Chapter 0738 – Come, Read with Me
The diary that was placed on the podium to scare the tourists became Chen Ge’s guidebook for exploring the haunted house as he stuffed it into his backpack and rushed to the scary scene recorded in the second diary entry.
Nightmare Academy, the most famous haunted house in Xinhai, had a much larger interior than Chen Ge had first imagined, completely themed around a ghost school and covering almost every horror and weird story that could happen in the school.
”Six whole floors, we’ll have some fun today.”
The large place was good for Chen Ge no matter which way he looked at it, he could explore as much as he wanted, and if there was a chance to merge the place in the future, he could also put down more horror scenes.
The penny scene wasn’t far from the classroom where the freshman welcome ceremony was held, and touching the mottled wallpaper, Chen Ge saw a dilapidated room door at the corner of the building with the words Miscellaneous Warehouse written on it.
”The diary said that the girl called Die was the one who played the pen fairy game in the warehouse.”
Pushing the door, Chen Ge heard a girl’s cry before he even entered.
It was wavering, and it was unknown where it was coming from.
”Is someone there?”
There was a big difference between the Nightmare Academy and Chen Ge’s own haunted house; visitors to Chen Ge’s haunted house were free to explore without guidance or help throughout, whereas other haunted houses on the market usually had a fixed tour route.
At this point, he entered the penny scene without warning, and he was worried that the actors weren’t ready to affect his visiting experience.
After speaking himself, the cries became weaker, and Chen Ge surveyed his surroundings.
The walls of the warehouse were intentionally old, the shelves were dusty, and various miscellaneous items were piled up in the corners.
The light inside the room was dim, and occasionally the chirping of rats could be heard.
”The diary only said that Die played the Pen Fairy game here, but it didn’t mention anything about this warehouse, if Die had an accident during the Pen Fairy game, then there should be two ghosts that I might have encountered in this warehouse, one is Die, and the other is Pen Fairy.”
Chen Ge walked past the first row of shelves when a rat’s cry suddenly came from beside his left leg, and he felt something brushing against his ankle.
An ordinary person would have at least screamed when they were scared like that, but Chen Ge was indifferent, he was like a child who was curious about everything and crouched down in place.
”There’s a rope in the middle of these two rows of shelves, and once the leg touches it, the stuffed animal mouse on the knot will scurry out.” Chen Ge stroked his chin, “Some people are afraid of these things, it makes sense, the haunted house doesn’t have to be all ghosts, anything that can bring thrills and horrors can be blended into the haunted house, so that it can satisfy all the tourists, and is more in line with my goal of creating a diversified haunted house.”
Chen Ge memorized these small organs in his mind, ready to go back and slowly work on them himself, striving to create more fun and exciting things.
Getting up and continuing forward, Chen Ge came to the middle of the first and second rows of shelves.
The passageway here was very narrow, and the shelves on both sides were full of things, giving people the impression that they would tip over at any time.
Walking to the innermost part of the shelves, Chen Ge saw a glass jar on top of the second row of shelves that was about to fall, and he reached out and gently pushed the glass jar inside.
During the push, he saw a miserable white human face behind the glass jar.
”On that side of the shelf? No, it’s hidden in the shelf sandwich.” Chen Ge stared at the face for a while, placed the glass jar on the ground, and reached his hand over.
The fingertips touched the other person’s face, and Chen Ge gently pinched the other person, “Artificial glue? It’s a model?”
Chen Ge removed everything on that level of the shelf, and only then did he see clearly that it was a human face mask that had been attached to a basketball.
”A dummy, huh? This place might be a bit more terrifying if it was replaced with a real person, but the place is too small for a living person to squeeze in for sure.” Chen Ge walked forward to the middle of the second and third rows of shelves, and he saw the glass jars that were about to fall down again, this time not one, but five.
”They put them like this, not afraid that the jars will really fall down? Are they using tempered glass that can’t be broken easily?” Chen Ge passed by the jars, and he realized that each jar contained something, a dark piece that looked a bit like an organ.
”Five jars correspond to the five human organs?” Chen Ge casually pushed the jars back into place, and when he reached the fourth one, he was about to retract his hand when a slender arm suddenly reached out from behind the shelf and grabbed his wrist!
Very suddenly, without any warning, Chen Ge froze in place for zero seconds before reacting.
He clenched his five fingers tightly and backhandedly grabbed the other party’s wrist before looking sideways towards the shelves.
A girl wearing the Nightmare Academy school uniform was grinning, half of her body plastered to the shelf.
”Loose! Let go!” The girl’s original line shouldn’t have been this one.
”Sorry, I was startled just now.” Chen Ge slowly let go and looked at the other party through the shelves, but the girl had already disappeared.
”Where is the person?”
The sound of crying came again, Chen Ge bypassed the shelves and came to the innermost part of the warehouse, and in the center of a pile of miscellaneous items, a girl with a thin body type was crying on the table.
”I’m sorry just now, I was too scared, so I used a little bit of force.” Chen Ge squatted next to the table, he was worried that the other party was made to cry by himself.
”It’s hard for me, my heart is like being cut by a knife right now.”
”I just touched your wrist, you’re afraid you’re not trying to blackmail me, right?” Chen Ge muttered in a small voice.
The girl looked at the red and swollen fingerprints on her wrist, although this tourist’s reaction wasn’t quite what she expected, she was after all a professional haunted house actress and immediately got into the mood, “I loved someone deeply, and after questioning the Pen Fairy, I realized that that person didn’t love me, and I used the method that the Pen Fairy taught me, but I accidentally killed him. I regret it so much that I want to come to ask the Pen Fairy again to see if there’s any way to undo it.”
”How can you undo it when the person is dead?”
”The Pen Fairy will definitely have a way!” The girl suddenly became emotional, her eyes red.
”For what it’s worth, the Pen Fairy isn’t very powerful among all the severe ghosts, so you’d better not expect too much.”
”Then there’s always something to try.” The girl lifted her head, her face was painted with very thick makeup, bright, twisted and weird looking, “Can you do me a favor? It takes two people to complete the pen fairy game, and this warehouse rarely has people over, I need someone to cooperate with me to do this game together now.”
”No problem.” Chen Ge paused for a moment before opening his mouth to ask again, “You said that the Pen Fairy game must be completed by two people, so who did you come in with the first time you played the Pen Fairy game?”
The girl didn’t answer this question, her voice became sharper, “You sit across from me, we both hold this pen together, and then you don’t have to care about anything.”
”Good.” Chen Ge was quite a gentleman, he sat on one side of the table and held the pen on the table.
It was a silver-white fountain pen, one circle thicker than an ordinary ballpoint pen, with a decorative pattern on the surface.
”It’s quite nice.”
The thumb pressed down on the barrel of the pen, leaving a gap in the center of the remaining four fingers; penmanship was a two-player game, and Chen Ge gave the girl an empty space where she could hold the pen.
”Is that so?”
Chen Ge’s movements were very standard, there was no need for the girl to guide her at all, which gave that girl a very strange feeling in her heart, this person in front of her seemed to play the Pen Fairy game a lot.
Would a normal person play Pen Fairy games at home every day?
The girl nodded and sat across from Chen Ge, “When the game starts, you don’t say anything, don’t do anything, just stay quiet.”
”Understood.”
”Once the game starts, you absolutely can’t stop in the middle, calling out to the Pen Fairy, if you don’t send her away, the consequences will be very serious.” The girl said seriously.
”I understand all of this, you can start now.” Chen Ge looked around, the experience of playing a Pen Fairy game in an abandoned warehouse was precious, Nightmare Academy had set the atmosphere so well, combined with the specific light and background music, that his heart would pound even if he sat still.
The girl reached out and gripped the quill as she sat down, her brow furrowing slightly.
It was strange that the hand of the man in front of her was even cooler than her own.
”May I begin?”
”En.”
The girl took a deep breath, held the pen in one hand, placed one hand under the table, and opened her mouth to recite, “Pen Fairy, Pen Fairy, can you tell me how I can bring my beloved back to life?”
After she finished speaking, her sight was firmly locked on the Pen Fairy, and her reddish eyes were somewhat frightening.
After waiting for half a day, the pen in her hand did not move, still standing on the paper.
”Pen Fairy! Pen Fairy! Please tell me the answer! I’ve obviously done what you said! I’ve done all that you said! But why did he die! I loved him as a person, not this corpse!”
The girl’s emotions gradually went out of control, her expression was hideous and her eyes turned completely red.
This girl and Chen Ge were separated by a table, and because of the close proximity, that kind of hysteria could be felt very directly by Chen Ge.
”Pen Fairy! Pen Fairy! I don’t want him to die! You answer me! Answer me!” The girl kept screaming like she was crazy, her voice echoing throughout the utility warehouse, “Tell me what to do, I’ll give everything I have! I know you’re still here! Penumbra! I know you’re still here!”
As the girl shouted the last words, the pen in her hand suddenly moved.
”Penny? Is that you! Please tell me how to make him hear my voice again!”
The girl cried out, her eyes turning completely red, as if they were about to drip blood.
Under her constant cries, the pen on the paper finally moved.
Chen Ge could also clearly feel the pen moving, which made him a bit surprised, he and the girl held the pen at the same time, he could feel that both sides were not exerting any force, it was indeed the pen itself that was moving.
”Haunted? No, this pen is very heavy, there must be a mechanism installed inside, the desktop is covered with a rag, I can’t see what’s underneath, but I can feel out that this desktop is made of metal, could it be that the pen is equipped with a piece of magnet inside?”
Probably sensing the surprised expression on Chen Ge’s face, the girl’s voice got louder, and under her continuous questioning, the pen wrote a sentence on the white paper.
”If you want to gain, you have to lose first, what are you going to give me this time?”
Seeing the words on the paper, the girl instantly became excited, “I’ll give you whatever you want!”
”Then it will be the same as last time.”
The pen in her hand stopped moving, the girl seemed to be in deep thought as she silently looked at the words on the paper, “The same as last time?”
The girl’s tone was a bit frightening, as if she was talking to herself, or as if she was possessed by something and bewitched.
She repeated this sentence over and over again, then slowly raised her head and looked at Chen Ge.
At this time, the pen in their hands moved again and wrote down the last sentence, “Yes, just like last time, you sacrificed your best friend’s five organs, and I gave your beloved eternal loyalty. Now you want to bring your beloved back to life, so one life for another!”
The makeup on her face was already spent, and the girl’s expression became hideous once again as her other hand, which she had been hiding under the table, suddenly reached out, holding a sharp knife in her palm!
”Wait!”
Chen Ge was still sitting on the chair, not even his posture had changed.
He looked at the words on the white paper, and his frowning brows slowly stretched out as he rushed at the girl, “Don’t be impulsive for a moment, the Pen Fairy is lying to you, even if she kills me, she won’t help you fulfill your wish.”
The girl kept her movements from the start, her face twitching gently.
The knives are out and now you’re giving me this?
”The pen fairy’s main ability is precognition, the so-called wish fulfillment is just a trap, think about your previous deal.”
”You contributed a human life to her and she played word games with you. Even after taking this opportunity to kill your most beloved person, she even deceived you by saying that she helped you gain the eternal loyalty of your most beloved person.”
”I’ve basically understood your current situation, it’s possible that you’ve encountered a fake Pen Fairy, of course there’s another possibility, there’s no Pen Fairy here at all, that so-called Pen Fairy is yourself.”
”You were jealous of your good friend being with your favorite person, so you borrowed the Pen Fairy’s mouth and brutally murdered them!”
Chen Ge calmly analyzed and dumbfounded the girl, how could this tourist still expand the plot on his own?
”Girl, put down the knife in your hand, the Pen Fairy game is not played like this, what you called out is not the Pen Fairy, but your own heart demon.” Chen Ge gently held the girl’s wrist and placed the sharp knife in her hand next to her seat, then took out a ballpoint pen wrapped in tape from his jacket pocket.
”A true Pen Fairy will not seek to murder innocent people; it is the hearts that kill those innocents.” Chen Ge’s voice seemed to carry special magic, he grabbed the girl’s hand and held the tape-wrapped ballpoint pen with the other party, “Don’t be afraid, I’ll show you the real Pen Fairy.”
Both parties resumed their seats on either side of the table, Chen Ge and the girl holding the worn out ballpoint pen together.
”Empty yourself and ask the question your heart most wants to know.” Chen Ge’s eyes were gentle and his voice was soft, “Come, read with me. Pen Fairy, Pen Fairy, you are my past life, I am your present life, can you tell me who is my favorite person?”