My House of Horrors

Having Xu Yin lead the way, after making sure there was no danger, Chen Ge entered the place. He followed the wooden stairs to get to the bottom of the room. Chen Ge ended the call and used the flashlight function on his phone. He bent down and crawled forward. After three or four meters of walking, there was a steel door with police tape.

Probably due to the moisture underground, the door was covered with red rust. Chen Ge tried to push the door and discovered something surprising. The door seemed to have grown into the surrounding soil and formed a whole entity. No matter how hard he pushed, the door did not budge.

Is it locked?

Chen Ge inspected the door. There was no even a keyhole, so the possibility of it being locked was zero.

Looks like I have to use another method.

After taking out the hammer, Chen Ge did a quick calculation between the tunnel and the surface.

If I start working here, I don’t think the tenants above will be able to hear me.

He took several steps back and raised the hammer to hit on the edge of the door heavily.

The impact caused the rust to fall, and dust from above him fell on his shoulders. It gave him the sensation that the place was caving in

BANG! BANG! BANG!

When Chen Ge ended Fan Chong’s call, he had already been prepared. He swung the hammer multiple times before the door was cracked open. Clots of soil fell out, and Chen Ge felt the ground under his feet move. The place was dangerous, but since he was there, not going in to look was not Chen Ge’s style.

He looked at the door that he had cracked open, and he reached out to touch the edge. At the place where the door was connected to the soil, there were many plant roots that looked dried and dead. Most of them were gray, but some were blood red.

Are these the blood vessels that crawled out from behind the door? What’s the difference between a normal door and one that has lost control?

The longer Chen Ge inspected the door, the more confused he became.

The whole door was encased into the tunnel, and it was hard to open. An adult like myself had a hard time opening it, much less Xiao Bu.

Chen Ge suspected that this door was not the door that Xiao Bu had opened but was one that was added on later by the police to prevent people from trespassing into the dungeon.

The door had a police seal, and there was no keyhole. Instead of a door, this was more like a partition to block people’s way. If this door was installed by the police, then where is the real door to the dungeon?

Studying the edge of the steel door, Chen Ge soon discovered something. Inside the steel door, somewhere further away was a wooden door frame that was bright red. However, weirdly enough, while the frame was there, the door itself had disappeared.

There should be a second door to the dungeon, so where is the door? Did the door disappear after going out of control, or have the police taken it away as evidence? Did they discover something on the door? Chen Ge thought to himself. He raised his phone, and when the light fell on the space behind the door, his heart skipped a beat.

There was a hidden room around thirty meters behind the steel door. There was a large cage in the middle of the room, and inside it was a mound of wooly doll’s clothes. Right in the middle of the doll’s dresses stood a little girl.

“Xiao Bu?” Xu Yin did not react, and Chen Ge walked closer with the hammer. He moved one meter forward, and when he was close enough to the ‘girl’, he realized that it was a mannequin. The mannequin’s face was scrawled fully with the name ‘Jiang Bai’; it looked quite scary since the marker used was red.

Jiang Bai is Jiang Long’s daughter. Why is her name written on the mannequin’s face?

The iron cage was not locked, and Chen Ge soon made a new discovery. All the doll’s clothes had the name ‘Zhang Chuyu’ written on them with color pencils. Chen Ge was familiar with this name as well; that was Jiang Long’s official wife.

Did Xiao Bu have Zhang Chuyu put on all the doll’s clothes and trap her inside the cage for revenge?

Xiao Bu had pushed the door open, and there was no chance of her surviving behind the door with her young age. Based on Chen Ge’s speculation, when Xiao Bu exited the door, she was already a Red Specter.

From the Jiang family of four, Jiang Xiaohu was sent into a mental asylum, Jiang Long died in a car accident, and the wife and daughter went missing—was all that Xiao Bu’s doing?

Red Specters were normally made from the intensification of a particular feeling, often pain or resentment. They were more powerful than normal ghosts, but they were still limited by emotions. They would act more recklessly and crazily. Chen Ge was not surprised by what Xiao Bu had done, but he was confused about one thing—how did Xiao Bu lure Zhang Chuyu and Jiang Bai to Li Wan City?

Unlike normal Specter, Red Specters did not need to possess something to survive, but they could not leave their place of origin. For example, Zhang Ya had been trapped at Western Jiujiang’s Private Academy until Chen Ge won her love letter. The only reason she could wander about was because she had made Chen Ge’s shadow her home of sorts. In other words, Chen Ge was her vessel, and that was the reason she was able to follow Chen Ge to wander all around Jiujiang.

Did someone help Xiao Bu drag Zhang Chuyu and Xiao Bu here?

From his experience dealing with ghosts, Chen Ge knew that ghost could sometimes communicate with one another. He now suspected that the culprit had a deal with Xiao Bu. They would sacrifice Jiang Long’s family to Xiao Bu, and in return, they needed Xiao Bu to do something for them.

The ghost stories society once controlled the door at Li Wan City before. According to Doctor Gao, they even pushed some of the stuff the society has collected behind the door. Could it be that Xiao Bu cooperated with them?

Chen Ge thought about it, but the chance of that was low.

The ghost stories society was probably tricked by the shadow. The door here is different from the Third Sick Hall. This one was purposely created; it was one of the shadow’s plots.

From the perspective of an outsider, Chen Ge could see the situation clearly.

The society limited its activity to Western and Northern Jiujiang, but they happened to chance upon this door in Eastern Jiujiang. Perhaps it was the shadow who was behind this—he probably wanted to swallow the society whole.

At its prime, the society had many normal ghosts and several Red Specters. Other than that, they had Wu Fei, the mad genius, and Doctor Gao, the maddest of the madmen. But even so, they had the rug pulled out under them by the shadow. This made Chen Ge even more cautious of the culprit in Eastern Jiujiang.

Before Doctor Gao’s death, he mentioned the door in Eastern Jiujiang. Looks like this place left a huge impression on him. He probably fought the monsters here before but did not get a victory.

Chen Ge actually wanted to borrow Doctor Gao’s power, but since the man was barely a human now, he thought about it and abandoned this dangerous idea.