My House of Horrors

The boy is waking up? Chen Ge had no idea how many broken arms were hiding under the bed, and there might be monsters outside the door as well. Chen Ge did not think it was wise to stay inside the room for too long. Risking the danger of being hurt by the arms, Chen Ge rushed into the fray and held the boy in the bed in his arms.

He placed the blade on the boy’s neck as he retreated to the wall, his eyes scanning the room. He did not know why these arms were stopping him from harming Men Nan.

If they care about Men Nan’s safety, why would they strap him to the bed?

When he entered the door, the Trial Mission had gone out of control. Chen Ge did not know what would happen next; this was something he had not faced before. Tightening the grip on the cleaver, the only thing he could do then was wake Men Nan up. This boy was his only hope of surviving this ordeal.

When the blade touched the boy’s skin, the broken arms stopped attacking. Like being controlled, all of them bounced to the door to knock on it. The incessant knocking unsettled Chen Ge.

He remembered Men Nan’s order, so he had not said a word since entering the door. Even when he moved, he kept his footsteps as light as possible. The knocking was loud, and it reverberated down the corridor, shattering the peace that Chen Ge had tried so hard to maintain.

A bad feeling appeared in Chen Ge’s heart. He started to panic, but before he could do anything, a large senior appeared at the door of the electroshock therapy room. The old man was 1.8 meters tall, had a head full of white hair, and was wearing a doctor’s coat. However, his coat was drenched with blood; it had turned fully red. Looking at the old man, two words flashed across Chen Ge’s mind—Red Specter.

The warning from Men Nan was probably to avoid this thing, but since the monster had already appeared, there was no reason for Chen Ge to be cautious anymore.

“This is surprising. I didn’t think that there would be others who could enter the door other than myself.” The senior was kind and gentle. He looked very approachable, if one could overlooked the blood-soaked coat. “This is not a place where you should be. Put the boy down and quickly leave.”

Chen Ge did not move. The boy was his only leverage, so he could not let that go so easily. The blade was pressed on the boy’s neck. He stared at the senior at the door, and the longer he stared, the more frightened he felt.

The senior’s hands were slightly twisted, like they had been smashed by something heavy. The kind face also felt weird; it looked very deathlike as if it was a dead person’s make-up.

This man has been dead for a long time already. This was the conclusion Chen Ge came up with using his talent in Mortician’s Make-up.

Seeing how Chen Ge did not say anything, the senior took the first step into the room with an unchanged expression. Sensing his movement, Chen Ge pressed on the blade. The boy’s eyes twitched like he could feel the pain. It felt like he was waking up.

“Don’t hurt the boy.” The senior stopped and said something curious. “If something happens to the boy, you’ll never be able to return.”

He snapped his fingers, and the broken arms all retreated under the bed. Chen Ge saw this and took a step away from the bed.

“You’re so tense. Relax a bit.” The senior’s voice sounded convincing. Similar to Doctor Gao, he had the ability to make the other person relax and put their guard down during normal conversation. It was unclear whether this senior relied on psychological tactics or something else completely. “In this place, the only one who can communicate with you is me, and only I can help you.”

Chen Ge did not reply. He raised the hammer with one hand and pointed at the door.

“You want to leave?” The senior shook his head. “You can leave at any time, but the boy cannot. He has to stay inside this room.”

The electroshock therapy room was the room at the hospital with the best sound-proofing system. It was completely isolated. No one would have any idea what happened within. Being trapped by a Red Specter unsettled Chen Ge. He started to panic, and his arm flexed. The blade pressed down another few centimeters.

The senior’s face twitched, but he recovered quickly. “I’m not threatening you. Just give me a chance to explain myself, then you can make your decision.

“You might not believe this, but we are living in this boy’s nightmare. If something happens to him, or if he wakes up, we will forever be trapped here.”

“Nightmare?” This was the first time Chen Ge had spoken since he stepped into the door. He examined the senior’s reaction closely, and after realizing that there was nothing wrong with his body, he relaxed slightly.

“Yes, the boy grew up in a mental hospital, and due to multiple reasons, he has developed a sickly worldview.” What the senior said next touched Chen Ge. “You must have seen the dolls made from pillows and bedsheets wandering the halls already. In the boy’s eyes, they represented the patients who receive treatment in the hospital. Dulled by the effect of medication, they slowly turned into lifeless dolls. They lost interest in everything and spent their days in a waking dream.”

“This is all his imagination?” Chen Ge looked at the bed. “Then how do you explain the broken arms? They don’t exist in real life.”

“The arms hiding under the bed are the manifestation of the boy’s fears. When he was very young, a doctor purposely scared him, saying there was a hairy arm hiding under every child’s bed and if the child was naughty, the arm would come out at midnight to pull on the child’s ankle and drag them into the darkness under the bed. Because of this story, the broken arms became a symbol of fear in the boy’s nightmare,” the senior explained.

“In this nightmare, there is also a thin monster that likes to stand on people’s shoulders. They are a manifestation of desire. Their original size is similar to a normal man, but as they jump onto the shoulders of different individuals, they squeeze their host dry, and their body continues to grow. Human desire is bottomless, and when it grows beyond its limit, it turns harmful and ugly.

“There are many more similar examples. Everything in this world is a reflection of the boy’s subconscious.”

Chen Ge could not tell whether the senior was lying or not. From his perspective, even this old man was not right in the head.

“I know it is hard to believe, but it is the truth. A human brain has 150 billion synapses, and 95 percent of them were untapped. If we compare a human brain to an iceberg, the large part that remained submerged is our subconscious.

“The adult brain is mature, but it is different for a baby. When a child is between one and three, their brain is at its most active. It is also the time when the subconscious starts to form. If during this period, the child’s mindset is continuously challenged and tested, then the subconscious will become highly active even to the point of supplementing the actual conscious mind.”

To be honest, Chen Ge did not really understand what the old man was saying, but he had a feeling that the senior was lying to him. He was trying to hide something.