My House of Horrors

The smile on Wang Shenglong’s face had long since disappeared. He rubbed the words off the board and pain flashed across his beady eyes.

“We have both transformed into monsters?” Chen Ge knocked into the door, and pain radiated from his back.

Hearing the commotion in the bedroom, Doctor Gao and Wang Shenglong’s family ran in. “Chen Ge, what happened?”

“I accidentally slipped and knocked into the door.” Chen Ge rubbed his back as he stood up.

“Is it serious? I have some ointment somewhere.” Wang Shenglong’s father did not doubt Chen Ge, and he turned back into the living room to go look for the ointment. However, Doctor Gao seemed to have noticed something. His eyes scanned the unruffled carpet but did not say anything.

“It’s alright, not so serious.” Doctor Gao helped Chen Ge up. They left the bedroom together. Things were not going as smooth as he had hoped. Wang Shenglong had hidden the biggest secret from everyone else; he seemed to be cooperative on the surface, but that was merely a ploy to distract everyone away from the real cause of his illness.

But why would Wang Shenglong do that? He has his own difficulty? Chen Ge remembered the expression on Wang Shenglong’s face when he wrote down that sentence. It was filled with helplessness and pain, but the key problem was that he did not seem to want to change. Chen Ge moved his shoulders and realized that Wang Shenglong was actually more powerful than most adults.

He looks innocent but is actually very dangerous. Wang Shenglong did not want to tell the truth, and Chen Ge could not force him before his father and brothers. Even if he did decide on force, Chen Ge had no confidence that he could overpower Wang Shenglong.

In the end, Chen Ge asked Doctor Gao if they could leave. He wanted to ask Doctor Gao to discover the secret Wang Shenglong was hiding. Wang Shenglong’s father walked them to the door. When they were leaving each other with their contact information, through the open bedroom door, Chen Ge saw that the devastated Wang Shenglong had picked up the board again.

He seemed to know that Chen Ge was watching him. He drew quickly and turned the board towards the open door.

What was he drawing?  A few small people was sitting inside the house. The smallest among them had a monster standing on his shoulders. The monster had its back bent as it surveyed its surroundings, like it was prepared to jump onto other people.

Is he trying to give me a hint? Chen Ge memorized the drawing and left the apartment with Doctor Gao. When they left, they went down to Room 304 to grab Men Nan’s stuff.

Chen Ge closed the door and after making sure the Wang brothers didn’t follow them, he opened his lips to ask, “Doctor Gao, do you think Wang Shenglong has a big problem?”

“He is indeed a bit not normal.” Doctor Gao placed Men Nan’s sheets and pillows in the middle of his quilt and rolled them up. “According to Wang Shenglong’s father, his condition should be very serious, but from my initial diagnosis, the man is fine. He has an open, clear, and logical mind. However, this contrasted greatly with the blank smile on the man’s face. A normal person would have the ability to control the expression on his face. I am sure he is hiding something from me. This patient is very smart and is an expert at hiding his feelings, but he is being too obvious about it.”

Chen Ge was surprised Doctor Gao had spotted it as well. “After all, you’re the professional, but since you have noticed that, why didn’t you tell his father? Wouldn’t that help with the treatment?”

“How to navigate the relationship between the doctor and the patient’s family is a complicated skill. Wang Shenglong’s father might have been kind to us today, but if anything happened to his son, he would definitely be on his son’s side, and he would block our access to Wang Shenglong in the future.” Doctor Gao picker up the bundle to carry out of the room. “Come and help me. Grab the books and notes in Men Nan’s drawer and place them in the box. They are very important to him.”

Chen Ge entered the bedroom and took out the books one by one from the drawer. When the drawer was almost empty, Chen Ge saw a picture sat at the bottom of the drawer. A woman was lying in a hospital bed with a patient’s garb. A shy-looking boy sat beside her.

“Is this a picture of Men Nan and his mother?” Looking at the picture, Chen Ge was shocked. Men Nan’s mother in the picture, even though she had no make-up on, was incredibly beautiful. “Men Nan’s father still had an affair even though he had such a beautiful wife.”

Chen Ge’s first love letter in his life came from a baleful spectre, so he did no know much about romantic relationships. He felt perhaps something was not right about Men Nan’s father. After placing the picture in one of the books, Chen Ge placed all the books in the box and left Room 304 with Doctor Gao.

After exiting Hai Ming Apartments, Chen Ge took a deep breath. “Finally, don’t need to take in that stench anymore.”

“Stench? If you’re talking about stench, isn’t it stronger out here?” Doctor Gao asked as he pointed at the rubbish that piled as high as small hill.

“Didn’t you smell a weird stench in Wang Shenglong’s room?”

“No, his house is very clean; the old father has taken good care of him.” Doctor Gao sighed. “Actually, the child can be considered lucky. At least he has his family’s support, and they all wish for him to get better.”

“His family is indeed very kind.” The worry between family members could not be faked, and Chen Ge could feel that. He took a few steps before stopping suddenly. “Family?”

“Yes, some patients’ family dropped them at the rehabilitation centre and left them there.” Doctor Gao had misunderstood Chen Ge. He was thinking about another issue. In Wang Shenglong’s last drawing, there were a few small people sitting in the drawing. The one with the monster standing on the shoulders seemed to refer to himself, so the people around him should have been his family. The monster was prepared to jump to other people, so could this be why Wang Shenglong refused to seek treatment? If he did anything wrong, the monster might harm his family.

Wang Shenglong’s drawing also proved that even after so many years, the two-meter-tall monster was still standing on his shoulders, and their game was still ongoing.

“The stench should originate from the monster, but why only I can smell it?” After solving the first problem, more problems surfaced. Chen Ge realized that he would need to enter the Third Sick Hall to answer all the questions. After placing all of Men Nan’s stuff in the trunk, Doctor Gao drove Chen Ge back to New Century Park.

When his feet stood on firm ground, Chen Ge received a call from Liu Dao. “Brother, Qin Guang’s next livestream schedule has been announced; it’s tomorrow night!”

“So soon? Then do you know where the location will be?”

“Mu Yang High School.” Liu Dao mentioned a familiar name. “However, this time, Qin Guang has learned his lesson. He hired someone to write a script based on your livestream, so he can now be considered paying homage and not plagiarising, so even the platform cannot do anything to him.”

Chen Ge was silent for a long time, so Liu Dao thought that he was angry. “Certain things are helpless, but as long as we work hard, it’ll be fine.”

“It’s not that, but if you have the chance, please help me send a message to Qin Guang.”

“What message?”

Chen Ge looked at the Haunted House in the dark. “Tell him to stop following me. If he does not, I have no guarantee what will happen to him.”