Deep Within the Living-Chapter 35: Double Happiness

The first time they ventured into the mountains for practical experience, they encountered a mourning event.
This time, facing a real anomaly in the residential complex, they stumbled upon a "wedding celebration."
But the supposed joy of the vibrant red decorations was far more terrifying than the solemnity of a funeral.
Wearing his embroidered shoes, the class leader stuck close to Luo Di as they entered the main hall.
In the room’s center stood an old Eight Immortals Table, surrounded by intricately carved wooden chairs. Four life-sized paper effigies, dressed in opulent clothing and adorned with snow-white wigs, sat upon the chairs, each with a floral brooch pinned to their chests.
The effigies looked uncanny—overstuffed, as if something alive were crammed inside them. Their gaze was fixed on an old TV emitting static and distorted noise.
The two cautiously passed the effigies and the living room, heading for the balcony to see if they could jump down to escape.
However, the balcony windows were sealed with haphazardly nailed wooden planks, some decorated with Double Happiness posters.
"I’ll pry it open…"
Luo Di used his kitchen knife to pry at the boards. After much effort, he removed them, only to reveal an even more hopeless sight.
Behind the boards and beyond the windows, there was no night view—only an endless wall of red bricks.
Just as their textbooks described, there were no escape routes in a pseudo-corner space.
When they turned back to continue exploring the house, the paper effigies that had been staring at the TV were now all facing them on the balcony.
"Luo Di, should we deal with these effigies in advance?"
"Or could it be that she wants us to destroy them? These things might be traps, packed with something inside."
As soon as their discussion ended, one effigy’s eye socket tore open slightly, and a hairy spider crawled out. Through the gap, they could see that the effigies were stuffed full of spiders. If they destroyed the effigies, the spiders would swarm out, creating even more trouble.
Luo Di instinctively tightened his sleeves at the sight. "Let’s check the kitchen first. If we find anything flammable, we can burn them."
But as they followed the house's layout toward the kitchen, they discovered there was no kitchen at all. The interior of the house had completely changed.
The biggest alteration was in the direction of the bedroom.
In a typical Resettlement Neighborhood unit of about 100 square meters, only a wall would separate the living room from the bedroom.
But here, a long corridor had appeared—about ten meters long, far exceeding the building’s actual dimensions.
Every two meters, a red lantern hung from the ceiling, providing ample light. The corridor didn’t end at a bedroom door but instead led to a staircase that appeared to ascend to a second floor, which shouldn’t exist.
This confirmed what their textbooks had explained—spatial extension within pseudo-corner spaces.
From what they could tell, the first floor now consisted only of the living room and this unnaturally long corridor.
"Let’s go. We need to see what’s at the other end," Luo Di urged.
"Wait~"
The class leader jogged back to the balcony and picked up the wooden board he had removed earlier. Its edges still held a few nails, which could serve as a makeshift weapon.
As they reached the corridor adorned with red lanterns, the effigies turned their heads once more, this time seemingly to bid them farewell—or perhaps to urge them to fetch the bride and groom to complete the day's wedding.
At that moment, as their attention was drawn to the effigies, a woman dressed in red, her face covered by a wedding veil, began ascending the staircase at the corridor’s far end.
The class leader reacted instantly, pulling out a nail from the wooden board and hurling it forward.
Clang!
The nail landed squarely on the ground at the end of the corridor, missing the woman by a hair’s breadth as she continued climbing.
Luo Di was startled by the class leader’s quick reflexes and precise throw. He had assumed the leader’s skills were limited to swordsmanship, but this demonstrated otherwise.
Sensing Luo Di’s gaze, the leader explained, "Throwing improvised tools is one of my supplementary lessons. Sometimes, using your environment is more effective than relying solely on weapons. Too bad I wasn’t fast enough this time.
"From her height, I’d guess that woman is the impersonator’s true form. Let’s go."
"Right."
The red lanterns swayed gently above as they advanced.
Though they encountered no immediate threats or traps in the corridor, they moved back-to-back, covering each other as they kept watch in both directions.
Paintings hung along the corridor’s walls, depicting scenes of a young couple spending their days together. But curiously, both the man’s and woman’s faces were blurred in every image.
At the corridor’s end hung a wedding portrait in a traditional Chinese style.
The woman in the portrait wore a red veil, but her face was partially visible—a vivid red smile. However, the smile felt too lively, as if it belonged to a young girl rather than the impersonator herself.
Reaching the end of the corridor, they found a staircase leading to the second floor.
Here, the lighting shifted from lanterns to red candles burning on either side. Many had melted down, their dim light barely sufficient for visibility. The electric lamp in the class leader’s hand became their main source of light.
Without hesitation, they climbed the staircase to the floor that shouldn’t exist.
The second floor had even fewer candles, its light dimmer and more oppressive. But the interior followed the National Corner Safety Law, with curved edges dominating the design.
This floor contained three rooms: a master bedroom, a secondary bedroom, and a bathroom.
At the end of the hallway, the master bedroom door was tightly shut. Red light seeped from beneath its frame, hinting that the bride—or the impersonator’s true form—was likely waiting inside.
Nearby, the bathroom emitted a constant dripping sound.
Before heading to the master bedroom, they decided to fully investigate their surroundings.
Exchanging a glance, they entered the unlocked bathroom.
Inside was absolute darkness—no candles, no lanterns, nothing. For two people raised in constant light, the pitch-black atmosphere was unnerving.
The class leader quickly held up the electric lamp, cutting through the darkness and illuminating the bathroom’s interior.
There were no physical corners, as expected.
The floor was stained with blood, and clumps of hair clogged the drain.
At the back of the bathroom, a curtain concealed the bathtub.
Drip... drip...
The sound of dripping water came from behind the curtain.
As the class leader moved the light toward the curtain, the shadows of two figures became visible, seated at opposite ends of the bathtub as if enjoying a soak.
Before Luo Di could decide what to do, the class leader hurled the nail-studded wooden board at the curtain.
Crash!
The sound shattered the silence.
The curtain fell away, revealing the scene behind it.
A cold, water-filled bathtub contained two floating heads—those of the girls whose severed heads had formed the spider's tail earlier. Their black hair fanned out across the water’s surface, and their faces turned toward the two men, each wearing a chilling smile.
Just as Luo Di prepared to step forward, blade in hand, to deal with the two floating heads that might pose a threat,
Creak~
The door to the master bedroom on the second floor swung open.
In that brief moment when their attention shifted to the sound, the heads floating in the bathtub vanished without a trace.
At this very instant, even though both Luo Di and the class leader had undergone fear-conditioning training, a primal emotion began to surface in their minds—fear.
But Luo Di quickly suppressed this feeling. To him, as someone who idolized slasher villains, experiencing fear would be an unforgivable disgrace to his role as both a killer-in-training and a devoted horror film enthusiast.