Chapter 5: The Strange Room

Noticing the sound of something slicing through the air behind him, Xie Sui didn’t even turn his head. He simply raised his hand and gave a light wave.

The whistling sound stopped abruptly as the rapidly approaching object suddenly froze in mid-air.

The attacker seemed provoked by Xie Sui’s dismissive attitude. More than a dozen similar sounds rang out again, all aimed directly at Xie Sui’s spine.

“Tsk.”

Xie Sui turned around with a hint of impatience. His gaze bypassed the camera floating in mid-air and landed on the objects flying toward him.

They were things like vases and stool legs. These dozen or so miscellaneous items also came to a sudden halt once Xie Sui turned around.

Xie Sui frowned as he looked at the objects suspended behind the camera.

He didn’t sense the presence of any wild ghosts. What exactly was controlling these things?

Before he could think further, a sudden, thunderous roar erupted. The terrifying vibration caused the very ground to tremble. Immediately afterward, the mountain-like piles of furniture on both sides of Xie Sui began to collapse toward the center without warning. It looked as if they intended to bury him alive.

Xie Sui stood his ground with a calm expression, acting as if he couldn’t see the disastrous scene before him. His dark, lightless eyes looked past the falling furniture toward the second floor.

The change happened so fast that the viewers in the livestream didn’t even have time to post shocked comments.

Most of the discarded furniture falling down had iron frames. Even if they didn’t crush a person to death, the irregular iron rods protruding from them would surely impale someone to the floor.

However, the expected bloody scene of a person being crushed into a meat patty or pierced by steel bars did not occur. The livestream feed flickered for a moment, and then the audience watched in horror as dozens of transparent figures suddenly materialized around Xie Sui.

Those invisible shadows looked like light distorted by extreme heat, or like the chaotic lines on a black-and-white ultrasound appearing in reality. They were infants, countless infants. Numerous infant silhouettes huddled together, piecing themselves together to form one humanoid shape after another…

Every one of the dozens of transparent figures surrounding Xie Sui was actually composed of countless clumps of flesh-like, deformed infants!

They struggled to stretch their malformed bodies, reaching out with unfinished little hands, desperately trying to grasp at something. Ulcerated lips pulled back as far as they could, their crimson mouths already breeding grounds for maggots. They used their rotten vocal cords to let out wails of longing for life.

It was clearly a silent pantomime, yet the crying of the infants seemed to pierce through the internet cables, echoing in everyone’s ears.

At the same time, all the falling furniture seemed to have a pause button pressed on it, suspended in the air in a truly magical display.

The world returned to silence, both in the haunted house and the livestream room.

In a livestream room with tens of thousands of people, not a single person posted a comment. They were like the furniture frozen in the air, their thoughts having come to a complete halt.

The transparent shadows around Xie Sui only appeared for a few seconds, but they were firmly etched into the minds of every viewer like a lifelong psychological trauma.

“It… it’s a holographic projection, right?”

“I’m sorry, streamer. I’m sorry. I was blind and didn’t recognize your greatness. How could you entering a haunted house be considered a death wish?”

“Is the streamer raising Little Ghosts¹? How many infants did he have to kill to raise such terrifying things? What a scumbag.”

“Are you tired of living? Aren’t you afraid of being cursed by the streamer? What ‘raising Little Ghosts’? That was a holographic projection!”

Even without looking at his phone, Xie Sui knew how chaotic the comments were right now.

He gave a soft sigh, lowered his head to pull a cigarette from his pack, and lit it. When he looked back at the camera, he had already put on a very friendly, approachable smile.

“That’s right, it’s a holographic projection I prepared in advance.” When in doubt, blame holographic projections. As long as he didn’t admit it, there were no ghosts.

“But… that floating furniture…”

The furniture that had suddenly tipped over was too large in volume. Xie Sui couldn’t keep them out of the camera’s frame like he had with the small vases. Now they remained suspended in the air, the entire haunted house looking as if it had lost gravity. Xie Sui stood among the floating furniture, making the scene look incredibly surreal.

Xie Sui maintained his professional smile. “It’s like this. This is a mechanism I set up here in advance. To create a better show effect, I used holographic projections and this mechanism to add a bit of thrill and excitement. I was mainly afraid you’d find it too boring and wanted to liven up the atmosphere of the livestream.”

After saying that, Xie Sui lightly pushed a chair floating in front of him. The chair cooperated perfectly with his movement, swaying back and forth.

“This floating furniture was hung up with reflective thin wires by our team when they came to the haunted house earlier. When I pass through here, my assistant activates the wire switches to create this effect. After all, watching a livestream for a long time can get tedious. Setting up mechanisms in advance is also a method for livestream revenue.”

“I just love the way you talk nonsense with a straight face.”

“Even a duck buried in concrete wouldn’t be as stubborn as you.”

“The Inspectorate Bureau’s Law Enforcement Team only withdrew from the haunted house a short while ago. How could the streamer have enough time to set up such an exaggerated mechanism?”

“Ganfan Huahua Shijie gifted Space Battleship x5.”

“Ganfan Huahua Shijie: Exactly, it’s all for the show! Streamer, I want to see the female ghost! The one that was standing behind you just now! Go catch… uh, no, do another projection of her.”

“Thank you for the Space Battleships, Boss. I’ll go catch… prepare the projector right now.” Xie Sui bypassed the area of floating furniture and arrived before the spiral staircase.

Once the floating furniture left the camera’s view, they landed one after another. The massive pieces of furniture made no sound as they hit the floor. The force holding them was very polite, controlling the descent with a gentle touch.

The first floor of this haunted house had a high ceiling, and there was a platform on the second floor. By taking the spiral staircase up, one could look down at the situation on the first floor from the platform.

Xie Sui reached the second-floor platform and looked down at the spot where he had just been standing.

The furniture was piled together in a mess, as if it had never moved from its position.

He lost the connection again. The Yin Qi² in this haunted house was far too chaotic. Even though his Yin-Yang eyes³ could see the flow of energy, he couldn’t pinpoint the ghosts hidden within the building.

Moreover, he had clearly sensed something on the second floor just now. Where had those things gone?

It would have been better if he had just captured that female ghost while he was still outside the haunted house, rather than being in such a passive position now. However, he hadn’t intended to enter the house back then… Never mind. As long as he remained inside, that thing would likely continue its attacks. He would take his time.

Xie Sui rested both hands on the railing. His posture made it look as though he was leaning his entire body weight against it.

Without giving Xie Sui much time to think, the welded metal railing, which appeared quite sturdy, suddenly snapped without warning and plummeted off the platform.

If Xie Sui had actually been leaning on the railing, he likely would have fallen to the first floor along with it, his body impaled by the jagged metal shards.

This sudden turn of events did not startle Xie Sui. He slowly took two steps back and turned his head toward the room at the end of the second-floor corridor.

And just like that, he found it.

Xie Sui ran to the door at the end of the hallway at top speed and kicked it open.

The souls of two deformed children, diligently carrying the camera and lighting equipment, floated behind Xie Sui and followed him to the front of that room.

As the dust settled, the interior of the room at the end of the corridor was revealed to everyone in the livestream.

The bullet screen, which had just been filled with arguments over whether this was a real haunting or a holographic projection, fell silent once again. The Water Friends set down their keyboards and silently wrapped themselves tighter in their blankets.

This was too damn terrifying. They only wanted to watch a death-defying livestream, yet this was more intense than a horror movie. Hadn’t the host promised there were no ghosts and that he was only here to debunk internet rumors? This counter-intuitive performance by the streamer seemed to confirm the existence of ghosts instead. Even the most steadfast materialist warriors couldn’t help but begin to have doubts.

Xie Sui felt something was wrong the moment he saw the interior of the room. However, those two little ghosts were too dedicated, leaving him no time to stop them.

Red. All that met his eyes was a vast expanse of blood-red.

Everything inside the room was composed of red. Whether it was the walls or the furniture, they were all covered in countless uneven, blood-red lumps of flesh. That flesh seemed alive, pulsating rhythmically. Bulging purple veins were attached to every piece of meat. The engorged flesh looked like overripe fruit, as if it might burst at any moment.

Sensing an outsider’s intrusion, the flesh on the wall directly facing the door began to change. The meat rapidly deformed and reorganized, and a human face the size of the entire wall appeared. It looked as if a giant behind the wall was pressing its face against it, trying to break through the constraints of the flesh and blood.

Xie Sui looked at the protruding face.

It was strange; this face actually gave him the sensation of a living person. Could a human really still be alive after turning into something like this?

The transformation of the room continued. The moment the face appeared, a familiar vibration echoed out, identical to the sensation he felt just before the furniture was about to topple earlier.

As the vibration rang out, Xie Sui keenly sensed something amiss behind him. Before he could even react, his body instinctively issued a warning. A bone-chilling cold suddenly rose from his back. Xie Sui reflexively lunged forward, narrowly dodging a fatal blow aimed at the center of his back.

Because of that forward lunge, Xie Sui had completely entered the blood-red room. He now stood directly in front of that massive human face, less than two meters away from it.

Translator’s Notes