My House of Horrors

Chang Gu told Wenyu a very scary story. The doctor earlier technically had not lied to Wenyu, but he had omitted two very important details.

First, the hospital had shut down a few weeks prior, and no one knew the exact reason. Confusingly, even after the hospital was closed down, the neighboring citizens could still see the hospital working like usually with people walking about day and night.

Second, the doctor itself was questionable. He was different from the conventional ghosts; he could move in daylight and did not seem to fear sunlight. Chang Gu did not go into detail on what kind of existence the doctor was—he merely told Wenyu that the thing or people that would cause her left eye pain mostly came from Jiujiang Private University.

The delineation between the normal and night school campus described by the doctor was true, but the way to enter the abandoned campus was not through the trek deep into Yong Ling Mountain.

Chang Gu seemed to be a man on the run. When he reached this part of the story, he turned to leave. He left Wenyu a phone number and told her that, if she wanted to find Jiujiang Private University, she could call that number at night.

That was where the scene ended. The image lagged slightly, and when it resumed, the sky in the screen already darkened.

Did someone cut out part of the plot, or did the people in the movie not want me to see what happened in the middle?

In the darkness, Wenyu held her phone and backpack, looking down the alley. She had stopped at the hospital from earlier in the morning. She made a call and whispered two words before ending it hurriedly. “I’m here.”

Ten minutes later, a window on the left side of the hospital was pushed open from inside, and a tall, thin doctor in a white coat waved at Wenyu. After Wenyu sneaked into the hospital, the doctor had her change into a nurse outfit and then led her out of the room. The scene that followed was very strange, and it had Chang Gu’s directing style all over it.

Inside the hospital, people milled about. Some were waiting for doctors, others waiting at the pharmacy. There were patients with plaster on their legs shuffling slowly about, and everything looked like a normal hospital. The only difference was that none of the lights were switched on. All the patients and doctors moved in the dark. The darkness did not appear to affect them that much. They did not seem to be a part of the living world; the shadows moving in the dark appeared more like a projection of a different world.

“Come here.” The doctor led Wenyu into the surgery room and then locked the door.

“Now, can you tell me the real method to get into the school?” Wenyu removed the mask and took a deep breath. The male doctor removed his mask as well, and he was none other than Chang Gu. He grabbed Wenyu’s arm and led her to the surgical table.

The surgical table looked different from a normal surgical table; one could not help but wonder what kind of surgery was completed on it.

“The only way to solve the problem is from its roof, and that is…” Chang Gu picked up the sharp surgical knife from the pan. “To cut out Wenyu’s left eye and find it a new host.”

Chang Gu’s voice was creepy, and it cause Wenyu to stagger back until she knocked into the table behind her. “You want to gouge out my eye?”

“It was Wenyu’s eye. You are not Wenyu; you are a victim trapped inside her body. I will return your freedom, but I need your full cooperation.”

“The doctor was right; you are a madman!” Wenyu grabbed her bag and made a beeline for the door. “Let go, I’m leaving now!”

“Even though you have seen the shadows outside, you still refuse to believe me, huh? Those shadows carrying on with their lives like normal, I believe that you can see them clearer than I can, so you should have been…”

“You are not me. How can you know what I’ve been seeing?”

Wenyu made for the door but was blocked by Chang Gu. “I am not you, but I am familiar with your body’s real owner! I am Wenyu’s big brother!”

Hearing that proclamation, Wenyu stopped moving. She studied Chang Gu for a very long time before saying, “But I haven’t heard Wenyu mention her having a big brother at all.”

Her answer was indirectly confirming that she was not Wenyu.

“You can see dead people from your left eye, and I believe you saw all the dead people in that house already. Before Wenyu collapsed under madness, I made my escape.” Chang Gu was fidgeting with emotion. Just as he was about to explain the whole truth, the movie was cut off.

Having a horror movie cut off inside a darkened movie theater at 3 am was supposed to be something scary, but none of the audience felt afraid.

“What’s going on? Did the line get cut off? Boss!”

“This is a movie theater, not the internet café near Mu Yang High School, calm down.”

“So, what happens next?”

The employees were in a deep discussion. There was only one person that acted funnily, and that was the blind man next to Chen Ge. Shrieks echoed around theater, and a cold wind picked up, but the blind man maintained his pose, with his head lowered, appearing like he had fallen asleep.

They waited for a full three minutes before the movie resumed. However, the scene had swapped yet again, and the quality became clearer. It gave the impression that the movie had been switched to a different one.

“There is no one in the broadcast room, but the movie we’re watching is changing on its own. The one hiding in this theater probably felt threatened and is purposely trying to hide something.” The more they wished to hide, the deeper Chen Ge wanted to dig. From his perspective, only by knowing everything could he find the source of the problem and help them solve it.

The movie turned to focus on a villa. Wenyu was laid out flat on the dining table. Her head was bandaged, and it wrapped tightly around her left eye. A man with a slight hump sat next to the dining table. Her face was wrapped in bandages as well, and similarly, it covered up his left eye.

The man studied Wenyu quietly. Several seconds later, the bandage around Wenyu’s left eye started to soak with blood. The blood bloomed on the white bandage like a blood flower opening on her eye.

“This is the second week after the swap. Why is it still not working? We are biological siblings and share the blood type—why is there such a drastic body rejection?” The man became agitated, and whenever blood leaked out from Wenyu’s eye socket, the bandage around his face would be wetted by blood as well like his eye corresponded to some kind of signal given by Wenyu.

There were plenty of nerves around the eye, and it caused the man immense pain.

The man’s body was shaking, and his hands gripped the edge of the table tightly. “The pain is even more intense than yesterday. The wounds show no sign of recovering at all! What is the problem?”

He opened the shelf in the living room, which was filled with various medical implements. While the man bustled about, Wenyu remained immobile on the table like she had lost her soul