Chapter 14: 14

To enjoy blessing and misfortune together, that was how one should treat one’s friends and neighbours. Watching television inside a haunted house at 3 am was too exciting to be done alone so Han Fei decided to invite his neighbour to join him.

As he adjusted his posture little by little, Han Fei’s mind churned to come up with multiple solutions. The 6th floor neighbour was hiding at the corner of the front door to prevent Han Fei from spotting him directly through the peephole. Based on his neighbour’s action so far, Han Fei believed that if the door was suddenly opened, the former might turn on the aggression without checking who the person behind the door was first. Therefore, to help the ghost inside the house and the monster outside the house form a better bond, Han Fei had to figure out a way to make the ghost go through the front door before he did.

That was the plan but it was incredibly difficult to put it into action. His body was drowned in the darkness, the chilliness soaked into his every nerve. Even a small movement of his body caused his heart to tremble. The sole light that came from the television screen seemed to dim. The broken character struggled through the endless cycle of capture and escape. Han Fei could not tell what was the abductor, all he knew was that escape was futile for the main character. The character’s soundless screams appeared to be an omen. Its struggle was futile. It was dragged by the invisible hands back into the black house again and again. It tried many things and utilized every object it could grab on to mount a resistance. Every time it was able to escape from the black house but every time it did, it would lose another part of its body.

The ruination to the character’s body became more pronounced and its movement speed slowed. When it attempted the seventh escape, it seemed to know its imminent end. This time it did not wait for the invisible hands to catch up, instead it turned around to face its captor. The camera angle turned and the screen showed a monster sewn together by various human body parts. It had been following the main character. The amalgamated hands morphed into a billowy black smoke. After it apprehended the cartoon character, it once again dragged it back into the black house.

Not long after that, the door opened again and the character who had lost yet another part of its body staggered out the door. This time, it did not even attempt to run. It stopped with despair at the entrance. It looked at the dark hole of the front door and slowly walked back into it.

Then, the camera angle traveled into the black house for the first time. Han Fei held his breath. He too wished to know what was inside this nightmarish black house. The gory scene that he anticipated did not appear. Instead the décor of the black house was surprisingly normal. There was a shoe rack by the front door and the tiles were slightly cracked. The walls were mottled with black and red stains. The old electric clock on the wall showed that it was 3:15 am.

‘Wait a minute…’ A couch was placed in the middle of the small living room. The television set in front of the couch was playing a show. The main character’s body was bent over with defeat. It stopped resisting and slumped with despair on the couch. The broken character stared at the television screen. Han Fei could feel its empty stare on him and his skin crawled. Han Fei’s heart skipped a beat. He was sure that the nightmarish black house was exactly the same as the house that he was currently staying in!

The character in the cartoon watched the television silently when a face poked out from the bedroom behind it. Then came its neck and body. The monster pieced together from body parts seemed to have grown larger since its last appearance. The monster sidled up to the couch and proceeded to place its hand on the main character’s left shoulder and then right shoulder.

At that same moment, Han Fei felt the hair on his shoulders and neck stand on end. His right shoulder slumped from an unknown weight.

‘Oh my God!’ The main character in the cartoon appeared to be Han Fei and the Frankenstein monster was standing behind him. The despair of the cartoon character filtered through the screen into Han Fei. Futile escapes led to continuous dismantling of his body parts, this was an unsolvable nightmare. The character inside the cartoon had given up. The monster behind it slowly fractured, revealing the many faces hidden inside its body.

The sound of skin tearing and bones creaking appeared behind Han Fei as well. He was experiencing what the cartoon character did in real time. The difference was that the cartoon character had already given up but Han Fei had not. Han Fei stared closely at the monster on screen. He scanned the visible human faces underneath the monster’s gory appearance. Before he logged into the game, he did his research into the human jigsaw case. He thus had seen all the pictures of the victims. Currently, he spotted them again inside the monster’s body. Among them was Wei Youfu and his wife, Ah Mei.

A pressure on his shoulders locked him into place. Han Fei was so nervous his breath stopped at his throat. A chill came from his shoulders and an unknown force tried to drag him away. The character inside the cartoon had its own body torn apart. Blood splattered on the screen and some even dripped out onto the floor near Han Fei. Han Fei started to feel pain gathering around his shoulders. This was probably the closest he had been to death so far. The cartoon character did not struggle as it was pulled into pieces. That was a foretelling of Han Fei’s final ending. Under the great pressure of death, Han Fei decided to attempt one last plea.

“I am not surprised to be killed, but if it’s possible, can you let me hear my wife’s voice again? She is waiting for me to come home and I once promised her a beautiful wedding.” Tears wetted his eyes. At the last moment of his life, the man facing death did not care about his own life but the one promise that he had given his wife. The simple words seemed to evoke some kind of power. The pale hands that were made from multiple human body parts appeared to hesitate. “I work very hard and often have OTs that last deep into the night. However, I never feel tired because I know there will always be a light waiting for me to come home. I am really not afraid of death, I am just afraid that I’ll disappoint her. I’m afraid that she’ll keep on waiting for me. Can you give me a chance to bid her farewell?”

Unfallen tears, and reddened eyes, the man’s face filled with determination. Inside the cartoon, the human faces of Wei Youfu and Ah Mei inside the monster’s body appeared to come alive. They no longer looked that vicious. They stared at Han Fei as if staring at their life partner. The monster stopped moving. The seven human faces inside it appeared to come at a conflict.

Han Fei uttered those words from the perspective of Wei Youfu. At the time, no one had given Wei Youfu the chance to do anything, but now the power of choice had been given back to Wei Youfu. Time ticked by. The human faces turned anxious. Just as the monster was about to launch another attack at Han Fei, the honest-looking Wei Youfu suddenly bit at the human face next to him.

The room appeared to shake. The pair of legs behind the television set disappeared. Something was definitely happening. Suppressing his curiosity, Han Fei kept his eyes on the television screen. However, he could feel the force on his shoulders dwindling. Soon the half an hour was up. The oppressive feeling inside the room dissipated.

“Notification for Player 0000! You have completed Grade G New Player Mission—Watch a Television Show!

“Notification for Player 0000! You have successfully reached level 2!”