My House of Horrors

Wen Wen’s crying sound came from the single room. The female teacher stood outside to listen for a while. She prepared to reenter the room when the girl’s crying receded, but Wen Wen only cried harder and louder.

There has to be something wrong with this girl’s brain. She was the one who broke the water bottle, so why is she acting so crazy in the middle of the day?

The female teacher still had other students in her charge, so she decided to leave Wen Wen alone to calm down. She walked away from the door and returned to the classroom.

After all the children were ready for the afternoon class, the female teacher returned to the door of the isolated room. Half an hour had already passed, and Wen Wen finally stopped crying.

Looks like giving them a time-out is not bad. Of course, we cannot pamper them too much simply because they’re retarded.

The female teacher was glad because she had finally found the method to deal with Wen Wen. She pushed the door open.

In the room that could not be considered as big, there was a dampness in the air, and it felt eerie and dark. There was a pool of water on the ground, and the little girl stood in the corner with her head lowered, her small, slender arms dangling weakly by her side. Her pale skin was conspicuous against her black hair. The curtain of hair fell on her face and blocked her eyes. She did not make any noise, as if she had transformed into some furniture in the room.

“Finally stopped crying?” The female teacher sensed the change in the little girl. For some strange reason, she shivered. After she entered this small room, her breathing became more difficult like the room was filled with water and if she stayed too long in this room, she might drown and die.

The sound of a wind chime and the children singing came from outside the room. Those were the usual sounds at their school, but standing inside that single room, listening to these familiar sounds that drifted through the wind felt completely different. It did not sound like children who were born unlucky and with sickness, but it sounded like the painful wailing of small tormented souls.

“Come here.” The female teacher suddenly felt afraid of stepping further into the room. She extended her hands toward the girl and hoped that the girl would walk out from the room on her own. However, Wen Wen did not seem to hear her. She stood there in her strange posture. Her arms were slightly bent, and her body was leaning forward. Her lips, the only feature that was not blocked by her hair, were pulled upward into a smile.

“Can’t you hear me? I told you to come here!” The female teacher looked at the child, and a strange emotion appeared in her heart—fear. Why would I be afraid of a mere child?

It was broad daylight, and the sun was shining brightly. The female teacher steeled her heart and walked into the room. She grabbed the curtain and prepared to yank it open. However, just as she was about to pull back the curtain, she felt a chill on her wrist like something had just grabbed her.

“Ah!” With a scream, the female teacher turned to look. Her wrist was gripped by Wen Wen. This little girl seemed to have morphed into a different person. Her eyes had become very weird like a bottomless pond, and there were bodies floating on top of it.

What is happening?

The teacher’s hand that held onto the curtain slowly lost its power. She could not move her hand, much less pull the curtain open.

“Isn’t it time for class?” Wen Wen uttered the question clearly. There was no stuttering or shivering like usual; every single word was very clear. This was different from how the girl was normally.

“O… okay.” The female teacher did not dare waste time and immediately raced out of the room with Wen Wen in tow.

Walking down the corridor, the oppressive feeling finally started to dissipate. The female teacher did not dare turn around to look at Wen Wen. She felt like her wrist had been bitten by something. It was cold and numb, and she had started to lose the feeling in her arm.

Walking into the classroom, Wen Wen let go of her hand actively. Without waiting for the teacher to say anything, Wen Wen walked to the back of the class.

Today sure is a strange day.

Even though Wen Wen was not holding her wrist anymore, the female teacher still felt chilliness radiating from the spot where Wen Wen held her.

She had the students open all the curtains in the classroom. Then she began the class. She tried her best not to look in Wen Wen’s direction, and soon, the events that happened that afternoon were slowly removed from her mind.

…

At 3 pm, Chen Ge’s Haunted House ran into a small problem. That CEO Bai, who was Director Luo’s guest, suddenly wanted to personally experience Chen Ge’s Haunted House. Since he was not privy to the man’s background, Chen Ge planned to give CEO Bai the best VIP service. He planned to have CEO Bai enter the Haunted House alone and then arrange a few ghosts to be his other visitors to accompany him.

The actors were ghosts, the other visitors were ghosts, and everywhere that he looked, there would be ghosts. That would definitely leave a valuable memory for CEO Bai, and perhaps he might even use this opportunity to grab some valuable information.

That was the plan, but CEO Bai suddenly changed his mind at the last minute. He bowed out from the experience and ordered the secretary that followed him to experience the Haunted House on his behalf. Chen Ge did not think it was worth it to go after a mere secretary, so he had the idea to go easy on the man. He lowered the difficulty of the three-star mission, and he allowed the secretary to almost clear the Third Sick Hall.

The man probably felt disappointed because he had overestimated Chen Ge’s Haunted House. Chen Ge’s plan was for them to lower their guard. If they returned in the future, Chen Ge planned to enter the fray personally and even release the lingering spirits of all the mental patients. He would show them the real terror of the ghost stories society.

CEO Bai and Director Luo’s negotiation went very smoothly, maybe too smoothly. After sending CEO Bai off, there was no smile on Director Luo’s face. Things had been too successful, and that made Director Luo feel quite unsettled. Chen Ge was not familiar with these things, so he could not intervene even if he wanted to. With full confidence in Director Luo, he did not ask for more details.

The Haunted House closed at night. After cleaning up the place, Chen Ge entered the underground scenario alone. He planned to finish the twin water ghost mission that night. Taking out the comic, he grabbed all the ghosts. Chen Ge put it inside the backpack with Doctor Skull-cracker’s hammer.

After completing the Water Ghost mission, the variety of employees at the Haunted House will greatly improve, and the first underwater scary scenario will be unlocked. I just wonder what kind of form it will take.

With a stomach filled with anticipation, Chen Ge left New Century Park. When he planned to call a taxi to get to the dam, his phone suddenly rang. It was a call from Wen Wen’s aunt.

“Hello, how are you?”

“Did Wen Wen go to your place? Boss Chen, have you seen Wen Wen?” Wen Wen’s aunt’s urgent voice came from the other end of the line.

“Wen Wen? But why would she be with me? Calm down and tell me what happened.” Chen Ge had a very bad feeling.

“Wen Wen has gone missing! When I went to the rehabilitative school to pick her up at night, I discovered that she was not at the school! The school teachers have no idea where she is, and the surveillance footage showed that she was indeed waiting for me at the school gate after school. However, after a while, she disappeared from the footage, and now, no one knows where she is.”

Wen Wen’s aunt sounded desperate.

“The girl likes your theme park a lot, and she even told me that she felt very comfortable inside your Haunted House. The girl who has always been a bit reserved and pessimistic started to smile after she visited your theme park, so I think that she might have gone to your theme park if she ran away from school.”

“I don’t think so. You live in Eastern Jiujiang, and the theme park is in Western Jiujiang; the distance between us is very big.”

“I’m just telling you. If you see that child, please call me back, okay? Thank you!”

“Okay, no problem, but I feel like there is a big chance that Wen Wen is still at her school. Can you tell me the address of her school?”

After Wen Wen’s aunt gave him the location, Chen Ge hung up. He quickly ran to the guard’s booth. He told the elder the situation and told him to keep an eye out for the little girl.

After sharing the news, Chen Ge headed directly to the girl’s school. From his experience, the girl should not have wondered far from her school—she did not have any money on her, so she should still be around her school compound.

The girl’s big sister is a water ghost. Could her sudden disappearance be related to her big sister? Is it because I went to the dam yesterday and it has attracted the attention of the other water ghosts?

There was still time, so Chen Ge called a cab to get to Wen Wen’s rehabilitative school.

…

“She is really such a troublesome little child. If she is mentally retarded, then she should not be able to come up with all these schemes!”

The female teacher by the name of Xiao Zhu stood in the corridor and complained. The male teacher standing next to her was the one responsible for physical education.

“You should not have said that. If any outsiders hear it, it will greatly ruin the reputation of our school,” the male teacher advised her patiently. Even though he also had a trace of impatience and unhappiness on his face, he did not voice his dissatisfaction openly.

“Ah Cheng, if this child did not decide to act up, we would have been shopping and then going for a movie.” The female teacher did not hide her real emotion when she was with the male teacher.

“Shush, you’d better keep it quiet. Headmistress Wen does not approve of relationships between teachers. Since we’re still at school, we’d better be more careful about things like that.” He walked away. “Let’s find that girl first.”

“Why are we wasting time? It’s for the best if the girl goes missing, I became tired of dealing with her a long time ago,” the woman groused.

The two turned to walk into a different corridor, but the lights in the corridor were not turned on. When the male teacher wanted to reach out for the light switch, his arm was suddenly covered with softness. He turned around to look and noticed that his arm was being hugged by the female teacher. “Why aren’t you paying me any attention?”

The woman put on a coquettish expression. The man looked around and confirmed that no one was there before leaned in to give the woman a peck on her lips. “We should focus on the official business first. If the girl really goes missing, it will greatly affect the reputation of our school. By the way, I heard from the students that the girl was crying for no reason this afternoon. Do you know the actual reason why?”

“If I have to guess, it was her illness acting up. I’ve already told you, the child is not normal. She often hugs a water bottle in class and talks to the water inside the bottle. Sometimes, she even calls the water bottle her big sister.”

The woman seemed to get excited talking about Wen Wen behind her back.

“She is unable to interact with other students. I once tried to have a child who was the least retarded sit next to her, but in the end, just because the boy tried to have a look at her water bottle, she scratched the boy’s face until he bled.”

“She is so aggressive? But when she entered the school, the doctor did not say anything like that on her diagnosis report.”

“Who really knows? In any case, I have already completely given up on her. As long as I can earn my paycheck. You also know about our situation here. There is a quota. If around sixty percent of the children have a positive improvement and the remaining forty percent’s condition does not worsen, it is already acceptable.” The woman hugged the man by the name of Ah Cheng. How she reacted and talked when she was with the man and when she was with her students were completely different.

The man did not push her away and allowed Xiao Zhu to hang onto his arm. He even leaned in closer to her. “No matter what, we still need to find that girl. If the police and welfare services arrive and realize that you trapped the girl inside the room for the whole afternoon and allowed her to cry her heart out, the headmistress will definitely punish you.”

His voice was full of affection. The man stuck close to Xiao Zhu, and the two entered the corridor. When the man tried to turn the light on, Xiao Zhu who hugged the man’s arm suddenly saw a small shadow that was reflected on the wall at the end of the corridor.

“There!” she yelped, and the man quickly turned the corridor lights on. The small shadow disappeared as the lights came on.

“What did you see?”

“I saw a shadow earlier. It looked like it belonged to that girl!”

“She’s still in the school?” The man held Xiao Zhu’s hand as they ran to the end of the corridor. When they arrived, they discovered that it was not a shadow on the wall but a splash of water.

“Who would splash water here? Was it that girl?”

“Who else would it be other than her?”

“But what is her intention of doing this?” Xiao Zhu was confused. “Then again, I did notice that the girl likes to play with water.”

“Wen Wen broke the water bottle and started to cry after she woke up from the afternoon nap. Then, could something have happened during the afternoon nap?” Ah Cheng was calmer. “The teacher who was responsible for the patrol this afternoon was Teacher Wang. She is currently looking for clues with the headmistress. Let me call her to ask.”

The man made the call, and Xiao Zhu looked rather miffed. “Why would you have her phone number? When did you ask for her number?”

“Teacher Wang, during the afternoon nap, did you notice anything strange about Wen Wen?”

“I don’t think so. I saw a hair floating in her water bottle, so I poured the dirty water away.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Then, where did you pour the water? Did you pour it on her bed?”

“What are you trying to insinuate? That this thing is my mistake?” Teacher Wang fired back with impatience. “I poured the water down the toilet. If there’s nothing else, I’m going to hang up.”

“The toilet? Come, let’s go there and see.” The man did not want to explain to Xiao Zhu about why he had Teacher Wang’s number, so he quickly changed the topic. He led Xiao Zhu to run to the toilet that was at the end of the long corridor.

He placed his palm on the handle and then quickly pulled his hand back. “Why is the door handle wet? Has someone just used the toilet?” He looked at the door and realized that the edge of the door was also wet. Other than that, it looked to be moldy. The mold released a light stench.

“Is the girl hiding inside the toilet?” With curiosity, the man pushed the door open. The sound of rushing water came from the toilet. The faucet was not shut, and someone had used water to write down the following on the sink’s mirror—Here I am.

The water slid down the surface of the mirror. Those few words had just been written.

“Is this Wen Wen’s handwriting?” Ah Cheng turned to look at Xiao Zhu. Normally, Xiao Zhu had the most interaction with Wen Wen.

“Definitely not! The girl does not even recognize alphabet, so how could she have written this?” Xiao Zhu looked at the sentence of the mirror and shivered.

“Then, this means that someone else has sneaked into our school and probably kidnapped Wen Wen.” The man crossed his arms before his chest and started to think. Xiao Zhu became more and more unsettled. The lights in the corridor flickered on and off. She looked at the faucet, and a question popped into her mind.

The drain of the sink was not clogged, but the water level inside the sink kept rising. Seeing the rising water, the feeling of drowning returned like she was placed inside a pond as the water slowly rose to submerge her heart.

The sound of a girl’s mumbling and singing appeared beside her ears. Her body kept shivering, and from the cover of her eyes, she saw something floating out from the drain of the sink.

She walked to the sink and placed her hand slowly into it. When she touched the thing and planned to pull it out, she realized that it was the hair of a woman. Xiao Zhu struggled greatly like she had touched something extremely disgusting. She wanted to call the male teacher next to her for help, but when she turned her head, she saw a girl who was completely bloated from being soaked in water standing inside the mirror.

She wore a tattered shirt that was splattered with blood, and her hair crawled out from the sink. Her lips moved like she was saying, “Have you found me?”