One night, under a dim moon with the wind whistling through the bamboo trees, I decided to do something no one in the village dared to try: sneak into that house.

At the stroke of midnight, I quietly crossed the empty alley, my heart pounding. The rotting wooden gate creaked as I pushed it open. In the darkness, the house appeared ominous, as if ready to swallow me whole.

Inside, the house was so silent that I could hear my own heartbeat. The smell of old wood mixed with dampness made me almost choke. I stepped slowly, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.

Then I froze.

All four walls were covered with portraits of women. Some were drawn in charcoal, others in faded watercolor. Dozens—perhaps hundreds—of faces stared back at me, each with different expressions: sorrowful, melancholic, even gentle smiles. But all of them radiated an indescribable chill, as if they were watching my every move.

In the middle of the main room stood a neatly placed bust of a young woman, her face serene, long hair cascading down. Moonlight streamed through a crack in the window, illuminating the statue and making it seem almost alive—and eerily lifelike.

I trembled and stepped back, but suddenly I heard a hoarse voice from behind:

— “Who… who dares enter here?”

I spun around. Old Hạc stood there, thin and frail, his eyes aged but piercingly sharp. His gaze seemed to see right through me. I stammered out an apology, but he just sighed and sat down on a wooden chair.

He didn’t get angry. Instead, he began to tell his story. At the age of 20, he had fallen deeply in love with a girl named Lan. The whole village admired their relationship. But in a tragic accident, Lan died just before their wedding day. The shock turned Old Hạc to stone. He vowed never to let another woman into his house, for in his heart there was room for only one.

Those paintings and the statue were how he preserved her memory. Every night, he sat alone, repeatedly sketching her face from memory. Year after year, he transformed the house into his personal “memorial temple,” honoring the love he had lost.

Hearing this, I shivered—not from fear, but from sensing the immense pain and solitude in his hoarse voice. People thought he was eccentric, but in truth, he was just an old man trapped in a past he could not escape.

He looked at me, his gaze softening:

— “You are the first to dare enter this place. You see… there are no ghosts here. Only an old fool talking to his memories.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I silently lowered my head. That night, I left his house as dawn approached, my heart heavy.

Afterward, whenever I passed by the old wooden house, I was no longer afraid. Instead, I felt compassion for a heart that had buried itself for half a century over a broken promise.

His story taught me that some wounds of time can never fully heal; we can only learn to live with them.