Chapter 1133 - Truly, the Older the Ginger, the Spicier They Are! 3 in 1 (1/2)

“Did you guys hear some strange noise?” Qin Guang held the rag doll’s head and stood guardedly at the door like some kind of protective talisman. The mission that Zuo Han had given him was to stay as a guard at the door because the rag doll’s head that he was holding could chase away the black fog and prevent the ghosts from getting too close to them. This excuse had successfully convinced Qin Guang. Earlier, when they were walking through the black fog, he had realized that the rag doll’s head indeed had that function. Now, if anyone else asked him to hand over the rag doll’s head, he would not surrender it easily.

“Just stay outside the door and do not move randomly away. If you see any ghosts coming, yell to warn us.” Zuo Han and the other people from Jiujiang Medical University were searching inside the room. The real reason he wanted Qin Guang to stand outside the room was because he wanted to use Qin Guang as bait to distract the ghosts and monsters so that when the real threat arrived, their main target would be Qin Guang.

“Okay.” Just as Qin Guang answered, he heard that strange noise again. The noise came from the bottom floor. Slowing turning his head, Qin Guang stared at the mouth of the staircase. The flaking walls had white calligraphy of the word ‘bliss’ inverted on them. The floor was littered with banknotes, and a bowl of white rice were placed before each room. This whole building felt like a mass grave, and it was the home for a whole building of dead people.

“Everything is fine. Everything is fine. I am just visiting a haunted house. I have been to real haunted locations before. There is no reason for me to be afraid of these fake things, right?” Qin Guang tried his best to console himself. But once the emotion of fear appeared, it would grow and spread like wild grass. The more he tried to convince himself, the more his brain would move toward that direction that he had been trying to avoid. Qin Guang could not stop his eyes from wandering to the mouth of the staircase. Since no one had passed by that place for a long time, the sound-controlled lights at the corner of the staircase went off on their own, and the whole corridor sank into darkness.

“Tsk… This is quite scary…” Sucking in a cold breath, Qin Guang curled voluntarily backward. For some reason, he had a very bad feeling in his heart. It was as if his natural instincts were urging him to leave this dangerous place.

Qin Guang turned around to ask Zuo Han, “How much longer do you guys need to search inside there?”

The latter’s answer floated out from the bedroom. “We are almost done.”

After getting the reply, Qin Guang felt more comforted. His current condition was like a child who did not dare sleep on his own. After a fixed period of time, he would call out to see if he would get any response from his parents to check and see whether his parents had left him alone in the bedroom or not. Once his heart returned to his stomach, a faded cold light suddenly shone on his face, and the sound-controlled lights at the corner of the staircase suddenly switched on.

“Someone has gone past the staircase? But I did not see or hear anyone‽” He stared fixatedly at the corner of the stairs, so he did not notice the blood that had started to leak out from the gap in the wall. However, he did notice that the black fog was slowly spreading inside the corridor.

“The black fog has entered the building?” His heart started to race. It appeared like someone was moving inside the fog. Training his focus, Qin Guang stared directly at the corner of the staircase. Just as he blinked, a child’s face suddenly poked out from the corner of the stairs!

“What the f*ck!” Holding the rag doll’s head, Qin Guang stumbled back in panic, causing his body to knock into the room door.

“What is going on?” Zuo Han and He San quickly ran over when they heard the commotion.

“There was a child at the corner! He appears to be tailing us!” Qin Guang hugged the rag doll’s head tightly as his eyes kept staring at the mouth of the stairs.

He San summoned his courage to move to the mouth of the stairs. He could not see the aforementioned child. “Is it possible that you were hallucinating?”

“He is not lying. It is true that someone was inside the stairwell earlier.” Zuo Han pointed at the voice-controlled lights. “The lights inside the stairwell are on. That means that someone has indeed been here. We need to pick up our pace. It looks like Boss Chen is not going to give us much more time.”

Zuo Han had personally experienced how scary it would be when the ghosts of the entire scenario went on a rampage. That was a memory that he did not wish to revisit.

“Go to the next room now, hurry!” Zuo Han had conspicuously picked up speed. Qin Guang did not dare stay outside the room alone, so the four of them entered the room together to search for any possible clues.

“The time is running out.” Zuo Han was sweating profusely, and there was an unbridled anxiety in his eyes. Next to him, Mr. Wang noticed this emotion appearing in Zuo Han for the first time. Clearing the scenario was almost impossible; Zuo Han was already starting to consider how to escape. Of the team of four, only He San and Qin Guang were still trying their best to search for clues.

“I’ve noticed something strange. Whenever we come across a family with a child, they will ultimately get into some kind of tragedy.” He San found a family portrait on the windowsill. The adults’ faces had been preserved, but the child’s face had been scratched away. “There appears to be a ghost that desperately wishes for the love of a family inside this building. He is envious of those families with happiness and bliss. The happier the family is, the worse their ending will be.”

“Your analysis is a bit too one-sided. If you ask me, I think the ghost we are dealing with is rather innocent. Even if he represents evil, it is a seed of evil, the kind that is just growing.” Zuo Han stared at the picture He San was holding. “Just like how some children like to go tear off the wings of dragonflies or sneak up to stray cats and dogs to beat them, yes, their actions are reprehensible, but that also explains at the same time that they have not been given correct guidance in their lives.” Zuo Han placed the family portrait where it was found. “Do you guys still remember Jiu Hong Apartments Block 2? The building that looked like a private mental asylum?”

“Senior, why would you suddenly bring up that place? The styles of these two buildings are completely different. Block 2 is more like a mental hospital while Block 1 is a normal residential building.” He San was rather confused.

“Think back closely to what I said earlier. The ghost inside this building is a monster that has not achieved a mature self-construct. If he runs into the correct people, perhaps he might repent and turn into a good ghost. But the despairing truth is that the sub scenario that we visited earlier was a mental asylum. He was not only not given the correct treatment, he was misguided by these people down a deeper path of darkness.” Zuo Han had finally figured out the connection between the two buildings. “Based on my analysis, there should be a part of the rag doll’s body inside each building in this hidden scenario. In the process of finding all of its body parts, we will have to experience the whole life story of the rag doll and watch how he drops into the dark abyss step by step and becomes the version of himself that he hates the most.”

“We have just found the head. Based on what you’re saying, this means we still need to go to another four buildings?” Qin Guang felt slammed by a fist of despair.

“The haunted house would not have given us a mission that we cannot complete. Therefore, after giving it some thought, I believe the true mission of this scenario is not to find all the body parts of the rag doll and bring them out but to experience the life story of the rag doll ourselves and figure out a way to reform him, help him rebuild a correct self-construct, or at least make him see kindness enough to let the rest of us go,” Zuo Han said confidently.

“The mission is so positive and inspirational?” Qin Guang had trouble accepting a statement like that. Of course, this was not the man’s fault. After all, a haunted house always gave people the first impression of being a scary place, especially Chen Ge’s haunted house. It was meant to reach into the depths of your fear. Who would have expected such a ‘ghastly appearance’ to hide such a warm and gentle core?

“The rag doll’s body parts can chase away the black fog. The haunted house boss wanted us to find the body parts for two reasons. One, it forces us to experience the previous life of that ghost, and two, the body parts themselves are a kind of protection for us, aiding us in completing our mission. The boss of this haunted house is very brilliant. Every mission that he arranges has a deeper meaning behind it.”

Once he heard Zuo Han say that, Qin Guang’s hands that held the rag doll’s head curled around it even harder. He did not realize that Zuo Han’s words were a mixture of truth and falsehood. Zuo Han purposely let slip this information so that Qin Guang would listen to their orders more obediently and more willingly.

There were not that many visitors left. Therefore, Zuo Han started to value Qin Guang even more. If this was another moment in time, he would not even have thought of communicating with Qin Guang because they were completely different individuals. It was clear that Zuo Han was not as active as before during the search for clues. Mr. Wang’s attention though was more placed on his observation of Zuo Han. Of the team of four, only He San and Qin Guang were seriously looking for clues inside the haunted house.

Entering the bedroom, Qin Guang, who was hugging the rag doll’s head, got close to the bed. He noticed that there was a layer of something black on the bedsheets. It looked like some kind of ointment.

“What is this?”

He pulled back the mosquito net to look inside it. Amid the black material, there was an outline of a living person. The empty space still had some very small characters written on the bedsheet. Qin Guang stepped onto the bed with his shoes on. He squatted down on an empty spot not polluted by the black material, took out his phone, and aimed the light at the bedsheet.

“Today, it returned again. It stood at the door. I have no idea what it was up to. It appears to wish to enter the room. It looked like my child who has passed away, or at least, it looked familiar from behind. My family saw it as well. I am not hallucinating; it really exists. Whose family does the child belong to? How come it appears at the corridor whenever midnight falls?”

Just reading the words left on the bedsheet, Qin Guang felt the hairs all over his body stand up on end. “There is a ghost child living inside this building!”

As he continued to read, Qin Guang felt a chilling presence getting stuck in his throat, like he had just swallowed a large ice cube that refused to melt. He was focused on reading the messages when the shadow that was formed from the light of his phone suddenly flickered. Qin Guang turned back to look. He San, who was closest to him, was standing at the door of the bedroom, but he did not appear to be interested in entering.