My House of Horrors

With the mask covering most of his face, the male lecturer walked through the two groups of students with a glow in his eyes. “This is your first class, so feelings of nausea and curiosity are normal, but do not let me catch you making jokes at the cadaver’s expense. They deserve our respect. Inside this room, every death is so that the living could keep on living. What you should be focusing on now is the connection of the nerves, the arrangement of the blood vessels, the joints of the muscle, and the placement of organs.”

Only the male lecturer was speaking inside the room. He did not look old, but he was quite stern. Western Jiujiang Medical University had the biggest underground morgue, so probably only the students here had the privilege of being in such small groups to conduct autopsies on one cadaver. Due to the lack of resources, most medical universities had eight or even sixteen people per group.

Chen Ge stood outside the door to watch over all of this silently. He followed the male lecturer and felt like he had seen him somewhere before. “That pair of eyes is familiar. I think I’ve seen them inside Morgue No. 8 earlier.”

After some ruminating, he remembered that there was a cadaver soaked inside the glass tube of Morgue No. 8, and the special thing about that cadaver was that its eyes were open. Are the dead bodies that are soaked in formalin in real life reborn within the door? Is this part of Doctor Gao’s imagination, or has he trapped the dead’s spirits here?

The blood membrane on his body thickened. Just as Chen Ge was hesitating over whether to enter the room or not, he heard heavy breathing echoing down from the other end of the corridor. A smelly draft blew past him. Following that, the organs embedded in the wall started to pulse rhythmically. What is coming?

There was a monster coming from the other end of the corridor. The feeling it elicited in Chen Ge was completely different from the white-dress girl and the male lecturer. It was filled with negative emotions like destruction, murder, and anger.

The white cat scratched Chen Ge’s shoulders, and its ears tipped backward. It hissed in a low voice; it also felt threatened. When Chen Ge’s attention was fully on the corridor, the door to the autopsy room suddenly opened. Chen Ge turned to look and realized that the male lecturer was standing next to it and was studying Chen Ge curiously.

“I…” Before Chen Ge could come up with a reason, the male lecturer pulled him into the room.

“Come in first.” Then he closed the door and said, “Go and hide. Don’t let it see you.”

The breathing neared in the corridor. With the urging from the male lecturer, Chen Ge crawled under one of the tables. It was a platform that could be raised, normally used to raise or lower cadavers.

When Chen Ge got into the room, he realized that the eight students were all cadavers as well. They had their heads lowered and their frozen fingers holding the scalpels in weird manners. No wonder they didn’t respond. This teacher is most likely also a madman.

Chen Ge hesitated before crawling under the table.

The commotion was getting louder outside. The heavy breathing came closer, and Chen Ge glanced out through the gap in the walls. The blood vessels pulsed heavily. Soon, a humanoid creature with its face carved out walked by. Its body was much more muscular than normal, and it was about 2.4 meters tall, its head almost touching the ceiling.

The man’s body structure was different from the girl Chen Ge saw earlier. Instead, it mimicked the walls. Its skin was just a thin membrane enveloping the inner organs, meaning Chen Ge could see into his body. The monster walked slowly. It seemed to have incorporated itself into this world and was just patrolling aimlessly.

The corridor shook and the monster paused when it passed the autopsy room. The faceless thing turned toward the door. Even though he was inside the room, Chen Ge could feel the door shake violently. After the monster realized that the door was locked, it went away. Several minutes later, Chen Ge crawled out from the table.

“What was that?” The male lecturer had been hiding behind the door. He did not answer Chen Ge’s question but studied him with a strange gaze. After a while, he removed the mask. His facial features looked similar to the human face soaked in formalin in the real world.

“That’s the new security guard hired by the school. He’s quite a fiery one. If he discovers students like you who run away from class, he will most likely take you to see the headmaster.”

“Students? Headmaster?” Chen Ge did not quite understand what he said. The world in the male lecturer’s eyes seemed to be different from what Chen Ge was seeing, and the next sentence out of the lecturer’s lips confirmed that.

“Which class are you from? Who is your lecturer?” The lecturer did not get mad when Chen Ge did not answer. “It’s fine if you don’t feel like answering, but truancy is not good. Quickly get back to class. I know how a child like yourself might feel—I’ve come across many sensitive students.”

“A child like me? Do I look like a child?” Chen Ge was confused, but he could hear kindness in the lecturer’s voice. The tone used by the man when he talked to Chen Ge was different from when he talked to his own students. It was as if he was afraid of harming Chen Ge’s pride.

“A physical deformity doesn’t prove anything; a courageous heart is more important.”

The lecturer seemed to be consoling Chen Ge, and this confused him even more. “I’m deformed in your eyes?”

“It’s my mistake for misusing the word. I apologize to you, but please go back to class.” The lecturer, who had been berating his class earlier, changed his tone. It was obvious that he was indeed a good man. From the man’s various reactions, Chen Ge believed that he understood what was happening. In the lecturer’s eyes, the world that was made from flesh was the normal one, and someone with his appearance was the deformed one.

Chen Ge had no idea how the world presented itself in the lecturer’s eyes, but he tried to gain more information from the man. “Sir, how should I refer to you?”

“My name is Liu Zhengyi; you can call me Mr. Liu. If you face any problems in the future and have no one to go to, you can come to me.”

Mr. Liu was probably just being kind, but Chen Ge did not plan to let that chance slip. He slid the hammer back into his backpack. After some hesitation, he said, “Mr. Liu, actually, I’ve been bullied by people at the school, but I don’t dare share the secrets with anyone.”

“School bullying? Such a thing happened here?” Mr. Liu turned serious, and his tone immediately changed. “Don’t be afraid, tell me everything. I will definitely help you settle everything!”