My House of Horrors

As Chen Ge raced up the stairs, many other things raced through his mind. The shadow and Doctor Gao were equally injured, and what kind of trap could the shadow set up in such a short amount of time?

The shadow had no idea how much Chen Ge had, and if Chen Ge was given the chance to summon his Red Specters, then the chance of the shadow winning would drop. Even if he led Chen Ge into a trap, with the protection of a Greater Red Specter, it might not be certain death for Chen Ge. Therefore, under such circumstances, the shadow might use another method to kill Chen Ge, like abandoning the aid of the ghosts and using something more direct like Lee Zheng’s gun.

If Chen Ge was not cautious around Lee Zheng, he would not have summoned any Red Specters to guard himself when Lee Zheng wandered near. The shadow only needed to hide his evil intention to prevent detection from the Red Specter. Then, he only needed to unsheathe pistol and pulled on the trigger lightly, and Chen Ge would be dead. Compared to creating a trap that might not be useful, this was the simplest and most efficient method.

The shadow knew that the higher Chen Ge was, the more the power of the Red Specter would be suppressed. This black substance should come from an existence more powerful than a Red Specter, and it could greatly influence Red Specters. With such an advantage, the chance of the shadow’s victory would drastically increase.

Actually, everything followed his expected development, but the final result had somehow surprised him. Before he could take out Lee Zheng’s gun, Chen Ge had already seen through his real identity. Inside the darkened corridor, the blood fog drifted, echoing the cries of nearby children.

The shadow stood several meters away from Chen Ge. His shape was slowly changing, and his height pulled upward until he morphed into someone who looked like Chen Ge.

“You don’t seem like you’re not ready to meet me yet.” Chen Ge looked at the shadow, and a strange feeling overwhelmed him. It was like he was talking at a mirror in the middle of the night.

“You’re mistaken. Since the moment you abandoned me, I knew this day will come, but I admit, it is slightly different from how I planned it.” The shadow’s voice was slowly changing, and he sounded more and more like Chen Ge. “I thought that the next time we met, I would be the human, and you would be the shadow.”

“Do you so desperately want me to be your shadow?” Chen Ge stood where he was. The shadow could hold his own against Zhang Ya, so his power should be similar to that of a Greater Red Specter. Even though he was currently heavily injured by Doctor Gao, it did not mean that Chen Ge could put his guard down.

“One without a shadow is not long for this world. I hope that you can be my shadow so that I can make you experience all the deaths that I’ve experienced in the past.” The voice was changing until it mimicked Chen Ge’s voice perfectly.

“You hate me so much, but what have I ever done to you?” Chen Ge did not think that he suffered from amnesia, and in his memory, he had not done anything too over the top in his childhood.

“Looks like you have really forgotten everything, but it doesn’t matter, I’ll help you remember everything. Inside the door, outside the door, you and me, you inside the door, and finally me outside the door.” With each word, the shadow’s body grew taller. He was standing on the lower step, but he had become taller than Chen Ge. “You have not done anything to me. You live under the sunlight, surrounded by warmth, laughter, and hope; you have enjoyed everything that is good about life. However, the curses, mocking and deep resentment that others directed at you have all been transplanted onto me!”

“All of my negative emotions are on you?” Chen Ge’s brow raised.

“Negative emotions is not enough to explain the abyss-like despair that I’ve slowly sunk into. I saw myself slowly falling, but I could not make any noise. My neck was strangled, and my body was cut into pieces. I couldn’t open my lips; I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t die even if I desperately wanted to!” The shadow’s voice was rising. “Initially, I did not want to harm anyone. Even if I was entangled in endless curses, even as I floated in the sea of despair, even if I experienced a pain that you could never imagine, I never thought of hurting another individual.”

The shadow’s body was expanding and contorting. The paintings on the wall seemed to come alive as well. The black figures inside the painting replayed their deaths again and again.

“Then, one day, my despairing self saw the door at your house!”

The shadow’s words alerted Chen Ge immediately. He knew that there was a door inside the Haunted House’s toilet, but he had no idea who the door-pusher was. “Were you the one who pushed it open?”

“When the curses dragged me into the depth of hell, the door was already there, but my despair was not strong enough to push open the door. It was only strong enough to let me hear the voice coming from behind the door.” The suffocating presence that radiated off the shadow grew. “There was someone calling your name from behind the door. You could not hear it, but I responded on your behalf.”

The shadow’s slippery and sinister voice caused the hair on Chen Ge’s neck to stand on end. “And it was from that moment onward that I realized, why couldn’t I be you? Why should I suffer in the darkness when you are bathing in the sun? I am your shadow, but that does not mean that I have to suffer the pain that should be yours!”

When he said the last word, an arm reached out from the spot where his heart should be and lunged toward Chen Ge. It was very sudden like everything that he had said so far was just a distraction to prepare for this ambush. The shadow had been injured in his battle with Doctor Gao. His shape was fading, but this arm that reached out from his chest was as real as they came. It appeared like the fingerprint underneath each finger had been carved out by blood vessels before.

The woman from the tunnel moved to block in front of Chen Ge when the shadow made his move, but she had greatly underestimated the shadow’s power. The arm poked through her body directly. It carried her blood and gripped at Chen Ge!

“It’s time!” The comic inside his backpack gave off a soft voice, and a page of comic withered upon itself instantly, but at that moment, the black arm stopped for a second!

The woman whose body was punctured wailed. She had died from a car accident, and her body had already been ruined at her time of death. She used both of her hands to grip the arm that poked through her body. The woman ignored the arm and allowed it to dangle inside her body. She hung onto the shadow’s body and started to attack the shadow madly.

The woman from the tunnel was different from other Red Specters. Under her dress, it was a ruined body. The flesh was falling apart, and the bones were shattered. Furthermore, her special power seemed to be related to these broken bones. The blood red bone chips stuck into the shadow’s body. The woman’s body started to shift, and it felt like she was trying to use her body to consume the shadow.

“Just now, my attack slowed down for a moment. What kind of ghost gave you that power?” The shadow turned to glance at Chen Ge. “Just how many Specters are you carrying?”

“Why don’t you have a guess?” Chen Ge wanted to get to the bottom of the door inside the Haunted House, so he did not retaliate against the shadow. Yan Danian and the woman in the tunnel had bought valuable time for Chen Ge. He moved backward, calling Zhang Ya’s name in his heart.

“Even facing certain death, you are able to smile. Everything that you are able to do now is because of me.” The shadow’s voice turned icier. His body was slowly distorting under the relentless attack from the woman, but he did not seem to mind it even a bit. All he showed was a pointed hatred toward Chen Ge. “This place has already been ruined, so there is no need to keep it around anymore. The children that have been transported to the ghost fetus should be enough to help him perform a successful birth.”

The black paintings on the wall started to change. All the little black figures that suffered from endless deaths in the paintings started to crawl out, and they melted into the shadow’s body. All the children inside the building released this strange laughter. They could no longer be viewed as innocent children—they had become nothing more than the shadow’s puppets.

“The children inside this building are all sacrifices for the ghost fetus? Just how many people you have buried in Eastern Jiujiang?” The door behind Chen Ge had the biggest change. The black human shape that looked just like him was slowly turning lighter as incapacitated black figures, possessed by hatred and resentment, crawled out of the door one after another. Each of them carried two faces, one was their own face and the other looked ninety percent like Chen Ge.

This was indeed a scary scene, but the shadow seemed to enjoy this process a lot. “The ghost fetus’ resentment is too deep, and there is no way that he can be born via a normal method. So, I have to use these children to share and dispense part of his resentment. Now, you know the truth, yes? So many children, and they were barely enough to exhaust a part of the ghost fetus’ resentment. You can imagine how much pain I have had to suffer because of you!”

Innocent smiles were missing from the children’s faces. Their facial expressions were dull and strange—there was a hatred toward life that could be seen in them. Even for Chen Ge, this felt totally scary. If no one did anything, any of these children could have led to the formation of a new ghost fetus, and that was probably the most desired outcome for the shadow.

As the small black figures entered his body, the shadow’s body started to solidify again. The dark curse coursed through the surface of his body, forcing out the bone chips that the woman from the tunnel had pushed into his body earlier. A normal Red Specter was unwilling to go near the curse. When the little black figures showed up, the woman from the tunnel had contorted her body and quickly escaped from the shadow’s side.

“The reason I’ve not reached out to you is because I’ve been biding my time until the day when I can make you into my shadow, but you voluntarily appeared to disturb my plan.”

Children’s faces appeared on the shadow’s body. All of the children had already lost the thing that made them human, and they all carried strange smiles. “A person without a shadow is not complete, and I will make you my shadow!”

When the shadow was ready to make his first actual attack, a loud crash came from outside the building. Looking out the window, a group of chains was crazily whipping the exterior of the building.

“It was you who led that damnable madman here, right?” The shadow seemed to be a bit powerless before Doctor Gao. “I’ve only come up with the solution to detain the Red Specter that you have, but I am surprised you managed to find the second Greater Red Specter. However, even with their help, you are unable to change the result, unless you can find a third Greater Red Specter.”

Chen Ge heard a discrepancy in the shadow’s words. He tried to call Zhang Ya, but to his despair, at this most crucial moment, Zhang Ya did not seem to give him any response.

“I know that Red Specter is living inside your shadow, but don’t you forget, I am your real shadow!” The blood fog parted, and the whole building echoed with the shadow’s maddened laugh.

Using the weak light from the blood moon, Chen Ge saw that the shadow’s feet had connected to his own. As the little black figures melted into the shadow, the connection between the shadow and Chen Ge grew.

“When you were small, your parents should have warned you away from Eastern Jiujiang, right?” The shadow’s voice was bubbling with venom and excitement. “They were worried that I would return to your body! My plan is flawless, so how could I lose? The ghost fetus will be born, and I, the lingering spirit, will revert to your shadow! I will slowly consume your mind and body! I will make you experience all the despair, all the deaths, all the pain that should be yours! I am the demon that you are unable to shake off! I am the past that you can never escape! I am you!”

The whole building could hear the shadow’s voice clearly. He had been waiting for this day for a very long time already. “I will give you my memory and turn you into me, and then you’ll be fed to the ghost fetus to be his shadow! Everything is perfect! Even though there were some accidents, the result has already been decided from the beginning!”

Chen Ge called Zhang Ya’s name madly, but there appeared to be something blocking their communication, and Zhang Ya was unable to hear his voice.

“It’s pointless! I am your shadow. The only way she can escape from your shadow is if she takes my place and turns into your new shadow.” The shadow was cackling madly. Then again, the goal that he had been planning for years was about to come into fruition, so how could he not be mad with joy?

The ink-black hands gripped Chen Ge’s neck, and the shadow looked down into his eyes. “I’ve taken on the shapes of so many people, but today, I am finally able to turn back into myself!”

His face red due to a lack of oxygen, Chen Ge was lifted off the ground, and he was unable to make any noise. At the last moment, a man whose heart was dyed red materialized next to Chen Ge. He hugged the shadow’s arm and tried to pull back, but he was barely able to stop the shadow from lifting his arm. A white cat leaped into the air to gnaw at the shadow’s face, but it phased through the shadow’s body and landed heavily on the ground. Without summoning them and unable to make any noise, many shadows escaped from Chen Ge’s backpack. The shadow’s arms were weighed down by multiple limbs, but that did nothing to change the outcome.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The sound of the chains whipping the building became clearer like something was luring the chains to head upstairs. Then, the window on the top floor was pushed open, and a red flash charged toward the shadow!

The tapered fingers pierced into the shadow’s body. The Red Specter gripped the shadow’s arm, and the usual melancholy on his face had disappeared. In its place was anxiety and deep anger.

“You have another Red Specter?” the shadow hissed resentfully. For some reason, his hatred for Chen Ge grew. He wished to destroy this man and everything that this man had ever cared about!

The black curse coursed into the Red Specter’s body. Black veins started to appear on his bleeding shirt. The curse drilled into his body like worms, and they bit at his face and his heart madly.

“So painful!”

Gritting his teeth, the blood that leaked out was black, but he showed no trace of backing off.

“Disgusting! You people disgust me!” the shadow yelled loudly, and more curses, filling up the room, surged into the Red Specter’s body. The blood capillaries exploded, and the body was failing as the endless curse ravaged the Red Specter’s body.

“So painful! So painful! So f*cking painful!” Xu Yin’s face was distorted from pain. His body was practically disintegrating, but the empty space near his heart was slowly turning red!

Without any visible reason, under the duress from the shadow’s endless curse, Xu Yin still had not taken a step back.

BANG!

The chains reached in through the open window, and they lashed at Xu Yin like sharks sensing the blood!

Doctor Gao had arrived, and his target was the flyer that Xu Yin was holding. Covered in curses, the chains that were thick with the scent of blood lashed at Xu Yin, but similar to before, Xu Yin showed no sign of evading. If he was hit by the chains, the shadow next to him would be injured as well.

“Damn you!” To avoid the hit by Doctor Gao, the shadow had no choice but to temporarily let go. Chen Ge dropped to the ground, and Bai Qiulin immediately moved to carry his body and grab the backpack. He knocked open the door and ran out to the roof.

“You can’t escape! I have planned this for too long! There is no escape for you!”

The shadow quickly moved to give chase. The employees from the Haunted House were slammed back, and only Xu Yin was hanging by a thread, but he was unable to stop the shadow alone.

“Zhang Ya, can you hear my voice?” The shadow was under Chen Ge’s feet, and he blocked Chen Ge’s voice.

“It’s useless. At the fresh water plant, I noticed this! This is your fatal flaw!” The shadow gripped Xu Yin’s head and slammed it heavily on the ground. He dragged the man’s broken body as he stepped toward Chen Ge.

“Fatal flaw, you say?” Chen Ge paused for a moment like he was considering many things in his mind. He slowly reached his hand into his backpack. “Actually, I’ve been wondering how I should face her. I have no idea what kind of place she possesses in my heart, but I think I understand it now.”

Chen Ge picked out the treasured love letter from his backpack and then came the lighter. He set the letter on fire. “I don’t need this thing to use as an excuse anymore.”

The fire caught on easily, and Chen Ge’s shadow was boiling. It felt like a black tsunami was coming!

“What are you doing?” The shadow’s face dropped. His body had started to fade. “You really wish for that Specter to become your shadow?”

Standing up, Chen Ge tossed the ash that remained of the love letter into the wind. “Zhang Ya, stay with me forever. I do not believe that there is anything more romantic in this world than shadowing each other for life!”

BANG!

A pale arm pierced through Chen Ge’s shadow, and following it was the outpouring of a deep and black ocean!

The windows, starting from the top of the building, shattered layer after layer!

Under the shine of the blood moon, a girl leaned against Chen Ge’s back gently.

“Zhang Ya!”