My House of Horrors

Should be fine if I’m careful.

Chen Ge opened his backpack and placed Xiaoxiao in his shirt pocket before picking out the flashlight and the mallet.

“What are you doing?” Doctor Gao heard the commotion, so he came out of the bedroom. He saw Chen Ge’s weird get-up, and he felt a headache coming.

“You’re just in time.” Chen Ge dragged Doctor Gao to the window. “We’ll keep in contact. You stay in Room 304, and I’ll go take a look in Room 303.”

“Why are you going into Room 303?” Doctor Gao’s gaze swept the mallet in Chen Ge’s arm before falling on the doll in his chest. His eyes twitched.

“The source of Men Nan’s problem should reside in Room 303. I plan to go take a look before midnight arrives.”

“You plan to go in this get-up? With a doll?”

“If I’m doing this alone, I might hesitate, but with you as back-up, I have confidence.” Chen Ge called Doctor Gao’s number and placed the phone in his shirt pocket. “Keep in touch.”

Doctor Gao nodded reflexively. He held the phone in his hands, and the pressure on his shoulders tightened because now he had to look after the safety of two ‘patients’.

“Be careful!”

Chen Ge climbed out the window. He placed the mallet in his pant pocket and leaned into the wall. With one leg hanging on Room 304’s window, he used his other leg to kick the window to Room 303 open.

“Doctor Gao, don’t end the call. Get help if anything bad happens.” Then, Chen Ge leaned out the window and reached his leg toward Room 303’s windowsill. His center of gravity was still leaning toward Room 304. When his leg found purchase, his hands that gripped Room 303’s window loosened, and he slowly leaned toward the other window.

When most of his body leaning toward Room 303’s window, he angled his body right at the opening, released his left hand, and used his right hand to grab the windowsill. With a pull on his right hand, Chen Ge moved his body toward Room 303.

“Climbing into the neighbor’s room to solve the patient’s illness?” Doctor Gao wanted to stop Chen Ge, but the man had already disappeared into Room 304’s window. He had been in this field of work for more than a decade already, and this was the first time he had faced something like this during a diagnosis.

Chen Ge slowly angled his body downward and slid through the open window.I’m finally in.

Room 303 had been left vacant since the incident, so the interior design had been left the same. The room was covered in dust, and there were dirty patches all over the walls. The room was dark, and the floor was uneven. After turning on the flashlight, Chen Ge noticed that there was an old and sullied carpet covering the floor of the room.

None of the other apartments, including the landlady’s room, are carpeted, but this room is? This anomaly attracted Chen Ge’s suspicion. A horrible stench was wafting out from underneath the carpet. Chen Ge gripped the edge of the carpet and tore it back.

There was not anything scary underneath it; there were merely some old clothes. All the clothes were for gents, and their sizes were about the same, so they probably belonged to the same person.

The smell of moldy clothing shouldn’t be that pungent. Chen Ge used the mallet to move the clothes away and soon he discovered something creepy. Several dead sparrows were hidden underneath the clothes.

The bodies are intact, so they couldn’t have died more than a week ago. When Chen Ge mastered the Dollmaker’s Talent, some rudimentary knowledge about dead bodies had also entered his mind. This room hasn’t been rented after the incident, but someone has come in within this past week to hide these things under the clothes.

The problem had become more troublesome, and this shifted his speculation in a different direction.

Wang Haiming died in this room. Unfortunately, I have no clue about the actual location, but that shouldn’t matter too much. I shall search the whole room; I’ll eventually come up with something. Chen Ge did not find anything else in the living room, so he jumped over the pile of old clothes and entered the bedroom.

A metal wire bedroom was leaning against the wall. There were several ancient bookshelves near to the bed, and some books were left on them. The pages were all moldy from the moisture, and they were also releasing a weird smell.

Chen Ge examined all the drawers and cupboard. He found nothing and finally walked into the bathroom. The layout of all the rooms in the apartment building were similar. As he opened the bathroom door, the mirror was staring back at him.

With only the light from the flashlight, the Chen Ge in the mirror looked rather different from real life. He did not enter the bathroom but merely leaned in to look from the threshold.

There do not seem to be any more clues in this room. The room was small, and Chen Ge had glanced over all the corner already.

Standing in the middle of the living room, Chen Ge looked at the pile of clothes hidden under the carpet. This is weird. All these clothes have blood stains on them. These few small sparrows would not be enough to soak through so many clothes.

With the aid of Yin Yang Vision, Chen Ge’s sight was better than most, and he soon discovered something weird.

There’s something wrong with the clothes.

With the mallet in hand, he slowly examined each item of clothing. Finally, he found a very normal gray jacket that was lying at the bottom of the pile. There was dried blood on the shoulder and the back of the clothes. Wang Haiming had probably worn this jacket when he cracked his head on the wall. Only via blunt force trauma to the head would the blood splatter have appeared like this.

What is this? Chen Ge shook the jacket and found something jiggling in the pocket. He reached into it and felt cold steel on his touch. He pulled it out and saw it was a rusted key.

I’ve seen the keys to these apartments. They are flat copper keys, and this key is much larger than those. Chen Ge could not understand why a patient from a mental hospital would possess a key that did not unlock the door to his room.

Did he pick it up somewhere outside? But if he did, it doesn’t explain why he kept it with him. Chen Ge temporarily did not understand the use of this key, so he held onto it for now. When he turned to leave, his flashlight hit the open window. The glass of the window reflected the shadow of an individual. The tenant in Room 302 was leaning his head out of his window to sneak a peek at what was happing over in Room 303.

Why would he care that I’ve entered Room 303? Chen Ge pretended not to notice and focused on replacing the pile of clothes. However, his mind was spinning.Only the tenants in Room 302 and Room 304 can enter this room without using the front door. Men Nan in Room 304 is the victim, so the sparrows were probably left here by the young man in Room 302.

But why? Has he been possessed by the creature in Room 303 as well?

Chen Ge was reminded of the weird actions of the young man. Talking to himself and arguing with the wall, it was so very similar to Wang Haiming’s symptoms.