Chapter 78: I Can't Control My Right Hand Anymore
"Should I go in and take a look?"
Chen Ge gripped the tool hammer, feeling an itch in his heart like a cat's claw, desperately wanting to smash open the door to see what was written on the paper.
"There's a post on the campus forum saying five students once entered Muyang High School for a dare. They played the Ouija board game in the last classroom. Could the paper and pen on the desk be theirs?"
Chen Ge thought for a moment and found it unlikely. According to the post, the five students realized two extra people had appeared by the end, scaring them nearly to the point of collapse. They fled the classroom in panic, and in the process, they would have surely bumped into the desks and chairs. But right now, the desks and chairs in the classroom were arranged neatly, as if no one had ever entered or left.
"Of course, it's also possible that someone rearranged the furniture after they left, or that all five of them were replaced, and what walked out of the classroom were five ghosts."
Thinking this, Chen Ge put down the tool hammer. He decided it was safer to leave this classroom for last.
Leaving the teaching building, Chen Ge arrived at the dormitory entrance.
A shabby two-story building with only a few rooms. He wandered around for a while before spotting a faded iron sign in the hallway, its text blurry, roughly indicating that the second floor was for female students, with males not allowed.
"This school is really bare-bones."
Taking off his raincoat hood, Chen Ge wiped the water seeping onto his collar and was about to step inside when his phone vibrated—someone was calling.
He glanced at the caller ID and answered casually: "Heshan?"
"Boss, I gave your number to the senior. She said she'll contact you once her dad gets home."
"Alright, anything else?"
"Nothing major. That Qin Guang has already started streaming. Are you sure you don't want to check it out? The actor he hired is pretending to be the killer next door, copying everything you do, even the reasoning. I can't be bothered to complain."
"Let him stream. I'll start my own stream later. Make sure to come and support me."
"Holy crap! You're going live!" Heshan's voice shot up, brimming with excitement.
Chen Ge felt a sense of happiness knowing a viewer was so eagerly anticipating it: "It's been a while since I last streamed. This time, I'm planning something thrilling."
The line went silent for a few seconds before footsteps could be heard. Heshan seemed to have run across the dorm in slippers, slapping each bed board: "Everyone, get up and watch the stream! It's another life-or-death showdown today!"
Heshan was enthusiastic, but listening to him, Chen Ge couldn't shake an odd feeling.
Ending the call, Chen Ge opened the short video app. Qin Guang's haunted house stream was featured on the homepage's top banner. He watched for a bit—it was a team effort, with a dedicated cameraman, while Qin Guang handled the reasoning and clue-finding.
Setting aside everything else, just the stream quality alone crushed Chen Ge's. They had clearly prepared thoroughly.
"680,000 views. If I could use this to promote my Horror House, wouldn't tourists be flooding the park gates the next day?"
Streaming and short videos were Chen Ge's only promotional tools right now. Qin Guang's banner stream showed Chen Ge a path: if he could grow big enough, maybe one day the platform would throw all its resources and channels behind him.
"No rush. Take it slow. First, set a small goal—survive tonight."
Chen Ge exited Qin Guang's stream and started his own. Out in the wilderness with terrible signal, the stream was blurry, and comments sometimes froze for ages without response.
"My stream quality might be poor, but the content is solid. Compared to Qin Guang, it's a matter of different strengths..."
Unable to even see the comments, Chen Ge couldn't interact with viewers. He held up his phone, briefly introduced Muyang High School, and then stopped paying attention to the stream.
After scouring the first floor of the dorm with no luck, Chen Ge, tool hammer in hand, headed to the second floor.
"Female dorms don't look much different from male dorms, do they?"
The rooms were piled with textbooks and trash. When the school was shut down, many things in the dorm hadn't been cleared out.
Chen Ge shone his flashlight and searched patiently. Passing the fourth room on the second floor, he suddenly noticed four chairs lined up in the middle of the room, with several sheets of white paper and a ballpoint pen on them.
"The paper and pen look new, completely out of place with everything else in the room. They must have been placed here later."
This was the second time Chen Ge had seen fresh paper and pen. He felt something was off about them.
The rusty lock was just for show. Chen Ge smashed it a few times, and the dorm door swung open.
A musty smell hit him. Covering his mouth and nose, he walked to the chairs and looked at the paper laid out flat.
There were four sheets. The first read: "When will I die?"
The second read: "How will I die?"
The third read: "Who will die next?"
The fourth sheet was blank, with nothing on it.
"Ouija board game?"
Chen Ge searched the room for any leftover clues, but too much time had passed, and many things were already decayed.
Finding nothing, he turned his attention back to the paper in the middle of the room: "No one can really explain the specifics of the Ouija game, but I've seen some reports. They say it's due to breathing, heartbeat, blood flow—things that make the human body constantly sway slightly. Without professional training, if you keep your arm suspended in the same position for a long time, you'll inevitably move unconsciously. It's a natural bodily reflex, nothing to do with spirits."
Chen Ge fixed his phone, which was streaming live, onto the bed, ensuring the camera could capture him and the four chairs lined up. But probably due to poor signal in the abandoned dorm, the stream never transmitted successfully.
"Whatever. Completing all four side quests at Muyang High School means finishing the trial 100%. Let's start with this one."
He turned and closed the dorm door, standing alone in the room. After hesitating for three or four minutes, he sat on the floor and picked up the ballpoint pen.
Telling himself not to panic, Chen Ge placed the plush toy on his chest, then gripped the pen with his right hand and the tool hammer with his left, beginning the Ouija game.
He recalled the process from the forum post about those students. Raising his arm gently, holding the pen upright, its tip lightly touching the paper, he closed his eyes and began to chant: "Spirit, spirit, you are my past life, I am your present life. If you wish to come, draw a circle on the paper."
After chanting, Chen Ge tried to calm himself. His hand hovered over the paper, his body motionless.
The rain outside grew heavier. In the night-shrouded campus, a subtle change began to stir.
The musty smell in the dorm faded. An inexplicable cold wind rustled the paper on the chairs. Before long, Chen Ge's eyes snapped open. He had just felt someone grab his hand.
Without resisting, Chen Ge stared intently at his right hand, his left hand gripping the iron hammer, ready to swing at any moment.
Recommending a completely different, refreshing, light-hearted supernatural brain-teaser story: *The Enterprising Salted Fish Girl*~~