My House of Horrors

“The first ending, Xiao Bu was taken away by the woman in the red raincoat and became her daughter; the second ending, Xiao Bu was turned into a sculpture, becoming the artist’s creation. These two were undoubtedly bad endings.” There was a helplessness in Fan Chong’s voice. “The save reloaded, and Xiao Bu woke up again in her room. I controlled her to begin the game for the third time.”

Fan Chong was a gamer lover, and this game had a weird attraction to him. He was both afraid and curious about it. “Unlike before, I chose to turn to the East Street, which was comparatively older. The buildings on the side were gray, the walls were spotted, and the roads were complicated.

“The game was incredibly free. It was an open world where deadly traps were laid everywhere. As the player, you have no idea what kind of scary things you might run into or how you will die.

“After playing the game for some time, I realized a problem. In this game, humans are scarier than ghosts. Running into ghost might not mean absolute death, but running into a human definitely led to death.” Fan Chong shared his thoughts.

“The game maker’s thoughts are rather narrow. Perhaps this is related to his personal experience.” Chen Ge told Fan Chong to continue. “What happened to Xiao Bu on her third try?”

“I controlled Xiao Bu to wander the street. When she passed past an apartment building, a very thin man ran out from the stairs. He seemed to be in a hurry to leave the town. If this was any other game, this would have been a very normal NPC, but in this game, as long as the character was alive, there had to be something wrong with them.

“The person ran past Xiao Bu, and a window appeared. ‘Why would they need so many children? Damn, the police are coming. I knew I should not have accepted this case.’

“After the man left, two choices appeared on screen again—enter the stairs or continue moving past the building.

“Due to curiosity, I chose to enter the stairs. The apartment’s corridor was filled with rubbish, and the place looked old. I controlled Xiao Bu to get to the rooftop and realized that the door to the rooftop was open.

“There was a small garden on the rooftop, but all the vegetables and flowers were all dead. There were several large water tanks next to the garden. They were perhaps used by the tenants to pickle stuff, and each water tanks had a large boulder resting on top of them.

“Initially, I did not think too much of it. The rooftop was windy, so perhaps the boulders were used to stop the lids from flying away. However, when I passed the one of the tanks, there was another window on screen. ‘Xiao Bu heard the sound of a phone coming from inside the water tank.’

“I knew I had probably triggered some kind of event. I controlled Xiao Bu to find the tools to move the boulder away.” Fan Chong’s expression became sad. “You have no idea what is inside the water tank.”

“Is it a boy?” Chen Ge’s expression also changed. This third story was exactly the phone spirit’s story! The poor boy that was stored inside the water tank at the rooftop, that was the phone spirit.

Fan Chong looked at Chen Ge with surprise and then nodded. “There was a boy whose body got twisted when he was shoved into the tank. The boy was hugging a phone.

“The face was green and purple, and his skin was greyish white. When Xiao Bu found him, he was already dead. I controlled Xiao Bu to remove the phone from the boy’s body. The call was from the boy’s mother. At the time, I accepted the call, and perhaps this action triggered some event. Footsteps came from the corridor, and the man who had run out the building earlier poked his head out from the door. The expression on his face was scary. He strangled Xiao Bu and shoved Xiao Bu into a water tank.

“Xiao Bu was shoved into the water tank—that was the third bad ending.” Fan Chong did not want to continue anymore. He felt like this game was a torture and used the worst method to interrogate humanity.

After hearing Xiao Bu’s third ending, Chen Ge thought for a long time. He put the water in his hand away and told the man seriously, “Fan Chong, I think you should report this to the police. I’ll go with you.”

The boy whom Fan Chong had found in the water tank was the phone spirit. All the details matched perfectly. Chen Ge also noticed another thing. When the phone spirit’s murderer ran into Xiao Bu, he said one thing. Why would they need so many children?

This sentence revealed a very important detail. There was a darker secret behind the child kidnapping! The real culprit was probably the person who had turned the whole of Eastern Jiujiang into a ghost town!

The creep who killed the phone spirit should still be inside the jail. Looks like I need to travel to the police station today.

Chen Ge needed Captain Yan’s help if he wanted to meet the murderer.

A game is hiding so many cases; Eastern Jiujiang is much scarier than Western Jiujiang.

After comparing the two places, Chen Ge realized that all the scary scenarios at Western Jiujiang were limited to a particular location. This might have something to do with his parents. It was different for Eastern Jiujiang; all the scenarios were interconnected, and they kept expanding in the dark. It seemed that there was even a hidden force that was pushing it along. The final result was, in the day, Eastern Jiujiang looked normal, but at night, the line between man and ghost started to blur.

I just want to stably expand my Haunted House, but if I allow them to expand freely, it’ll eventually affect me. Chen Ge gave himself a reason to strike first. There are good and bad people, and it is the same with ghost. After the Haunted House upgraded to Maze of Terror, it can now house more Red Specters and baleful Specters. After dealing with all the bad ghosts, I can provide a place to stay for the good ghosts.

Chen Ge and Fan Chong fell into thought, but they were thinking different things. Several minutes later, Fan Chong opened his lips to say, “Boss Chen, I need some more time before reporting this to the police.”

“Why do you need more time? The game is hiding murders; this is very serious.” Chen Ge was confused.

“Let me think about it.” Fan Chong seemed to be hiding some more secrets, and it was probably due to this secret that he had gone to Chen Ge first and not the police. The sun fell on his body, but Fan Chong could not feel warm.

“Okay then, take your time, but give me an answer within three days. If it’s later, I fear something bad might happen.” Chen Ge was really worried that Fan Chong was being targeted by something. After all, this game had recorded many cruel and realistic events.

“Okay.” Fan Chong bit his finger. During his earlier visit, Chen Ge had noticed this habit about Fan Chong. He would bite his finger whenever he was nervous.