My House of Horrors

Chen Ge dragged the hammer and walked to the end of the corridor. He studied each of his teammates in his mind and realized that every single one of them could be suspected.

The drunkard had gotten onto the hearse accidentally, and he was the most normal of the group. He had hope toward life, fear toward death, and possessed the resilience of a normal human being.

Chen Ge had interacted twice with the doctor before. When the other passengers disappeared, the doctor who had been taking this bus miraculously survived.

The suspicion on Jia Ming could not have been clearer, but the person that alarmed Chen Ge even more was Lee Zheng. He had not forgotten about the messages that he had received on his phone before arriving at Li Wan City. The sender did not appear to be Lee Zheng. After he met Lee Zheng, he did not voluntarily bring this up because he wanted to observe the man some more.

For Chen Ge, the chance of the shadow assuming Scissors’ identity was the lowest. He was trying his best to make himself look scarier and more unapproachable, and that was something incredibly difficult to mimic by others.

The identity of the smiling man was a total mystery. The shadow could have killed the man before he got on the bus and took over his identity. After all, since no one was familiar with the smiling man, no matter what the shadow did in the form of the man, everyone would think that was merely how the man was. He was the easiest to mimic, and because of that, he was the easiest candidate to suspect.

The sharp edges of the hammer created friction against the ground, creating a spine-tingling noise. Chen Ge walked alone into the darkness, and even the drunkard and Scissors did not dare to get too close. Chen Ge radiated a dangerous presence, and the man who had appeared so normal moments earlier took on a different kind of aura.

“I wonder what kind of surprises the shadow will have prepared for me…” The white cat leaned on Chen Ge’s shoulders. Its ears were perked up, a sign that it was alarmed. However, Xu Yin had not given Chen Ge a warning. This could only mean that there was something very scary inside the building, but temporarily, it had not shown itself.

The building was not big, and Chen Ge soon reached the door to Jiang Long’s family home. The door that had gone out of control was behind it.

“Soon, I’ll realize what the difference between a normal door and an uncontrollable door is.” Chen Ge raised the hammer and slammed the door down. Thick blood fog rolled out from the room. Strangely enough, the fog inside the room was much thicker than it was outside the town. A normal person could barely see three meters before them.

“I’ll go take a look first.” Chen Ge held the hammer in one hand and reached his other hand into the backpack to pick out a pair of red high heels. “Forgive me for this offense.”

He tossed the heels into the living room and stood at the door to observe. Confirming there was no trap, he walked into the room. He felt weirdly uncomfortable when his body came into contact with the fog. Negative emotions rushed into his mind, and those without a hardened conviction would lose control easily. “I think the rest of you should wait outside for now. The fog inside here is very thick, and I’m afraid of collateral damage.”

Picking up the red high heels, Chen Ge noticed that the fog would naturally thin when it approached the heels—it felt like the heels were absorbing the fog.

“This fog is beneficial for ghosts?” Chen Ge asked Bai Qiulin and got an affirmative answer. The blood around Bai Qiulin’s heart had started to spread. However, Chen Ge did not summon all of his workers since he was not sure if there were going to be negative effects from consuming this fog.

“There’s nothing here in the living room—the underground basement is behind the armoire…” Chen Ge was walking over when the white cat suddenly mewled. Chen Ge turned to look and noticed that the cat was hissing in the direction of the bedroom.

“If it is a Red Specter, the cat will be shaking in fear, but since it dares to put up resistance, it means that the Specter in the bedroom isn’t too strong.”

In any case, Chen Ge did not underestimate his opponent. He tossed the pair of heels into the room first before slowly entering it.

“Try to sense where is it hiding.” The bedroom was small, but after they walked into it, the white cat seemed to be struck by confusion. It would hiss at the bed, and then it would turn to gnash its teeth at the window.

“Is it doing this on purpose to buy time?” Chen Ge felt like this might be a valid possibility. Just as he was about to leave, refusing to waste any more time, the bedroom door slammed shut. The sound of a music box echoed in the room, and the blood fog slowed down. The voice of a girl could be heard mixed into the music.

“Mother and Father have entered the basement. After Father came out, he locked the door. He carried a black bag with him. He touched my head and said, ‘Disobedient children will be taken away by the ghosts.’

“I lay in bed, thinking back to what mother said.

“Before going to bed, I need to pull up the cover; before going to bed, I have to close the window; before going to bed, I need to check the armoire; before going to bed, remember to check the space under the bed… if I’m sleeping alone.

“Father left home carrying the bag, leaving me behind.

“I look under the cover, look out the window, look inside the armoire, look under the bed, but I cannot find mother.”

The song echoed inside the room like it was detailing what had happened inside this bedroom.

“The father said that disobedient child will be taken away by ghosts, and the girl followed her mother’s instructions. What is the song trying to express?” Chen Ge knew that this home had once belonged to Jiang Long’s family. “At the time, Jiang Long was possessed by the shadow, and it was expected that he’d do many strange things. The underground missing, the missing mother and elder sister, those are probably his doing.”

The music box was still playing, but this time, it was the voice of another woman.

“Red eyes are watching you. You can’t see me, but I can see you.

“I move with your gaze. I hide under the bed, inside the armoire, behind the window before crawling under your covers.

“I lay down behind you and above you, but you still cannot see my red eyes.”

Chen Ge examined the places that the female voice mentioned as he waved his hammer around. “Looks like it has been confirmed that something happened to the mother. She was placed inside this room, but the daughter cannot see her for some reason. Since I can hear both the voices of the daughter and the mother, it can only mean that they have both left this world. This matches the result of the police investigation; Jiang Long’s wife and daughter have gone missing and haven’t been found to this day.

“It was Jiang Long who killed his family, or rather, it was the possessed Jiang Long who killed the family. This thing doesn’t possess even a shred of humanity.” Chen Ge had no clue whether the wife and the daughter were innocent or not, but he planned to bring them back to the Haunted House to get more information out of them.

“You’d better come out on your own. I’ve blocked the door, there is no escape.”

There was no reply. The music box continued to play. Chen Ge decided to stop wasting time. He used the hammer to ruin the bed and the window. However, when he walked to the armoire, the sound of the music box suddenly stopped.

“This probably isn’t a trap by the shadow—it’s merely a trick to confuse me.” Chen Ge held the red high heels and used the heel to pull the handle of the armoire open. An exquisite music box was placed inside the armoire.

The music box looked old, and a family picture was placed inside. The mother was hugging the little brother, and the sister was happily leaning against the mother. There was someone standing next to them, but that part of the photograph had been cut off.

Picking up the music box, Chen Ge tossed it inside his backpack. He planned to have his employees to deal with this thing.

“The red eyes in the armoire mentioned by the black phone should refer to this music box.”

Chen Ge paused and realized that he had practically completed all of the isolated scenarios listed by the phone.

“Once the scenario of Li Wan City is unlocked, it’ll probably cause great chaos. Playing hide-and-seek at the hospital, the doghouse, the red eyes in the armoire, human head mop, an apartment filled with murderers and ghosts.

“Even if they escape from the building, the streets are filled with shadows who wave and take on the visitors’ shape. This kind of scenario is perfect, and the scenario will no longer be limited to a single building and will expand toward a multi-directional development. If I include more mannequins and machines, I can replicate Xiao Bu’s game in real life and have the visitors experience that extreme joy themselves.”

Chen Ge could already see the commotion that would happen on the internet once the scenario of Li Wan City was unlocked. There had never been a Haunted House that would do things on such an enormous scale.