My House of Horrors

“Don’t worry, Boss, I promise to complete the mission!” Qu Changlin patted his chest and promised. He did not mind even if his boss was not there personally to see it, and he gave his promise first.

“I like your attitude, Changlin. That’s why you are one of our Haunted House’s best employees. That is why I’ve assigned you an important location like the bathroom. I hope you won’t disappointment me.”

“As long as he enters this scenario, I guarantee you that he will walk in but crawl out.”

“The man is attention-detailed and very dangerous. I will disconnect my communication with you later to prevent your location from being exposed, but I will follow your movement through the cameras.”

“Boss, I will not disappoint you.” After Qu Changlin gave another promise, he was reminded of something. He lowered his voice to ask, “Boss, the closest scenario to mine is the Pen Spirit. Did something happen to Xiao Die?”

“Xiao Die is fine. Don’t worry about other people, focus on your job! He is coming. I will wait for the good news in the surveillance room.” The middle-aged man hung up soon. At the same time, the door of the bathroom creaked open.

…

“Why didn’t the bathroom in the Haunted House get separated according to gender? This is too unprofessional.” Chen Ge pushed open the door to Nightmare Academy’s bathroom. A pungent smell immediately assaulted him. “Such a thick stench of disinfectant. What happened here that required so much disinfectant?”

Taking out the diary from his backpack, Chen Ge tried to find the answer from it, but to his disappointment, there was nothing useful from the entry about the bathroom. It only mentioned vaguely that something was hiding inside the fourth cubicle.

“According to the diary, the worker should be hiding inside the fourth cubicle. When the visitor walks past it, the worker suddenly jumps out, but won’t that lower the scare factor?”

When Chen Ge first read the diary, he easily came up with a solution. If the worker was hiding inside the fourth cubicle, he would stand inside the third cubicle and observe the situation inside the fourth cubicle before making a decision. But once he walked into the bathroom at the end of the corridor, Chen Ge changed his mind. The smell of disinfectant there was really too heavy.

There had to be a reason that the bathroom had been arranged like that. Could it be to hide something? To use the smell of the disinfectant to hide the smell of something else…

“What kind of thing is both scary and smelly?” Chen Ge tried to come up with an answer as he walked into the bathroom. There were many cracks on the floor, and many creepy sentences were written unevenly on the wall. Occasionally, lizards crawled along the walls and ceiling, causing a rustling sound.

There was no window, and an old table lamp that gave off a red light was placed in the corner. Underneath the lamp was a small black box.

“What’s this?”

Normally, such things would not be found inside a toilet. Chen Ge walked past the first cubicle and stopped next to the lamp. He reached out to open the little black box, and inside it was a note that read—Do you like our prank?

Underneath the note was a group picture. A bunch of children were looking at the camera nervously, and only the kid at the most edge was grinning like crazy. On the back of the picture, Chen Ge found another sentence—It was just a prank, bro.

“A prank, is it?” The diary gave little clues. Chen Ge did not know what theme of this scenario was. He picked up the strange box and placed it inside his backpack—he had a feeling that he would have a use for it later.

Chen Ge’s action was being silently observed by a pair of eyes in the dark. The person could not understand the reasoning behind it. Inside the bathroom that was stinking and set up like a crime scene, why would anyone stuff a random object inside one’s bag?

Holding the backpack with one arm, Chen Ge examined the table lamp again. He switched it on and off several times and left after ensuring that there was nothing wrong with it.

“The bathroom comprises of the sink and six cubicles. There are no other items in here, and there is nothing obviously wrong with the lamp. So, the person should still be hiding inside the cubicle.” Chen Ge had experienced something similar at Mu Yang High School before. He did not feel fear, but his heart was surfeited by this feeling of déjà vu.

He opened the door of the first cubicle. It was thick with the smell of disinfectant. Chen Ge pinched his nose and examined the cubicle patiently.

He found complaints written on the walls of the cubicle.

“He made my clothes wet again today. I hate Xiao Lin!”

“Xiao Lin pulled the chair back when I tried to sit down, and it caused me to fall to the ground.”

“Xiao Lin planted a frog inside my drawer! I’m going to puke!”

They were as mentioned earlier, pranks, but all of them mentioned Xiao Lin. The boy seemed to be the class prankster, and many classmates had fallen victim.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything truly scary.” Chen Ge scanned the words. The messages inside the cubicle appeared so innocent compared to the messages left at the Third Sick Hall.

He opened the door of the second cubicle. There were still many complaints, but unlike the ones inside the first cubicle, the children appeared to be more angered, and a small portion of them bordered on dangerous.

Then, Chen Ge opened the door of the third cubicle. Some of the messages had come up with a prank to revenge on Xiao Lin. They came up with this horror story about the fourth cubicle inside the toilet and ‘accidentally’ revealed it to Xiao Lin. Then everyone came up with various ideas to set up the bathroom, trying to get Xiao Lin back once and for all.

Through the snippets of messages on the wall, Chen Ge had a grasp of the whole situation. The messages alone would not be too scary, but combined with the third entry of the diary, it did sound quite spooky.

“Did Xiao Lin manage to leave the fourth cubicle in the end?” Chen Ge stopped before the fourth cubicle. This cubicle had been specially mentioned in the diary, so the scariest thing should be inside there. Perhaps when he opened the door, the students’ prank would happen, or perhaps when the door opened, Xiao Lin would return.

However, none of that happened. When Chen Ge opened the door of the fourth cubicle, and to his surprise, there was a mirror placed inside the cubicle.

“These kids are quite creative.” Chen Ge looked at the mirror stuck behind the toilet. The more he studied it, the more he realized that something was wrong. His reflection was not shown in the mirror. “Interesting, they have pasted a picture on the surface of the mirror?”

Chen Ge reached out to touch the mirror. When his fingertip was about to touch the surface, he suddenly heard a soft voice coming from above him, and then the back of his neck felt itchy. He lowered his head to study the mirror—there was nothing on the surface. The itch on the back of his neck grew more pronounced like a bug had fallen and was crawling there.