Chapter 75: Competitor
"A child's thinking is simple and direct; they probably wouldn't draw something abstract with hidden meanings. Could it be that the scene in the painting is the actual crime scene Fan Yu once witnessed?"
"The house is black, suggesting the incident happened at night. The little figures inside are red, possibly indicating the parents have been harmed—that's the most straightforward interpretation."
Chen Ge examined the painting from various angles. The boy had drawn it sloppily, and all the little figures looked identical, with no distinguishing features—he couldn't even tell if they were male or female.
"That's not right. The red figures shouldn't represent the victims; there are too many of them in the house." Chen Ge tried counting the red figures inside the black room, but each time he got a different number, feeling like they multiplied the more he looked. "The drawing is too blurry. What is this child really trying to express?"
Back in the room, Fan Yu had repeatedly drawn several pictures, all featuring houses and figures, but after each one, he crumpled the paper and threw it away, as if he hadn't captured what he wanted.
"Regardless, this painting is a crucial clue." After interpreting it for a while with no results, Chen Ge carefully put the drawing away and turned to glance at the two-story building behind him. The door, which had been open, was now closed.
"Both the aunt and the boy have issues; I just don't know whose are bigger." Exiting the maze-like alley, Chen Ge caught a bus back, worrying about tonight's task. If the thin, dark woman had told him the truth, he would face a severe test tonight.
To be cautious, Chen Ge pulled out his phone and searched online for information about Muyang High School.
There was quite a bit, mostly found in various school forums.
Based on the timeline, these posts were likely from former students of Muyang High School. After the school was shut down, they were forced to transfer, carrying the legends of Muyang High School to other schools.
Skimming through, a few pieces of information caught his attention.
A year ago, five students agreed to go to Muyang High School for a dare. They used their phones to livestream their experience on a forum, posting every few minutes.
The original posts had been deleted; Chen Ge saw a repost. It was said they entered the sealed-off classroom and even played the spirit board game there.
The five sat at desks summoning the spirit, but by the end, seven people were standing in the room.
No one knew where the extra two came from. The five kids were terrified and ran straight out of the school.
Luckily, none of them were harmed, but two were traumatized—one became irritable and underwent a personality change, while the other developed a fear of sunlight and later transferred out of Hanjiang entirely, reportedly to another province.
"Truly fearless youth." Chen Ge looked at the comments below the post. One netizen analyzed that five played the game, two extra appeared, and after fleeing, two students showed problems. They suspected the two who escaped might already be different people, while their original selves were left forever in that classroom.
This comment got many likes, but others disagreed, suggesting all five might have been replaced, and those two were just stronger-willed and less compliant, hence their abnormal behavior.
The second piece of information was posted by a teacher, strictly forbidding discussion of Muyang High School. In the replies, there was a collapsed comment.
Its content was strange: it said the poster's father's company planned to buy the land where Muyang High School stood at a low price, and he was in charge of the project.
At first, nothing happened, but as the contract neared completion, his father had the same dream every night—many students in Muyang High School uniforms came to their house to attend class.
Even stranger, when he woke up in the morning, there were signs that someone had been in the room.
His father was so frightened he fell ill, resigned, and the matter was eventually dropped.
After reading all the posts, Chen Ge unconsciously compared Muyang High School with West City Private Academy and made a peculiar discovery.
There were many ghost stories about Muyang High School online, but none specifically mentioned casualties.
West City Private Academy was the opposite—almost no information about it online, yet the West City Police Station's case files clearly recorded deaths there, and more than one.
"Thinking about it, West City Private Academy seems scarier." Chen Ge held his phone, only able to comfort himself with that thought.
Staring out the window, his phone, its screen already dark, suddenly vibrated.
He looked down and saw it was He Shan calling.
"This guy isn't calling ahead to book a spot because he senses a new scene to play, is he?" Chen Ge answered and put the phone to his ear. "What's up?"
"Boss, you need to check the short video app's official page right now! Someone's trying to steal your thunder!"
"Steal my thunder? Is he planning to open a haunted house too?" Chen Ge opened the app. Before even logging in, he saw a promotional image on the loading screen—"Host Qin Guang takes you exploring real haunted houses!"
He tapped the screen for details.
Qin Guang was a well-known host on the platform, with 600,000 followers. His usual videos were comedic, occasionally featuring outdoor streams. His bio noted he belonged to a studio—the same one that had tried to recruit Chen Ge at Ping An Apartments.
Scrolling further, the ad announced that tonight, he would venture into a new field, livestreaming a puzzle-solving session in a haunted house.
That alone wouldn't be a problem, but when Chen Ge saw the location, he was speechless. Qin Guang's venue for tonight was none other than West Suburb's Ping An Apartments.
"Boss, did you see that? This guy saw you're a newbie with nearly ten thousand viewers on your first stream, so he's trying to copy your success!" He Shan was indignant on Chen Ge's behalf.
"No need to worry. Some things can't be imitated." Chen Ge thought He Shan was calling about something major, not this. He didn't care about Qin Guang at all, even if Qin Guang had never considered him a competitor.
On the other end, He Shan's pace quickened. "He has so many fans! Once this genre takes off, he might even turn around and accuse you of copying him!"
"It's fine. By the way, do you know anything about adolescent psychological disorders? I have a few questions."
"Bro, is this really the time for that? Besides, I'm a forensic pathologist. For psychological issues, you should see a psychiatrist or a therapist!"