My House of Horrors

The mansion was rather old, and the floor was tiled with mottled stones. The walls were stacked with green bricks, and yellow talismans were stuffed between the bricks. The mansion looked normal, nothing special about it, but it gave off an uncomfortable feeling, probably due to the talismans.

As Chen Ge pushed open the red door. A thick moldy stench drifted out from within, and yellowed paper money littered the ground. A white calligraphed character ‘fortune’ was pasted onto the pillar inverted, and tons of paper dolls were dangling from the ceiling. As he walked further into the lobby, there was a large bronze mirror placed in the middle of the hall. Ritualistic characters were written on the surface of the mirror, and before the mirror were the decapitated heads of a cow, goat, and pig and a bronze ritual bowl with three snapped joss sticks.

“Are those animal heads real?” Before he got close, Chen Ge could smell the decaying smell from the sacrificial heads. However, the theme park did not seem like they planned to replace them. “I’m surprised the theme park would have such a traditional scenario.”

Avoiding the bronze mirror, Chen Ge looked around. There were twenty-four scrolls of evil Specters hanging on the wall of the hall. In every painting, the Specter was missing a body part. Some was missing eyes, others legs.

“Why are all the Specters handicapped? Are they afraid that if the painting is completed, the Specter will come out from the scroll?” The scrolls looked quite ancient and not duplicated. Chen Ge walked up to the scrolls, and the more he studied them, the more familiar they felt. “They look familiar to the devil that Doctor Gao carved on the door in my haunted house. When Chang Wenyu wanted to destroy the door of the School of the Afterlife, a similar picture to these Specters was seared on her back. But the difference is, both Chang Wenyu and Doctor Gao were working with the real deal, but the Specters here are all missing something. Their soul is not complete.”

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Holding up the headless woman’s head, Chen Ge asked if she could sense something from the scrolls. She looked at them for a long time and even used her blood vessels to touch them but did not find anything strange.

“The whole mansion is permeating with this uncomfortable feeling. I cannot recognize many of the ritualistic characters, but I do not think that they are meant to pray for blessings or safety.” Chen Ge wanted to study things further, but the sound of things falling came from the side hall. Holding the saw, Chen Ge pushed open the door. There were blood stains on the ground, causing the dyed paper money to stick to the ground. Once he entered the room, Chen Ge felt overwhelmed by discomfort, like something had enveloped his body, causing him to have difficulty breathing.

Something’s not right.

He did not continue to move forward but stood at the door. It did not take long for him to hear the voice of the man with the glasses. “Move faster. That man might be here soon.”

“I know, but I don’t think I have the key to this door.”

“Didn’t you say you can open all the doors inside the haunted house?” the man with the glasses asked urgently, but he did not dare raise his voice.

“Before we came in here, I memorized all the guides to the scenarios, but I have no memory of this scenario at all! Really, I regret ever stepping in here. I have no recollection of this scenario at all.” The young man’s voice was quivering.

“There is no record of this scenario on the computer?”

“Yes, you keep telling me to open the door, but I don’t even have the corresponding key, so how do I do that?”

“That’s impossible! Could the information be mistaken?”

“The document was given to me the day before Bai Buhui went to visit Western Jiujiang Haunted House. Do you think there’d be a problem?”

“With Manager Bai’s cautious nature, there shouldn’t be a problem,” the man with the glasses said. “What do you think went wrong?”

“When our haunted house was first built, part of the scenario was handled by Qing Ming and Director Jiang Jiu. Perhaps they added this scenario without telling the rest,” the young man said. “That director Jiang Jiu has always been a mysterious character. He probably knew that our haunted house would one day get really haunted, and we’re his sacrificial lambs.”

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“Jiang Jiu? I think I remember him. Initially, our theme park didn’t want to build a haunted house, but it was at his insistence that the upper management agreed.”

“Yes, that’s him. He sure has harmed a lot of people with his decision.” The two discussed the matter softly. Their voices came from outside the side hall.

They don’t have the key to this scenario? The mansion is not in the haunted house recorded?

Chen Ge did not chase after them. With his Ghost Ear, other than the voices of the two ‘visitors’, he could also hear Xu Yin and the sound of someone singing a traditional tune.

Xu Yin is a reticent person. To be able to make him speak, this must be a powerful opponent.

Chen Ge did not dare to imagine that he was inside a working theme park. People crowded the theme park, and the number of visitors reached into the millions. In such circumstances, he had run into a Red Specter who could rival Xu Yin.

The two visitors are trapped inside the courtyard, and Xu Yin and the stage costume Red Specter should be outside the yard wall. Chen Ge sighed. The two visitors are indeed lucky. If they had the key, they might open the door to witness the fight between three Red Specters. Then it would not be as simple as fainting; their world might be turned upside down.

Through the two visitors’ conversation, Chen Ge knew that this was the scenario that he was looking for. He did not need guides. When the stench caught up to him, with the accompaniment of two Red Specters, he pushed open the door to the side hall. At that moment, the man with the glass were squatting next to the wall, and the young man was stepping on his shoulders. He appeared to intend to jump over the wall. The two were caught in this posture when they saw Chen Ge as well as the headless woman and the fat stench that followed behind him.

The man with the glass shook the young man off. Chen Ge ignored them. He raised the saw and slammed into the locked courtyard door. It felt like he was being chased as well. After the door flung open, Chen Ge ran out. The man with the glasses and the young man were collapsed on the ground and stared right into the eyes of the two Red Specters.

Chen Ge ignored the screams that came from behind him. He jogged out from the courtyard. The first thing he did was guard himself with the saw and lean against the wall. After ensuring that he would not be attacked, Chen Ge used his Yin Yang Vision to study his surroundings. The Red Specter in the stage costume was surrounded by Xu Yin and the red high heels. She was on the losing side, but even facing the attacks, she did not dodge, opting to face them head on.

She seems to be protecting something.

After shifting to another angle, Chen Ge noticed that there was another altar behind the Red Specter. The altar looked the same as the one inside the cursed house, but there was a decapitated mud statuette inside this altar. The statuette was covered in crimson blood, and the statuette had Chen Ge’s name carved into it.

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Why is my name on the statuette‽

Before Chen Ge recovered from his shock, his heart started to beat. The shape of the shadow behind him started to change. There was a voice in his mind that told him to get close to the altar and grab that statuette.