My House of Horrors

“I pushed the door open, and you are in my world.” Time seemed to have slowed down. As Doctor Gao’s emotions changed, the whole blood world seemed to be affected as well. “There is no absolute bad or wrong, good or evil in this world. Even the so-called sins are human constructs.”

Doctor Gao stood where he was quietly. Many blood threads crawled out from his body and morphed into different human faces. “I know you suspect me of creating a reason for myself, but when you stand in my perspective, you’ll realize I’m doing the right thing—or at least you cannot judge me for committing a simple sin.”

“Doctor Gao, stop arguing. No matter who is it, no one, not even I, would do something this crazy!” Chen Ge raised the hammer. He was close to Doctor Gao. “Everything has its opposite in this world. If there’s good, there’s evil. The difference is the choice; since you have made the choice, why are you finding yourself the reason?”

Xu Yin and Xiong Qing’s battle was equal. Men Nan was not a match for Doctor Gao’s wife—the battle might seem evenly-matched for now, but it would collapse in a few minutes. If Chen Ge wanted to win, he had to deal with Doctor Gao before that was over. If he showed a single speck of kindness, it would be over for him. He did not want to suffer endless torment of having his soul experimented on by a madman after death.

The blood rain fell on their bodies, and Doctor Gao listened to what Chen Ge had to say seriously. He looked at the hammer that flew at him, and complicated emotions collected in his eyes.

“You still haven’t understood this world. The world is constructed by people; it is different in different people’s eyes. Like you said, everything has its opposite in this world; the opposite of good is evil. So, tell me, what is the opposite of human?”

“Opposite of human?” Chen Ge’s heart skipped a beat. He felt like he had heard that before, but he could not remember where. The hammer almost reached his body. The wind was whipping in his ears, but Doctor Gao still did not move. His eyes that looked at Chen Ge seemed to be inhabiting a different world.

Chen Ge remembered something vaguely in his mind—he seemed to have had a similar conversation with someone before. “The opposite of human is beast, monster, or ghost.”

“They are all wrong. I’ve researched man for so many years, and if we have to pinpoint something that is opposite of man, it should be God.”

The blood bloomed on Doctor Gao’s coat like a rose. It started to crawl up the coat like it signified salvation and life. “For the past five years, I’ve spent every night in the accompaniment of bodies, staying inside this underground morgue, building my own world. Slowly, I forgot the purpose of being human—I even forgot that I was a human. I’ve seen more than one thousand patients and the different worlds they inhabit. Some are twisted; some are just weird. I’ve been wondering, these people that seem to exist only in their own world, could they be considered human?

“Or perhaps from another perspective, all insane people are the Gods of their own world.”

When he finished, Doctor Gao’s coat was completely dyed red. “This is my world; I am the God here. How can a human resist God?”

The hammer fell on Doctor Gao’s head. If one looked closer, one could see the hammer head touching his hair, and it squeezed several hairs. Chen Ge used all of his strength, but the hammer would not move another millimeter.

“Stop wasting your energy As I’ve said, from the moment you entered the door, you’d lost.” Swathed in red, Doctor Gao exposed a side that was completely different from before. His eyes were burning red, and various negative emotions piled up in his heart.

Despair. Anger. Disgust. Pain.

His body seemed to have connected with the blood world, and he suffered the pain of this world alone. If the world behind the door was a nightmare for the door-pusher, then Doctor Gao was the man who swallowed the nightmare whole. He bore all of the sins with his unhinged madness.

“Chen Ge, stay with me. You will become my best assistant, and I will try my best to cure your illness.”

The red shirt on Doctor Gao seemed to represent this world—Chen Ge could see the many souls crying on it. He wondered how the madman managed to accomplish all that.

“To use the whole society to trade for you, this is a huge bet.” His fingers grabbed the hammer, and the blood on the hammer slowly got consumed by the blood on Doctor Gao’s coat. “Stop resisting, and stay here forever!”

The negative emotions in Doctor Gao’s eyes were overflowing. He was at the edge of losing control. He reached out toward Chen Ge like he was about to pluck his heart out. The fingertips were like knives that easily cut through Chen Ge’s skin. Chen Ge did not feel pain but a chill in his heart.

Doctor Gao was moving so fast and without warning. He did not make a move earlier, but once he did, he reached for the jugular. His chest felt frozen, but suddenly, Doctor Gao stopped moving.

There was surprise in his eyes. “You want to help him?”

Hearing Doctor Gao’s voice, Chen Ge looked down. A small doll with a cut face stood between Chen Ge and Doctor Gao. Its body was punctured, and it tried to resist, but the black hair in its body locked it in place.

Zhang Ya had made this doll using the soul of the patient called Devil in the Third Sick Hall. Since it was a gift from Zhang Ya, Chen Ge had carried it with him. However, he did not expect it to save him in the nick of time. It felt like the doll could help him block the fatal blow once.

“Then again, what’s the point?” Doctor Gao ignored the doll, and the fingers pierced through it. The black hair binding the doll slowly broke. Whenever one hair snapped, the shadow behind Chen Ge darkened.

Doctor Gao seemed to have sensed something as well. Anxiety circled his heart, and he did not waste time. He only had one purpose them, which was to kill Chen Ge!

The young man before him gave him an indescribable sense of danger, and the scariest thing was that the sense of danger was mounting.

The doll was punctured through by Doctor Gao, and his fingertips reached for Chen Ge’s heart.