My House of Horrors

With the phone on speaker mode, Xiao Gu heard Chen Ge’s words clearly. When he heard Chen Ge request that the ghost spare him, his hands tightened.

He had always felt that he was an unlucky person. No matter where he went, he had been a trouble to others—it was that way at Fang Hwa Apartments, and that had not changed when he moved to the Haunted House. However, even so, his boss had not once complained about him. In fact, he said something like that at the crucial moment.

The rain was falling heavily, but his heart was warm. He felt like he had found a home at Jiujiang.

The woman in the raincoat heard Chen Ge as well. She stood in the rain, and her body slowly returned to normal. The rain slid down her blood red raincoat. After a long time, the woman turned her head to face the phone. She leaned close to the speaker and asked, “Have you seen my child?”

“I’ll let you reunite with your child within one week,” Chen Ge promised. The woman did not say anything else. She slowly lowered her head and left Eastern Jiujiang Fresh Water Plant with Xiao Gu’s jacket. It seemed like she was heading to the next stop. Seeing the woman’s disappearance, Xiao Gu slid down to the muddy ground like all his energy left him.

“Boss, she left! I’m saved!” Xiao Gu’s voice was shaking since he had just survived an impossible ordeal.

“Stay where you are and find a place to hide from the rain. I’ll fetch you in a bit. Also, make sure your phone is charged and set my number to speed dial.”

“Okay.”

“Talk to you later. Remember, we have to complete the thing that we promised.”

After hanging up, Xiao Gu did what he was told. Once he had done everything, he put the phone away and walked to the other unlucky passenger, Huang Ling.

“It’s fine now.” He reached out toward Huang Ling. The woman who was spooked took a long time before she grabbed Xiao Gu’s hand and climbed up from the ground.

“Earlier… what was that?” Huang Ling did not even know what to say. Her eyes were filled with terror. She had a hard time believing that just two hours ago, she was being scolded at the company, and then she got on a bus filled with dead spirit to come to the countryside.

“I also can’t tell. Let’s wait for my boss—he’ll explain it to you.” Xiao Gu led Huang Ling to the water plant and found an awning to hide from the rain. Huang Ling’s clothes were drenched, and her make-up was ruined. However, she did not care about all that. She grabbed her phone and kept calling one number, but there was no answer.

“Are you calling your husband?” Xiao Gu heard the conversation between Huang Ling and her husband on the bus. The two were in a huge argument, and Huang Ling had even threatened divorce.

Huang Ling nodded. She felt weirdly uneasy and afraid. This sensation was different from before—it was mixed with uncertainty and pain. “Why isn’t he answering? What is he doing? Answer the phone.”

Xiao Gu looked at Huang Ling, who was breaking down, but he did not say anything.

On the bus earlier, Huang Ling’s husband had kept calling her, asking her where she was and then calling out directly that she was on a bus filled with ghost. Her husband was not on the bus, so how did he know Huang Ling was on a hearse? And how did he know that all the passengers were ghosts?

Huang Ling probably knew the answer herself, so she had been trying so hard to reach her husband. Xiao Gu watched Huang Ling silently—this woman, who was much more mature than he was, leaned against the wall and slowly slid down to the ground. Lightning flashed, and the light reflected in the tears and rain that fell down the woman’s face.

…

After hanging up, Chen Ge stood in the workshop alone. He took out an obsolete phone that operated on large sim card. “Tong Tong, the ghost on the other end earlier was a Red Specter, right?”

After Chen Ge knew that Xiao Gu had run into some accident, he immediately summoned the ghost spirit to follow Xiao Gu’s movement. The phone spirit acted strangely. He did not answer Chen Ge’s question and picked up the old phone. Several seconds later, Chen Ge received a message from the spirit. It only had two words. “Don’t go.”

“She’s very dangerous? A Red Specter?” Chen Ge felt like the phone spirit did not know much about the power of his ghosts, so he tried to stop him. “Even if it’s a Red Specter, it’s fine. There’s only one of her.”

The phone spirit shook his head and sent another message. “I’ve seen her before. She died in Li Wan City, and it’s very dangerous there.”

Seeing the message, Chen Ge was reminded that the boy’s body had also discovered at one of the buildings at Li Wan City, so the boy seemed to know the small town well.

“Are the ghosts that die in Li Wan City different from other ghosts?” Chen Ge was curious about Li Wan City. Before Doctor Gao committed suicide, his dying request was for Chen Ge to deal with the door that had gotten out of control in Li Wan City. “Is it because of the door that the ghosts are different?”

The phone spirit shook his head. He did not seem like he knew how to describe it. Chen Ge looked at the boy and felt uneasy. “Li Wan City is in Eastern Jiujiang, and the memory that I saw at the tunnel also happened in Eastern Jiujiang.

“At the time, I was still a child, and someone wanted to kill me, but said person failed. The game that Fan Chong was describing this morning, its setting seemed to be Eastern Jiujiang as well, and the main character is a child. Wait a minute, I seem to notice a connection.

“The woman in the raincoat’s child also disappeared in Eastern Jiujiang, and the phone spirit was kidnapped at Eastern Jiujiang. In fact, in the picture that Doctor Gao showed me, my parents were also talking to a girl in a red dress in Eastern Jiujiang. How come it feels like everything is related to children?”

The phone vibrated. The phone spirit sent Chen Ge another message. “I cannot say for sure, but you can bring me with you. I’ll help you lead the way.”

“Okay.” Chen Ge pocketed the phone and locked the door. He ran back to the Haunted House in the rain. He packed lightly, grabbed his backpack, put on the raincoat, and left. Chen Ge waited for fifteen minutes before he found a taxi. Even wearing the raincoat, waiting in the rain made his clothes wet. This increased the man’s desire to find an affiliated vehicle for his Haunted House.

I need to go fetch Xiao Gu first. Eastern Jiujiang’s investigation can be conducted slowly.

Sitting in the taxi, Chen Ge communicated with the phone spirit on his own phone. They headed down Route 104. The rain continued to pour. After they entered the countryside, the number of streetlights dwindled. It felt like they were driving into a blanket of darkness.

The peace in Eastern Jiujiang seems to be an illusion. The situation here is probably much worse than it appears.

Chen Ge had never handled a door that had gotten out of control before. He looked out the window expressionlessly. No one could tell what was on his mind.