My House of Horrors

Chen Ge held the cat in his arm. He wondered if it was because the white cat had stopped caring about normal ghosts since it had seen too many powerful baleful specters. The white cat did not get Chen Ge’s meaning. It moved its head as it struggled to escape from Chen Ge’s grasp.

“Perhaps I haven’t been paying any attention.” The taxi driver thought about it. “I came over from the industrial area. There is a junction there. If the truck went east, then I would have missed it.”

The driver was quite optimistic and did not think about the supernatural possibility.

The truck driver just drove me over from Eastern Jiujiang, so why would he drive back there after dropping me off? Chen Ge committed the driver’s face to his memory. Did he feel unsettled after hearing my conversation with the police and go back to deal with some unsightly things?

Afraid that the white cat might ruin the taxi’s cushion, Chen Ge hugged the white cat in his arms. “Boss, have there been any serious events in Eastern Jiujiang? Like murders and stuff?”

The driver glanced at Chen Ge through the rear-view mirror, and he looked panic. He had never seen a customer that started a conversation with a topic like this. “There hasn’t been anything like that in Eastern Jiujiang, but Western Jiujiang has been quite unsafe lately. There have been a few serious cases in the past two months.”

“Western Jiujiang?” Chen Ge felt that sounded weirdly familiar. “I think Western Jiujiang is still rather peaceful.”

Since he could not get any more news from the driver, Chen Ge took out his phone and went online to search. As the driver had said, other than the articles on the Futuristic Theme Park, there was nothing big happening in Eastern Jiujiang.

The undercurrent flowing beneath this calm surface is rapid and dangerous. I’ll need to investigate this further.

After shifting into a more comfortable position, Chen Ge opened the video recording software to inspect the video that he had recorded that night. He had begun recording before he entered the tunnel, and in the video, he was calling out his own name as he stepped into the tunnel.

Without any post-editing, the realistic video was already scarier than most scary movies. From Chen Ge’s expression, it was clear that the man himself did not know what to expect, and the fear of the unknown was often most alluring to the viewers. After he walked ten steps, the light darkened, and the screen blurred.

From the video, one could hear the sound of another person’s footsteps. However, Chen Ge was calm on camera. It created a great contrast to the flighty white cat. This was a unique viewing experience. The white cat scratched his clothes madly like it was trying to warn the man about the encroaching danger. However, as the main character, Chen Ge was unfazed. This was a common trope in scary movies, and if the viewers were pulled into Chen Ge’s perspective, they would be worried for him.

As he walked deeper into the tunnel, the scare level heightened. In the video, Chen Ge seemed to have spotted something. His expression changed, and he kept turning his head to look in a particular direction. However, in the video, there was nothing there.

When he made the 42nd step, the light suddenly went off, and Chen Ge’s yelp and the white cat’s shrill hiss were all captured on camera. Several seconds later, the video returned to normal, but Chen Ge in the video looked like he was possessed. He talked to the air alone and finally bent down like he was trying to carry something on his back. The ending of the video was Chen Ge carrying that thing out of the tunnel.

“I have a feeling this is going to be another popular video.” Looking at the video, Chen Ge felt nervous for himself, much less those viewers. Attaching the logo of his Haunted House, Chen Ge gave the video a good title and uploaded it on the app.

“Shocking! Unknown Man did WHAT inside a tunnel at 3 am‽”

Once his video was released, all the fans that followed him would receive notification. It did not take long for his comments section to explode. Exploring a tunnel at 3 am was something intriguing, so most came to check it out due to curiosity. Early morning was when the app had the least traffic, and Chen Ge believed that the video would gain traction when morning came.

He updated the information about the Haunted House on his profile page to include the various promotions of theme park. When he was done with all that, he exited the app.

My videos and livestream can help me find popularity, and Yan Danian’s serial comic will maintain that popularity. If this continues, I can even create a super terror theme park that has an online presence.

Chen Ge had confidence in his future. It would have been difficult to complete this alone, but thankfully, he had many good employees.

Be it Yan Danian, Pen Spirit, or even Ol’ Zhou and Bai Qiulin, each of them had great potential.

When I have enough money, I can even shoot scary movies and dramas.

With the aid of his employees, Chen Ge would save plenty of money on special effects. His workers would need to play themselves.

I have too many good employees. I wonder who would take the center spot.

Chen Ge put this phone away. Employees like Yan Danian and Ol’ Zhou were good employees for Chen Ge, so the more the better. Sitting inside the taxi, Chen Ge looked at Eastern Jiujiang and muttered, “I’ve explored almost all of Western Jiujiang. Perhaps I can find more valuable workers in Eastern Jiujiang.”

Then he closed his eyes to rest. The driver gripped the steering wheel tightly. He glanced at Chen Ge through the rearview mirror. For some reason, he had a feeling that Eastern Jiujiang was going to get very busy soon.

“I have said something wrong…”

Chen Ge reached New Century Park at 5 am. He walked into the staff breakroom and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. However, he only slept for two hours before being shaken awake. The comic that he had left on the table was making plenty of noise. Yan Danian seemed to be looking for him.

Climbing up from bed, Chen Ge communicated with Yan Danian and realized that the phone spirit had been ‘persuaded’. He was willing to join Chen Ge, but he had one small request.

The phone spirit was very useful to Chen Ge, and he valued this ghost a lot. Chen Ge was afraid that the sun might hurt the phone spirit, so he walked into the underground scenario with the comic before he let the phone spirit out.

After being educated by the other ghosts inside the comic, the phone spirit saw the fault of his ways. He looked like he was just seven or eight. He had his head lowered and looked scared, like he was afraid of Chen Ge.

“I’m different from the ghost stories society. I’m someone who can be reasoned with.” Chen Ge looked at the boy. He was overly thin, and there was an old-fashioned telephone hanging around his neck. “Tell me, what is your wish? If it is not too unreasonable, I will help you fulfill it.”