Global Ghost Stories: I'm Investigating Ghosts in My Nightmare!

Chapter 142 The Whispers of the Red House
The sunlight in Linjiang City was particularly dazzling on this day, but it brought no warmth whatsoever.

The gray fog that had enveloped the city had dissipated, but the entire city seemed to have been silenced. On the streets, the citizens who had awoke from their comas stared blankly, mechanically clearing the rubble in front of their doors, as if the nightmare that had just occurred had never happened. However, the lingering smell of rust and the scorching heat in the air still reminded every survivor that this place had once been the edge of hell.

Nightmare Investigation Bureau, Linjiang Branch, Temporary Command Center.

The lights here were dim because the power system hadn't been fully restored. Mo Fei sat on a long bench, his massive high-frequency battle axe leaning against the wall. Instead of constantly wiping the weapon as usual, he rested his hands on his knees, staring intently at the ruby ​​key on the table.

The red light on the key had completely faded, and its surface was covered with a hazy gray texture, making it look like an antique weathered by time. But Mo Fei knew it was still "alive." Every few seconds, an extremely slight vibration would emanate from the table surface—the pulsation emanating from inside the key.

"Mo Fei, you've been guarding it for twelve hours now." Captain An Mu walked over, carrying two steaming cups of espresso. He handed one of them to Mo Fei, his own brow furrowed with exhaustion.

Mo Fei took the coffee but didn't drink it, only feeling the warmth emanating from the cup. "Captain, do you think Lao Bai... he's really still inside?"

An Mu was silent for a moment. He looked out the window; in the distance, where the black tower had disappeared, a huge crater remained, like an unhealable wound. "Bai Yu released the key's fundamental rules at the last moment. Theoretically, his consciousness should have merged with this key. But that's just theory."

"Any progress on Lan Ce's end?" Mo Fei turned to look at the busy server room not far away.

“He’s trying to analyze the pulse frequency. It’s not an ordinary heartbeat; it’s more like an encrypted coordinate signal.” An Mu took a sip of coffee, the bitter taste making him a little more awake. “We’re not just facing Bai Yu’s disappearance, but also the pressure from headquarters. Although Su Jianguo has vanished, the mess left by Project Black Tower is something those people at headquarters are eager to find a scapegoat for.”

Mo Fei's eyes darkened, and his fingers gripping the cup turned slightly white from the pressure, but he controlled his emotions and didn't lose his temper. "They'll try to take down a team."

“So we must find Bai Yu before headquarters sends someone to take over the keys.” An Mu’s voice was low and firm.

At that moment, the door to the server room was pushed open, and Lan Ce strode out. Behind his black-rimmed glasses, his eyes were bloodshot, but his gaze was unusually bright.

"Captain, we've found something." Lan Ce didn't even bother to sit down before drawing a waveform on the virtual screen. "The frequency emitted by the key shifts slightly every 360 seconds. I've plugged these shifts into the geographical model of Linjiang City and found that they point to a specific area."

An Mu and Mo Fei immediately surrounded them.

On the virtual screen, the map of Linjiang City was covered by countless crisscrossing red lines. Lan Ce pointed to an area at the edge of the map, the area where the old town met the suburbs, which was originally a cluster of houses slated for demolition.

“This is it.” Lan Ce frowned. “But strangely, this coordinate point is a blank on official survey maps and satellite images. Neither cadastral data nor power grid records this area. It’s like a physical blind spot.”

"A physical blind spot?" Mo Fei asked in disbelief. "How could such a large area go unnoticed?"

“That’s the power of rules.” Lance pushed up his glasses. “If a certain rule forcibly erases the existence of this area in human cognition, then even if you pass by there every day, your brain will automatically ignore it. This is much more advanced than simple illusion; it’s conceptual concealment.”

"Where is Lu Yueqi?" An Mu suddenly asked.

“She’s in the lounge,” Lan Ce replied. “The live-streaming sphere she brought back recorded some very interesting data. Although the lens was broken, the sensors captured the energy flow at the moment Bai Yu disappeared. That energy didn’t disperse; instead, it spiraled towards this coordinate point.”

Just then, Lu Yueqi pushed open the door and walked in. She looked thinner than before, and was tightly clutching the broken live-streaming ball in her hand.

"Captain, I want to go with you." Lu Yueqi's voice was a little hoarse, but her tone was firm.

An Mu looked at her, initially wanting to refuse. After all, the upcoming mission was fraught with unknown dangers, and Lu Yueqi was merely a dreamer who had not yet awakened. But when he saw the almost unwavering determination in Lu Yueqi's eyes, he hesitated.

“Yueqi, it’s safer for you to stay at the branch office,” An Mu tried to persuade her.

“No, Captain.” Lu Yueqi shook her head. She turned on the live broadcast ball and displayed a set of blurry infrared spectra. “I discovered something. Only I can sense the ‘emotions’ in these spectra. Brother Bai Yu wasn’t in despair at the last moment; he was guiding. If I hadn’t gone, you might never have found the entrance to that red house.”

"The red house?" Mo Fei seized on the key phrase. "You saw the red house?"

“A second before the live broadcast ball malfunctioned, I saw a red mark in the residual images from the sensor,” Lu Yueqi said in a low voice. “It was a two-story building, standing alone in the wilderness. That red… looked like dried blood.”

A brief silence fell over the command post.

Anmu put down his coffee cup and looked at the team members. Although everyone was exhausted, their eyes burned with the same hope.

"Everyone, get your gear ready," An Mu ordered. "Mo Fei will lead the charge, Lan Ce will provide real-time rule monitoring, and Yue Qi will follow behind me. We only have four hours; we must unlock the secret of this coordinate before the people from headquarters arrive."

"Understood!" everyone responded in unison.

Mo Fei picked up his battle axe and calmly checked the remaining energy battery level. He was no longer the reckless brute who only knew how to charge; Bai Yu's sacrifice had taught him to think. He knew that every step he took next could determine Bai Yu's life or death.

Twenty minutes later, a black SUV drove out of the branch office and disappeared into the morning mist of Linjiang City.

Inside the car, Lan Ce kept his eyes glued to the rule fluctuation detector in his hand. The pointer on the instrument was jumping wildly, but he couldn't detect any substantial energy reaction.

“This feeling is strange,” Lance muttered to himself. “It’s like we’re heading into nothingness. The data coming back from the detectors is all zero, which means that not only has light and shadow been erased in that area, but even the fluctuations of the rules have been completely neutralized.”

“This fits the definition of a ‘blind spot’.” An Mu drove the vehicle steadily. “Su Jianguo has been planning the Black Tower Project for so many years, he must have left himself a way out. That red house is very likely his real laboratory, or a refuge for some kind of forbidden rules.”

Mo Fei sat in the passenger seat, his hand constantly resting on the ruby ​​key case. He could feel the key's heartbeat gradually increasing as the car moved.

“It’s excited,” Mo Fei suddenly said.

"Who? The key?" Lan Ce leaned closer.

“Yes.” Mo Fei nodded. “It longs to return to that place. The vibration is no longer a weak pulse, but an urgent call.”

Lu Yueqi sat in the back seat, her eyes tightly closed and her hands clasped together. In her perceived world, the surrounding scenery was undergoing a dramatic change. The once desolate highway gradually disappeared, replaced by a path strewn with red petals. The petals looked delicate and beautiful, yet they emitted a nauseating stench of decay.

"Turn left," Lu Yueqi suddenly said, her voice trembling slightly.

Without any hesitation, Anmu abruptly turned the steering wheel. The SUV sped off the road, crashed through a row of rusty iron fences, and drove into a dense patch of wasteland.

The grass here grew extremely tall, almost completely obscuring the car windows. The sunlight seemed to be filtered out by something, presenting a sickly, pale green hue.

“The coordinates are aligned.” Lan Ce stared at the dashboard. “We’ve entered that blind spot. But strangely, there’s still nothing visually.”

"Get out of the car." An Mu turned off the engine and lights, and pulled out a specially made rule-suppressing gun from under the seat.

Everyone disembarked one by one. Mo Fei walked at the front, not activating the energy blade of his battle axe to avoid alerting any potential nightmares. He simply relied on his extraordinary physical abilities to forcibly clear a path through the weeds.

Lu Yueqi followed closely behind An Mu, her face growing paler and paler. That "whispering" voice rang in her ears again.

“He’s singing…” Lu Yueqi murmured, “A man is singing.”

"Can you hear the lyrics?" Anmu asked in a low voice.

"I can't hear it clearly, but the melody... sounds like an old lullaby." Lu Yueqi hugged her shoulders, her body trembling slightly.

Mo Fei suddenly stopped in his tracks.

"What's wrong?" Lan Ce asked anxiously, the detector in his hand still showing no reaction.

"Look ahead." Mo Fei pointed ahead with his chin.

At the end of the dense weeds, a solitary building appeared.

That was indeed a red house.

It's a two-story building, styled like a Soviet-era structure from the mid-20th century. Large sections of the plaster have peeled off, revealing deep red bricks underneath. The red hue looks particularly eerie in the dim light, as if every brick were soaked in blood.

The doors and windows of the house were all tightly closed, and there wasn't a single light. But around the house, a circle of white stone benches was neatly arranged.

“This place… there’s no trace of nightmares.” Lan Ce stared at the detector, his face full of disbelief. “This is not scientific. In the world of strange tales, this kind of place should be a center of energy.”

“Because it’s not a nightmare.” Bai Yu’s voice suddenly rang in everyone’s hearts.

Everyone was startled and looked around, but found that Bai Yu had not appeared.

“It’s a key.” Mo Fei looked down at the box in his hand.

The ruby ​​key was now emitting a faint purple light. The light shone through the cracks in the wooden box, outlining a blurry human figure in the air. It was the phantom of Hei Yan.

Hei Yan was still wearing that elegant black suit, but the emptiness around his heart seemed to have shrunk somewhat. He looked at the red house, a rare hint of solemnity in his eyes.

"This is 'Embers'," Hei Yan said calmly. "It is the slag formed from all the things that have been erased by the rules and should not exist in reality. The White Language you speak of is now in this pile of slag."

"How do we get in?" An Mu asked calmly.

"Going in is easy." Hei Yan's lips curled into a mocking smile. "The difficult part is getting out. This house has no door, no windows. Its only entrance is in your memories."

“Memory?” Lan Ce frowned. “You mean, this is a kind of psychological suggestion rule?”

“No, it’s cause and effect.” Black Words’ illusory finger pointed at the red house. “This house will only open for you when you admit that you have ‘lost’ something. Which of you dares to say that you have never lost your most precious thing?”

An Mu fell silent. He thought of his comrades who had sacrificed their lives in previous missions; their faces flashed through his mind.

Mo Fei gripped his battle axe tightly. He recalled Bai Yu's resolute gaze atop the Black Tower.

Lance pushed up his glasses. He thought of the emotions he had personally sealed away in his pursuit of absolute rationality.

Lu Yueqi bit her lip. She remembered how her ordinary life had collapsed overnight.

Just then, the door of the red house opened a crack without anyone noticing.

An old, decaying yet strangely familiar scent wafted out from under the door.

“Let’s go.” An Mu took a deep breath and led the way toward the red house.

Mo Fei followed closely behind, tucking the ruby ​​key into his pocket. He could feel Bai Yu's heartbeat growing louder and louder, even resonating with his own.

The moment everyone stepped across the threshold, the surrounding weeds, sunlight, and coolness vanished instantly.

Instead, a warm and bright living room was created.

Orange flames crackled and danced in the fireplace. The air was filled with the aroma of freshly baked bread and a faint scent of orchids.

A man was sitting on the sofa in the living room.

He was wearing a faded white shirt, gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and a newspaper in his hand. Hearing the noise, he slowly put down the newspaper, revealing a gentle face.

That face bore a striking resemblance to Bai Yu's.

"You've arrived." The man stood up, his tone as natural as if he were welcoming family members home from get off work.

"Who are you?" An Mu never lowered the suppressor gun in his hand.

The man didn't answer; he just stared at the key in Mo Fei's arms, a deep sorrow in his eyes. "Xiao Yu is always so stubborn. He thinks he can save everything by sacrificing himself, but he doesn't know that some debts must be repaid."

"Who exactly are you?" Mo Fei stepped forward, the energy blade of his battle axe emitting a deep hum.

“I am his father, Bai Yuan,” the man said with a smile, but the smile, illuminated by the firelight, had an indescribable eeriness to it. “Or rather, I am the last will he left here…”

"Will?" Lan Ce keenly noticed the key word.

“Su Jianguo always thought he had the key, but he was wrong.” Bai Yuan walked to the fireplace and poked at the fire. “The key was never used to open the Black Tower. It was used to lock this red house.”

"Lock this place up?" An Mu frowned.

“What’s locked here isn’t the nightmare.” Bai Yuan turned his head, his eyes suddenly becoming incredibly sharp. “What’s locked here is the ‘truth’ of this world. Su Jianguo wants the truth, but he doesn’t know that the truth itself is a deadly poison.”

He pointed upstairs.

“Xiaoyu is up there now. But he doesn’t remember you anymore. He’s undergoing ‘reconstruction.’ If you want to take him away, you must help him find his ‘name’ before the hourglass runs out.”

Everyone looked up at the stairwell.

A huge hourglass floats there, with fine red sand flowing away rapidly.

"What if we fail?" Mo Fei asked in a deep voice.

“Then he’ll stay here forever, becoming the next…gatekeeper of this red house.” Bai Yuan sat back down on the sofa and picked up the newspaper. “Hurry up, investigators. You don’t have much time left.”

Without hesitation, An Mu waved to signal everyone to go upstairs.

Mo Fei walked at the front, his steps steady and powerful. With each step he took, he could feel the surrounding space distorting. The paintings on the wall kept changing, sometimes showing a childhood photo of Bai Yu, sometimes a bloody battlefield.

Lanze kept his eyes glued to the detector, but to his surprise, the reading on it was still zero.

"This is impossible," Lanze exclaimed in a low voice. "We're moving, we're sensing, so why isn't the data changing?"

“Because this is a space that ‘does not exist’.” Hei Yan’s phantom reappeared, following behind the group with a mocking look in his eyes. “Bai Yuan is right, this is the Ember. In the Ember, no logic or physical laws matter. The only thing you can rely on is the ‘bond’ between you and Bai Yu.”

When the group reached the second-floor corridor, they discovered countless identical red doors.

Different sounds came from behind each door: laughter, crying, and heated arguments.

"Which one is it?" Mo Fei gripped his battle axe more tightly, somewhat impatiently.

"Don't move." An Mu stopped him. "Lan Ce, scan the strength of the rules of these doors."

“It can’t be scanned.” Lan Ce shook his head. “These doors are completely equivalent at the level of rules.”

Lu Yueqi closed her eyes, reached out, and gently touched the wall of the corridor.

“Over there…” Lu Yueqi pointed to a door at the end of the corridor, “That door is silent. It’s the quietest.”

The group walked to the door.

Mo Fei took a deep breath and slowly pushed open the door.

Behind the door was not a room, but an endless sea of ​​white flowers.

Bai Yu sat with his back to everyone at a white piano. He wore a white shirt exactly like Bai Yuan's, and his fingers danced silently across the keys.

"Bai Yu!" Mo Fei shouted.

Bai Yu did not turn back.

"Old Bai, it's us! Captain An, Lan Ce, and Yue Qi! We've come to take you home!"

Bai Yu stopped moving. He slowly turned his head, his once deep eyes now filled with a blank stare.

"who are you?"

Bai Yu's voice was ethereal and unfamiliar, as if it came from a distant horizon.

“He is Baiyu, but he has lost his ‘anchor’.” Heiyan walked to the piano and looked at Baiyu. “He paid for all his memories with that explosion. Now, he is just a blank sheet of paper.”

“How can we help him find his name?” An Mu stepped forward and tried to touch Bai Yu’s shoulder.

But his hand passed right through Bai Yu's body.

“Don’t bother,” Hei Yan sneered. “Right now, he’s in an ‘observation superposition state.’ Only when he accepts his own identity will he return to the real world.”

Mo Fei took out the ruby ​​key from his pocket.

"Old Bai, look at this!" Mo Fei handed the key to Bai Yu. "This is your key! Do you remember? You used it to save us all at the top of the Black Tower!"

Bai Yu looked at the key, a hint of doubt flashing in his eyes. He reached out and gently touched the surface of the ruby ​​with his fingertips.

thump.

A heavy heartbeat echoed through the sea of ​​flowers.

Bai Yu's body trembled slightly, and a glimmer of light returned to his eyes.

“The key…” Bai Yu murmured, “…a red…heartbeat…”

Just then, the surrounding sea of ​​flowers suddenly began to wither. The originally pure white petals quickly turned black, transforming into countless black butterflies that fluttered and danced.

"Oh no, the hourglass is almost empty!" Lan Ce looked at the red light outside the corridor.

"Bai Yu, remember!" An Mu shouted. "You're an investigator from Team One! You're our comrade!"

Lu Yueqi also ran over, tears streaming down her face as she grabbed Bai Yu's illusory hand.

"Brother Baiyu, you promised to take me to see real stars! You can't stay here!"

Bai Yu looked at Lu Yueqi, Mo Fei, An Mu, and Lan Ce.

Those fragmented images began to flash through his mind.

The collapse of the Black Tower, the mother's smile, the shouts of her companions.

“I…I am Bai Yu.”

Bai language gradually became more resolute.

He suddenly gripped the ruby ​​key.

In an instant, a dazzling red light burst forth from his palm, sweeping across the entire sea of ​​flowers.

"The name... has been retrieved."

Hei Yan revealed a satisfied smile, then turned into a wisp of black smoke and re-entered Bai Yu's heart.

In the living room of the red house.

Bai Yuan put down the newspaper, looked at the crack in the ceiling, and sighed softly.

"In the end, was it still impossible to keep it?"

He stood up, and his body gradually became transparent.

"Xiaoyu, remember. The truth may be deadly, but it's the only antidote. Don't stop. The real enemy... has only just opened his eyes."

boom!
The entire red house collapsed in an instant.

When Anmu and the others opened their eyes again, they found themselves standing in the middle of that wasteland.

The sunlight was still a ghastly green, but the oppressive feeling had disappeared.

Bai Yu lay in Mo Fei's arms, her face still pale, but her breathing had become steady.

He slowly opened his eyes, looked at his familiar companions around him, and a weak smile appeared on his lips.

"I'm back."

"It's good that you're back." An Mu breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Mo Fei chuckled, but his eyes were a little red.

Lan Ce pushed up his glasses, concealing the moisture in his eyes.

Lu Yueqi burst into tears.

The group helped Bai Yu up and walked towards the SUV parked in the weeds.

However, shortly after they left.

Where the red house originally disappeared.

A huge, silver eye slowly opened in the void.

That eye reflected Bai Yu's departing figure.

"The plan... continues."

A cold, mechanical voice echoed through the wilderness.

The wind rustled through the wild grass, producing a series of mournful sounds.

It was as if the entire city was trembling in that whisper.

(End of this chapter)