Novel Full “Why, you ask?” Chen Ge turned back to look into Wen Qing’s eyes. He thought about it and finally decided against revealing the connection between the ghost fetus and Xiang Nuan. Wen Qing had no idea that the monster that she was talking about was actually related to Xiang Nuan. When the three were congregated inside the bedroom, having these conversations, the bedroom itself started to slowly change.
The human shape that was hollowed out on the bed started to sink like someone was lying on top of it. The stains were moving. A child’s handprints appeared on the bedsheet, and the handprints were slowly approaching Wen Qing. The three of them were all standing equidistant to the bed, but the handprints appeared to be only interested in Wen Qing.
“No matter what, do not move.” The set of handprints finally stopped before Wen Qing. The room was eerily quiet, and everyone held their breath.
About ten seconds later, Wen Qing opened her lips to speak. Her eyes were overflowing with fear. “I feel like someone is standing in front of me. Really, there is something standing in front of me!”
Taking out Doctor Skull Cracker’s hammer, Chen Ge stared at the bedsheet before Wen Qing. The child’s handprints had stopped moving. They stopped right before Wen Qing.
“Ah!” Without any warning, Wen Qing suddenly screamed. She staggered backward in a hurry, and her body knocked into the wall. At the same time, the handprints on the bed started to move away. They crawled rapidly toward the window.
“Just now, someone was touching my face. The hands were very cold!” Wen Qing’s expression did not look like he was lying.
“You can sense its presence?” Even with the aid of his Yin Yang Vision, Chen Ge could not see anything, so he was surprised that Wen Qing could sense the thing’s presence.
“Yes, I cannot hear it or even see it. I do not smell anything out of place in the air, but I just felt there was something standing before me earlier!” This kind of experience was extremely rare, and it was little wonder that Wen Qing was in such a flustered state. “Could neither of you sense it? Why would it come after me? Could it be that it has targeted me as its mother? Just like the two women who were brutally murdered?”
“You are a unique existence to it.” Chen Ge also had no idea whether he should reveal the ghost fetus’ backstory to Wen Qing or not. “Ever since we left Jin Hwa Apartments Block A, you kept sensing and seeing these strange things, and they include the human heads floating in the black fog, not to mention the owner of the handprint…”
“But Xiao Sun saw those things as well. Didn’t he say that there was someone following us along the way when we were moving through the black fog?” Wen Qing slowly calmed down. She raised her arm to lightly touch her face, the feel the spot where she was caressed by the strange creature.
“He is an original tenant behind the door, so it is not that unusual for him to see these things. But you come from outside the door, yet you are able to see more of these things than I do. Now, there is something very strange about that.”
It was not that Chen Ge suspected that Wen Qing had done something bad. There was just this question that had been bugging him ever since he entered this door. Why did Wen Qing not exist in the world behind Xiang Nuan’s door?
The world behind the door was made according to the door pusher’s memory. The process of creating the world was not something the door pusher could control, and the deeper the impression the door pusher had of someone, the greater the chance of them appearing behind their door. Basically, all of the tenants in Jin Hwa Apartments had made their appearance. As Xiang Nuan’s mother and caretaker, it made little to no sense that Wen Qing had not appeared behind Xiang Nuan’s door.
Could it be that Xiang Nuan has sent the Wen Qing from inside the door outside the door, or has the ghost fetus killed or taken control over Wen Qing inside the door to accomplish his own goal?
Seeing how long Chen Ge had not said anything, Wen Qing opened her lips to ask, “What are you thinking about?”
The only person whom she could trust in this place was Chen Ge.
“If, one day, you realize that your child is different from what you imagined him to be, would you still love him unconditionally?” Chen Ge asked with heavy insinuation.
“Of course, no matter what happens to him, I will still love him because he is my child,” Wen Qing answered without hesitation. She did not even need a few seconds to think about it.
“Even if he turned into the monster that you were so fearful of earlier?” When Chen Ge tossed out that question, he kept his eyes on Wen Qing to study the change to the woman’s expression.
“Even if he has turned into a monster, it does not change the fact that he is still my son.” Wen Qing was confused. “Why would you keep asking me these strange questions? Do you suspect that Xiang Nuan is the monster inside this building? Impossible! You have not interacted with him before. He is actually a very nice kid.”
“Yes, I believe that he is a very nice kid.” Chen Ge had seen the ghost fetus’ earliest memory in Fang Yu’s world. In Western Jiujiang’s haunted house, after the young Chen Ge fell asleep, the shadow was playing alone with the toys inside the bedroom. The loneliness that the shadow showcased was gut wrenching indeed. Initially, the shadow was pure and innocent, but after leaving Chen Ge, it had started to change. Essentially, Chen Ge’s shadow had died, and in its place was a ghost that was known as the ghost fetus.
“Let’s move on to the next room. The earlier we can find the remaining body parts of the rag doll, the easier we will be able to mount an escape from this place.” Chen Ge did not challenge what Wen Qing said. He did not want to linger on this topic for too long.
“Hey, don’t suddenly change the topic! Why did you ask me all those questions? You have to give me an explanation before we leave!” Wen Qing chased after Chen Ge, but the two of them stopped once they stepped out from the bedroom. The incense burner pots in the four corners had all been knocked over, the bronze basin was flipped over, and the burnt banknotes fluttered in the air.
“Someone has been in here; they were following behind us.”
“If you ask me, the chances of that someone being a ghost are much higher. We’d better leave this place as soon as we can.”
Chen Ge did not explain further. He walked through the living room and looked out at the corridor. There were more bloody handprints on the walls, a sign that the monster had been crawling up and down the corridor.
It was a child’s handprints that appeared on the bed earlier, and outside the room, there are these bloody handprints. They are markedly different though, so do they belong to two different ghosts? Are there two children’s ghosts inside this building, or is there a child’s ghost inhabiting each room?
Behind the door, Jiu Hong Apartments was occupied by dead people; they were the original tenant of this world behind the door. How many of them were there in total? Probably only the ghost fetus knew the answer to that question. The bloody handprints wandered around the third floor before they led a trail back to the fourth floor. It was as if the monster was playing hide and seek with Chen Ge.
“Do we still need to go after it?” Xiao Sun asked with a bitter face. This time, he was really afraid. Chen Ge used his action to answer Xiao Sun. With his eyes staring at the bloody handprints, Chen Ge moved toward the fourth floor.
On the staircase that led from the third floor to the fourth floor, there were many chopped up toys and the carcasses of an exorbitant number of bugs. Most of the bugs were indiscernible because their bodies had been cut up too small. The banknotes stuck to the bottom of their shoes and the air around them felt heavy. There was the sound of something rolling on the ground echoing in their ears.
The three finally arrived at the fourth floor. This floor was not that different from the previous floors, but it looked even more abandoned. The calligraphy on the wall was half torn, but the focal points were the bowls of white rice on the ground. The white rice placed outside the doors of the rooms on the fourth floor had been eaten. The chopsticks stuck out at awkward angles, and the rice littered the ground around the bowls.
“Someone really ate them?”
“The rice inside the bowls is for the ghosts. The sign that they have been eaten proves that this floor probably has the highest amount of ghost.” Chen Ge kept his eyes glued to the bloody handprints, they disappeared into the deepest room at the fourth floor. “If anything dangerous happens later, do not panic and run away from me. Staying close to me is the safest option.”
After giving them the reminder, Chen Ge walked the room at the end of the fourth floor, Room 404. The bowl of white rice placed before this door was almost finished. There were only some bits of moldy white rice left inside the bowl. Holding the door handle, before Chen Ge could apply any force, the door opened on its own.
“It’s not locked?” He slowly pulled the door open, but he stopped halfway. There was a child wearing a red dress sitting inside the living room. She was facing away from the door and facing the window. White clothes were wrapped around her body.
“A Red Specter?” Chen Ge was very sensitive to the color red. When he saw the glimpse of the red dress, he stopped moving immediately. Before his employees woke up, he had no power to deal with a Red Specter head on.
“What is a Red Specter?” Xiao Sun tapped Chen Ge on his shoulder. “Why are you so stiff? What’s happening?”
“Shush, keep quiet.” Chen Ge stood for a while at the door, and then he realized that he was merely overthinking it. It was not a Red Specter; it was just a ‘girl’ wearing a red dress. After entering the room, Chen Ge looked around. The room was covered in bloody handprints. Once he lifted his head, he saw that the whole ceiling colored in red fingerprints as if the monster would crawl all over the room once night fell.
“Is it okay for me to stay outside and not enter this place?” Xiao Sun resisted entering this horrifying location. Honestly, Wen Qing was feeling the same way. For a normal person, this room was indeed a bit too gory for their taste.
“It is the safest for you to stick with me. Have you forgotten about the ghost inside the closet in Room 204? Remember that they are always watching us. The moment we get separated, they will come after us immediately and make us stay here with them forever.”
Chen Ge took out Doctor Skull Cracker’s Hammer and slowly approached the girl who was sitting facing away from the front door. He could not sense any living presence from the girl. The girl was not a living person, and she was not a Red Specter. If one had to describe her, she was more like a piece of art.
Walking to the girl’s side, Chen Ge’s expression turned severe. He had no idea how to describe this girl. She looked no different from a normal human except that her soul had been sucked out of her body. All that was left of her was an empty shell. The girl’s body was fixed to the chair by the bundle of white cloth. Her head lolled back against the chair. Bloody white rice stuck to the corner of her lips. Her eyes were widely open, but there was no spirit at all in her eyes. If anything, they felt like two dark, empty holes.
“What’s your name?” Chen Ge tried talking to the girl, but the latter gave her no response. Compared to a normal person, she was more like a doll that was made from a living person. But this doll was much cuter and livelier than the rag doll that was made by the ghost fetus.
“Is this child one of the tenants of Jiu Hong Apartments?” Wen Qing also walked into the room. “Should we untie her? Maybe she can tell us something.”
“We should search the room for other clues first. We can decide whether to do that after ensuring there is no danger lying around this place.” Chen Ge found nothing on the girl, so he turned to start to search around the room. The room was very dilapidated. The furniture had seen better days. The room was inhospitable; the condition was even worse than Room 301 and Room 204.
“Why is this room filled with bloody handprints? Something must have happened to the ghost fetus inside this room.” His gaze scanned the whole room, and Chen Ge slowly noticed some problems. So far, of all the rooms they had visited, Room 404 was the only room that did not have a sofa. The owner was so poor that there was not much furniture, and what they had was just hand me downs, probably purchased from flea markets. Strangely enough, though, while the homeowner appeared to have difficulty keeping their everyday life afloat, there was a disproportionate number of toys in the room. They were so many different kinds, and they came in different variations.
“There is not even an electric fan in this place, but the owner has splurged so much on these toys. Why is that?”
As he pushed open the bedroom door, a walking stick that was leaning behind the door was knocked off balance and landed on Chen Ge’s shoe. Picking up the walking stick, Chen Ge happened to glance at a family photo that was placed on the study table.
A man who had only one leg was hugging his own son, and a woman was carefully guarding her son behind her. Next to the man stood a little girl.
In the picture, only the girl’s face was normal. The faces of the other three had gouges of scratches on them like someone had gone into tearing at them with their fingernails.
“This is a picture of a family of four, so why is the face of the girl the only one that is spared?” Chen Ge picked up the picture, and he saw a sentence that was written on the back—’I am your real family.’
“This handwriting is similar to the names that were carved on all of the mud statuettes, so this should have been written by the ghost fetus as well.”
Putting down the family photo, Chen Ge opened the desk drawer. To his surprise, the drawer was filled with various pictures. Every picture had dates and uneven handwriting on the back. Chen Ge arranged them according to chronological order. The first picture was taken about ten years ago, around the same time the shadow left Chen Ge. The picture was of the girl alone. She looked very cute, but for some reason, she was dressed like a boy. The picture was taken at the front door of the apartment. The sky was darkening. The girl was running into the apartment, dragging a tattered bag that was covered in sand behind her.
The second picture was probably taken several days later. The girl was still dressed like a tomboy. She stood next to a pile of garbage and carried a battered rag doll in her hands.
In the third picture, the girl was standing outside the door of Room 404 with a dissatisfied pout on her face. The rag doll was dumped at the corner of the stairs. The girl’s parents were lecturing her.
In the fourth picture, the girl was hiding under a tree with the rag doll and some new toys. She had a very big smile on her face. She looked so innocent and carefree, as children should at her age. The picture radiated an energy of innocence and joy.
In the fifth picture, the younger brother snatched the toys away from the girl. The mother appeared to be interrogating the girl as she kept nodding. The father with the missing leg held a broom in his hands like he was ready to mete out punishment. They appeared to have suspected the girl to have stolen money from the family and used it to buy new toys.
In the sixth picture, the little brother was sitting among the pile of toys while the girl was facing away from the door. Half of the rag doll’s face was peeking out from behind the door.
The previous photos were quite normal, if a little sad. However, starting from the seventh photo, everything started to change.
Many different kinds of inexplicable wounds appeared on the little brother’s body. The parents did not know what to do. In their desperation, they channeled their fury onto the girl. Perhaps, in their eyes, it was her fault that she did not look after her younger brother, or perhaps they thought that she was the one who did those horrible things to her younger brother.
The following pictures only got crueler and crueler. In the eleventh picture, there was a rag doll that was pressing the little brother by his head as it tried to push the young boy out the window. The girl screamed for the rag doll to stop.
In the twelfth photo, the boy hid behind his parents, with tears and complaints. The girl was punished severely. She was forced to stand outside the front door. Behind her, she was holding the rag doll, which was hidden from view.
In the thirteenth photo, the rag doll was dumped at the trash site. It did not look that much different from the other trash around it, but when the heavy rain fell on its face that was sewn together by different human skin, it looked eerily like a child who was silently crying.