My House of Horrors

The question from the drunkard stumped the tattooed man. He also had no idea why the Seizing Soul did not take on the shape of Chen Ge’s shadow—this had never happened before. He sneaked a look at Chen Ge. The question was on his lips, but he was afraid of voicing it. In the end, he laughed awkwardly and changed the subject. “Just try not to stare too long at them. Seizing Souls rarely appear in a large number, and whenever they do, it means that something big is about to happen.”

When the two were conversing, Chen Ge did not interrupt them. He narrowed his eyes slowly as he stared at the few shadows across from the street. If I capture all these shadows and place them inside my Haunted House, will I be able to creature a unique scenario? To have the visitors see themselves inside the scenario and use these shadows’ power to confuse them. If I can make use of them, then the more the participants in the group, the greater the horror effect will be because the real and the fake will be questioned, and no one can tell for sure if it is a ghost or their teammate standing beside them.

The tattooed man was worried, and he kept urging Chen Ge to move. “It’s best if we leave in a hurry. These things are hard to shake off and harder to kill. Before they do anything, we’d better leave.”

“What’s the hurry? Their resilience is perfect for a slow training. I will teach them to become individuals that will contribute to the wellness of the society. I will help them find worth in their existence and let them understand the joy of serving them and becoming the object of reverence for others.”

Other people did not know why the Seizing Souls did not dare to mimic Chen Ge, but the man knew the reason perfectly well. Zhang Ya was hiding inside his shadow. Instead of saying that these Seizing Souls were afraid of Chen Ge, they were more afraid of offending Zhang Ya.

“Please just listen to my advice. It is not safe to stay here—there is no need for us to get entangled with them. They are merely lackeys that the real shadow is using to slow us down. The real threat will come after this. The longer we stay here, the more time we’re giving the shadow to set up its trap. Do you understand that?” The regret of the tattooed man cooperating with Chen Ge grew with every minute. This man was smart, brilliant, and hardworking, but at times, he could become cunning, unreasonable, and brutish.

He would never follow the moral code binding the general public. He had his own way of doing things, but at the same time, he appeared like he had no control over his own actions. He lusted after the exciting and loved interesting things. The gene for violence seemed to be written inside his DNA.

The tattooed man had seen many movies about crazed murderers, and as a quintessential patient with psychopathic personality disorder, he knew how the movies had exaggerated the characterization. Even the most brutal criminal would not appear so openly maddened in public.

A real maddened criminal was someone like Chen Ge. When you passed them on the street, you would never realize and could never discern the imbalance inside their heart. They could not control the aggression that they were born with and rarely showed sympathy or remorse with the acts of violence that they had conducted. This was the common similarity shared by most psychopathic criminals. Incidentally, the tattooed man recognized this similarity in Chen Ge, and to make matters worse, the man did not seem to realize how dangerously unhinged he was.

The tattooed man had never once met Chen Ge’s eyes before, and he did not mean any offense by that—he merely did not dare to look Chen Ge in the eyes. He was the one of the first to move into Li Wan City, so logically, he had seen the shadow many times before. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he kept getting this similar feeling that he got from the shadow when he dealt with Chen Ge.

“You’re right; now is not the time. We need to find that door that has gone out of control first.” Chen Ge led the group toward Fan Chong’s home.

Several minutes later, after they passed another junction, Lee Zheng’s voice came from the back of the group. “Wait! Someone has gone missing.”

Lee Zheng had the most unique identity of everyone in the group, so everyone froze when they heard his voice.

“Who has gone missing?” The tattooed man turned to look and discovered that the woman who had been dragging the large box earlier had disappeared into the blood fog. “Did she run away?”

“There’s no need to search for her; she’s not coming back to us,” Bei Ye said softly. He pointed at the other side of the junction. “She went over there.”

Following the student’s finger, they saw the woman. The box that she was dragging had disappeared, and only half of her body remained. There were signs of sewing on the woman’s body, and all of her remaining skin appeared normal. It seemed like the woman had the habit of cutting off her skin that had gone gray and replacing it with the normal skin of her victims.

“When did she leave the group? Has she been preparing to escape?” To stabilize their morale, the tattooed man had no choice but to return to confirm the woman’s situation.

“I have no idea; I wasn’t paying her much attention. The woman stayed at the back of the group, and it sounded like there was something earlier that dragged her away.” The high-schooler carried his black schoolbag and carried a spring knife in his palm. Since Chen Ge had exposed his identity, he removed the glasses and abandoned the disguise.

“We’ve been targeted by the thing in the blood fog. We need to stay together, especially those at the back.” Chen Ge did not care about the woman and Bei Ye, but he did have his concern for Lee Zheng. After all, the inspector had helped him many times.

“Could the culprit be the woman wearing the red raincoat?” Jia Ming whispered softly. “When we left the hotel, I saw with my own eyes that she was walking behind us. But when we reached the first junction, she had disappeared. I find that highly suspicious.”

Chen Ge knew that the culprit could not be the woman in the red raincoat, but he did not want to expose his relationship to her, so he did not answer and merely urged the rest to pick up their speed. The blood fog surrounding them thickened like this creepy small town was awakening. The blood red eyes that hid inside the blood fog were following their moves with evil intention.

They strode down the street for twenty minutes before they reached the residential area where Fan Chong lived. The blood fog there was much thicker than anywhere else in the small town. Standing several meters away, they could barely make out the shape of the buildings.

“This has gone much smoother than I anticipated—the exit is right before us!” The tattooed man was practically buzzing with excitement.

“Calm down, the closer we are to the exit, the higher the chance of danger.” With them finally arriving at their destination, Chen Ge appeared surprisingly detached. He lifted his head to look at Fan Chong’s home, but the fog was too thick for him to peer through even with the help of Yin Yang Vision.

Both Fan Chong and Fan Dade have gone missing, and something has probably happened to the computer with Xiao Bu’s game as well. It is to be expected that the shadow has laid a trap here. No matter what we do next, I have to be extra cautious.

“Quick! Look at this! There is a message left in blood here! Someone knew that we’re coming here!” The drunkard stopped at the entrance to the residential area. On the gate of the compound, a sentence dripping in blood was written. “I am one of you?”

The blood was still wet, and it slid down the iron gate.