The Haunted House

"Sir, the filthy thing inside this house is not someone you want to provoke. Are you really, truly, absolutely sure you want to buy this house?"

The speaker was an old man over fifty, and a trace of suspicion showed in his eyes.

He was worried that the man before him, who looked only twenty-five, would be scared half to death by the filthy thing inside the haunted house.

Of course, the old man was not concerned about the man in front of him. He was only afraid that the other party would be frightened into developing a mental illness and then come after him for compensation.

Faced with the old man's words, the man silently lit a cigarette, put on an extremely weathered and mature expression, and said,

"I'll take this one."

"If anything happens, don't blame me."

The old man took out the contract, which was densely covered in writing.

It was called a contract, but in reality, it looked more like a liability waiver.

"Ten thousand... no, five thousand. It's yours."

A three-story mansion sold for five thousand yuan could no longer be described as merely good value.

But precisely because it was such a bargain, any normal person would have to think carefully about whether the rumors surrounding the haunted house were true.

However, it was obvious that the man before the old man was not a normal person.

He counted out fifty portraits of Mao Zedong and handed them to the old man, then left the sales office with the contract.

The process had been simplified to the extreme. The old man was probably afraid that the man would change his mind.

After leaving the sales office, the man checked his luggage and various documents.

The man's name was shown on the documents.

"Liu Haoyu."

It was a simple, ordinary name.

Following the address listed on the contract, Liu Haoyu soon arrived in front of the so-called "haunted house."

"No wonder it was only worth five thousand..."

Looking at the haunted house before him, Liu Haoyu was speechless.

It was called a mansion, but it was clearly a house left over from the last century. Not only had it fallen into disrepair, it was also extremely dilapidated.

There were even quite a few holes in the roof.

Add to that its remote location, a full fifteen kilometers from the city center.

Liu Haoyu found it difficult to say whether this house was worth five thousand yuan.

"Forget it. As long as I have somewhere to live."

With that, he walked into the house without the slightest fear.

The moment he entered, a cold, moldy smell rushed toward him.

It was clearly still over thirty degrees outside, but the moment he entered the house, it felt as though the temperature had dropped by more than ten degrees, making him shiver.

Even Liu Haoyu could not help but grumble,

"It does make a decent summer retreat."

It was clear that he truly was not afraid of death.

The sun was already nearing the horizon. The already gloomy interior of the house had now grown even darker.

The dilapidated wooden stairs creaked nonstop as he climbed, as though they might snap in half with the slightest force.

After Liu Haoyu reached the second floor, the chill grew even stronger. From time to time, he could also hear the sound of something walking across the wooden floorboards.

"Thump... thump..."

The sound resembled someone walking along the corridor, and its source was right around the corner ahead.

Liu Haoyu reached the corner, and the sound vanished with him.

A deep, gloomy corridor came into view.

He could not see a thing, yet for some reason, Liu Haoyu felt that a venomous, hateful face was watching him from within the darkness.

When he turned around, the staircase behind him had disappeared as well, leaving only an endless corridor.

"A little trick."

Liu Haoyu randomly chose a room. He had only picked it on a whim, but after entering, he discovered that it seemed to be a young girl's boudoir.

The room was covered in dust and cobwebs, but fortunately, it was still mostly intact. There were no particularly large holes, so it was at least livable.

After giving the place a simple cleaning, Liu Haoyu lay on the bed and slowly closed his eyes.

His consciousness gradually drifted away. Exhausted after a day of travel, Liu Haoyu soon fell into a dream.

Around midnight, it might have been a dream, or it might have been reality.

In the utterly silent surroundings, an extremely inappropriate knocking suddenly rang out.

"Thump... thump... thump..."

The rhythm of the knocking was very steady, yet it burrowed deep into the heart, as if it could pierce straight through a person.

Liu Haoyu opened his eyes and looked toward the door.

There was no one there, only the sound of knocking.

Soon, the knocking stopped.

Just as Liu Haoyu was about to go back to sleep, with merely a blink, he suddenly discovered that a young girl was standing by the door.

The girl wore a scarlet bridal gown and a pair of red embroidered shoes.

Her eyes were almost entirely terrifying whites. Merely meeting her gaze made one's scalp prickle.

Even more frighteningly, bright red blood kept dripping from her slender fingers.

"Drip... drip..."

As the blood fell onto the floor, the girl took staggering steps and slowly walked toward Liu Haoyu.

Just as she was about to reach the head of the bed, Liu Haoyu woke with a start.

The man sat up in bed.

He instinctively touched his neck.

Before waking, he had clearly felt something icy cold squeeze his neck.

It had seemed like a hand.

Thus, Liu Haoyu looked toward the mirror. Sure enough, there were two bloody handprints on his neck.

And that terrifying feeling of being watched still remained.

It was as if a Fierce Ghost was waiting outside the door, ready to rush in at any moment and strangle him to death.

Even more frighteningly, whenever Liu Haoyu closed his eyes, the Fierce Ghost outside the door would walk into the room and slowly approach him.

But when he opened his eyes, the Fierce Ghost vanished instantly.

No matter what Liu Haoyu did, he could not escape this nightmare-like feeling.

After thinking it over carefully, the man decided to open the door himself and see what was actually outside.

The room was not large, yet every step Liu Haoyu took felt like a step toward hell.

When he stood before the door, he drew a deep breath and slowly opened it.

There was nothing outside the room.

The knocking that had sounded from time to time also stopped abruptly at that moment.

The red-clad bride girl that had kept appearing in Liu Haoyu's mind disappeared as well.

It was as though it had all been a dream, as though nothing had happened.

Except for... this pair of extremely conspicuous red embroidered shoes outside the room.

They were precisely the shoes worn by the girl he had seen in his dream.

Liu Haoyu stared at the scene before him. As if he had been frightened senseless, he stood there frozen for a full five seconds.

After those five seconds, he silently picked up the embroidered shoes from the floor and carried them into the room.

Then, inside the room, he set up a small shrine and placed the embroidered shoes inside it.

After inserting several incense sticks and lighting several candles,

Liu Haoyu pressed his palms together, closed his eyes, and spoke as though thanking Heaven for its gift.

"Thank you for the hospitality."

The gaze that had originally been fixed on him seemed to freeze in astonishment upon hearing those words.