“Find the key and map hidden inside these bodies?” Hesu said out loud the words on the blackboard, then she looked at the corpses on top of the desks, showing a grimacing expression. “What an awful taste.”
After the four of them shared information with each other, they decided on an alliance to find the way out of this incredulous school ground. However, somehow, some way, they couldn’t find the gate at all, as if they were trapped here.
But in the building where they had woken up, they found a strange classroom.
The blackboard in the classroom had the words Hesu had just recited as a hint, and below, there were over thirty corpses on top of the desks. They were all young people who looked like students.
“What do we do? Should we search?” Hesu rummaged through the tool box in the podium and tsk’ed twice. “They even prepared tools for us.”
“Since it’s this way, let’s search. A half for each person, how about it?” Fu Wang said. Clearly, only he and Hesu would become responsible for the thirty or so corpses here, and as for Shu Yu – who was still clinging to his arm – and Tangren – who was grabbing Hesu’s waist— these two can only serve to be bystanders.
“Alright,” Hesu agreed without pause. She grabbed a pair of gloves and slipped them on, then she grabbed another pair and helped Tangren put them in. As she helped him, she complained endlessly, “You’re a medical student even though you’re like this, Tangren, being so scared of these things isn’t good. Good grief, how many times do you need me to say it? What will happen to you when you look for a job in the future?” Although she said these words, she indulgently let him cling to her and didn’t push him away.
Fu Wang also grabbed a pair of gloves and put them on and selected a surgery knife. Seeing this, Shu Yu also made to grab gloves with trembling hands, but she was stopped by Fu Wang, who lifted her cool hands to his lips for a kiss. Fu Wang said, “Xiao-Yu only has to stay by my side and not leave, she doesn’t have to do this.”
“I don’t want to drag you down.” Shu Yu was a bit troubled.
“You will never drag me down, don’t overthink. Also, such a scaredy Xiao-Yu, is also an endearing sight.”
Shu Yu: This was clearly a horror scene situation, was it really okay to have so many pink hearts? Was this really not a place like horror trap houses that were meant to cultivate the feelings of couples?
As a medical student, Hesu was extremely professional. Sometimes she would order Tangren to help her flip a corpse and with great familiarity she would cut open the corpse’s stomach as well as any organs that could hide things.
From start to finish Fu Wang didn’t use strength that surpassed the average human. First he observed Hesu’s movements and after Hesu finished dissecting one corpse, he started his own.
In the beginning his movements were identical to Hesu’s, and then slowly he started becoming better than Hesu, it seemed as if he was a natural at knowing where to cut for best results. Fast and accurate. Shu Yu was grabbing the corner of his clothes, amazement clear in her eyes.
This was definitely a prime student. She remembered that not long ago he was still reading a book about dissection. Back then, he said he was only slightly interested and that he was completely at an entry level, but now he could directly carry it out in practice, and it was obvious that he was improving at a fast rate.
The scene was extremely bloody. Shu Yu watched only for a bit before she buried her face in Fu Wang’s back, not daring to watch anymore, but the sticky squelch squelch sounds were hair-rising by itself. Of the four people present, Fu Wang’s movements were quick with an unchanging expression and Shu Yu squatted nearby hugging his thigh; Hesu’s knife was accurate and she had a serious face, while Tangren helped Hesu flip the corpses, his entire body was stiff.
Suddenly, Hesu exclaimed happily, “I found it!” She extracted a transparent plastic bag with a map inside from within the stomach of a girl’s corpse.
Then the next moment, Fu Wang also extracted a key from the brains of a corpse. He smiled slightly, “Just as well, I also found this.” The other three people watched his movements and then the key covered in brain matter as they all went stiff.
Hesu reacted first by laughing awkwardly. “Let’s read the map first, there should be a sign for a gate.”
The map did not have a gate sign, only a red line, from here stretching towards another building in the map. The map didn’t actually explain where it was leading to though.
“It seems we can only follow the sign over there.” Hesu shrugged.
Fu Wang put the cleaned key inside Shu Yu’s pocket. Shu Yu instantly turned rigid, wanting to pull out the key that had been in the corpse brain matter from her pocket, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it either.
“Why isn’t Xiao-Yu going, is she tired? I will carry Xiao-Yu then.” Fu Wang hefted up the rigid Xiao-Yu and followed Hesu and Tangren in the direction signed by the map.
Shu Yu couldn’t help it and followed Hesu’s actions by clenching her fist and beating Fu Wang’s chest. Fu Wang laughed until his chest rumbled, raising her fist and kissing it, even giving it a slight bite. Hesu who was walking in front turned her head and just in time saw this scene, and showed a chagrined expression that said “Why are y’all flirting at a time like this”.
In such an environment that was akin to flirting inside a horror house, the four of them arrived at the place the map was indicating, which was a specimen storage. The name alone was enough to know that something scary would be inside, though of course “scary” was subjective only towards Shu Yu and Tangren.
As expected, Fu Wang and Hesu rummaged through the specimens normally. Where were they supposed to use the key they found? The storage was open to public, there wasn’t a need for a key, and there was nothing else aside from several corpses with strange death causes inside the specimen storage room.
If she were to walking in such ominous place alone, Shu Yu would be terrified to death in minutes. But Fu Wang was by her side and it seemed like he wasn’t scared of anything, walking normally as if they were on the streets. Slowly, Shu Yu stopped being scared as well. And then finally she got down from Fu Wang’s arms and walked next to him.
This time, it was Shu Yu who found it, because those two only searched the scary places and only Shu Yu was staring at a place with no specimens. There was a strange bump on the wall that she felt looked like a key hole. So Shu Yu grabbed Fu Wang’s fingers and they all gathered over there.
Fu Wang pulled out the key from her pocket. It was a match. With a soft clicking sound, the wall split into two sides and opened, revealing life-like people inside.
A total of four. They were Shu Yu, Fu Wang, Hesu, and Tangren. They were candle figures made in their image.
On those four, Shu Yu was holding a sword that was stabbing into Fu Wang’s chest. Fu Wang, who was being pierced by a sword, was holding a scalpel and pressing it over Shu Yu’s back. Hesu was also holding a scalpel and stabbing into Tangren’s chest. And Tangren, he wasn’t holding any weapons, he wasn’t doing anything at all, he merely had an expression of sorrow.
The four people stared at the fake figures inside the wall. They couldn’t speak for the moment.
“Hah~ The average person who saw themselves in a dead state would be wondering if it was something that would happen to them, then they would become wary against the person who ‘killed’ them. And they even gifted us weapons. It looks like it wants us to turn on each other.” Fu Wang said. He took the sword in the fake Shu Yu’s hands, ripped it out of the fake Fu Wang’s chest, and then put it on Shu Yu’s hands.
Shu Yu’s hands trembled. The sword was thrown on the floor by her. “I don’t want to,” she said in a tiny voice.
“It’s alright. If something happens, Xiao-Yu can use the sword for self-defense. You don’t need to worry, it’s not real.” Fu Wang lifted her face. His smile was tender. “How can Xiao-Yu possibly hurt me, yes?”
Shu Yu hesitatingly held the sword Fu Wang put in her hands again.
To the side, Hesu was also flustered. She squeezed Tangren’s arm. “Darling, you… I won’t ever hurt you, don’t be afraid.”
Tangren had been quiet on their entire way here. Only when Hesu spoke with him did he have a reaction. Now, he only nodded his head, and then grabbed Hesu even more tightly. Seeing him nod and not have any thoughts about the candle figures, Hesu was relieved and let out a smile again. She went on her tiptoes and smooched him. “I love you the most~”
“Speaking of, where should we be going to look for clues now?”
“There doesn’t seem to be any hints. How about we look around?”
“Alright.”
The four went outside again. The night outside was dark in color. It wasn’t the dark where you couldn’t see anything, but instead the sky was slightly red, as if enveloping the old school grounds in an ominous red color. There was a patch of forest next to the path, covered in a thin layer of mist. As the four walked, they saw a small building at the end of the forest. The two-story building was patchy in color. It was an extremely normal building, but there was a room with the lights turned on on the second floor.
The group exchanged glances and opened the door to walk inside. But as soon as they entered, the light disappeared, and the door closed by itself. Hesu wrenched it with great force, but it couldn’t be opened. Tangren also tried, but the door didn’t budge.
Suddenly, the entire room turned into a sea of flames. In the blink of an eye, the burning flames were licking at the ceiling. Only the staircases leading to the second floor weren’t consumed in flames, everything else was being covered with fire. Hesu was scared and pulled Tangren as they ran to the second floor, with Fu Wang and Shu Yu following behind them.
As Shu Yu stepped on the first step of the staircase, she suddenly saw something glinting in the corner of her eye. She paused and couldn’t help but make her way over. Fu Wang didn’t stop her either and merely followed behind her, he wasn’t worried about the fire trying to burn him at all.
Shu Yu found a corpse in a corner, though calling it a skeleton would be more accurate.
The skeleton was huge, it was like… it was as big as Tangren. There was a necklace in the skeleton’s hand, which was what had attracted Shu Yu. The necklace was a normal heart-shaped accessory, but the reason Shu Yu was surprised was because just now she saw an identical one on Tangren’s neck. However, this necklace had a ring interlocked with it, while Tangren’s heart-shaped necklace didn’t.
Shu Yu picked up the heart-shaped necklace interlocked with a ring, then she looked at the skeleton which had been consumed by the fire, and seemed to understand something. She turned her head to look at Fu Wang and saw that he had a smile, as if he had already guessed it.
“This is indeed Tangren’s remains, and it’s very possible that in another corner of this building, there’s another corpse that belongs to Hesu.” Fu Wang said.
Hearing this, every single hair on Shu Yu’s body raised.
Hesu and Tangren were ghosts? They had been with ghosts all this time?
“Ugh, why are you so slow, the fire is already spreading upwards, how are we supposed to escape!” Hesu banged on the window as she spoke with Shu Yu and Fu Wang who had just arrived.
“Let’s first see if there’s any water in the washroom and cover our mouths and noses with wet towels.” Fu Wang said, although he didn’t move at all to do it.
Hearing this, Hesu smacked her fist against her palm. “That’s right! I panicked so much I became an idiot, I will go do it, I will leave the window to you then.”
She hurriedly pulled Tangren towards a nearby washroom. After a while, a shrill scream was heard from inside.
Hesu saw Shu Yu and Fu Wang standing in the entrance and apologetically held a hand against her chest. “I didn’t think there would be a corpse here either, so I got scared by it from surprise. Nothing’s wrong, it’s fine.”
As she said, there was another corpse inside the washroom. It was a small, petite, female corpse. It looked as if it was in agony.
Fu Wang was smiling. Suddenly he opened his mouth: “Hesu, that is your corpse, why are you afraid?”
“My corpse? What kind of joke are you pilling? Am I not here?” Hesu looked at him in confusion.
“You are already dead.” Fu Wang said.
Hesu’s smiling face changed and darkened. “I’m not dead. If you keep speaking nonsense I will get angry.”
“Not only are you dead, but Tangren is dead as well. Moreover, he was killed by you, wasn’t he?” Fu Wang’s words were aimed to stomp on her sore points. “The reality that you killed your own lover, was it really that hard for you to accept? Even though you could do it when you killed him with your own hands, now you wish to forget it.”
Shu Yu quietly tightened her hold on her sword and stood in front of Fu Wang. With those words, he really was attracting full aggro, wasn’t he seeing that Hesu was about to explode?
But Hesu didn’t explode, instead she suddenly laughed and the flames around them instantly burned even more vigorously. “That’s right, I am dead, I died a very long time ago. I also killed Tangren with my own hands. How did you know?”
“In the medic bay, I found a school posting from a few years ago, about two fires that happened in an old experimental room within a forest. Once, the fire burned a female student that was an assistant to death. Two years later, another fire burned another male student to death. The two of them used to be in a relationship.” Fu Wang said. He took the heart-shaped necklace in Shu Yu’s hold and showed it to Hesu and Tangren. “And seeing this, anyone would be able to guess what happened.”
Hesu was expressionless. She stared at the ring hanging from the necklace, her eyes were in a slight daze.
It had been such a normal dusk, with a sun as bright as blood. Because she was too tired from the experiments, she took a nap in the second floor. She had been a fourth year university student, the teacher in charge of teaching her was in charge of an experiment in this small building and had picked her as an assistant. She had cherished this opportunity, so in her free time she was holed up in this place and the time spent with her lover became less and less.
She had been thinking—- Once she finished work here she would appropriately comfort her lover, that junior brother who had become her lover, who was tall and big but had a gentle heart, who was two years younger than her but accepted her and cherished her.
But that day when she woke up, she realized that the building had gone up in flames. She couldn’t escape.
She died here, full of unwillingness and regrets. After she died, her soul didn’t leave, it lingered here day after day. She could see her lover Tangren, he would often come here and stare at the building that had trapped her.
Afterwards, slowly, he stopped coming.
Ah, that’s right, she was dead.
It didn’t matter how much he loved her, they were ultimately from different worlds now. Tangren— He would love another girl in the future, perhaps she would be very gentle and very pretty, she wouldn’t have a bad temper like her, and she would treat him well. Perhaps they would even create a beautiful family together and have an adorable child. Just like the future they had dreamed of when they first started dating.
Being trapped here, repeating the days full of solitude and fear, Hesu felt more and more resentment. Why? He said he would love her forever, he said he would accompany her to old age, why wasn’t he coming here?
She didn’t want Tangren to forget her. She didn’t want Tangren to treat another girl well. She wanted Tangren to be with her forever.
Under the push of these feelings, two years later, when Tangren came here again, she did something extremely horrifying.
That day, Tangren said he was graduating.
Graduating?
Then, wouldn’t he stop coming here after this?
Hesu couldn’t allow him to leave again, otherwise, he would leave her forever.
That’s why, a fire destroyed this rebuilt building once again, and burnt Tangren to death inside.
As she wished, Tangren died, he could be with her as she wished, but Hesu didn’t dare face him. She was afraid Tangren would hate her. Thus, she made him forget everything and forbade him from saying a single word, only making him stay by her side like this, silent and quiet. It was enough for her to watch him every day like this.
This world was built on her hatred and regrets. She killed her beloved with her own hands, and thus, she started dragging pairs and pairs of lovers into this world and had them kill each other.
See? Now she was not the only one who had killed their lover.
“Yes, I didn’t want Tangren to forget me, so I killed him.”
Hesu’s laughter was chilling, but Fu Wang’s laughter was even louder and more mocking than hers. It was Shu Yu’s first time seeing him laugh like this, so she was slightly scared.
“Since you died, isn’t it normal for you to be forgotten? You’re in pain? Then did you know that the person left behind is in even more pain? The feeling of losing someone you love is much more agonizing than losing yourself. Don’t be conceited.” Fu Wang’s words made Hesu’s expression twist hideously, but then he changed the subject by saying, “Moreover, how do you know that Tangren forgot you and wanted to leave you?”
“These are the memories of Tangren which you stole, aren’t they? Say, if he remembered everything, will he hate you?” Finishing saying this, he threw the necklace and ring at Tangren.
“NO!” Hesu’s expression changed and she went to steal back that necklace, but Tangren had already grabbed that necklace. In a blink, the necklace turned into light and entered Tangren’s body.
Hesu took two steps towards him and stopped. Her voice was trembling, “Tangren…”
Tangren opened his eyes.
He walked towards Hesu, opened his arms, and then embraced her.
“I never forgot you, and I never meant to leave you. I said before, I would ask for your hand once I graduated. That day when I came here, it was because I had just graduated, but you weren’t here anymore and I didn’t know how to tell you, so I interlocked the ring with the necklace you gave me.” Tangren’s voice was low and gentle. “When you died, I decided to stay here and work here in the future, right in the building – in the classroom – where you died, doing the things you liked, being by your side everyday.”
“I’m sorry, Ah-Su, that I couldn’t see you back then.”
In his arms, Hesu’s eyes widened as her tears dropped endlessly. “You’re saying sorry… but I killed you.”
“Actually back then I could have escaped, but I didn’t. I thought that if you wanted to kill me, I should let you kill me.” Once Tangren said this, Hesu burst into tears and raised her arms to hug him tightly.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
“Mn.”
Shu Yu: Shouldn’t something be happening in such a heartwarming and exciting event after explaining misunderstandings?
And indeed, something happened, but—— The two were still emotionally hugging each other, Fu Wang, and you just sucked them inside a bottle, isn’t that kinda not right? Are you Fa Hai[mfn] 法海 Fa Hai. Fahai is a fictional Buddhist monk and a major character of the Legend of the White Snake, one of China’s “four great folktales”.[/mfn]?
Shu Yu looked at Fu Wang with a mute expression.
“What are you doing?”
“Collecting the grudges of a malicious creature, we need this to leave this world. It wasn’t possible before, but now that they’ve let go of their grievances, the malice has started to disperse, so it can now be collected.” Fu Wang stashed away the bottle.
“Huh, then did they disappear just like that?” Shu Yu’s feelings were complicated. And she didn’t understand why Fu Wang had suddenly taken on the role of an exorcist, could his real identity be that of a monk?
“They will reincarnate, however this kind of average soul under the jurisdiction of the Rules that has caused many sins would’ve been recorded by the Heavenly Dao, so in their next life, they will not be human.” Fu Wang said, and suddenly he poked Shu Yu’s forehead while smiling lightly. “Xiao-Yu, it’s time to remember.”
After a single instance of dizziness, Shu Yu felt that her brain seemed to have absorbed something, then her face darkened.
“Fu Wang, you could’ve made me recover my memories much earlier didn’t you, why didn’t you do this before, hmm?”
“Xiao-Yu, there’s a regretful ghost approaching behind you.”
“AH!”
Shu Yu leapt forward and clung to Fu Wang’s neck, but when she looked back, she didn’t notice anything.
Shu Yu: BIG. FAT. LIAR!
.
Chapter Description:
Burn everything!
End to the Horror World.
