Chapter 1076: Every Room Has a Secret [2 in 1]

Chen Ge and Wen Qing decided to go to the first floor to look for the old man Huang first. They walked down the eerie corridor and came to the mouth of the staircase. The iron banister that was painted red was left with the handprints of children. The stairwell twisted downward. The steps were covered with dark red liquid, and stepping on them felt sticky. The windows in the corridor were all sealed shut, blocking out the light. Iron nails the length of one’s half finger were exposed, and if one was careless, one would be scratched by them easily.

“This place is so disgusting.” Wen Qing was desperate to find Xiang Nuan, but even so, when she saw the condition of the staircase, she could not help but frown. “It feels like someone has been dragging a leaking bag of garbage while they go up and down the stairs. And this has been going on for a while, or else it would not have been caked like this.”

“You are too naïve. What kind trash would form this kind of black and red stain?”

“Then, what do you think is behind these stains?” Wen Qing picked up the white cat. She seemed to be afraid that the white cat would dirty itself upon touching these disgusting black and red stains.

“A heavily injured person or a bleeding body will form a layer of blood residue like this. When the blood slowly dries, it will turn into this kind of color.”

Chen Ge looked at the stains on the ground, and for some reason, an incident that happened a very long time ago appeared in his mind.

When the toilet cubicle at his haunted house first acted strangely, Chen Ge had heard a heavy object being dragged through the door, and it was the same image that had appeared in his mind. A strange, faceless monster was using some kind of tool to drag some bodies down the corridor and staircase.

“This place is getting stranger and stranger. We will go to the third floor first. No matter what, remember to be careful.” Chen Ge carried his backpack, and his nerves were tense with alertness. After turning the corner, when Chen Ge reached the third floor, he heard the strange noise.

Creak, creak...

It was the sound of a door being opened and closed repeatedly.

There is no wind currently blowing and the windows in the corridor are all sealed shut behind wooden boards. Either the door is moving on its own or someone is opening and closing them again and again.

Leaning forward to look down the third-floor corridor, at the end of the dark corridor, a front door was swinging back and forth, giving off this shrill and sharp noise.

“Should we go and take a look?”

“We’d better locate Uncle Huang first. Before we accomplish that, it is better we do not find trouble for ourselves to prevent uncontrollable accident. Who knows what we will meet in the world behind the door?”

Once Chen Ge said that, the sound of door opening and closing stopped. Chen Ge turned to look, and he saw a young boy’s face poke out from the room at the end of the corridor. The boy had a neck that was much longer than a normal person’s. His head extended out of the door like a snake, and his eyes were staring fixatedly at Chen Ge and Wen Qing.

“He seems to have discovered us.” Wen Qing carried the white cat. “The boy’s gaze is terrifying! Why is he looking at us like that‽”

“Just ignore him. We will get to the first floor first.” Chen Ge dragged Wen Qing along down the stairs, but that strange boy ran out from the door. Without saying a word, he made to follow Chen Ge and Wen Qing. He merely kept his eyes on the two of them.

“Are we going to ignore him?”

Chen Ge and Wen Qing continued to move down the stairs, and the boy followed them as well. After knowing that this was someone that they would not be able to shake off, Chen Ge gave up. He stopped moving. Gripping his backpack, he was ready to pull out Doctor Skull Cracker’s Hammer at any moment.

“What is your name?” The hand that gripped the hilt was white from force, and the green veins pulsed on the back of his hand. Even so, Chen Ge’s voice was soft and kind.

“My name is Wu You. Are you here to look for someone?” The boy sounded very strange. It just gave off a very unnatural feeling. It felt like a mannequin was trying to mimic human conversation. It sounded stilted and wooden.

He can be communicated with? Chen Ge narrowed his eyes. Initially, he thought the boy was dumb. After making noises in the world behind the door, that action was no different from actively seeking death.

“Yes, we are here to look for someone,” Wen Qing blurted out because she was too worried about Xiang Nuan.

“Are you looking for a little boy?”

“Yes! That is right!” Wen Qing’s mother’s voice rose out of excitement. She desperately wanted to know Xiang Nuan’s location. This gave her great hope. “The child is not tall, and he looks cute...”

“I’ve seen him.” Before waiting for Wen Qing to finish, Wu You said very confidently, “He has gone down the building.”

“Gone down the building? How do you know that he has gone down the building? Did you see that yourself?” Wen Qing wanted to confirm again.

“Yes, I saw that with my own eyes.” Wu You did not appear like he was lying.

Without some hesitation, Wen Qing turned to look at Chen Ge. “Then, should we hurry downward? If we move fast, we might be able to catch up to Xiang Nuan.”

“Okay.” Chen Ge still felt like something was not right with Wu You. He did not want to stay there with the boy any longer. He dragged Wen Qing by her arm and practically dragged her away down the stairs.

“Wait, the boy did not go down the building this way.” Wu You moved to follow them.

“Then, how did he go down the building?”

“From the window.” Wu You pointed at the window that was sealed shut. “With a splat, he went down the building.”

A peal of laughter that sounded like a balloon leaking escaped from the boy’s lips. Wu You said with extreme joy as he was dancing and clapping, “I was sitting quietly at home, and the window was open. With a ‘shoo’, he went down the building.”

“What are you talking about?” Wen Qing’s face blanched. If not for Chen Ge’s firm grip on her shoulder, she would have charged forward to give the boy a good beating.

“Don’t act so rashly.” Chen Ge stood between Wu You and Wen Qing. “The boy lives in the room at the end of the corridor. That is Room 301, and right above it is Room 401, your home. So, theoretically, he could be telling the truth.”

“My Xiang Nuan would definitely not do something like that,” Wen Qing replied very confidently.

“I know, so we’d better go to his place to see what he is really telling us.” After saying that, Chen Ge stared at Wu You. If possible, he wanted to check every single room in this building.

“It’s true. I really saw it with my own eyes. I wouldn’t lie to you.” Wu You followed it up with that strange and eerie laughter.

“Are your parents home? Can we go to your house to take a look?” Chen Ge asked softly.

“My parents will never let strangers into our home, but since they are not at home now, I can quietly sneak you guys in. Come with me.” Wu You turned and walked down the dim third-floor corridor. Looking at his back, Chen Ge and Wen Qing now realized that Wu You had a very strange gait. His legs were uneven, and his body was extremely nonuniform. After Wu You had wandered ahead of them, Chen Ge silently whispered to Wen Qing, “Is there someone that looks like Wu You in your memory?”

“Our residential area has quite a number of children. I have not been paying much attention. Furthermore, his face looks rather weird. I do not dare take an extra glance for fear of offending him.”

There was indeed a strange presence about Wu You. He had facial features that were no different from a normal child, but when they were placed on his face, they were simply quite out of place. It was like the puzzle pieces were correct, but they were each taken from different puzzles.

“Come here. Why are you guys waiting over there?” Wu You waved at Chen Ge and Wen Qing. He led the two adults to his door. The not so large room was painted black and white. Toys, color pencils, and many newspapers littered the ground. It suggested that the boy was left alone at home most of the time.

“I saw him go down the building from this place.” Wu You pointed at the window in the living room. At that moment, the window was closed, and the curtains were drawn shut. “Do you want to go and take a look? After he went down from this place, his body has stayed there on the ground.”

“Do not go over there. It’s too dangerous,” Chen Ge whispered as he pulled on Wen Qing’s elbow. At the same time, he closed the front door behind him. “Wu You, this is your home. It is impolite for us to mess with your things. Why don’t you open the curtain and let us see what is behind it?”

“He was falling with his head facing down. When he passed by the window, he even waved goodbye to me...”

“Stop it! Stop it already!” This struck a nerve within Wen Qing. She shrugged off Chen Ge, strode through the living room to the window, and yanked the curtain back with one smooth motion. Various pictures of many different little boys were pasted on the glass window. The boys were captured with different expressions, but the unifying factor was that every single boy had visible wounds on their face. The collage made up a scary image.

“Was it him? See, I did not lie to you, did I?” Wu You pointed to one of the boys on the collage and a very big smile lit up his face.

“Mad child.” Wen Qing was given quite a scare by the faces of these children. It took her quite some time before she managed to recover herself. She forced herself to look through the collection of human faces, and she was unable to find Xiang Nuan’s face among them.

“Chen Ge, let’s go. I do not wish to stay here anymore.” Wen Qing hugged her chest. Her body was shivering badly. It felt like there were multiple pairs of eyes watching her from behind.

“The boy that you are looking for is not here, huh?” The smile disappeared on Wu You’s face. He tore down one of the pictures from the window and pressed it before Wen Qing’s face. “I know this is him! This has to be him! I have not been able to forget his face for a very long time. He was waving at me when he was going down the building!”

A trace of fear crossed Wen Qing’s face as she took a deliberate step back away from the boy. “Chen Ge, let’s hurry up and go!”

“Wait, there’s no need to hurry.” Chen Ge used Yin Yang Vision to scan the collage on the window. He reached out and pulled down one of the pictures of the boys. “Wu You, when did you see this boy?”

“I cannot remember anymore. Probably inside the trash bags, or under the sewer, or was it under the table? Inside the cupboard? I cannot remember! There are too many of them! There are so many of them!” Wu You’s expression was getting more and more unhinged as his body grew longer and longer.

“Have you seen this face inside Room 405?” The picture of the boy Chen Ge was holding had the painting of a boy who had lost his eyes. He was crawling desperately toward somewhere. It appeared like he was trying to run away. The boy in the picture reminded of the boy inside Room 405. If he looked closer, the boy in the picture indeed looked quite similar to the boy that he had taken a glimpse of earlier.

“Room 405? Auntie Ding’s room? The boy did indeed go up the stairs with her! Yes! At the time, the boy still had both of his legs!” Wu You had accidentally revealed a cruel truth. Initially, the boy was normal, but in Wu You’s picture, the boy had lost his legs. The boy that Chen Ge had seen in Room 405 had his legs cut off from the knee.

“Try to think back carefully. Did the boy tell you anything?”

“He asked me to help him. He told me that he misses his home a lot. No wait. He has not told me anything. I have not heard anything. He did not tell me anything! I do not know anything! La la la la la!”

“Then, can you tell me more about Auntie Ding?”

“Auntie Ding is a very good person. She cooks a red dessert for me. She loves children a lot, but she will only get mad at bad children. Auntie Ding forbids me from lying. Auntie Ding buys me toys. Auntie Ding treats me better than my own mother.” The whole statement sounded like it came right out from a recording. There was no trace of emotion about it. Wu You rattled his lines off from memory and forced them out of his mouth.

This surprised both Chen Ge and Wen Qing.

“Auntie Ding will not let the children go out alone at night. The children can only go out at night when they are carried by Auntie Ding. Auntie Ding’s favorite thing in the world is children. Auntie Ding likes to spend time with children...”

Like a broken record, Wu You kept repeating these things. And he spoke faster and faster. The pictures of the boys on the window gave off a staticky sound, as if every picture was trying to peel itself off the window.

“Chen Ge! We’d better leave! This place is getting too scary! And something is obviously wrong with the boy!” Wen Qing was scared out of her wits. She kept urging Chen Ge, but Chen Ge had managed to calm down. “I think I understand what is going on now. The tenants inside this building are all interconnected with each other. Their stories make up a big twine. The reason Wu You became like this is probably because he saw something he shouldn’t have about Auntie Ding, and he was scared until he became mad by Auntie Ding.”

Chen Ge did not know what exactly happened in real life, but from the information he gleaned from behind the door, that should be the truth. Chen Ge did not leave, but he walked voluntarily toward Wu You. He pressed on Wu You’s shoulders. “Try not to think about that person. She is not here. There are only the few of us in this room, only you and the two of us. She is not here...”

After some persuasion and coaxing, Wu You slowly calmed down and returned to normal. He pasted the picture that he had torn back onto the window, and then he pulled back the curtain. Those who were not there earlier would not be able to tell what had gone wrong.

“Wu You, when will your father and mother return? Do they know about the children on the window?”

“My father and mother have been gone for a long time. I have been keeping the door open to wait for them to return.”

“What were they going to do when they left home last time?”

“I do not know. The neighbors said they left because they could not stand me anymore because I am such a big liar.” A strange smile hung on Wu You’s face. “I’ve never told a lie in my life, but they all said I am nothing but a liar, that every word that comes out from my mouth is a lie.”

“Thankfully, the adults see you as a ‘liar’, or else you would not have been able to survive until now.” Chen Ge had a real issue assessing Wu You. He felt like the boy was incredibly clever, and behind the veil of madness was a very brilliant and cunning mind. He wanted to work together with Wu You, but he could not be sure about what the boy’s actual thoughts were. After giving it much consideration, Chen Ge decided to leave for now. He still could not place his trust in Wu You.

“You’d better stay here and wait for your parents to return. We might meet each other again tonight.”

Leaving Wu You’s home, Chen Ge was about to tell Wen Qing something when the door opposite from Room 301 was suddenly pushed open.

A middle-aged man with disheveled hair poked his head out. The expression on his face could only be described as dark and melancholic. Staring in the direction of Room 301, he whispered to Chen Ge, “You’d better stay far away from that boy, or he will cause your death.”

“What do you mean by that? Why would he cause my death?” When Chen Ge entered Wu You’s house, he had closed the door behind him. Unless the man was leaning against the door of Room 301 and eavesdropping on them, he should not have known what Wu You had told them inside the room.

“The boy is not normal. He caused his parents to die, so if you know what’s good for you, you’d better stay away from him.” After saying what was on his mind, the middle-aged man was about to close the door. However, Chen Ge made use of this opening to silently and quickly glanced into the man’s room. The heavy smell of alcohol covered up the horrible stench. The room was a mess. Trash and clothing covered the sofa, and posters of women in skimpy clothing filled every inch of the wall.

Bang!

The door slammed shut, and Chen Ge signaled for Wen Qing to leave the third floor.

“What? Is there something wrong with that man as well?”

“A married man would not paste such pictures inside his room. His wife would not allow him to do so. But if he is not married, how do you explain the exorbitant amount of female underwear that cluttered his sofa?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read