My House of Horrors

Chen Ge maintained his pose for a full minute before he dared look behind him. His shadow had returned to normal like everything that had happened earlier was a dream. Chen Ge did not let his guard down. He tried to call Zhang Ya for several times, and after confirming that she had gone back to sleep, his heart finally relaxed. He collapsed to the ground, completely drained.

The stars lit up the sky, and Chen Ge did not know what to think. After a while, the white cat came over, and it placed its furry paw on Chen Ge’s forehead like it was trying to see whether Chen Ge had gotten a cold. “You sure run fast earlier. What about our pact?”

His heart was still racing. Chen Ge felt like he had used too much of his brain power that night, and he was suffering from a lack of oxygen. The white cat’s multi-colored eyes were dancing with condescension as if it was saying, “If you have the capability, why don’t you stand up and tell me that?”

He ruffled the cat’s head and ignored the expression on its face. Lying on the ground, he pulled out the black phone to go through the message.

“Congratulations, Specter’s Favored! You have completed the Nightmare Mission and gained the reward—Elementary Talent, Ghost Ear.

“Ghost Ear: Before you accept this talent, I hope you think about it because, from this moment onward, you will hear the voices from the other world.”

The message was short. Chen Ge touched his ear after reading the text, but he did not feel any change. He closed his eyes and focused on his hearing. Somewhere deep inside the tunnel, someone was whispering, and something was running through the bushes. Even though they were several meters away, he could hear them clearly.

“Sounds like something is coming.” Chen Ge realized the thing crawling the bushes was coming close, and he used his Yin Yang Vision to look in the direction that the sound was coming from.

Around eight meters away, something that looked like a woman crawled out from the bushes. It was wearing a tattered jacket, and its head was lolling to the side. It was looking at Chen Ge from a confusing angle, and it appeared like it was trying to ambush Chen Ge. “It’s you!”

When Chen Ge had arrived in the taxi, he had seen something similar lying on the ground. When the car passed, the thing had quickly retreated into the bush. The monster did not expect Chen Ge’s ears to be so sensitive. It tried to ambush Chen Ge from behind, but it was still exposed. It gave up immediately and slithered away like there were no bones in its body.

“What the hell is that thing?” Chen Ge stood up from the ground. He was not sure if the thing that escaped was the same as the one that he had encountered earlier. “Their existence should be related to this tunnel.”

Patting away the dust on his clothes, Chen Ge decided to leave this place first. “After Zhang Ya awakens, I shall return here with all of my employees. Perhaps I might meet some friends with similar ideals. In that case, I will invite them to come join me at the Haunted House.”

Carrying the white car, Chen Ge walked back to the main road.

“You seem to have gotten heavier. Next time, if you need to bite me, try not to bite so hard. You see? I’m bleeding. Now I don’t even know whether I need to take a shot or not.”

Chen Ge walked down the road for thirty minutes, but he did not see any cars pass by. This place was too isolated. It was not until 4 am that a truck affiliated with a moving company passed by. The truck was heading toward Jiujiang City, and Chen Ge cried loudly for the driver to stop.

Thankfully, the driver was a nice person. He slowed down but did not open the door directly. He rolled down the window and studied Chen Ge cautiously.

“Boss, can you give me a lift? I wish to get to the city.”

While the driver was studying Chen Ge, Chen Ge was also studying the driver. The driver looked around forty, and his face was pale. He looked weak, and his eyes were rimmed with dark circles, probably because he had driven through the night.

“Why are you all alone at a place like this so late at night? And why are you hugging a cat?” The driver thought Chen Ge was suspicious. There was just something off about this man.

“I’m the proprietor for a Haunted House and a famed host online. I like to do supernatural series, and I’m here to look for inspiration for my Haunted House.” Chen Ge’s unique self-introduction surprised the man, and he did not respond for a long time.

“Look, this is my online profile and the reports on how I have assisted the Jiujiang law enforcement.” Chen Ge tossed his phone through the gap to the driver. The man looked through the articles before believing Chen Ge.

“This is a moving company truck. If you don’t mind, then you can crawl inside the cargo, and I’ll drive you back to the city.” The driver passed the phone back to Chen Ge.

“Thank you.” Chen Ge did not hesitate. He opened the door and jumped in. “Boss, you can drive now.”

“Remember to close the lock or else the stuff will tumble out.”

“Don’t worry.” After Chen Ge locked the door, the car started. Standing inside the back, his body swayed alongside the other stuff. He wanted to find something to sit on, so he turned his flashlight on. He discovered that the cargo had many ropes lying around. The ropes should be used the driver to tie down the furniture—they were normal—but Chen Ge notice that parts of the ropes were dyed with blood. He used his finger to touch them, and the blood had already dried.

“Boss, where are you coming from? How come you’re still working so late at night?” Based on the voice, one could not hear anything weird. It sounded like Chen Ge was just trying to make conversation.

“Don’t remind me. Yesterday, we ran into a very weird client. He paid us double to help him move at night,” the driver answered.

“Moving at night? We?” Chen Ge focused on the curiosities in the man’s reply almost instantly. “But boss, you’re the only one in the car. Where’s your colleague?”

“They’re still at the man’s house. The client is very generous. Every one of them was given a three hundred tip.” There was envy in the driver’s voice.

“Is this common for moving companies? To move at night?”

“It’s just to move furniture into the house. It’s very normal.” The driver did not think too much of it. If anything, he thought that Chen Ge was acting quite weird.

“Boss, I see that you’re a good man, and that’s why I’m telling you this.” Chen Ge snapped a few pictures of the ropes. “When you helped move the furniture, did you discover anything weird?”

“We’re there to lend our muscles; why would we care about such details?”

The car sped up, and the road became narrower. With no other questions, Chen Ge gave up his questioning and thought that he was perhaps overthinking things. When he planned to close his eyes to rest, his phone vibrated. It was a call from Lee Zheng.

“It’s probably some very important discovery.” Chen Ge answered the phone. “Captain Lee, how can I help you?”

“The coroner found epithelial cells of a missing person on the interior of the statue. A few years ago, someone used that statue to move a dead body!”