My House of Horrors

The School of the Afterlife was enveloped in the black hair, and it could only be described in despair. No one was able to escape, and even the door was shivering in fear. The only good thing was that the black hair had not gone after the students. Rather, it blocked out the blood rain from the sky. Not one drop of blood was innocent; they were radiating immense curses. The patient who was hiding in the fog was the source of the curses; the purpose of his creation appeared to spread fear and despair.

The whole school was swallowed by black hair. Looking at the nightmarish woman, Lin Sisi and the blindfolded man had given up their struggle. A croaking voice came from the purplish lips. The blindfolded man held his left eye, and this time, he was really blind. “I just took one glance at her. So, this is what’s beyond a Red Specter?”

“Her presence is suddenly weak and strong; she seems to have broken through some limitation. I have no idea how much pain one has to go through to turn into something like her. I can’t imagine it or even do it.” The painter’s hands hung by his side. “She is wounded, and her condition is unstable. It’s different from the rumors I heard about her from the city; she seems to have problems controlling herself.”

His gaze turned to Chen Ge collapsed on the ground, and his expression turned more complicated. “The man has my presence on him. Ever since he entered the school, I have thought of killing him, but whenever I wanted to make a move, there was a voice stopping me, like I would regret it if I killed him. The heart after death is the insistence before death; my heart hasn’t spoken for a long time, so perhaps he is good friends with the me outside the door.”

“The you outside the door? You mean he has been targeting the school for a long time and found the you outside the door, became close to him, and used that to enter the School of the Afterlife and complete his plan‽ That is too cunning. If we’d killed him earlier, perhaps this woman wouldn’t have appeared.” The blindfolded man hated Chen Ge; his left eye had been blinded because of him.

“It is probably just a beautiful accident. The me outside the door is just a lock. If he approached him with a purpose, he would have been shunned.” The painter shook his head, and his hand held his heart. “The deepest despair will run into the most beautiful accident. I can’t kill him, but he won’t live for too long. The woman in his shadow still can’t control herself. A presence beyond Red Specter represents evil and resentment. Once even a trace of her existence passes into him, he will lose himself.”

“You are not trying to save him, are you?” The blindfolded man had followed the painter the longest, so he knew the painter well.

“It is time for us to go.” The painter did not answer but headed toward Chen Ge.

“We still have chance. To open the door, we have made endless preparation. Snap out of it, painter!” Lin Sisi grabbed the painter’s arm. “Once you brought me behind the door, you told me that you wanted to personally build a heaven for all despairing people. We can’t give up now.”

Slowly lifting his head, the painter looked at the screaming raindrop, and a faded smile appeared on his face. “I never said that I will give up. I am merely changing my canvas.”

He turned to the red city. “Don’t you think the red city suits us better?”

“You really want to leave?” Lin Sisi and the blindfolded man were unwilling, but the painter had made the decision. “Only when the half of the school’s consciousness is helping me can I fight with that woman, but now even the school is afraid, and the other half has approved of Chen Ge. Change Wenyu has sacrificed herself to melt into the door. She will not help us deal with the woman—she will only find chance to destroy the door. With just us and the monster at the outskirts of the city, how can we win?” Lin Sisi and the blindfolded man did not know what to say. In their minds, the painter was all powerful.

“The patient, Chang Wenyu, and I are all heavily injured, but the woman is an unknown. Indeed, now is the best time to kill her—I can sense that she is heavily injured—but we don’t need to take that risk,” the painter said calmly. “We should leave while she is dealing with the patient, or else when she is free, all of us might be consumed by her. Look at the Red Specters printed on her dress; I can’t imagine a fate worse than falling into her hands.”

He was rational; the painter was not dumb enough to try his luck with Zhang Ya. His black pupils saw through many things. The most powerful presence at the school was Zhang Ya, but it was the painter who knew the school the best. “If we don’t leave now, we won’t ever leave.”

Without turning back, the painter walked toward Mu Yang High School where Chen Ge was, and Lin Sisi and the blindfolded man followed behind him. When the painter came over, all the Red Specters around Chen Ge went on full alert. Xu Yin glared warningly at the painter. Sitting on the ground, Chen Ge felt his body temperature dropping. When he saw the painter, he was shocked. He took out the comic and crawled backward.

The rain had dwindled. As if he could not see the Red Specters around Chen Ge, the painter walked up to Chen Ge. His dark pupils looked at Chen Ge before suddenly pointing at the comic that he was holding. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill him. If you use that power, not only you, but everyone you have painted will disappear.”

Once the painter finished, a nervous-looking middle-aged man appeared beside Chen Ge. He too was shocked that he had been pulled out from the comic. He was afraid after seeing the painter, like an uncle with serious agoraphobia, and he quickly hid behind Chen Ge.

“Yan Danian?” Chen Ge was surprised by his appearance.

“He has a power that he can only use once in his life. He just wanted to use it on me.” Due to Yan Danian’s sudden appearance, the atmosphere was no longer that tense. “I haven’t seen that power before. Once he becomes a Red Specter, he will be scarier than I am.”

The painter had been talking to Chen Ge, but it was a one-sided conversation. Still, the painter didn’t mind. He did not mention anything related to Chen Ge, like two friends chatting. He mumbled a lot on his own and then took a deep look at Chen Ge before turning to the old well.

Seeing the painter walk away, there were many questions Chen Ge had. He finally shouted, “Painter!”

The Top Red Specter of the school stopped with his back toward Chen Ge.

“Are you really Fan Yu?” That was the biggest question for Chen Ge.

“I am not Fan Yu. I am the painter.” With an even voice, the painter turned to look into Chen Ge’s eyes like he wanted to tell him something. “Everyone’s heart has a deep well. Mine consists of an inverted world. What about yours?”

The rain became smaller and smaller. The painter left with Lin Sisi and the blindfolded man, and following him were the inverted monsters. Chen Ge was still sitting on the ground, digesting the painter’s parting words.