My House of Horrors

Wen Qing took a careful look at the two people in the room, and she felt a headache coming. They were in such a strange and creepy place, but neither Chen Ge nor Uncle Huang seemed to notice that. She did not know whether she was overacting because she had too little experience or these two’s understanding of the world had gone far beyond the conceptualization of a normal person. After much hesitation, Wen Qing finally walked into the room. But she did not dare sleep, she merely stood behind Chen Ge.

Uncle Huang practically collapsed on the couch. He looked like he paid Chen Ge no mind at all and slowly closed his eyes. His body appeared to have grown attached to the sofa, and that was not a figure of speech. The blood vessels from the couch entangled around him, joining Uncle Huang to the couch. With no disturbance, Chen Ge made use of this rare opportunity to assess his surroundings. The layout of this room was rather different from the other rooms they had encountered. It was much smaller than a normal room. The kitchen and the toilet occupied the same space, and there was only one bedroom and one living room.

“Compared to Wen Qing’s home, this place is missing a bedroom and a kitchen.” Chen Ge suspected that the source of the stench came from the missing rooms. He sat for some time on the couch and even took some time to examine the blood vessels on the couch. Strangely enough, when Chen Ge sat on the couch, the blood vessels looked like red streaks of decoration, but when Uncle Huang occupied the couch, the blood vessels came to life like little snakes. They gyrated on the stained couch, looking quite scary while they were at it.

“The blood vessels inside under the stain inside this room can only recognize Uncle Huang. They will only show their true form when they are around Uncle Huang.” Chen Ge did not quite understand the relationship between the blood vessels and Uncle Huang, so the only thing to do was to ask the old man about it, but Uncle Huang appeared to be asleep. The wrinkles on his face were closely folded together. He had not said a single word since he dropped down on the couch, and his body was slowly sinking into the couch.

“Chen Ge, I do not think Uncle Huang will be able to help us in his state.” Wen Qing was feeling quite disappointed. Before she arrived, she had very high hopes for Uncle Huang, but the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.

“Earlier, you told me that it was his boss who rented this room for Uncle Huang, correct?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Then, between you and him, who moved into this residential area first?” Chen Ge asked.

“When Xiang Nuan and I moved here, Uncle Huang had been staying here for a while already. His boss was quite a nice person. He knew that Uncle Huang had no place to go in the city, so he rented this room to him for a very low price.”

“Uncle Huang got into an accident at work. Do you know how much his boss compensated him for his injury?”

“I’m not sure. I never thought to ask Uncle Huang about it. After all, that was his private business.” Wen Qing was quite confused about why Chen Ge was asking her about these things.

“Have you noticed that only this room’s layout is different from the other rooms in this apartment. This place is missing both a kitchen and a bedroom…” Chen Ge paced around the room. His fingers glided down the wall before they stopped at the wall that was right next to the main bedroom. “Based on the layout of your own home, there should be a door here that leads to the guest bedroom.”

His fingers dug into the wall, and they came back with some black and red stains in his fingernails. “The surface is coated with a layer of white paint, but underneath it was all this black and red stuff.”

The reason Chen Ge could discover this was due to the stench, the stench that apparently he alone was able to smell. From the moment he entered Uncle Huang’s room, he had been trying to search for the source of the smell, but he had failed to find it. It was not inside any of the open rooms. After some analysis, he had gone to the spot where the smell was thickest. “The smell is leaking out through this particular wall.”

Chen Ge turned back to look. Uncle Huang was still curled up on the couch. It was as if no matter what Chen Ge did, it would not rouse Uncle Huang. “There is a hidden room here, and the smell in this place originates from that place.”

His fingers kept working. The paint on the wall was loose from the moisture. There was no cement or bricks behind the paint. Instead, the wall was made up of the unknown black and red building material.

Half of Chen Ge’s finger had already dug into the wall. The sense of touch that came from his fingertip changed. It felt like he had touched a thin layer of blood vessels. Pulling back his finger, Chen Ge used his Yin Yang Vision and looked through the hole. What he saw was a maze that was made of the thing that looked like blood capillaries. Between the gaps in the ‘blood vessel’, Chen Ge spotted an eye looking back at him.

“Is there a dead body on the other side of the wall?”

Opening his backpack, Chen Ge silently took out Doctor Skull Cracker’s hammer.

“What are you doing‽”

“I am going to break down this wall.”

“We’ve been in here less than five minutes, and the owner of this place is still sleeping.”

“Hence, this is the perfect time for us to make our move.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Wen Qing felt that Chen Ge was being irrational. What Chen Ge intended to do would definitely anger Uncle Huang. Why would they make another enemy for no reason?

When the two spoke, Uncle Huang, who was submerged in the couch, appeared to have recovered somewhat. He turned his head with great difficulty to look at them and then croaked out, “Have you two not left?”

Seeing Uncle Huang had woken up, Chen Ge expertly and silently shoved the hammer back into his backpack. “Sir, this place has been rented to you, right?”

“Yes, the owner of this place is not staying here, so they rented me this place to have me take care of it for them. That is the perfect arrangement because I was looking for a place to stay as well.” Uncle Huang’s mannerisms and tone did not change compared to before. It was as if no matter what happened, the way he spoke would be the same, and it would never change.

“Got it.” Chen Ge nodded.

“If there is nothing else, perhaps you should go. I feel like calling it a day.” Uncle Huang slowly stood up. The blood vessels on the couch returned to normal. It was as if those strange things had never happened before. With his body trembling, Uncle Huang walked to the bedroom door. He coughed several times. His physique was so fragile that he had to walk by holding onto the wall. When he was at the door to the bedroom, one of his fingers tapped lightly on the wall that was next to the bedroom door.

“Close the door on your way out. I am getting more and more tired lately. If you have any questions, you should go and ask the landlord. He lives on the top floor, but he appears to have a bad temper, so you should be careful when you approach him.” Uncle Huang, whose tone had not changed since they met him, suddenly increased his tone, to stress his words careful.

“Then we shan’t disturb your rest. If you have any clues or if you have seen that boy, you can contact us anytime. We will be around the building.” Chen Ge practically dragged Wen Qing out of Uncle Huang’s room. When they left, they did close the door for Uncle Huang as he requested.

“I realize your mind changes as swiftly as the wind. At one moment, you were ready to break the door, but now you are so ready to leave. It was not easy for us to find Uncle Huang. At least we should have asked him more questions before we left,” Wen Qing lamented with some regret. “He has lived here for a very long time. He knows more about this residential area’s secrets than I do. You have wasted such a perfect opportunity. Speaking of which, why did you suddenly want to demolish the wall earlier? I felt like Uncle Huang was spooked by you.”

“You only saw the surface layer.” Chen Ge did not go into detail. He turned to take a glance at Granny Lee. When he and Wen Qing entered Uncle Huang’s room, Granny Lee, who had been following them, did not dare enter with them. She merely waited quietly outside the door.

“Then should we go back in to ask Uncle Huang for more details?”

“There is no need to do so.” There were certain things that Chen Ge could not say out loud. He realized that it was not that Uncle Huang did not want to help them, but he did not dare help them directly. When they first met Uncle Huang behind the door, both Chen Ge and Wen Qing were shocked by his appearance. Honestly, this version of Uncle Huang was the stuff of nightmares; bitemarks covered his face, and he looked rather unapproachable.

At the time, Chen Ge started to have his suspicions. Could it be that the Uncle Huang inside the door was different from the Uncle Huang outside the door? Even this old man had a secret and malicious side that he had not shown others. It was normal for Chen Ge to have this suspicion due to the combination of the old man’s scary appearance and the horrible stench in the room. But as time went on, Chen Ge slowly realized that was not the case.

When he practically demanded that they enter Uncle Huang’s room, the latter agreed easily. As slow of a talker as he was, there was no trace of rejection in his voice. It was as if Uncle Huang had been waiting for people to visit him. But what was there to see inside the creepy, dirty room of a single old man that reeked of a horrible stench?

After entering the room, Uncle Huang acted as normal as normal could be behind the door, but something still tugged at Chen Ge’s suspicion. After Uncle Huang collapsed on the couch, he closed his eyes directly. He did not mind what the two strangers did inside his house. This was the detail that confused Chen Ge. He felt like Uncle Huang was purposely inviting them into his room for them to observe and study it.

Chen Ge indeed saw some problems. He noticed that the layout and the size of the room was not right. There were probably two hidden rooms inside the place. Just as Chen Ge was trying to prove that theory by breaking down the wall, Uncle Huang had ‘just so happened’ to wake up. Even though he had not said a direct word about it, his actions proved that he was trying to stop Chen Ge. If he did not wake up, Chen Ge might really have taken a swing at the wall.

From this, it might appear that Uncle Huang was worried that his secret had been exposed, but after giving it some thought, Chen Ge felt that he could have been trying to protect Chen Ge and Wen Qing. He did not want to pit them against the tenants of the building too early. One small action by Uncle Huang before he retired to his bedroom confirmed Chen Ge’s suspicion. When Uncle Huang walked to the door of his bedroom, his finger tapped lightly on the wall next to the door. The spot where his finger landed was on the same level as the hole that Chen Ge had dug out on the wall. Uncle Huang probably wanted to use this method to tell Chen Ge that his suspicion was not unfounded; there was indeed something inside the wall. He did not dare say it out loud, so he could only use this method to warn Chen Ge.

Uncle Huang should be one of the good guys, but how did he manage to survive behind the door? What kind of job does he do to keep his life intact?

Chen Ge was suddenly reminded of what Wen Qing had told him earlier. After Uncle Huang was injured at world, he found himself a job at the morgue to look after the dead bodies and do some simple cleaning.

Could the wall be hiding a whole room of dead bodies behind it? And Uncle Huang is the guardian of the dead bodies?

Uncle Huang’s parting words mentioned the landlord and even stressed for them to be careful. Now that he connected the dots, Chen Ge’s eyes slowly widened.

Uncle Huang has been helping the landlord guard the bodies?

Even Chen Ge was shocked by the conclusion that he came to. He did not share his theory with anyone but silently memorized it in his heart.

If that’s the truth, then the most dangerous character in this building should be the landlord. Perhaps every single tragedy at this building was related to this landlord.

The landlord must have known about the many tragedies and scary events that had occurred in his building, but he did not seem to have done anything to stop it.

Perhaps the real landlord is already dead, and the bodies buried behind the wall are the actual dead bodies of the real landlord’s family.

Gripping his backpack tightly, Chen Ge had a plan forming in his mind. “Wen Qing, we will go to find the landlord now. He has the key to leave this building. So, he should know whether Xiang Nuan has left this building or not.”

“Okay.” Wen Qing did not know Chen Ge’s real plan. Actually, Chen Ge had his sight set on the landlord already. Currently, the landlord still did not know about his and Wen Qing’s presence in his building. The success rate would be high if they launched an ambush on the landlord. After a brief discussion, Chen Ge and Wen Qing were about to head up the stairs when a loud scream came from above.

“What happened now?”

“Do not panic. The first thing we need to do is ensure our own safety.” Not only did Chen Ge and Wen Qing hear that scream, many of the tenants heard it as well. After the harrowing wail, the sound of doors opening echoed through the apartment block. It sounded like many people had come out from their homes.

“The scream appears to have come from the fifth floor.”

Chen Ge, Wen Qing, and Granny Lee slowly climbed up the steps. When they passed the third floor, they saw the middle-aged man with the collection of female underwear inside his room also exiting his house. After a brief greeting, the group headed up the stairs together.

Why is he interested in this as well? He does not look like the kind of person who would be kind enough to go to the scene of an accident to help. He does not strike me as a good Samaritan.

When they arrived at the fifth floor, Chen Ge noticed that the corridor was already packed. There were a few familiar faces among them. They included the university student Xiao Sun and Auntie Ding. Around five to six people were gathered around the entrance to Room 504. They were whispering among themselves. Chen Ge was standing too far away to hear what they were talking about.

“What happened here? Do you know?” Chen Ge whispered to ask Xiao Sun.

“Someone was murdered! It happened in Room 504!” Xiao Sun’s face was blanched like a sheet of white paper. This was the first time he had encountered something like this.

“A murder?” Chen Ge looked in the direction of Room 504. The living room was soaked in blood, and the wall was filled with scary paintings that were made out of red blood strokes. All the furniture was covered in splattered blood. A girl sat among the pool of blood, and she was the one who was wailing. She cried while holding the dead body of a middle-aged man in her arms.

“Was it the girl screaming all along?”

“I also just arrived here.” Xiao Sun shielded his face behind his hands. He only dared to look through the gaps between his fingers. Wen Qing wanted to get a closer look, but she was stopped by Chen Ge. “Someone is dead. There is blood everywhere. You’d better be prepared for the sight. I must warn you, it is not one for one with a weak stomach.”

Just from Chen Ge’s description, Wen Qing felt her stomach rolling already. “It has nothing to do with Xiang Nuan, right?”

“No, the victim is a middle-aged man.”

“Then, I do not think I will go any further. I do not need to see this.”

“Shush, watch your words. The situation now is very unusual and dangerous.” Chen Ge lowered his voice. “The door that leads out of this apartment is locked, and the key is with the landlord. If the murderer is not the landlord, then the killer must still be in this building. He might be hiding amid the crowd at this moment.”

Wen Qing understood what Chen Ge meant. She sidled up closer to Chen Ge carefully.

“The tenants of this building have their own rules that they have already established among themselves. The death of this middle-aged man has shaken practically every tenant in the building, so it does not look like this was a job of one of the other tenants.

“If the other tenants have been ruled out, other than the landlord, the only possible people who would dare to so openly violate the consensus within the building must be an outsider.”

As this thought crossed his mind, Chen Ge took another look at the drawing painted using fresh blood inside the room. He noticed that most of the paintings had some kind of relation to curses. He appeared to have seen similar paintings in Li Wan City and the old city before.