"The Red Raincoat appeared on the platform. Everyone search quickly — see if there are any clues left behind on the platform." Fu Bole and several other haunted house designers circled the platform, examining it carefully. They soon noticed something unusual.
On the back of the Long Street platform, there were two silhouettes — one male, one female — pressed into the surface as if frozen in a moment of memory.
Below the platform, there was a patch of water stain, and within it, one could faintly make out a male student in a school uniform and a female teacher holding a red umbrella.
In the corner of the signpost, there were a few lines of text carved casually, all crooked and uneven, as though the person who left them had been immersed in a naive, simple kind of happiness.
"Love begins with the moment we meet."
"I missed the last bus, but I waited long enough to find you."
"Can I walk you home?"
Those crooked, uneven words seemed to stir in the viewer's heart a memory of youth — innocent, clumsy, yet beautiful.
"In such a creepy place, there's text like this carved into it? Is there a cruel, terrifying story hidden behind this innocent first love? All the sweetness is just a setup, meant to be violently ripped apart at the very last moment to create despair through contrast?" Snake Sister had once done something similar in her haunted house. She stroked the black skull tattoo on her arm, as though lost in memory — this was a woman with a story of her own.
"This street's style is completely different from the other buildings. There should be plenty of scare points, but we haven't seen a single frightening thing." Zuo Han's sense of unease was growing stronger by the second. It felt like the last moment of calm before a storm.
"Forget the platform — let's move on to the next area immediately!" Zuo Han glanced back at the black fog pursuing them and called for the others to run to the other end of the street without hesitation.
"We have to get out of here. The Nether Fetus scenario has broken every pattern I'd previously figured out. None of my experience is useful as a reference here — why is this happening?"
Everything had happened so fast. It felt as though an invisible hand behind the curtain was pushing events forward.
"Less than fifteen minutes into the opening, and we're already entering the third phase. Every ghost actor in this four-star scenario has gone haywire. The odds of us three escaping are zero." Zuo Han understood he was facing the worst possible situation. "Those haunted house designers are useless. If they don't change their attitude immediately, they might 'disappear' in the next sub-scenario. How do I break through this?"
His mind racing, sweat soon broke out across Zuo Han's forehead. The pressure was immense — he had to contend with unknown, terrifying enemies while leading a team of deadweight teammates and the hidden haunted house actors among them.
Besieged on all fronts, he genuinely couldn't come up with a viable strategy.
"It's too rushed! This four-star scenario gave me absolutely no time to think or recover."
After the Red Raincoat departed, the buildings on both sides of the street lost that spine-chilling feel. It was like an ordinary street.
The visitors left Long Street without much trouble and arrived at the gate of an orphanage painted primarily in black and white.
A rusted iron gate stood half-open, and a creepy children's nursery rhyme drifted from some unknown source.
The orphanage looked as though it had been abandoned for a long time, yet inside the courtyard, children's clothes hung out to dry, and freshly dug holes pockmarked the ground, seemingly intended for burying something.
Traces of human activity could be found everywhere within the orphanage, but not a single person was in sight.
Wind chimes hanging from the eaves swayed gently. Zuo Han pushed open the main hall's door.
A melancholy melody drifted from one of the rooms. At the far end of a row of long dining tables sat a broken shrine.
"This is a private orphanage. A public welfare institution would never have a shrine like this." Teacher Wang studied the shrine and recalled certain things from his past. "Some founders of private orphanages believe in karmic merit — they keep spirit tablets in their own rooms. But an orphanage that places its shrine right here in the main hall — this is my first time seeing one."
Walking past the long wooden dining table, Teacher Wang's expression gradually darkened.
The shrine was covered, densely packed, with the name "Fang Yu" carved again and again. The sight was deeply unsettling.
"These were scratched out one character at a time with fingernails. The dark patches up there are bloodstains — they've grown into the wood grain. It's strange. It almost feels as if someone spent years carving the same name into this shrine, over and over." Teacher Wang frowned in puzzlement. "To create a haunted house prop, is it really necessary to go to such lengths?"
"Mr. Chen didn't necessarily make this himself. He's provided clues for a number of murder cases. I suspect some items in this haunted house were brought straight from crime scenes." Zuo Han kept his voice low — these were insider matters, and he didn't want too many people hearing them.
"The haunted house owner has provided clues for multiple murder cases?" Teacher Wang blurted in surprise. "I've heard things have been unsettled lately. The Hanjiang branch station gained an informant — and that informant is this haunted house's owner?"
"Teacher, you cut ties with the department after what happened back then, so you might not be aware. This haunted house owner is very..." Zuo Han paused, searching for words. "His parents disappeared. To investigate the case, he dug up cold cases from Hanjiang going back twenty years. I don't even know how to describe a person like that. Let me just put it simply — best to keep your distance."
"He could dig up cases from twenty years ago?"
"Right. And that's actually not even the scariest part." Zuo Han dropped his voice even lower. "He's provided the Hanjiang police with leads on several major cases and helped solve many crimes, yet his own parents' disappearance hasn't made a shred of progress. I suspect there's something much bigger going on. Whatever happened to his parents — it's definitely not simple."
"Is that the real reason you keep coming to his haunted house?" Teacher Wang thought highly of Zuo Han, considering him one of the most outstanding students at the Hanjiang Medical Academy. He felt Zuo Han was different from other kids — not the type to come here just for fun.
"I'm probably not qualified to investigate his parents' disappearance." Zuo Han looked at the shrine before him. "I can't read him at all. I have no idea what's going on inside his head. Sometimes I can't even bring myself to meet his eyes. I tried to analyze his psychological profile and personality, and the conclusion scared me. He possesses a rationality and composure far beyond ordinary people, an exaggerated ability to adapt, and an extremely high IQ."
"Is there anything in the database that matches those parameters?"
"No. He's a monster. To single-handedly design so many brilliantly terrifying scenarios, to uncover hidden leads in countless criminal cases — compared to him, no one else qualifies as a genius." Zuo Han's fingers brushed lightly across the shrine, tracing over the carved names one by one. "The more I learn, the more frightened I become. And the more frightened I become, the more curious I am. I want to find out the truth. If possible, I'm even thinking about spending my last vacation before graduation working here."
"The top-ranked student in the entire Hanjiang Medical Academy, going to work at a haunted house?" Teacher Wang wondered if he'd misheard. "You're far smarter than I ever was. All you lack is experience. But if he really is as formidable as you say, you probably wouldn't discover anything useful even if you worked here."
While the two were talking, a wooden door in the side hall was pushed open, and a white-haired old man stepped out carrying a thermos. He froze when he saw so many people standing in the main hall.
"Are you here to adopt children?" The old man's voice was trembling. He looked gravely ill, as though he might collapse at any moment.