Today is the final day of the Seventh Lunar Month, and to mark the occasion, 8days.sg has a very scary ghost story from veteran actor Zhang Xinxiang, 54.

According to Xinxiang, who used to go by the name Zhang Wenxiang, he has had many encounters with the supernatural. The first time he claims he saw a ghost was in secondary two during a friend's barbecue party, but that's a story for another time.

However, this particular experience, during an overseas shoot for 2011 Mediacorp drama Code Of Honour, which starred Elvin Ng, Rui En and Andie Chen, remains the scariest to him.

We were in Malaysia to film Code Of Honour, and one of the locations was this really strange house. It was this really old-looking house in the middle of two very modern bungalows, which I found very odd because it seemed like it was a great neighbourhood, said Xinxiang.

The actor was smoking outside the house while waiting for his scene, when he suddenly heard footsteps and an old man saying to him in Cantonese, 'Wow, are you guys filming here?'

I ignored him, and at the same time, an assistant cameraman came to me to tell me that he needed the battery box that I was sitting on. I didn't see the uncle when I turned around so I asked the assistant if he saw anyone. He said no, and I started to get a really bad feeling.

I told him to move away from that spot, but I didn't say anything to the rest of the team because I didn't want to scare them.

When it was Xinxiang's turn in front of the camera, one of the set assistants told someone that she wasn't feeling well and she went to rest in the car.

Around this time, a crew member told Xinxiang that he saw a woman holding the hand of a young child on the set, but they disappeared into thin air when he tried took a second look.

Once [the crew member] said that, the set assistant who was in the car suddenly got possessed, recalled Xinxiang.

Her eyes started rolling non-stop. It shocked all of us. She then started bawling and throwing a tantrum like a child. So I approached her and said: 'Listen to me. I'll now chant some mantras for you.'

The girl started screeching when she heard what Xinxiang said. According to him, the sound she was making was so scary, some crew members started crying in fear.

After a few minutes of Xinxiang's chanting, the girl fainted, and he told everyone to let her rest.

He also asked the director if they could wrap up early because he had a really bad feeling about the place.

His gut feeling was right.

As he was talking to the director, the girl got possessed again. Only this time, she started thrashing around with so much strength that three men couldn't even hold her down .

I asked if anyone had any joss sticks and thankfully, someone did. So I lit them and walked into the house alone. I said out loud: 'Sorry for intruding. We're in a situation that we don't want to be in, and I'm sure that all of you don't want to do this too. The girl that's being affected now is innocent... If you could be kind enough to let her off, I'll try to gather some things to offer you.'

Suddenly, the girl stopped moving and everyone immediately packed up their things and left.

The lighting team later told me that they encountered problems when they were setting up in the house. Apparently, the light bulbs kept blowing, recalled Xinxiang. I scolded them because instead of telling the rest of the crew that something was amiss, they started cursing instead. I also found out that the crew didn't pray before filming started as it was raining. That's something they have to do regardless of the weather.

According to Xinxiang, Andie was on set that day too and the scenes that they shot in the house did make the final cut, though he doesn't remember the episode.

Xinxiang now believes he was meant to go to Malaysia for the shoot.

None of the crew knew what to do when something like that happened. The only sutra I know is the Heart Sutra, which I often chant on my own. All I wanted to do was to help, and thankfully that was enough.

Watch Code of Honour here on meWATCH.

Photos: Mediacorp, Zhang Xinxiang