My House of Horrors

The person on the other end of the line did not seem to expect such a direct reply. The new message came after about ten seconds. “I’m hiding inside the dresser in Room 3239. There seem to be things around me.”

“Do you mind describing the shape and size of those things?” Chen Ge was too lazy to type, so he sent a voice message.

“I cannot take a good look—it is too dark in here—but I can sense their presence.”

“But don’t you have your phone with you? Couldn’t you turn on the flashlight feature to take a better look around you?”

“I will be discovered.”

“Then how did you manage to hide inside Room 3239? Does this mean you have the key?”

“No, the door was open, so I snuck in immediately.”

“What about Ol’ Wong?”

“Ol’ Wong?”

The conversation had been going back and forth very quickly until this point. On Chen Ge’s side, it showed that the other party was typing, but there was no new message.

Did I kill the conversation? Chen Ge waited for a long time, but there was still no reply. He took out his phone and sent ‘Xiao Gu’ a message. “Are you there?”

When the elevator arrived at 23rd floor, Chen Ge had already sent thirteen of the same message.

“Are you there?”

When he was about to send the fourteenth one, Chen Ge realized that he had been blocked. You’re the one who harassed me, but you’re also the one who blocked me; what’s wrong with you?

He walked out of the elevator and pressed the play button on the recorder.

The bloodied tape slowly turned. Chen Ge narrowed his pupils, lowering the influence darkness had on him to its lowest. Well, fret no more because I’m here to correct you.

Chen Ge’s nerves tensed as he leaned toward the wall. Then he slowly walked down the corridor.

After reading the message on the phone, Xiao Jia lost complete control of himself and even injured his partner by biting him. This means that the ghost hiding in the dark should have the power to influence a person’s mind. The blood face of the ghost stories society had a similar power, but the blood face needed to be close to their target and morph into the same facial features of their target before they could initiate their power.

This is a special type of ghost. Normally, these ghosts that have special powers aren’t be good at combat, like the Pen Spirit.

When Chen Ge came, he did not bring Doctor Skull-cracker’s hammer or the cleaver. He pushed his hand into his pocket to grab at the ballpoint pen inside it while his other hand held onto the wall. He was afraid that the door before him would suddenly open and a ghost head would stick its head in. Counting the number on the door, Chen Ge soon arrived at Room 3239. He wiggled with doorknob, but the door did not move.

Should be this room. He knocked on the door. “Is anyone there?”

The bloodied tape created a shrill white noise; it felt as if Xu Yin was warning Chen Ge. He knocked on the door several times, and to Chen Ge’s surprise, a man’s voice did eventually come out from within Room 3239. “Yes, I’m here! Who is disturbing people so late at night? What do you want?”

Someone is in‽ Chen Ge was actually more surprised than the man inside the room. He knew this was either someone who had been taken control by the ghost stories society or the man inside the room himself was the member of the ghost stories society. He was severely anxious, and his attention was pulled taut.

Fang Hwa Apartments’ room doors all came with a double layer and soon the door inside was pulled open. A man about 1.7 meters tall stood inside the room, looking at Chen Ge with a cold expression. “What do you want?”

“I’m here to assist the police in capturing a fugitive. In a minute, the rest of the police troop will arrive.” Chen Ge’s tone and mannerisms were a perfect mimic of Captain Yan.

“Another fugitive?” The man’s face turned even harsher. His brows were creased together.

“Hubby, what’s wrong?” A woman about thirty walked out of the living room.

“There’s another fugitive apparently.”

“Wait, didn’t we just have a fugitive sneak into this place a few days ago? This place is so dangerous. How many times has this happened now‽” The woman’s voice turned shrill. “I’ve told you, we should move from this place as soon as possible, but you just refuse to listen to me!”

“Move, move, move? Where do you suggest we move to?” The man’s temper was lit up. Neither of them was backing down, and an argument soon started. Chen Ge looked at them with a detached gaze. He was unable to be sure whether they were members of the ghost stories society, but his instinct told him that there was something off about this couple.

When people are in the middle of an argument, they would hold the other person’s gaze. Compelled by emotions, they might even use their nonverbal actions; however, these two don’t do that. Their bodies are extremely awkward. Is it because they don’t want to act out because I’m here, or is this all just a show? The argument went on for a while before the woman left the man at the door and strode back into the room.

The man looked like he was harboring a great ball of fire, and his attitude toward Chen Ge was harsh and pointed. “We’re tenants of this building; we have not seen any fugitives or heard any weird noise. Go along and disturb someone else.”

Normally, one would not have opened the door for people to enter at the middle of the night. Chen Ge had expected that. If the man suddenly opened the door and allowed him to inspect the interior, Chen Ge would really have needed to be careful.

“I just have a few questions for you.” Chen Ge pointed at the few adjacent doors. “Do you know your neighbors well?”

“The rooms next to us are all empty, and there’s a single man living opposite from us. He just moved in one or two months ago, and he rarely leaves his room, so can’t say I know much about him.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Probably Wednesday night. I came back home three hours later than usual due to overtime, and I ran into him at the elevator.”

“Wednesday night? Elevator?” Chen Ge immediately tied the man in the opposite room to the ghost stories society. “Do you know the man’s name?”

“No idea.” The man slammed the door shut after that. The sound of the door closing echoed down the corridor. Chen Ge stood in the middle of the corridor, and he turned to face the room opposite from Room 3239.

“Could a member of the ghost stories society be hiding inside this room?” There was suspicion in his eyes. The couple in Room 3239 might have looked normal, but they had ‘inadvertently’ revealed several pieces of key information to Chen Ge—Wednesday and the elevator. Only members of the ghost stories society would know such details. Did they do that on purpose? Is their aim to lure me to the opposite room?

Chen Ge did not know whether this was a coincidence or a trap. Ever since he gained the black phone, he had become more and more cautious. His right hand curled around the ballpoint pen, and his left hand grabbed the doorknob of the room opposite from Room 3239. Chen Ge turned the doorknob, and the door slowly opened.

It’s not locked? When he realized that the door was not locked, Chen Ge immediately took a step back. The real trap should be this room opposite from Room 3239. Just as he released his grasp on the doorknob, a bloody hand the size of a child reached out to grab him!

It missed, but they were just centimeters away from each other!

What was that‽

In the dark corridor, the door creaked open slowly. As if climbing out of the door, there was a little boy with tiny limbs, a large head, and a face that was purple from a lack of oxygen!

What made Chen Ge’s heart quiver was that the boy was wearing a red shirt!

The twisted lips slowly opened to reveal a row of uneven teeth. The boy seemed to be smiling.

“Daddy killed us and placed us inside the door.

“Big brother is hiding behind the door.

“And he told me to hide in front of the door.”

Just as the boy finished, another misshapen head poked out from inside the room. Its face was bloated, and the eyes were almost popping out of their sockets.

“Daddy killed us and placed us inside the door.

“Little brother is hiding in front of the door.

“And he told me to hide behind the door.”

Both boys had curious expressions. They climbed out of the door and stood before Chen Ge, one standing in front, the other at the back. Fresh blood trickled down their bodies to form blood vessels that slowly crept away. They were like millipedes crawling on the ground and walls. The corridor became very dangerous, but the ghost stories society’s trick was not done yet.

A white shadow slowly crawled out from Room 3239. It was the white shadow that escaped from the woman who killed Xu Yin. There was only one third of its body left. It looked like it was trying to escape. It crawled on the carpet of blood vessels, but its body was quickly dragged back into the room, and there was soon the sound of chewing coming from behind the door.

There are other monsters inside that room‽ Chen Ge was unfortunate enough to be right. A hand covered with blood vessels reached out. It looked no bigger than a normal person’s hand, but the thing that alarmed Chen Ge was the hand seemed to have been serious scorched. There were no finger prints.

The air in the corridor seemed to coagulate. A thick smell of blood filled the air. The air pressed on one boy’s head like a kind father tussling its beloved child’s hair. “He has found us, so now it is your time to find him.”

The man’s voice was throaty and raw. It sounded like he had consumed highly corrosive things before. Just the voice alone made Chen Ge’s skin crawl. After hearing the man’s voice, the two boys with Red Shirts gave an extremely happy smile, and they replied in unison, “Yes, Father.”

The broken faces rushed toward Chen Ge. Xu Yin could barely handle one Red Specter, much less two. Chen Ge was under immense pressure, to a degree that he had not felt before. Without hesitation, he yelled out the name on the cursed love letter. “Zhang Ya!”

Like water dripping into a deep well, ripples started to form in Chen Ge’s shadow. The crawling blood vessels suddenly stopped moving. Even the hand that hung outside the door with no fingerprint shuddered slightly. Black hair crawled out of Chen Ge’s shadow like waves. It crashed into the walls on both sides of the corridor, using this powerful and violent method to crush all the blood vessels that were heading toward Chen Ge.

The temperature on the 23rd floor continued to drop. Zhang Ya’s beautiful face appeared behind Chen Ge. That bone-chilling presence was hiding a soul that was burning with passion!

“This is the ghost in your heart?” The man slowly walked out from behind the door. He was wearing a large red jacket, and even though he was wearing a mask on his face, the mask did nothing to hide the man’s face that was completely ruined.

“Zhang Ya, be careful!” Chen Ge decided to take a step back from the battlefield. He would be completely useless in the battle between Red Specters anyway. Chen Ge’s reminder fell on deaf ears. After all, Zhang Ya would not have listened to him anyway.

Without wasting time talking or testing, Zhang Ya’s eyes filled with resentment, and her black hair rose up like waves, scratching the walls as it rushed toward the two boys!

Blood vessels entwined with black hair as they crashed forward like engulfing waves. Chen Ge hid behind Zhang Ya while contemplating something else in his mind.

The man controlling the two boys in red shirt should be Patient 10 from the Third Sick Hall. The man’s face, his body, and even the finger prints on the man’s hands had been burned off. This fitted the description for Patient 10 perfectly.The Haunted House recovered all the sickrooms in Third Sick Hall, and the walls of Room 10 had a thorough recording of its occupant’s history. The reason for his madness was the accident that killed his two children. The immense guilt and continuous trauma caused his mental breakdown.

Everything matched perfectly. Chen Ge did not think that he would face the scariest patient from Third Sick Hall that night!

He had underestimated the ghost stories society’s desire to kill him. They had probably started drafting this murder plot after they lost contract with Kong Xiangming and Wei Wu. With a strategist like Wu Fei, who was smarter than normal people, they would not make the same mistake twice. The ghost stories society might have sent out all its members tonight!

Zhang Ya’s appearance did not give Chen Ge any security. After all, Patient 10 alone had two Red Specters, and other than him, the ghost stories society still had six remaining members!

BANG!

The blood vessels exploded, and Zhang Ya’s black hair curled tightly around one of the boys’ necks, slamming him heavily on the ground. Weirdly enough the boy did not seem to feel any pain. In fact, there was a smile on his misshapen face. “Big brother, I’m running out of breath.”

The already crooked head grew bigger, and blood vessels started to surface on his face. It appeared like his head was about to be popped by the leash of black hair around his neck.

At this crucial point, however, the other Red Specter and the man who stood by the door did not seem willing to help. The man even ordered the older brother to jump over Zhang Ya to focus his attack on Chen Ge.

The black hair completely covered the younger brother. After a blood-chilling scream, the blood vessels did not get absorbed by the black hair but seeped out through the seams to slowly form a new boy standing not far away. His head was smaller, and the red on his body lighter, but other than that, he was no different from before.

“What are you two waiting for‽” The man with the ruined face growled with pain in his voice. Other than that, there was a trace of anger as well.

“We just wanted to wait until things were more stable. After all, the ghost in his heart is definitely stronger than most.” The door to Room 3239 slowly opened. The pair of husband and wife walked out from it. There was a thin monster standing on the man’s shoulders while the woman walked backwards. The blood face on the back of her head was flashing a creepy smile.

The two walked out laughing. They assumed victory was already theirs. However, to their surprise, when the door was open, the black hair rushed at them and curled around their bodies like a huge python.

Facing four baleful specters at once? And two of them were Red Specters!

The man and woman looked at each other. They saw fear, terror, shock, and despair reflected in each other’s eyes.

“Didn’t you say you can halt the monster on the target’s body‽” the woman screamed, but that was all she managed to get out before the black hair surged into the holes on the blood face.

The man was screaming as well. The thin monster wanted to curl back into the man’s body, but it was already too late. The black hair tightened its grasp as it slowly pulled the monster out from the man.

“One versus four?” The man with the ruined face slowly clenched his wounded hand. He had thought that this was a perfect plan, but there was still unforeseeable problem.

The black hair was like a river rushing through the blood red world. In her fluttering red dress, Zhang Ya stood silently in the middle of the corridor. She heard the man’s voice and slowly moved her gaze away from Chen Ge.

When her eyes fell on the man with the ruined face, her eyes twinkled like she had found a brand-new toy.