The House That Never Dies II (2017)

A city in China, the present day. During the final stages of work on the renovation of a celebrated old house, known as No. 81, that burned down during the Republican era, some children’s bodies are discovered, one with a Daoist talisman on it. As the site already has a reputation for being cursed, most of the workers walk off. Though it’s his seventh wedding anniversary, project director Song Teng (Zhang Zhilin) is forced to stay at his office in No. 81 to deal with the problem. His wife He Fei (Mei Ting), a doctor in a hospital’s A&E department, visits him and meets his colleague, Lin Yao (Zhong Xintong), the daughter of Song Teng’s professor. Lin Yao suggests that both of them stay at No. 81 until work is completed, though He Fei is unwilling as it’s far from her work. Over dinner, Lin Yao tells how renovation work was originally started a long time ago by her father; but because of various unexplained accidents, the city’s cultural department ordered work to halt. Lin Yao explains that, during the Republican era, there had been a spate of eight baby murders in the district, for which Niu Menghe (Mei Ting) was arrested. She had been the wife of No. 81’s owner, young warlord Zhang Zhisheng (Zhang Zhilin), prior to him being pressured to marry Ji Jincui (Zhong Xintong), daughter of powerful warlord Ji Chunlong (Gao Jie). Zhang Zhisheng finally had Niu Menghe executed but was haunted by bad luck ever after. Wandering around the old house at night, He Fei starts having visions of that period and comes across an old medical book about obstetrics. After having visions of giant bugs, she finds Hua, a young worker who had stayed on the project, dead in a corridor. She continues to have visions, seeing a young girl whom she becomes convinced is the daughter she lost five years earlier. She also becomes suspicious of the relationship between her husband and Lin Yao, as the past history of No. 81 seems more and more to impinge on the present.