My House of Horrors

“Hair?”

Why would there be hair on the fishing line? The man had been fishing for decades, and this was the first time that he had come across something like this. At the time, his mind was blank. His eyes looked downward, wanting to work out if it was hair or just water grass.

The fishing light slowly sank. The light caught a shadow moving upward in the water. He did not get a close look, but he could roughly make out its shadow. It had no fins or tail, but it appeared to have limbs.

“A person?” When this thought filled up his mind, the boat was knocked into again, throwing the man into full panic mode. He took out his knife to cut the fishing line loose and started to paddle to the bank like crazy.

“Pull me back! Quick!” He paddled violently, but the boat did not budge. The black hair started to crawl onto the boat. “What are these things‽”

Not only did the boat not move toward the bank, it was slowly pulled toward the center of the bank. The fisher was panicking—he grabbed the bucket that was filled with his special bait and scattered the bait faraway. In the end, he even tossed the bucket as far as he could.

No one knew what the bait was, but strangely enough, after the bait was tossed out, the black hair on the boat slithered away, and the black shadow rushed toward the spot where the bait had dropped.

“I’m saved?” The man grabbed the paddles and moved toward the bank. When he turned his head back, he saw something that he would never forget. Just breaking the surface, spools of water grass-like objects rushed toward the bait that he had dropped.

“So… so many of them…” His arms were cold, and his body shivered. The man did not dare turn back again. He gripped the paddles tightly and rowed to the bank. “Save me, save me!”

The thing under the water was distracted by the man’s bait and temporarily ignoring him. Using this opening, the man managed to escape. He rushed to the bank and almost tripped as he tried to get off the boat. The fisher was covered in cold sweat. He sat far away from the bank and gasped greedily for air.

“You saw the King Fish?” Zhang Dabo was shocked by the man’s reaction and immediately ran to the fisher’s side. The man waved his hands frantically. His quivering lips were pale, and he could barely finish a coherent sentence.

“What did you say? Didn’t you say you were going to catch the King Fish with the spear earlier? Why didn’t you do that?”

“There’s no King Fish. The thing under the boat was no fish!” The fisher’s voice came and went, interspersed with his breathing.

“Not a fish? Then what is it?”

“It’s a person! A person!” the emotionally unstable fisher screamed. When he communicated with Zhang Dabo, Chen Ge turned on the flashlight on his phone and shone it at the small boat. The custom-made bobber was lying at the corner of the boat. The bobber was much larger than a normal bobber, and Chen Ge walked toward it curiously.

He saw something blank and long like hair stuck to the side of the boat. Chen Ge was courageous; something had just happened inside the dam, yet he still dared to stand by the water. Looking out into the water, no one knew what kind of creepy monster hid inside it.

Chen Ge narrowed his eyes and reached into the cold water to grab the rope. He pulled the boat up the bank and fixed it to the pier. He noticed that the fisher was still in his frantic mode, and Zhang Dabo was not paying him any attention.

This is my chance.

As he activated the recorder, Chen Ge jumped into the boat, rocking it.

He quickly grabbed the bobber, which did not look much different from the ones on the market other than its size. It was much bigger.

The surface is very slippery, and there’s a layer of oil on it. Wait, there’s a line down the middle. This can be opened.

Chen Ge squeezed the bobber and twisted it open. A stench drifted out. This, he did not expect. There was a pinkie stuck inside the bobber! The flesh had already decayed, and there was no corpse spot, so it was impossible to tell when the finger had been chopped off.

The bobber is hiding a human finger, then what is his bait actually made of?

Why the ‘King Fish’ would be interested in this man’s bait was apparent to Chen Ge. Using the cloth on the boat, Chen Ge wiped his fingerprints off the bobber and put it back.

Then he jumped back from the boat and walked toward the fisher with disgust on his face. When he moved, the expression on his face slowly changed. By the time Chen Ge reached the man, his expression had returned to normal.

The fisher had been given the scare of his life. He held onto Zhang Dabo’s shoulder and started to mumble, “Person! Like seaweed, floating to the surface in clumps!”

The fisher’s reaction was similar to those visitors who visited his Haunted House with malintent. Chen Ge gave this diagnosis after a glance. “Should we send him to the hospital? Perhaps something is wrong with his mind.”

“Okay.” Zhang Dabo dragged the man from the ground, but the man pushed him away.

“I’m not lying to you! That is not King Fish! It’s a person!”

“The King Fish has transformed into a person?” Zhang Dabo chuckled weakly. “Calm down, we’ll go to the hospital first.”

“What hospital? I’m not sick!” The man pushed Zhang Dabo away. He was suddenly reminded of something and rushed to the bank. With some hesitation, he jumped into the boat.

“What are you doing now?” Zhang Dabo was worried about the man’s safety, so he ran after him. When he arrived, the fisher had already gotten off the boat again. He placed that custom-made bobber in his pocket.

“You’re still worried about that bobber at a time like this? Is your life more important or that bobber?”

The fisher ignored Zhang Dabo. After getting the bobber, he ran away from the dam. No matter how hard Zhang Dabo called, the man did not look back.

“Doesn’t he want the fishing rod anymore? But surely this rod is even more expensive than that bobber.”

“Perhaps there’s some secret inside that bobber.” Chen Ge nudged Zhang Dabo away from the water. “Brother, do you know that man’s name and address?”

“You want to go find him?”

“I’m also a fishing aficionado. I wish to exchange some information with him, and I can also return the fishing rod.”

“His name is Yu Qingjia. A strange fella, that one. After the divorce with his wife, he’s been living in Eastern Jiujiang alone. I have no exact address, but I know that it’s not far from the dam.”

After getting the valuable information, Chen Ge grabbed the rod and chased after the man.

Zhang Dabo looked at Chen Ge, who had disappeared into the darkness, and he scratched his head. “These people are all so weird. He’s not just finding an excuse to steal the fishing rod, is he?”

Chen Ge had good stamina. He held the rod and tailed the man from a fixed distance.

He suspected that the man was related to a murder. He needed to find out more, and other than that, he wanted to know what the man had seen in the dam.