My House of Horrors

Ol’ Wei and Master Bai zipped up their lips and held their breath. Chen Ge grabbed the hammer’s handle in his backpack and turned his eyes back to the door. Along the dark road, a cold misty light was getting closer. “What is that?”

The light stopped at the front door and filtered into the courtyard through the slit in the door.

CREAK…

The front door was pushed open. There was nothing outside the house; there was no one at the door. The only change was an additional white lantern hanging on the door. When Chen Ge’s group entered the house, there had definitely not been a white lantern. Inside this village, the lantern seemed to have some special importance.

“They’re coming in?” The white lantern shone a pale light on the floor. There was no one in the courtyard, but there were three shadows on the floor, two tall and one short. The shadows flickered in the courtyard, and they did not seem to notice the three outsiders hiding inside the room.

A cold draft picked up, and the front door closed on its own. When the pale light disappeared, three strange creatures appeared. Their heads were pressed to their chests, and they walked forward on tip-toe. The unkempt hair blocked their faces, and their clothes were stained with blood. They were radiating a strange stench.

It’s similar to the smell at the Third Sick Hall! They’ve been inside the door?

Chen Ge signaled for Ol’ Wei and Master Bai to hide. The three creatures stood in the middle of the courtyard, and as Chen Ge expected, there were two adults and one child. The way they were standing was very weird. They leaned forward like they would topple into the room at any moment.

The atmosphere was tense.

As time passed, the three creatures outside the room seemed to sense something. They moved forward at the same time and walked to the door with a weird gait. Since they were just separated by a door, Chen Ge could see the pattern on their clothes. The three shadows did not enter the room but stopped at the door.

The two adults kept their heads lowered, but the child had a paper doll in its hands. It kept using its fingers to tear on the doll, and whenever he did so, the paper doll seemed to come alive, its expression filled with pain as it begged for mercy. However, the child did not stop. If anything, it continued to find other ways to ‘play’ with the doll.

It seems like there’s a name on the doll.

With his Yin Yang Vision, Chen Ge could see the name on the doll, and he felt like he had seen that name in Lin Guan Village. Wait, could the doll be one of the people who disappeared from Lin Guan Village?

There was a bunch of Coffin Village’s escapees that settled at Lin Guan Village, but other than themselves, no one knew the real reason they escaped from Coffin Village. The shadows stopped at the door for several seconds. Seemingly intent on investigating if there were people hiding inside the room, one of the shadows walked to the window.

Chen Ge could clearly see the lowered head stick itself to the window and use it to push the wooden windowpane open. The sticky hair dangled downward. It planned to poke its head in!

At the time, Ol’ Wei was squatting below the window. He did not know there was another head just above his own. Chen Ge looked at Ol’ Wei, but his expression did not change. Ol’ Wei saw Chen Ge looking at him, and based on the young man’s expression, he thought everything was fine.

The hair touched Ol’ Wei’s neck, and he even reached out to scratch it. Ol’ Wei’s hand practically brushed past the face above his head. Master Bai, who hid behind the coffin, saw everything. His lips were chattering, and he tried his best to alert Ol’ Wei.

Perhaps Ol’ Wei also felt that something was wrong. He moved his eyes away from Chen Ge and turned to Master Bai. Master Bai reached out one finger, and he kept pointing upward; it was hard to miss the hint.

Above me? Ol’ Wei reached out to touch his head, but he did not find anything. Since Master Bai kept pointing up, he raised his hands upward. Behind the door, Chen Ge gripped the hammer. His original plan had been to wait for the ghost to reach half of his body in before he made his move, but Ol’ Wei had pushed his plan forward.

As Chen Ge expected, under Master Bai’s instruction, Ol’ Wei’s hands kept moving upward. His fingertips touched something, and it felt very cold. His neck froze, and Ol’ Wei slowly turned his head upward. He leaded back and looked right into the male ghost’s eyes.

“Now!” Chen Ge pressed the recorder and swung the hammer at the window above Ol’ Wei’s head!

Almost at the same time, the three ghosts attacked from the door and window. The ghost that was closest to Ol’ Wei peeled his mouth back. Blood vessels moved within it as he tried to bite Ol’ Wei’s face.

Ol’ Wei, who had been wondering what was above him one second earlier, did not have chance to react. He did not even have time to show fear when the ghost’s mouth opened wide. He was about to scream when a scary-looking hammer flew past his head!

BANG!

Chen Ge did not hold back, and the hammer landed right on the ghost’s face. It sent the ghost flying along with the window frame!

“My god…” Ol’ Wei had not even closed his lips, and Chen Ge also fell out of the room with a man wearing half a red shirt standing beside him. After the ghost at the window was knocked out of the room, the two shadows raised their heads. The dead faces exposed vicious expressions. They wanted to charge into the room, but Chen Ge was running at them.

The battle ended as soon as it started. In less than one second, Xu Yin already got two of the shadows on the ground. Xu Yin was maddened by bloodlust. He did not have the habit of leaving things alive, so the two shadows soon became blood stains on his shirt.

The last shadow landed on all fours. It was about to clamber out when it was pressed down from behind by Xu Yin. The whole process took, at most, ten seconds. During that time, the only thing Chen Ge could do was turn around to close the door.

Xu Yin seems to have gotten stronger.

The shirt knitted with blood stuck to his body. Xu Yin was like a lonely pianist, waving his tapered fingers to flick the blood off his hands. His body disappeared as Chen Ge turned the recorder off.

“What happened earlier‽” Ol’ Wei and Master Bai ran out of the room. They were covered in cold sweat, and panic was apparent on their faces.

“I don’t know either.” Chen Ge shrugged. “When I gave chase after them, the three shadows immediately left the place.”

He pointed at the open front door and picked up the hammer. “We should be more careful. We made a loud commotion earlier—perhaps more monsters will be coming.”

“Do you know the meaning of the word ‘careful’?” Ol’ Wei touched his head as he looked at the hammer in Chen Ge’s hand. He could not believe that thing flew inches away from his head earlier.