My House of Horrors

After yellow hair entered the home, two children with painted faces poked their heads out from the sedan. Bai Qiulin acted like he did not see this creepy scene and walked past the sedan. The white lantern above the door swayed several times before they went out, throwing the home into darkness.

White celebratory posters were pasted on the wall, and yellow hair stood in the courtyard alone. “This place is larger than the others. Plenty of traps must be around here.”

He might be reckless, but he was not dumb. The atmosphere in the home was slightly off—he had already noticed that.

“Huang Xing…” Someone was calling his name. It sounded ethereal and seemed to come from the inner room.

“Someone’s calling me?” He tried to follow the voice, but it disappeared as if he had imagined it. “It should be some kind of surround sound system. I’m surprised such a dilapidated set design has high-end equipment.”

Without him realizing, Huang Xing was nervous, and he pushed the door open carefully. White draperies covered the room. It was a wedding, but the place was decorated like a funeral. “It really is a Minghun, such an old, used theme.”

“Huang Xing…”

Yellow hair talked to himself when that weird noise appeared again, and this time, he heard it clearly. “The voice is familiar!”

It was a strange feeling. It sounded like a familiar person who called his name, but he could not remember who it was. The old home, the paper money, the white decoration—there was no change to the surroundings, but Huang Xing felt like everything had shifted, like it had turned creepier. A draft picked up behind him to chill the back of his neck. He turned around instantly. “Who is it?”

“Why are you panicking? It’s just me.” Bai Qiulin had his hand in his pocket and started to look around the room.

Seeing a second visitor, Huang Xing sighed in relief. “Did you hear a woman’s voice earlier?”

“I don’t think so.” Bai Qiulin ‘studied’ the decorations, but he made sure to stay close to the door.

“But I did hear someone calling my name.” Yellow hair looked outside the door, and there were two children with blood red paint on their faces running through it. “Someone’s outside!”

Bai Qiulin also looked out the front door. There was only an empty street. “What are you talking about? Where are the people?”

“But they’re there! There were two kids with something painted on their faces.” Huang Xing tried his best to describe the features of the two kids.

“Do you think the Haunted House would employ children to scare people? If it was not mannequins, then you were definitely mistaken.” When Bai Qiulin turned away, the two children poked their heads through the front door again.

“No, I’m not mistaken!” This time, Huang Xing matched the gaze of the two children and ran out immediately. “Wait for me, I’ll catch them for you to see!”

Huang Xing rushed to the front door, but the two kids had disappeared. The street was empty other than the paper money and the creaking bridal sedan. “Where are they? I only took several seconds to run out here. Where can they disappear to?”

“Huang Xing…” Yellow hair shivered, and the woman’s voice came again. “Why does it sound like the voice is closer when I’m outside? It feels like she’s talking into my ear.”

He took out his phone to use the torch to find the hidden audio system, but when he turned the torch on, the woman’s voice picked up again.

“Huang Xing…”

This time, the voice was even closer, like it was trying to drill into his mind.

“This is cursed, too cursed.” Yellow hair had been to many Haunted Houses, and this was the first time he had run into something like this. “I cannot stay here alone. I need to find the wedding dress and meet up with Sister Mao.”

He turned back into the inner hall and discovered something even scarier—Bai Qiulin had disappeared! How could a live person disappear just like that!

“Where is he?” A rare emotion rose in yellow hair’s heart—fear.

“Bai Qiulin!” Yellow hair called the man’s name as he moved into the bedroom. The room was different from others. The bed and mattress were red in color, but it did not feel auspicious; if anything, it felt bloody. It was not paint but blood that dyed the fabric.

“This looks like the room of the bride. The wedding dress should be here, right?” Yellow hair walked forward, and he saw many red threads on the ground. They were particularly conspicuous in the room filled with paper money.

He walked over those red threads to the bed. The red pillows were tossed in a messy way, and there were needles, thread, and scissors left on the bed. However, there was no wedding dress. The place that should have had the wedding dress did not have it. Huang Xing gritted his teeth. “I knew it wouldn’t be so simple.”

He lifted up the mattress, and there was an obvious bloodstain. It looked real.

“Huang Xing, look down…” When he was focused on his search, the woman’s voice appeared in his mind without warning again. When a person was highly tense, they would be spooked by a tap on the shoulder, much less a voice in their head. Yellow hair almost fell to the ground, and he grabbed the edge of the bed to stop himself from falling.

He took a deep breath, and his fists tightened. “That wasn’t an audio system! It couldn’t be!”

He twisted his arms, and his heart raced. “That voice said something else. Yes! She said look down!”

Huang Xing looked on the ground, and he realized all the red threads led to the space underneath the bed. “Underneath the bed?”

His Adam’s apple moved as he slowly squatted down. He held the edge of the bed with one hand, and his other supported his weight on the ground as he lowered his head. His sight slowly lowered, and his senses were taut. He gritted his teeth, and just as his head was about to reach the ground, a hand suddenly reached out at him!

“F*ck!” Huang Xing collapsed to the ground. He crawled backwards with fear in his eyes. “That was a chopped hand! There was no arm, just a hand!”

He had not recovered from his shock when he knocked into something on his back. Turning back to look, yellow hair saw Bai Qiulin standing behind him. “Are you trying to kill me‽ Where have you been!”

“Just walking around. By the way, what did you see under the bed?” Bai Qiulin asked with curiosity.

“A chopped hand. It doesn’t feel like it was remote-controlled. It just poked out from underneath the bed.” Yellow hair wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, his calves still shaking. “We need to leave this place, come give me a hand.”

Huang Xing reached out to grab Bai Qiulin’s left hand, but he missed. Holding the empty sleeve in his hands, yellow hair’s face was blank. His brain could not process the information. “Where… where is your hand?”

His neck snapped like he had fallen headfirst from a tall building, and blood seeped from Bai Qiulin’s mouth and nose. He turned to look at his empty left sleeve, and a happy smile was on his face. “You’re right, where is my hand?”