My House of Horrors

At 11 pm, inside the male dormitory at Xin Hai First High, the lights went off. The three male students in Room 408 had already locked the doors and windows and crawled into their beds before the lights went out.“Ol’ Cao, are you sure that you saw five people in the room last night?”

There was a rather well-built student sitting in the second bed, which was next to the window. He was wearing a basketball top, and the poster of a basketball athlete was pasted on the wall beside his bed.

“Why would I lie to you?” The student in first bed was bare chested. There were two night lights next to his bed, and he wore a pendant with a jade around his neck. “Initially, I also thought that cursed letter was nothing but a joke, so I did not give it much thought. Who would have thought there would be an actual extra person appearing in the room last night?”

Cao Fei, who was in the first bed, pointed at the window next to the second bed. “At the time, the person’s face was pressed against that window. I personally saw him open the balcony door and enter the room. Throughout the whole process, he had his eyes fixed on me.”

“Then, doesn’t that mean he was just standing beside my bed? What the f*ck! Why didn’t you warn me at the time? Some warning would have been helpful!”

“I really wanted to say something, but I realized I could not make any sound from my throat. Do you know the feeling of having a ghost pressing on you, holding you down? It felt just like that for me last night!” Cao Fei kept gesturing with both of his hands.

“Can you describe what that person looks like in more detail?” The student in the third bed removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He was very thin and tall. The textbook next to his bed had his name on it—Tian Yuan.

“I also cannot remember it that clearly anymore. I just felt there was someone there. He had been watching me as he slowly approached me,” Cao Fei said as he reached over to switch on the night lights. “Tonight, I am going to sleep with the lights on. Bros, you won’t mind, right?”

“Look at how cowardly you are. If you ask me, this is because you have done too many bad things, and it was your guilty conscience coming to get you.” Tian Yuan picked up the textbook next to him and resumed his study. He was a very hardworking student, but that did not change the fact that he too was a bully. “Speaking of which, who gave you the cursed letter in the first place? Who have you offended lately that wanted to do something like that to you?”

“Oh, it was nothing like that. The letter was given to me by my girlfriend. I saw how scared she was, so I voluntarily took it from her. Who knew the content of the letter would be true?” The bedside lights cast a halo on Cao Fei’s face. Once he reminisced about this incident, he could not stop the cold sweat from forming on his face.

“You are always the first to act like a hero, but now that you have to suffer the consequences, you have dragged all of your buddies down with you. I really do not know what to say other than thank you,” the male student in the basketball tank said sarcastically. “Sigh, when will I get a girlfriend of my own? Are the girls nowadays not into jocks?”

“Brother Zhuang, that is where you are wrong. I stopped the tragedy before it could get to the rest of us because I have already given the letter to Hu Yuan. He is not at the dormitory at the moment, so that ghost should have followed him home already,” Cao Fei said in a hushed tone. “Tomorrow, when he comes back to class, we will try to get some information from him, and we will frighten him even more and try to make him to stay away from the dormitory for the next few days so that the ghost will keep on following him back to his place.”

“What if he insists on coming back here?” Tian Yuan put his pair of glasses back.

“That weakling does not dare fight back. Even if he does fight back, what can he do to us?” It was clear that Cao Fei looked down on Hu Yuan. “The only thing that he has going for him is his sweet older sister.”

“Do you people know what time it is! Why aren’t you sleeping yet! Turn those lights off!” The door of the dormitory was knocked on, and the dormitory manager shouted from outside the door.

The people inside the room quickly moved to oblige. After the dormitory manager left, Cao Fei used the blanket to cover the night lights, and he whispered to the room, “I am not going to sleep tonight. I will keep my phone on and take a picture of the ghost for you to see.”

“I wish you best of luck. If you manage to get the picture, remember to wake us up.” The bedroom became very quiet, and no one was speaking anymore. Cao Fei buried his head under the sheets and started chatting with his girlfriend via text. Young couples at the start of their romance had many topics that they would talk about, and without even realizing it, they had chatted until midnight. Looking at the amount of battery left, Cao Fei prepared to bid his girlfriend good night. The dormitory that they were in did not have a place for them to charge their phones. If they wanted to do so, they would have to wait for the next day when they went to class.

His fingers moved on the screen. Before Cao Fei could send the word ‘good night’, he suddenly heard a weird voice in his ears. It sounded like the room door moving. He immediately yanked back the covers and turned his gaze to the door. The door was closed, and there was nothing out of place about it. He looked around. The inside of the room was intensely quiet, so quiet, in fact, that he could hear the breathing of his other two roommates and the sound of the beating of his heart.

“Brother Zhuang? Brother Yuan? Are you guys asleep?” There was no response. Cao Fei snuck under the covers again. This time, he only allowed his eyes to peek out from underneath. The phone kept vibrating; his girlfriend was sending him new messages. Cao Fei was feeling weirdly frightened. The only person that he could talk to now was his girlfriend.

“Cao Fei? Why have you suddenly stopped talking? Have you fallen asleep? Come and chat some more with me. I am a little bit scared.”

“Xiao Lu, our bedroom suddenly became very quiet. It is so quiet that even the buzzing of the mosquitos has disappeared. This is so strange!”

“Please don’t scare me like that! Have you passed the cursed letter on already?”

“Yes, I gave it to one of my roommates. He is not staying with us tonight.” When Cao Fei typed those letters, he heard another strange noise in his ears. It sounded like the water dripping and falling on the ground because the tap was not shut tightly.

“Then it should be fine. Don’t scare yourself. The curse has already been passed on to another person.”

“Let’s hope so.” After Cao Fei replied with that message, his gaze moved away from the phone screen and toward the window. Just as his eyes moved over there, they froze instantaneously because there was a face looking at him from the balcony!

His eyes blinked, and in that short moment, the face had already moved to stick itself against the glass window. Blood slid down the glass window. The handle that led to the balcony started to turn on its own. Cao Fei grabbed his phone like it was his lifeline. His heart would not stop racing. His limbs were as cold as ice, but the oxygen around him appeared to have ignited.

The balcony door that was locked from the inside was slowly opened. The temperature inside the room dropped drastically. Following the dripping sound, a man wearing a drenched red shirt appeared inside the dormitory room. The closer he got, the more twisted Cao Fei’s expression became, but he found out that his body could not react at all. The blood slid down to the floor, and the stinging stench of blood rushed into his nostrils!

The hair that was slick from water stuck on the man’s face. Only an eye that had no pupil stared at Cao Fei through the gap in between the hair.

Why? I have already sent the cursed letter away! Why have you still appeared!

It felt as if a pair of hands had gripped Cao Fei’s heart. His eyes were widened to its maximum.

Following the sound of water dripping, a hoarse voice came out from behind the curtain of black hair.

“Why do you always bully me?”

Whenever Cao Fei blinked, the person would teleport one inch closer to him.

“Why would you give me that letter?”

The soaked body was standing next to him bed. The eye that was fully white stared closely at Cao Fei.

“Why would you say bad things about my big sister? Why would you not let me lead a peaceful life? Why? Why! What have I done to you! Why? Why!”

His tone was getting more and more maddening. The Red Specter who was drenched leaned close to Cao Fei’s face. The wet black hair lingered on Cao Fei’s face. A death man’s pale face stared deeply into Cao Fei’s eyes.

“Why did you want me dead?”

“You are… Hu… Hu Yuan…” His body was leaning tightly against the headboard, Cao Fei’s body was frozen like ice. His pupils rolled upward; this scene was far beyond the threshold of horror that he could stomach. His body went limp on his bed, and the smell of ammonia later filled up the room.

“When you bully those weaker than you, you are like a horrible ghost, but when you run into an actual ghost, you perform even worse than those bullied by you.” The soaked Red Specter picked up Cao Fei’s phone and looked at the messages on it.

“What are you doing? How come you stopped answering my messages?”

“Are you still worried about the cursed letter? As long as you have passed the letter on to another person, the curse will not come to harm you.”

“Do not worry. The curse will only harm the latest unlucky b*stard. The two of us will be fine.”

Reading these messages, the Red Specters revealed a wicked grin.

…

It was already 1 am. Her roommates were all asleep, but Zhang Lu kept the night lights beside her bed on. She crossed her legs on the table as she applied something on her nails and glanced at the phone screen.

“How come he has not replied?” Zhang Lu’s fingers glided on the phone screen and wrote, “Do not worry. The curse will only harm the latest unlucky b*stard. The two of us will be fine.”

The screen in the dark finally lit up. Cao Fei had finally replied to her message.

“Where are you now?”

Zhang Lu found this question weird, but she still replied, “I am in my dorms! Where else would I be? What’s wrong?”

“I’m coming over to you now!”

“Now?” Zhang Lu looked at the time on her phone and quickly typed back a few words. “Stop kidding. It is already one in the morning.”

“I have already exited the male dormitory!”

“Are you really coming over now?”

“I have already reached the bottom of your building!”

“But the doors to the female dormitory should be locked already. How are you going to get in?”

“I have reached the first floor already!”

“First floor?” Zhang Lu looked at the messages that kept on coming. The frequency of the messages had suddenly increased. It made Zhang Lu feel very unsafe and uneasy.

“Cao Fei, I am warning you, don’t play such childish pranks on me.”

“I have reached the second floor already!”

“I have reached the third floor already!”

“I have reached the door of your room!”

The messages on the phone gave off a very strange and scary feeling. Zhang Lu gripped her phone tightly. She had a sudden feeling that it was not Cao Fei who was messaging her.

“When Cao Fei was chatting with me earlier, there was a long period when he did not reply to my messages. He claimed to have run into a ghost.” The more Zhang Lu thought about it, the more scared she became. She planned to wake up all her other roommates, but no one responded. After about ten seconds, there were no more new messages on her phone. Zhang Lu looked at the screen of her phone and silently slid to the door. She summoned all the courage that she had and slowly pushed the door open. In the dark corridor, other than the night breeze, there was nothing else.

“I knew it was a prank.” Zhang Lu bit on her lips. Her face had blanched from the fear, but that fear turned directly into anger. She fired a voice message to Cao Fei. “You sick b*stard! Do you think it is fun to scare me like that? Where exactly are you now?”

Moments later, Zhang Lu’s phone got a new message. “Look behind you.”

Zhang Lu slowly turned around, and the face of a dead man suddenly appeared behind her. “Why would you want me dead?”

…

Hanging up the phone, Wei Lijie cursed under his breath before he entered the bathroom of his own apartment.

“There are so many rich people in this world. How come I am the one who is so unlucky?” The man reeked of beer. He slumped down on the toilet and looked through the message history on his phone. “You can get much from threatening high schoolers anyway, and I still need to share the earnings with Cao Meng! F*ck! All he does is give me orders and stern faces. He really thinks he’s the mafia boss? Just wait until I climb higher than him. I swear I will work him to death…”

At this point of his complaint, Wei Lijie’s suddenly felt a pressure on the back of his neck. He lifted his head to look up in a blur, and he realized that there was a man in red shirt who was dripping wet standing at the top of his head. The blood leaked out from the shirt. Wei Lijie blinked several times, and the alcohol dissipated from his bloodstream immediately.

“Who gave you the cursed envelopes?”

“Cao… Cao… Cao Meng!” The man did not even take the time to put his pants on. He jumped up from the toilet and rammed into the bathroom door. He ran into the living room but was tripped by his own pants, which were tangled around his ankles. The sound of blood dripping echoed in his ears. He tried his best to crawl toward the door until his head bumped into something. Lifting his head to look, a fatty with an impossibly large body was reaching out to grab his head.

“Help! Help… Hmm!”

…

Cao Meng, who was busy partying at the night club, suddenly got a call from Wei Lijie. Due to the booming music, he could not hear what the man was saying. With great annoyance, he left the dance pool and entered the bathroom alone. “You’d better have something important to tell me to disturb me when I’m partying!”

He waited impatiently for a while. Just as he was about to hang up, an unfamiliar voice suddenly came from the other end of the line. “Why did you hand me that cursed envelope?’

“What envelope?”

“Why would you want me dead?”

“Wei Lijie, if you really want to know, the answer is that there is no reason. I just want you dead. So, what are you going to do about it? Someone has gotten too big to work for me, is that it?” Cao Meng hung up the call directly. His mind was still on the girl that he had been dancing with earlier. Grabbing the door handle of the bathroom, Cao Meng was heading out when a pale hand suddenly appeared on the door handle, placing itself on his own hand!

“What the f*ck!” Cao Meng whipped his head around, but he did not see another person in the bathroom with him. “Have I had too much to drink tonight?”

Just as he was confused, he heard a small voice from one of the cubicles. It sounded like the sound of a woman. He slowly approached the cubicle. Just as Cao Meng was about to reach the cubicle, the door slithered open, and a slender leg that was so white that it had no color to it extended out.

“A woman has snuck into the male toilets in the night club? I should teach her what kind of danger she might run into doing something as reckless as that.” Cao Ming’s heart was palpitating from the dirty thoughts. With the buzz of alcohol clouding his mind, his eyes could not stray away from that leg that appeared to be inviting him. Just as his eyes were fixed on the leg, a breath-takingly beautiful head dropped down beside that leg. She was staring at Cao Meng with the most beautiful smile.

Cao Meng’s body stopped moving. In that moment, Cao Meng felt that even his own heart had stopped beating. His mind was drawing a blank as he collapsed to the ground.

…

At 4:40 am, Lan Xiaochen had just finished giving a horrible review to a horror movie that he had not even seen. Naturally, that got a strong reaction from the fans of the movies. He happily starting to troll these people. This was the happiest moment of his everyday life. The pressure that he suffered during the day was released at that moment. He enjoyed eliciting anger from others and felt a sense of satisfaction because these people were unable to do anything to him due to his anonymity behind the screen.

“You guys should be thankful that I have spent the little precious time that I have to write a review for your beloved movie. What more do you want from me?” He trolled the people for about ten minutes until he was banned by the moderator. Lan Xiaochen slammed heavily on the keyboard. “Such cowards. But never mind.”

He scoffed chillingly and opened a new sub account to continue his trolling in the movie review segment. He used the worst language to curse all those people. “How I wish my curses could turn into reality and ruin the things that this group of trash values so much.”

Lan Xiaochen stared at the ID of the moderator on-screen and looked at all his sub accounts as his comments were deleted. He took out an envelope from his drawer. “There is only one last envelope left. I wonder if it will work on an internet ID.”

The time passed by second by second. When it was 4:44 am on the clock, Lan Xiaochen stuffed the written letter into the envelope, but before he could even seal it, the lights in the room suddenly all went out.

“What’s this? A power cut?”

The light from the streetlight filtered into the room. Through the dim lighting, Lan Xiaochen realized that a few shadowy figures were flickering inside his room.