My House of Horrors

His calves weakened, and he felt like his energy was drained from his body. Ma Tian did not dare move his gaze as he felt the two visitors beside him changing. The footsteps got closer. He looked through the gap, and the teetering Bai Qiulin used his hand to press against the dresser door.

Just as Ma Tian thought Bai Qiulin would open the dresser, Bai Qiulin took out a key and took his time to lock the dresser!

Seeing this, Ma Tian understood everything before he fainted. “The three of you… are all ghosts!”

His scream echoed through Coffin Village, and Brother Wong as well as Sister Mao heard it as they raced down the street. “Ma Tian is the most stable of us all. To be able to make him scream like that, it must have been something really scary.”

Sister Mao’s heart fell. Five of them had entered, and in less than fifteen minutes, three of them had already disappeared. The scariest thing was, even now, she had no idea what had happened to her partners. Cold sweat ran down her forehead. She was different from Ye Xiaoxin. She was not that courageous a person, which was why she formed a Haunted House reviewer group.

“Your friends don’t seem that reliable.” Brother Wong was not that physically fit, so he stopped running after a while.

“It’s this Haunted House that’s too scary!” Sister Mao dropped her disguise. She stopped wasting energy to pretend to be cute. It was hard when her mind was filled with various scary images.

“Let’s leave this place first. There’s no need to sacrifice our lives for the sake of face.”

“Agreed.”

Sister Mao held Brother Wong as they returned to the center of the village. Looking at the branching paths, they were stunned.

“Which is the road that we took when we arrived?”

“Brother Wong, that’s not the problem! When we arrived, there weren’t so many paths!” Sister Mao felt like crying.

“Calm down, don’t forget what you do for a living.” Brother Wong took out his phone. “Thankfully, I took those pictures and videos.”

He looked through the files and found the road that looked rather similar to the one they had taken when they arrived. “Should be this one.”

The two walked down that road, but the further they walked, the more they felt it was not right.

“When we entered the village, it only took us several minutes to reach the center of the village. How come it feels like now we’re walking deeper into the village?” Sister Mao looked at Brother Wong’s phone. “Are we on the correct path?”

As time went on, the pure terror of Coffin Village slowly revealed itself. The white lanterns released a faded red light, and things started to change.

“We’re really on the wrong path?” Brother Wong compared the road to his video. The path really did look to the one on his phone initially, but the more they walked down it, the more different it became. “We should turn back to the village center and select another path.”

“That might not be such a good idea.” Sister Mao grabbed Brother Wong’s hand and led him into a nearby courtyard. They had just hidden themselves when children could be heard singing. Two boys with blood red mask ran past the front door. They looked to be seven or eight, and they sounded like innocent boys. However, put in this environment, it just felt creepy.

“They seem to have left.”

Sister Mao wanted to look outside but was stopped by Brother Wong. “Don’t do it! What if the two boys are hiding behind the door? If this place is as immoral as you said, they might do something like that.”

“But we cannot stay here forever?” Sister Mao tightened her clothes. “Brother Wong, have you noticed the temperature dropping?”

“Not really, you’re probably too nervous.” Brother Wong was very careful. He used his phone to look around. “We should inspect this courtyard to make sure it’s safe.”

The white lanterns gave off a red light, and there was a strange smell in the air. The soil was moving, and the dead locust trees swayed lightly.

“Is this some kind of mechanism?” Brother Wong looked at the locust tree and used his hand to push it. He just wanted to see what kind of mechanism was responsible for moving it, but the locust tree fell with a slight push. “The material used for the prop sure is unreliable.”

The moment Brother Wong finished, Sister Mao pulled him back. “Brother Wong, look under the tree!”

There was a hole underneath the dead locust tree, and a body’s legs were poking out.

“What kind of design is this?” Brother Wong and Sister Mao did not expect something to be buried underneath the tree.

“The tree is just a normal locust tree; there’s no mechanism connected to it. Was it the legs that caused the tree to move? So, the mechanism is this body that is buried under the tree?” Brother Wong looked at the mannequin buried in the hole, and his curiosity to inspect it closer was silenced. He walked away from the hole. “This is such mad design.”

Sister Mao followed behind Brother Wong, holding his arm. “Should we enter the house?”

“Let me think.” Brother Wong gripped the phone, feeling afraid. The two stopped in the middle of the courtyard when they suddenly heard a splash, like a fish jumping out of the water. The surroundings had been so quiet that it was difficult for them to not notice this.

“The sound seems to have come from the water barrel.” Sister Mao hid behind Brother Wong. She seemed to have forgotten her identity as a Haunted House reviewer, and given the fact that her make-up had already been ruined, she just looked slightly better than a ghost.

“Come, let’s go take a look.” Brother Wong neared the water barrel, and even when he got closer, he could not spot anything weird; it just looked like a normal water receptacle. However, there was a white ball floating on the surface.

“I don’t remember anything floating on the water when we came in!” Brother Wong was confused. “Where did the ball come from?”

The light was too dim for him to see clearly. It was not until they were standing next to the water barrel that they heard something that sounded like bubbles.

“The ball is making bubbles in the water?” Brother Wong leaned forward and turned on the flashlight on his phone. He shone it at the water barrel. The light cut through the water and lit up the round ‘ball’.

Their mouths fell open. It was not a ball but a human head soaked in the water until it had become white!

With a splash, the ghost jumped out from the barrel. The sudden light from the phone seemed to give him plenty of displeasure. The bloated face rushed toward the two visitors. Brother Wong was so spooked that he turned and ran. However, he only took several steps before he tripped on something.

He looked at the ground, and the body that originally had its leg up now had its head upwards, poking through the soil!

The face smiled at him like it was trying to crawl out from the hole. Brother Wong crawled toward the front door like his life depended on it. But at this moment, the sound of children singing came from the front door.

“Little old mister, sitting before the funeral, his face stern. Adults and babies sat watching. The son’s legs were sore from kneeling.”