Chapter 1020 - A Person Made From Curses [2 in 1] (1/2)

The people in the rental house did not notice that Chen Ge’s shadow started to slowly change its shape after consuming the blood stains on the mud statuette. It appeared like a young woman who was turning lightly in her sleep.

“You guys should get a good rest. I will see you tomorrow.” Chen Ge took a look at the clock on the wall. It was already 2 am. After he left Wu Jinpeng’s rental house, Chen Ge did not return to New Century Park but got into a cab to head to the old city. The weak light from the streetlamps filtered through the taxi window and fell on his body. Chen Ge watched as the quiet city went by and pulled his collar tighter to his body.

The old city at night was very different from how it looked in the day. The government did not spend money to fix most of the broken streetlamps, so the roads were dark and dim. The place was as quiet and as dark as a ghost town. As Jiujiang continued to grow, more and more people moved away from the old city to seek a new fortune at the newer part of the town.

Passing through the dark streets, Chen Ge took only about ten minutes to find Wu Jinpeng’s previous rental home. The place was about two streets away from where Fan Yu once lived. But the condition here was much worse and the stench in the air was also much thicker.

“How did they manage to stay here for so long? Or is it only me who can smell the horrible stench?” Chen Ge thought back to the morning when he had gone to find Jiang Ming’s mother at that area of the city. Both the ladies from the neighborhood committee and Jiang Ming’s mother did not comment on the strange smell in the air. As Chen Ge was reminded of it, he realized that it was strange indeed. He wondered if that meant they had gotten used to it or something else completely. Walking through the alley, Chen Ge finally reached his destination. Chen Ge held the rusted banister of an old staircase to get up to the second floor of one of the buildings. He looked around him. He was not at the oldest and most dilapidated part of the old city.

“Room 204, Room 204… Found it, this one.” Chen Ge stopped his footsteps. Before him was a wooden door that was painted red. A rusted iron chain was tied around the doorknob. “After Wu Jinpeng’s family moved away, has no one rented this room?”

Flipping through the comic, Chen Ge summoned out Men Nan. “Brother Nan, I need your help. I need you to go into this room and scout out the place for me, but be careful of the room next door. Do not go in there no matter what.”

Room 205, which was the innermost room on the second floor, was the room that Wu Kun said was haunted. It was also the tenant of that room who had given Wu Jinpeng the altar and the mud statuette, masquerading them as a blessing and gift. For the sake of security, Chen Ge only told Men Nan to enter Room 204. If he came back with nothing, then he would summon a few more Red Specters, and they would barge into Room 205 together. Droplets of fresh blood slid through the wooden gap. Men Nan reappeared one minute later after he slipped into the room. “Everything in the room looks normal. There is nothing that appears out of place, but it feels strangely uncomfortable staying inside the room even though I cannot give you an exact reason why.”

“Then, I need you to take Xu Yin along with this pair of red high heels into Room 205.”

The three Red Specters entered Room 205. Several seconds later, a strange sound came out from inside the room. It sounded like a knife piercing balloons that were filled with water. And then Chen Ge heard bones being dislocated and shirts being torn. “What is going on?”

Blood vessels crawled on the door, and a thick stench of blood started to spread all over the place. From that, Chen Ge knew for sure that Men Nan’s group had run into something behind the door. He wasted no time to summon Xiao Bu and the red raincoat from the comic. On this side, it was hell on earth, but suddenly, the light on the corridor about five to six meters away was switched on, and a man’s annoyed grumbling and footsteps could be heard. Just as the man was about to arrive, the door of Room 205 before Chen Ge was suddenly pushed open from the inside.

“Chen Ge, quick come in and take a look!”

Darting into the room, Chen Ge held his nostrils out of habit. There was a heavy stink collecting inside the room. He closed the door behind him as light as he could and then used Yin Yang Vision to study the apartment. The place was not big. It was only about thirty cubic meters in size. There were many faded newspaper cuttings on the wall, and dust had settled on every surface. It appeared like the place had been deserted for a long time.

“Did you guys fight something earlier? Did anyone get injured or hurt?” Chen Ge was both curious and concerned.

“It was not a thing that we fought; it was a curse.” Men Nan pulled down the newspaper cuttings that were stuck to the wall. Behind the newspaper cuttings, torn out hair and patches of black blood were clumped together on the walls. They looked like an eerie piece of art.

“These are the curse?”

“Yes, the hair pieces and the blood came from different people. When we first got in, the black threads of curse started intertwining and spread all over the room. If you had entered carelessly, you would have been cursed without even knowing it.” Men Nan signaled for Chen Ge to retreat. He did not want the man to stay too close to the walls.

“Is the curse here similar to the curse in Li Wan City?”

“They are two different kinds of curses.” Only Men Nan, who was holding the pair of red high heels and reached Chen Ge’s knees, was answering his question seriously. “Based on what this big sister told me, the curse in the room was merely a byproduct of another curse when it was being processed and completed.”

“In other words, someone once used this room to create a very scary curse when they were living here?”

“You could see it that way, yes. After all, the curse formed from the negative emotions that lingered in this place are a mere taste of the actual curse. They were only a very small and insignificant part of the actual and original curse.” Men Nan nodded. He had this kind of serious and cautious personality.

“A very small and insignificant part of the curse is already powerful enough to distort the room to such a dangerous state, so how scary is the actual curse itself? How dangerous will it be?”

“It is unimaginable. At least this big sister said she has not encountered such a powerful and scary curse before.” Men Nan raised the pair of red high heels toward Chen Ge. “Can you please take her away from me? I am not really afraid of her, but it feels rather awkward for me to carry her around by her shoes.”

Chen Ge ignored Men Nan’s request and continued with his questioning. “Is it possible for any of you to tell what the original curse is about based on what’s currently in the room? Can you tell me who the original curse is meant for?”

“We cannot tell who the target of the curse is, but we managed to wrangle some information from the wall. This curse is made up from nine distinct parts.” Men Nan tore down all the newspaper cuttings from the innermost wall of the room. The wall that was covered in torn out hair and blood stains carved out the shape of a small figure. There were many statements written within the shadow of the figure with untidy handwriting.

‘What is a human being?’

‘What constitutes a human being? What are they made up from?’

‘A pair of eyes that can see the world, a pair of ears that can hear the world, a mouth that can communicate the world, a body that can host the soul…’

‘Human beings also need memories, layers of their past.’

‘What is light?’

‘Warmth, yes, human bodies give off heat and warmth.’

‘They also say human beings should have love, but what is love?’

‘I seem to be missing something very important. Think. What does he have that I don’t?’

The rows of statements cut up the small figure neatly into nine pieces, and each piece was painted a different color.

“The painting itself is the curse?” Chen Ge was rather confounded by this discovery.

“Instead of calling it a curse, it is more accurate to refer to it as the tenant’s Dream Whisperings. These were the things that he was thinking about the most when he was working on the curse,” Men Nan said. “This curse gave us a very strange feeling. It is like underneath the heavy coat of death, there hides a young sapling that is growing amid the darkness.”

“The nine parts should correspond to the nine children. So, it is most likely that it was the ghost fetus who left behind this curse. This means that he has once stayed in the old city.”

Those were all the clues they could find in the room. Chen Ge summoned back the few Red Specters and walked out from the apartment.

“Something horrible will happen should someone accidentally walk into this place.” Chen Ge locked the door securely. He planned to return when he had more time on his hands to give this place a good ‘cleaning’.

“Sounds like someone was coming out from this room earlier. Since he is still awake, I might as well use this opportunity to ask him some questions.” Chen Ge walked to the other end of the second floor. This room was different from the other room. The door had an additional anti-theft steel door on top of the normal wooden door. This set itself apart from the other tenants.

“Is anyone home?” Chen Ge knocked on the door lightly.