My House of Horrors

Chen Ge whispered to Tang Jun to have him change the final stop. When they reached Li Wan City, the bus would head toward the residential area where Fan Chong stayed. After they reached an agreement, Chen Ge walked back to his seat at the back of the bus. When he passed the smiling man, a visceral chill rose from his heart.

Turning to look, the smiling face was staring at Chen Ge with his gray pupils.

“Looks like he has plenty to tell me. Why wouldn’t he just move the pair of heels away if he dislikes them that much? How come it feels like he doesn’t even want to touch the shoes? Could there be some curse related to the shoes?”

As Chen Ge mumbled to himself, he was struck awed by the words that left his lips. From the smiling man’s reaction, perhaps there was indeed a curse that was placed on the shoes.

“Oh well, in any case, I’ve already touched them. Worse comes to worst, I’ll just swing the heels at the shadow when I run into him.” Chen Ge did not mind too much about curses. After all, he had already received a cursed love letter way back when he first obtained the black phone. A curse was not scary—the scary thing was the ghost that was behind the curse.

Returning to his seat, Chen Ge stopped provoking the smiling man. He reached his hand into the backpack while he turned to look out the window. From who knew when, it was a slate of darkness outside the window. Soon, the bus would reach the last stop before they arrived at Li Wan City.

The door opened, and there was sound of chain rattling cutting through the rain. A pair of hands that were soaked white in the rain reached into the car to grab the rails. Rain slithered down the man’s fingers, and a weird, sharp chuckle interspersed the rattling of a chain. When all the passengers’ faces were turned to the front door, a face teetered into the aisle.

The man’s face was exquisite, and one could see how handsome he had once been if one looked past the large gash that ran from the corner of his left eye to the edge of his lips. From afar, it looked like the man had two mouths on his face, one running horizontally and the other vertically.

The gash appeared to be a recent injury. The wound had not completely healed, and with the aggravation from the rainwater, the injury had signs of festering and secreting puss. The thin lips slowly opened. He used his tongue to lick at the edge of the wound just above his lips. He grimaced from the pain, but weirdly enough, he tried to make it appear like he was enjoying the sensation of pain.

“What kind of mad man is it this time?” Chen Ge came to this conclusion after giving the latest passenger a glance.

The man seemed to enjoy the spotlight that was placed on him. He used his fine fingers to comb his hair that was messed up by the rain. The fingers were white before they touched the hair, but after fixing the hair, the fingertips were dyed red. There appeared to be an open wound on the man’s scalp, or there was some dried blood that had clotted up in his hair.

“What is so funny?” This new passenger was even crazier than Chen Ge expected. The first thing he did after getting on the bus was provoke the smiling man. He did not seem to notice the danger, and his bulging eyes stared at the man whose smile hung persistently even though it was clear that he was not in a jovial mood.

“What is the source of this man’s confidence?” With his attention to detail, Chen Ge noticed part of the wounds on the man’s face had already festered, and the rest had started to scab. Therefore, based on this observation, he believed that this man was alive, but why would a living person purposely go and provoke the smiling man? Was it due to courage from ignorance, or was he hiding some kind of unique trump card?

The man was already raging from Chen Ge’s provocation, and now, he was treated with yet another man looking for death. The black lines in his pupils squirmed like worms, and the gash on his lips that counted as a smile opened wider.

Everyone knew something bad was going to happen... except for the new passenger. In fact, he upped the ante by pointing at the wound on his face. “Are you trying to copy me?”

After he got into the bus, the passengers realized that the new passenger was covered in blood, and he had a pair of scissors, about thirty centimeters long, in his left arm while he dragged an old bag that was still leaking blood on his right arm.

“A murderer?” Chen Ge studied the man, and the more he did, the more confused he became. The passenger was wearing a white T-shirt. If he had just committed a murder out of passion, his mistake was understandable, but he looked too calm to have done something like that. So obviously, this was a premeditated murder. But why would someone who could maintain his rationality even after a killing choose to wear a white-colored shirt on which blood would appear most conspicuous?

Would it not make more sense to wear darker colored clothes for better camouflage?

“Is this the man’s hobby? This man is a crazed serial killer?” This should be the logical explanation. The man was too distracted from the high of the murder, so that would explain the illogical things that he had done.

“But something still doesn’t feel right.” Chen Ge’s eyes moved to the man’s arm. A pair of scissors was a strange weapon of choice for a murderer. Would an axe or a kitchen knife not have worked better for his purpose?

Then, he turned to focus on the bag the man was dragging. The rain had soaked the bag, and blood kept leaking out from within. If the bag was hiding human body parts, blood would not have leaked from the top but pooled at the bottom. Furthermore, human blood from body parts would eventually coagulate and would not keep on pouring out like a foundation. So, for Chen Ge, it felt like the bag was not filled with body parts but instead shoved full with leaking blood bags.

Mostly likely, Chen Ge had spent so much time with crazed murderers that he was able to pick out many details in the shortest amount of time.

“I’ll ask you again, are you trying to copy me?” The provocation in the new passenger’s voice made what Chen Ge did earlier pale in comparison. Even he had not been so direct when he was trying to stir the pot—he had merely placed another ghost next to the smiling man. Be it physically or verbally, he did not pose any affront toward the smiling man.

The smiling man’s patience was dwindling. The black lines crawled out from his pupils and slithered down his cheeks.

“Are you mute? I’m asking you a question!” The new passenger continued to press; he did not show any trace of fear at all. He leaked the edge of the scissors and voluntarily walked toward the smiling man. “Let me guess what drives you for taking this bus at midnight...”

When he lowered his head to pretend to think, he spotted the red high heels next to the smiling man. Then it seemed to dawn on him. He reached out to grab the pair of heels. “Are you going to look for your wife?”

When the new passenger said that, the smile on the smiling man’s froze, and that made his expression incredibly strange. He stopped being angry at the new passenger. He glanced at the red high heels and wore a stranger smile as he returned to his seat.

“Looks like I was right.” The new passenger’s words were rife with madness. He dangled the heels by the edge of his scissors as he replaced them. “I’ll leave you be on account of the loyalty of your love.”

It felt like he was finding an excuse for himself to run away from the smiling man. After that, he dragged the bag and headed down the aisle, but he only took one step when a strange thing happened.

After he took the first step, there was the sound of high heels clicking against the ground; it felt like someone was tailing him. Turning back to look, the red high heels were still sitting where they were.

The stubborn new passenger took two other steps, and whenever he moved, the sound of high heels followed.

“The heels are sitting on the seat, so where did the sound come from? What is following me?”

Probably due to his nervousness, the new passenger voiced out his thought, and he sounded slightly different from the courageous man who had threatened the smiling man earlier.

Chen Ge, having observed from the back, saw everything. The smiling man probably did plan to end the man’s life, but the man turned to provoke the red high heels, and the high heels decided to deal with the man before the smiling man could make his move.

“This man is ultimately too inexperienced. I praised the beauty of the shoes and made sure to applaud the owner’s taste before proceeding to deal with the smiling man.” Chen Ge sighed. But then, something unexpected happened. After the new passenger failed to deal with the sound of the high heels, he made a beeline toward Chen Ge and the doctor, who were seated at the back of the bus.