My House of Horrors

“He gave me his promise first!” Wang Xiaoming glared at Bai Ling and raised his voice.

“But you are now in the staff dormitory. Without my help, you would have gotten into the maintenance room,” Bai Ling retorted with a sweet smile on her face. Her hands were still curled around Chen Ge’s arm. “Come over to my place. I still have many things I want to tell you.”

Chen Ge was squeezed between the two. He knew better than anyone else what was happening. The big dog being reared at Bai Ling’s home was the missing student. If he followed Bai Ling home, he would end up as the girl’s plaything. It would not be too safe to follow Wang Xiaoming either. The man had been saying that there was delicious food at the canteen, but he did not mention what kind of food it was. If he really did follow Wang Xiaoming to the canteen, Chen Ge had a feeling that he would end up as the food himself.

Everyone in that school had their own evil agenda, but they would never show it directly. Both of those choices would lead to certain death—the difference was how he would die. Looking at the two fighting over him, Chen Ge did not push them away.

With one hand over Wang Xiaoming’s shoulder and the other caressing Bai Ling’s head, Chen Ge acted touched. “You both are my good friends. One is reliable and trustworthy, and the other is kind and cute; I really can’t find it within myself to reject either one of you!”

He hesitated for a while before squatting down to pick up Bai Ling. “I will follow my friend to the canteen to find something to eat first. Later, I’ll come back, okay?”

“No! You cannot go with him!” The girl’s sweet expression immediately froze. Small lumps started to swell on her body, and she seemed to have grown slightly taller.

“Okay then.” Chen Ge turned to Wang Xiaoming with a helpless expression. “Brother, how about you go to the canteen ahead of me? I will stay to accompany this girl for a while. She is probably too afraid to stay home alone.”

“Have you lost your mind‽ When Mr. Bai returns and sees you in his room, he will send you to detention!” Wang Xiaoming was stronger than Bai Ling. He pulled Chen Ge over to his side. “Follow me! We will go to the canteen!”

Chen Ge was dragged by Wang Xiaoming to the door, but Bai Ling refused to let go. “But you promised me!”

The transformation of the little girl became more pronounced. Her eyes sunk, and tears flowed out of her eyes. The tears cut open her face like a sharp knife. The monster that was hiding inside the girl was showing itself.

“You’re making this very difficult for me.” Chen Ge flung both of their hands away. “You two can discuss this among yourselves. I will wait outside the door for you. Come and find me when you reach a decision.”

After dropping that announcement, Chen Ge opened the door and left. Once he closed the door, the sound of a heavy thud came from inside the room. It sounded like someone’s head was slammed into the wall.

“It’s so surprising that I’m so popular here. There are so many students at this school, so why are they so hung up over me?” Chen Ge memorized what his two friends had said. Once he exited the maintenance room, he did not pause for even a second. He grabbed his bag and raced directly out of the staff dormitory. The moment that Chen Ge stepped out of the staff dormitory, a voice came from the darkened corridor behind him. It seemed to be calling Xiao Lin’s name.

However, the biggest difference between Chen Ge and the other protagonists of horror movies was that he would never curious about things that might kill him. It was unimportant who the person that called after him was; the important thing was that he had obtained what he needed, and it was time to begin the next step of his plan.

“I need to move faster. If Bai Ling survives, she won’t know my exact location, but if it’s Wang Xiaoming who survives, everything will be much more complicated. This deskmate knows my room location and will definitely return to the dormitory to find me.” Chen Ge did not turn around once as he jogged all the way back to the male dormitory. “There is not even one person to be seen in this school after dark. No matter how strict the rules are, shouldn’t there be some guards patrolling the compound?”

It was a completely different atmosphere at the night school before and after the lights went out. The lights were probably some kind of boundary line there. “Staying here for too long will lead to some bad things, and staying in the dark for too long will attract the unwanted attention of monsters. There sure are many rules that can cause death here.”

Having many death-causing rules was not that scary; the thing that made it scariest was the fact that no one had told Chen Ge what the rules were. Even though he had been exploring the place for so long, Chen Ge was not completely confident that he had correctly deduced all the rules.

Chen Ge did not stop to catch his breath as he jogged back to the male student dormitory. He did not enter the building directly but hid behind one of the big trees next to the entrance. He used his Yin Yang Vision to scout out the area first.

The entrance was not closed shut, but the dormitory manager that Wang Xiaoming was afraid of appeared to have gone to sleep already.

“Something’s not right. When Wang Xiaoming and I left this place earlier, I made sure to close the entrance door, but now, it’s open. It can only mean that someone has been in or out of this place during the period that we were out. The school forbids students from wandering about after dark, so the person who arrived here was either a member of staff or the dormitory manager.” Chen Ge ran to the other side of the road to switch to a different vantage point. He saw something new.

There was a pair of brown leather shoes sitting in the corner of the first-floor corridor. Someone appeared to be hiding there!

“If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Bai wears a pair of shoes just like that. Is he the one who’s hiding there?” The more Chen Ge thought about it, the more he felt that it was likely. He had been in the staff dormitory, but he had not run into Mr. Bai.

“I sure was lucky. He has been waiting for me at the student dormitory, and that gave me the perfect opening to sneak inside his room.”

This kind of dangerous action caused Chen Ge’s heart to race. “It’s a good thing that Mr. Bai is hiding here. Wang Xiaoming knows that I will return to the bedroom, so if he survives the encounter at the maintenance room, he will rush back here. If he’s careless, he will run headfirst into Mr. Bai, and that will solve one of the loose ends.”

Chen Ge would run into more danger if he wished to continue his exploration of the school, but he had handled this situation nicely. While he attracted danger, he kept shifted the focus on him to something else. This made it so that even though he was in constant danger, he was not in mortal danger.

“For now, I can’t return to the student dormitory. I need to change up my plan somehow.” Chen Ge decided to go to the art room first. From Xiao Lin’s notebook, he had found out that the first student who died in Room 413 was an art student.

“It’s fine if you want to use me as a scapegoat, but you have to clarify some things first. If the discussion fails, I will personally hammer back the nails that you’ve put on me one by one.” Still hiding in the shadow, Chen Ge silently retreated. He did not have a map and had to avoid the different danger, so he walked very slowly.

“I’m at such a disadvantage because I don’t know anything about the different scenarios at this school. I need a real partner that I can trust.”

After taking a long detour, Chen Ge came to the laboratory building. There were few buildings on the night school’s campus, and he believed the art room might be inside this building. In any case, that was the likeliest possibility.