My House of Horrors

“The painter will undeniably become the new door pusher at the School of the Afterlife? You guys sure have plenty of confidence in him.”

Due to the different position that they took, they naturally had different ways of dealing with things. In the eyes of Lin Sisi and the rest, the painter was their only hope—he was the one closest to becoming a Greater Red Specter—but Chen Ge did not share their view. Be it the painter or Chang Wenyu, their thoughts were too extreme. No one knew the actual meaning behind the door’s existence, and even the door pusher himself would be unable to explain it. In those circumstances, there was no need to force a change to the world behind the door. There had to be a reason for it to exist. Chen Ge’s thoughts were much more innocent than the rest.

“Please get out of the way. The students are innocent. You all have no right to make them sacrifice themselves.” Chen Ge stood in front of all the students from the school. “It was the door from the School of the Afterlife that lured them into the door; it was not them who opened the door willingly. So, it was the door from the school that needed their help, not the other way around.”

Chen Ge’s very words resonated deeply with the hearts of the students. “None of us wish to fight the painter or Chang Wenyu; we just want to be alive.”

When the students following behind Chen Ge saw Lin Sisi and the man with the blindfold, they started to feel uneasy. It was an everyday affair to feel threatened by the school’s consciousness, and the painter and his people were in a way the representative of the school’s consciousness. Going against them meant that they would be abandoned by the school’s consciousness, and in the world behind the door where danger was lurking everywhere, losing the protection of the school’s consciousness was no different from finding death. Before this, they had no choice, so even when the school’s consciousness went against their own ideals, they had no choice but to silence their heart and follow.

However, that day, Chen Ge was there.

There were several Red Specters around him, and he had saved many of the students who were trapped in danger. He dared go against the painter’s people, and he was not afraid of the teachers who represented the managers. Everything that he did was out of consideration for the students themselves. How could they not follow a person like that?

Why would they find a reason to reject such a person?

The same knife cut bread and flesh—the one thing that might help them could also injure them. The painter’s people blocked the exit, and their actions lit a fuse under the resentment that had been curdling in the students’ hearts.

One had to understand that not all the students at the school were Specters. A large portion of them were lingering spirits who had been kidnapped by the ‘door’. Their souls were hooked inside the door, but their physical bodies were still lying in the hospital in a coma. Before Chen Ge entered the School of the Afterlife to find Chang Gu, he had seen many parents of the students trying to find and corner Chang Gu. Those were the parents of the students whose lingering spirits had been trapped behind the door.

Releasing a small portion of the lingering spirits would not affect the School of the Afterlife, but to let go off all of the students, the foundation of the School of the Afterlife would collapse upon itself. The painter and the school’s consciousness would not allow that to happen, so they had no choice but to block Chen Ge’s path.

“Chen Ge, I really do not wish to fight you—you will not win.” Lin Sisi slowly lowered his head, and the following seemed to subconsciously escape from his lips. “You do not understand how scary the painter can be…”

“Lin!” Before Lin Sisi could finish, the blindfolded man interrupted him harshly. He turned around and pulled off the black cloth that covered his eyes. “Do not forget who it was that pulled you out from the deep water of despair and who it was that used the painting to help you retain the only beautiful memory you had.”

After hearing what the blindfolded man said, Lin Sisi’s eyes slowly turned cold. It was as if the boy had put his emotions away. It appeared that the boy was not a killer by nature, but for the sake of the painter, he would do what he normally would not.

“Chen Ge, neither I nor Lin hate you. Even the painter places great value upon you, and as a matter of fact, he wishes for you to join us. We should not be fighting each other. Take all the students back to the classrooms, and the painter will forgive all the mistakes that you have previously made.”

“Forgive me?” Chen Ge took several steps back. Just as Lin Sisi and the blindfolded man thought that he was about to compromise, Chen Ge opened his mouth to say, “I do not think that I have done anything wrong, so I do not need his forgiveness. In fact, it is you people who need to reflect on what you have done.”

There were plenty of students following Chen Ge, and more and more students were being dragged away by the monsters in the blood fog, never to return. The patient in the center of the storm was worried that Chen Ge would be convinced by the painter’s people, so he ordered a large number of monsters to attack the students that were following Chen Ge. With every second that dragged on, more and more students would disappear.

“You will regret this.” The blindfolded man threw away the black cloth that he was holding. The eyes that he had kept closed were now slowly opening. The left eye was a sea of blood, and the right eye saw the people and monsters, but there was no scenery or background. It was as if, other than blood, humans, and Specters, there was nothing else that was able to be registered in his sight. “I have now seen the moment of your death.”

The painter and the man in the fog formed a consensus on the way to deal with Chen Ge. The monsters in the fog and the blindfolded man attacked Chen Ge’s group at the same time. The difference was, the blindfolded man and Lin Sisi only went after the Red Specters, but the monsters in the blood fog attacked indiscriminately. This naturally placed Chen Ge’s group in a desperate situation.

“Stop it! Please stop it!” The old headmaster cried at the top of the lung. He saw with his own eyes the students being dragged into the blood fog and their spirits dispersing just like that. It was just too cruel. Being killed behind the door meant that they would be left with nothing, and it was no different from being wiped out from the world. No trace of them would be left anymore, and that was such a cruel punishment for the students who had basically done nothing wrong. For most of them, they were not at the School of the Afterlife of their own volition, so what had they done to deserve such an unsightly ending?

The battle between the painter, Chang Wenyu, and the man who controlled the fog reached its climax. This was a matter of life and death; their underlings did not dare dawdle. They tried their best to accomplish their boss’ orders. Even if it was going to add just a fraction of the chance to victory, it would be worth it. Therefore, for the battle on Chen Ge’s side, there were no tests or trials; the battle started with the bloodiest massacre.

The power of the blindfolded man and Lin Sisi was far beyond Chen Ge’s expectations. There was no surprise that they could become the painter’s left- and right-hand men. Both could make use of the school’s consciousness, and each of them possessed extremely scary special powers. The blindfolded man could the see the image of the person before they died, so he could recreate that process of death and turn himself into pure fear and pain.

Lin Sisi’s power was even more unique. His body could morph into a ball of gray smog. No one could see through the smog. The monsters that were dragged away by the fog, be it Red Specters or normal Specters, when they reappeared, would lose their combat ability, and their bodies would be covered in wounds.

Chen Ge had a feeling that the people being dragged into the gray fog were still able to walk out of it alive because Lin Sisi never wanted to kill in the first place. Lin Sisi and the blinded man had unique special powers and completely undid the numerical advantage that Chen Ge’s group had. Thus, the situation was getting worse.

Destroy the leader and the gang will collapse. That was logic that everyone would understand. There was a fatal flaw in Chen Ge’s group, and that was Chen Ge himself. He was just a living person. Even with the close protection of the many Red Specters, it was hard for him to survive in the chaos behind the door. The blindfolded man and Lin Sisi both attempted to approach Chen Ge. As one Half Red Specter after another collapsed in their path, it was finally the Red Specters’ turn.

Most of the Red Specters who followed Chen Ge were already wounded, and the key problem was that other than Xu Yin, there were no other Red Specters who would risk their own lives to protect Chen Ge. There were two enemies but only one Xu Yin.

With the approach of the strong enemy and the collapse of his friends one after another, as well as the continuous red wave that came from the red city that was not far away, the situation was getting steadily worse.

The fight of the three Top Red Specter had not reached its conclusion, but they were already at their limit. The final victor would literally consume everything. Han Song and Yin Hong tried their best to save as many students as they could and protect the students who had been following Chen Ge, to prevent them from being slaughtered by the monsters in the blood fog. The remaining Red Specters, though, all gathered around Chen Ge to stop the blindfolded man and Lin Sisi.

“People like you will never give up until you’re pushed to the gallows.” Lin Sisi morphed into gray smoke. No one was able to stop him, so they turned their attention to focus on the blindfolded man. He felt the pressure and turned to look at the mouth of the well. The monster that was on the mouth of the well chuckled wildly. With his limbs on the rim of the well, he poked his head into the hole.

Just as people were wondering what he was doing, the sound of water flowing came from inside the old well. The sound grew louder and louder, until it sounded like large and powerful waves hitting against the rocky shore. When the monster with four limbs poked his head out from the well again, everyone who saw him had a frown on their face. The monster’s head and body had inverted.

He charged at Chen Ge with a crazy smile, and after he left, many human heads floated out from the old well. They looked like black bubbles.

“What are those?”

A series of strange cackling echoed over each other, and endless inverted monsters with their heads hanging down crawled out from the old well.

“That well hides the biggest secret of the painter. It is an inverted world inside there. This is how human being look like in the painter’s heart.” After Lin Sisi gave that explanation, he charged toward Xu Yin. He could see how much Chen Ge valued this Red Specter. The gray smog surged forth, and Xu Yin was lost inside the smog.

“Xu Yin!” Chen Ge saw Xu Yin disappear inside the gray fog, and it felt like someone had yanked a piece directly out from his heart. The monsters that crawled out from the water well charged at Chen Ge’s team. Most of the Red Specters had been dragged down, and Chen Ge, who was standing in the middle of the battle, appeared to be surprisingly calm.

The situation had truly gotten out of control. The painter had many trump cards that he had not shown, and he was one enemy whom Chen Ge still could not red.

Chen Ge turned to look at the present box that he was carrying in his arms. He took out a candy from the candy bag that was next to the box. It was milky white candy, and it gave off a sweet, alluring smell. However, the human face that was pleading for mercy on it was quite disturbing to say the least. Calling the name silently in his heart, Chen Ge placed the candy gently on his own shadow. The candy dropped onto the ground, but nothing happened. However, Chen Ge’s strange action did manage to attract the attention of everyone around him.

“What are you doing?” Even though he was being attacked by numerous Red Specters, the blindfolded man still had the luxury to observe Chen Ge. This person should be the scariest Specter at the School of the Afterlife behind Chang Wenyu and the painter. Chen Ge did not reply. He took out another candy and placed it again on his shadow.

This time, something changed with the candy. It slowly dissolved like it was being absorbed by something inside Chen Ge’s shadow.

“What is hiding in your shadow?” The man with the blindfold had a very bad feeling. He unleashed a loud, shrill scream, and many monsters crawled out from the old well, charging madly at Chen Ge.