My House of Horrors

Under the dim light, there shadows were showing on the wall, but there was supposedly only one person in the room. The two sides next to Wenyu’s body creased downward as her hair spread like a halo—it felt like something was pressing down on her.

“Qiumei, Qiumei… Qiumei!” Wenyu suddenly jumped up from her sleep. She inhaled greedily and looked around with a lost expression on her face. The dim light from the bedside lamp shone around the room, giving it an intimate atmosphere. Most of the furniture was where it was supposed to be—there was no sign of anyone else having been in the room.

“Worse thing than having a nightmare is waking up in the middle of the night and realizing that the night is still long.” Wenyu picked up the documents on the bed and looked around. “Where’s the pen?”

She climbed out from bed to grab the pen, which had fallen away. Then she placed the pen and the papers that she had gathered into the folder inside her bag.

“Time to go back to bed. When the sun rises, I’ll go to the school to take a look.”

Climbing back into bed, Wenyu switched off the bedside table. Just as the room submerged into darkness, the camera caught a woman in a red outfit standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom.

When lights went off, she walked out of the bathroom again. She was still inside the room, but since the room was now completely shrouded in darkness, no one could see her.

The way that this movie portrays ghosts is quite interesting. Perhaps my Haunted House can take inspiration from it, to give the visitors a new sensation through a clever use of contrast.

The desire of Chen Ge to meet the movie director grew. If he cooperated with the director, Chen Ge had a feeling that he could raise the horror level at his Haunted House to new heights.

The screen was dark—one could barely see anything. However, this also gave the audience plenty of room for imagination because everyone knew, in the darkness, other than the sleeping main character, there was a ghost in a red outfit. The whole scene was captured in one shot; there was no editing, and that lent the movie a sense of authenticity.

Several seconds later, the scene ended, and the sun rose. Everything in the room was the same. The main character did not sense anything out of place, as if the memory from the previous night was truly just a nightmare.

“I broke out in cold sweat, worried about the girl.” Ol’ Zhou patted his chest lightly.

“Can you even break out in sweat?” Duan Yue rolled her eyes at him.

“If you don’t believe me, why don’t you touch my palm to find out?” Ol’ Zhou extended his hand to Duan Yue, but the latter saw through the old trick, and she slapped his hand away.

The employees were greatly enraptured by the movie, but Chen Ge alone was thinking about something else. He had watched Deskmate earlier, and after comparing both Deskmate and Name, he noticed many problems.

“Both main characters are called Wenyu, so they should be about the left eye. However, the difference is, in Deskmate, the main character is still underage, but in Name, the main character is already working. These two movies depict different periods in life for the same character.

Based on the introduction on the left eye in Deskmate, Wenyu’s body should have played host to the souls of several girls already, but that would mean that the many details in Name would not match up.

At the start of the movie, the name on the main character’s diary was Qiumei, but when the female ghost appeared and pressed herself against the main character, it was also Qiumei’s name that was called.

Now the soul trapped inside Wenyu’s body seems to be Qiumei’s as well.

At the end of Deskmate, Qiumei had answered the call from her new Deskmate, and she had invited her over to place, so theoretically speaking, a new cycle would have started already. However, after watching Name, Chen Ge realized that things were not that simple.

Qiumei doesn’t seem like she found a scapegoat and continued the cycle. Over so many years, she has been suffering everything brought upon her by the left eye alone.

The few movies shot around the left eye seemed to star Wenyu, but in reality, the main character was Qiumei, who was controlling Wenyu’s body. The body was Wenyu’s, but the soul was Qiumei’s.

Chen Ge found that out from watching the beginning of Name. Even though he was not technically a genius, he was a person who paid attention to details. He had a pair of eyes that could look through the surface to find the truth.

The movie continued. The room in the morning was bright and clean. Who would have thought this place had played host to a ghost? The main character handed in her resignation. With the new day, she did not head to work but carried her bag loaded with information and took the bus to Western Jiujiang, following the address that she had found online.

“Is this Jiujiang Private University?” From searching for the whole morning, Wenyu finally arrived at a hospital. “I’m looking for a school, but how come the address on the internet led me to a hospital?”

The buildings around looked quite old. Even though Wenyu was a local of Jiujiang, she had no idea such a hospital existed in Jiujiang.

“Is anyone in?” Wenyu tried to open the door and discovered that the door was locked from the inside. She leaned on the glass and peered into the hospital. The tiles were gleaming, and the chairs were dustless. The walls were white and new. Other than the strange silence, this place looked no different from a normal hospital.

“This hospital doesn’t even have a name. I couldn’t check it online even if I want to.”

Wenyu walked to the other end of the hospital, and at the backdoor, a man wearing a mask and white coat was walking out.

“Doctor, can you help me?” Wenyu ran over, but after the doctor heard her voice, he did not stop but instead walked faster.

“Doctor?” Wenyu was confused by this reaction, and she ran forward to block his way. The man grunted with impatience. He was about to turn the other way when something seemed to dawn on him. His body froze, and he looked intensely at Wenyu.

The man was 1.8 meters tall and very handsome with an even build. However, there was a dark cloud between his brows, and his gaze was chilling. He had a presence around him that would deter others from getting too close to him.

Wenyu felt discomfited from his state. After a long time, she asked, “Hi, I’m here to register at Jiujiang Private University. I’ve brought the relevant documents and information, but I cannot find the school. However, the address given online has led me here.”

“Jiujiang Private University?” The doctor’s eyes had not moved away from Wenyu’s face. “That school has been shut down already, so you’d better go find a different school.”

The doctor then prepared to leave. Wenyu scratched her head and then called out with some hesitation. “Wait a minute, have we seen each other somewhere before?”

The doctor continued to walk away like he could not hear her.

“Your face is very familiar. I am sure I have seen you before!” Wenyu chased after him. “What is your name?”

Being chased relentlessly by Wenyu, the doctor finally stopped moving, and the camera gave him a close-up. With his brows creased together, the doctor stared at Wenyu, and he uttered in a whisper, “My name is Chang Gu.”