My House of Horrors

The black raincoat covered the man’s body, but Chen Ge noticed that he was wearing many layers, making him look bigger than he actually was. When he noticed that the bus was coming his way, he immediately turned to run the other way.

“Why is it following me?” There was panic in the person’s eyes. The bus had deserted its route—that had never happened before. The bus cut through the rain, its speed not too fast and not too slow. It was driving right next to the man like it was waiting for him to get on. Such a strange thing happening caused the man to pick up his pace. He looked left and right like looking for an alley too small for the bus to get through.

“It’s so dangerous for you to wander alone so late at night when it’s raining.” Chen Ge had Tang Jun stop the bus in the man’s path and open the door. The man hesitated before getting on the bus. He removed the rain jacket and revealed a face that Chen Ge was familiar with.

Chen Ge had met this passenger before. When he visited Li Wan City before, it was this man who had introduced Chen Ge to the hearse. He was a doctor from the burn unit who had married a patient much younger than he was. Due to complicated reasons, his wife had committed suicide in the bathroom. Since then, he had been wearing the scarf knitted by his wife and gone searching for methods to see his wife again in the dark corners of the city.

After the doctor got on, he saw Chen Ge. In such a weird situation, it was greatly relieving to see a familiar face. He walked toward Chen Ge and sat down next to him without hesitation. The vehicle continued to move. Rain pelted the bus window, and the sound made people feel uneasy.

“You’re still alive?”

Chen Ge’s greeting was unusual to say the least, but the doctor was not mad. He shushed Chen Ge and then whispered, “Today, this bus is different from normal. Something bad might have happened.”

“What’s so different?” Chen Ge listened to the feedback, thinking about how to improve.

“I can’t tell, but it just feels strange.” The doctor shrugged his coat off and scanned the other passengers in the vehicle out of the corner of his eyes.

“No wonder you chose to escape the moment the bus pulled up at the platform.” Chen Ge shrugged. He placed the cat back into the travel bag. Whenever there was danger, the cat would become incredibly obedient and liked to stick close to Chen Ge.

After the doctor got on, the bus turned around and returned to its normal route.

“We’ll reach Li Wan City in a few more stops. There sure is a lot of passengers wanting to take this bus tonight.” Chen Ge closed his eyes to rest. Be it the drunkard or the red high heels, neither of them was his target. His main target was still the woman in the red raincoat.

Crossing through the rain, outside the bus, it was howling with wind and thunder, but inside the bus, it felt smothering and oppressive like even breathing was difficult. After another five minutes, the bus reached the next stop.

At the empty stop, there was a pool of blood being washed away by the rain. No one knew what had happened at the stop before the bus arrived. The blood stain slowly faded cleansed by the rain.

“When the woman in the red raincoat is attacked or provoked, blood will seep out of her raincoat, so does this belong to her?” Chen Ge could not confirm it. Perhaps it was a waiting passenger who was murdered.

Like usual, the bus opened the door and stopped for three minutes even though there was no one waiting at the platform. There was nothing unusual for the first minute, but during the second minute, there was a shadow coming down the road.

He swayed in the heavy rain, sporting a mushroom-shaped hairstyle. His neck was longer than normal, and even though his facial features looked normal, in combination, it felt so awkward.

Just as the door was about to close, the mushroom head got on the bus. His whole body was drenched, and he had a smile fixed on his face. His lips cracked open to reveal his teeth. Even though the rain slid into his lips, he did not mind as if this was the only facial expression that he could make.

“A strange smiling man?” That was Chen Ge’s impression of this new passenger. He used his Yin Yang Vision silently, and with just a glance, it felt like someone had poked his pupils with a pin. He quickly closed his eyes to shut off the sharp pain. When Chen Ge reopened them, the smiling man was already seated. He took a seat in the second row. It seemed like he was purposely taking the seat opposite from the pair of red high heels.

Tonight, we sure have plenty of quality passengers!

Rubbing his eyes, Chen Ge was still working through the pain. He had no idea what the man was hiding, but one thing was for sure, the man was definitely not a normal person like the doctor.

The bus continued to move. Several minutes later, the doctor suddenly reached behind him to pass a phone to Chen Ge. Accepting the phone, Chen Ge read the written message on it—’Ever since we left Li Wan City, the hearse disappeared. It stopped arriving at the designated time. Tonight, I came to try my luck, but the hearse showed up when it shouldn’t have. It has broken all of the rhythm that has been set up in the past. Tonight, there will be more former passengers like myself who came to check the route, so it’ll be very dangerous. Be careful, and one thing to pay attention to is the smiling monster on the second row. Be cautious. It has killed a whole bus of people before.’

Reading the doctor’s message, Chen Ge noticed something. When referring to the smiling passenger, the doctor used monster and ‘it’ to describe it.

How did the doctor find out it has killed a whole bus of people? If he was one of the passengers, how did he survive? If he wasn’t on the bus then, who told him about this?

His eyes were pulsing with pain. Chen Ge merely glanced at the man with the power gifted to him by the black phone.

This man sports such a cute hairstyle, but in reality, he’s a cruel character.

When Chen Ge was silently observing the smiling man, the bus reached the next stop. Before entering the platform, Chen Ge saw a young man on the platform looking quite unsettled. After the bus parked and the door opened, sitting inside the bus, Chen Ge could hear the young man’s voice. “It’s really here, the midnight bus! The stories are real!”

His voice was shaking, and his face was white. His lips were unnaturally purple, and his body was shaking like he could collapse at any moment.

“Such a scaredy-cat?” Chen Ge studied the young man through the window. The man looked just over twenty, probably still in university. This was just a normal student. Chen Ge believed that he was like Xiao Gu, followed by unnatural things, and with his bad luck, he ran into the last bus on Route 104.

Chen Ge had no interest in the young man. He looked at him like how a fisher would look like a small fish that had gotten into the net. He prepared to let him go.

The bus pulled up to the stop. Out of Chen Ge’s expectations, this young man who looked so scared and cowardly jumped through the door without being forced when the doors were about to close.