Chapter 173: The Monster Behind the Door
The popularity skyrocketed, with barrage comments flooding the screen. Chen Ge hadn’t expected things to turn out this way.
“I warned Qin Guang earlier, but he went his own way. Can’t blame me for this. Still, at least Muyang High School isn’t too dangerous—the evil inside isn’t some fierce ghost or malevolent spirit. He probably won’t be in life-threatening danger.” Chen Ge genuinely believed he was a kind person. “Hope he recovers soon, and next time he streams, he shouldn’t blindly follow trends.”
Watching the nearly 400,000 viewers, Chen Ge took the chance to plug his haunted house a few times.
Judging by the barrage volume, his stream had very little fake engagement. Just this once, the name “Western Suburb Horror House” would be etched into many people’s memories.
As the buzz fermented, he expected a steady stream of fans to visit the horror house in the coming days.
“Chen Ge, we need to discuss the contract soon. Also, I have a question for you.” Liu Dao hadn’t hung up, and he was under a lot of pressure on his end too. “Was tonight’s stream prearranged? Is the whole scene being run by your horror house team?”
Liu Dao didn’t know Chen Ge’s background; they were just partners. He only knew Chen Ge ran a haunted house, so he must know professional ghost actors who could design the most realistic terrifying scenes. For someone who didn’t believe in the supernatural, seeing an abnormal event for the first time would lead them to guess based on their own experience.
“Sort of,” Chen Ge replied with an ambiguous answer.
He did have his own horror house team, but aside from Xu Wan, none of the members could be discussed with outsiders.
“I knew you weren’t in there alone.” Liu Dao seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “Earlier, when the camera on your wrist fell off, after you ran out, it suddenly moved again and captured new footage. Sister Li saw it and thought it was really haunted.”
“New footage?” Chen Ge glanced at his wrist—the camera had been knocked off during the fight with the nurse.
“Look, it’s moving again!”
Chen Ge immediately blocked the barrage and looked at the bottom right corner of the stream screen. That view was from the wrist camera.
The image was moving forward, as if the camera had gotten hooked onto the nurse’s clothes and was chasing toward Chen Ge!
“Cut up like that and still not dead? Is it because of the special terrain here?”
Liu Dao had no idea how serious this was and earnestly shared advice with Chen Ge: “You should tell your friend not to show up in front of the camera. It’ll build more anticipation for the viewers.”
“Anticipation my ass!” Hanging up, Chen Ge bolted upstairs without a second thought.
In the stream, two cameras captured different scenes, as if they were chasing each other.
This was something neither the viewers nor Chen Ge had ever seen before. He sprinted back to the third-floor corridor.
After running about ten meters, Chen Ge glanced at his phone screen and saw his own back in his stream!
“It’s catching up!”
With no perfect way to deal with the nurse yet, Chen Ge didn’t look back. He ran along the corridor stairs back to the second floor, sped up to shake her off, then changed direction and slipped into the first floor.
The nurse chasing him seemed to act purely on instinct. Once she lost track of Chen Ge, she started opening doors again, searching each ward one by one.
“That monster is different from the mirror ghost—it has no consciousness. It must have merged with the special environment here.”
After the nurse moved away, Chen Ge emerged from his hiding spot. This floor was the source of all the horror.
“The stench is even stronger.”
The first-floor corridor was unlike the others. The floorboards had cracked into fine gaps, with something—bugs or other creatures—crawling inside. Shallow red spots appeared on the walls, and peeling off the plaster revealed that the red had seeped deep into the wall, like capillaries in a human body.
“I’ve seen similar descriptions in the director’s letter, but back then he said only the area around Room Three’s doorframe was abnormal.”
The first floor had ten wards, each with a number. Chen Ge approached the nearest door.
Room Ten’s door was a special iron door, more like a prison cell than a ward. Chen Ge tried every method but couldn’t open it.
“Great quality. After all these years, not a hint of loosening.”
The person in Room Ten was called a devil. Although Dr. Gao had said this patient was ill and wouldn’t live long, exceptions always existed.
Tonight, Chen Ge had encountered several patients from the Third Ward. Maybe the patient from Room Ten was here too.
Rooms Nine and Eight also had iron doors. Without making a big noise, there was no way to open them.
Chen Ge didn’t waste time and headed straight for Room Three.
The plaster was stripped away, with blood red seeping from the walls. The bedding on the floor bulged high, part of a mannequin’s body exposed, as if it might reach out and grab anyone passing by.
Above and below, the building’s interior was stained with blood, but touching those stains revealed something odd.
The blood wasn’t on the surface—it was inside the building, constantly seeping out.
It felt bizarre, as if the building itself was bleeding.
The stench in the air had become acrid. Chen Ge forced himself to endure it as he approached Room Three. When he was still a few meters away, he saw the door.
It was a door completely soaked in blood, half-open, with a wooden sign reading “No Entry” hanging on the lock.
“This is the ‘door’ that destroyed the entire rehabilitation center.” Standing before it, he could truly grasp that indescribable feeling.
Chen Ge’s legs moved mechanically forward. The cleaver and skull-crushing hammer in his hands offered him no sense of safety.
Every cell in his body screamed that this place was dangerous, that he shouldn’t get close, but deep in his mind, another voice urged him on, luring him forward.
His hair stood on end. Chen Ge finally stopped at the entrance of Room Three.
In the middle of the dark corridor, a door had opened on the blood-red wall.
It was like the heart of the Third Ward, with everything revolving around it.
“If I left that door in my horror house unchecked, would it end up like this?” Chen Ge peered through the half-open door into Room Three.
The ceiling, walls, bed—everything he saw was red. One door apart, inside and outside were two completely different worlds.
He reached out and pressed against the door, trying to close it. As he pushed, a familiar sound emerged.
It was a sound he’d heard in his own horror house—like something heavy being dragged.