After the Red-Robed departed, the black fog in the hallway not only failed to disperse but grew even denser.
The horrifying laughter of children echoed through the corridors, and curses woven into monstrous shapes continued crawling along the walls. Without the haunted house actors keeping things in check, the scene had become even more terrifying than before.
"Once the Red-Robed step in, all we can do is handle logistics," said a woman in a floral-print skirt, with two men trailing beside her.
One of the men looked to be in his forties, wearing a perpetual grin. "Miss Skirt, Mr. Wood—looks like you two have gotten a taste of how fun this job can be."
"We scare the visitors for fun, harvest negative emotions, help them at the same time, and benefit ourselves. I've realized the boss is a real genius—who else could come up with the idea of opening a haunted house?" Miss Skirt in her floral-print dress spoke with genuine admiration for
"The boss has plenty of other impressive qualities, but most of all, he genuinely cares about us and treats us like family." The middle-aged man walked over to Zuo Han. "Every time we open a new scene, there's always a batch of visitors who get sacrificed. I actually have quite a soft spot for the Medical Academy students—it's just a shame they didn't pick the right time to visit."
"Brother
"Don't worry—our haunted house has a top-tier medical team on standby precisely for situations like this. Every unconscious visitor gets brought in for a checkup." The middle-aged man known as Brother Zhou spoke with obvious pride.
"You have a medical team?"
"Yep. They're in the underground morgue. Let's head over now."
A medical team located in the underground morgue—Brother Zhou's words carried a peculiar sense of dissonance, but since Miss Skirt and Mr. Wood were newcomers, they didn't dare ask too many questions.
The three employees lifted the two unconscious visitors and carried them out of the building. Outside, other staff members had already prepared a corpse transport cart.
All the employees seemed thoroughly accustomed to this kind of situation. With practiced ease, they loaded the visitors onto the cart and transported them to the outermost perimeter of the Mingtai scene.
"More visitors went unconscious this time, so the doctors have come directly to us." Under Brother Zhou's direction, the two unconscious visitors were carried into a particular building.
"Careful—don't bump their heads." The haunted house actors pushed open a closed wooden door. Inside, no lights were on, yet the temperature plummeted, as if they had stepped into a walk-in freezer.
"Dr. Wei, please rein in your aura a bit—don't freeze the visitors," Brother Zhou whispered.
"Hanjiang Medical Academy students again?" An elderly voice drifted from inside. At the sound of it, Old Zhou managed a wry smile. The other haunted house employees reacted normally enough, but one of the unconscious visitors inside began to tremble faintly.
"This time it's not just Medical Academy students—there's a Medical Academy teacher as well." Brother Zhou gestured toward the unconscious visitors and took a step back.
"A teacher? What's going on? Why on earth would a teacher come in here and mess around too?!" Dr. Wei, in a white lab coat, emerged from the inner room with three other doctors. Their gazes swept past Zuo Han and settled entirely on Teacher Wang.
"Wang Qingzhi?" The moment he laid eyes on Teacher Wang, the name tumbled from Dr. Wei's lips almost involuntarily.
And the instant those words left his mouth, the unconscious visitor on the floor began to shake violently—his trembling reaching its absolute limit.
Teacher Wang, always stern and rigid, opened his eyes. The moment he saw Dr. Wei, his eyes instantly reddened, and his voice came out choked with emotion. "Teacher?!"
"The teacher's teacher?" Zuo Han, still pretending to be unconscious, cracked his eyes open slightly. His curiosity had simply gotten the better of him.
Being recognized by his own student, half of Dr. Wei's anger dissipated.
The old man was silent for a long time. Watching Teacher Wang scramble to his feet, he tossed out a single line—"You've got the wrong person"—and turned to walk back into the inner room.
"Teacher!"
Teacher Wang chased after Dr. Wei. He knew Dr. Wei was no longer among the living—he had personally seen his teacher off when he passed. Yet here, in this haunted house, he had found his beloved mentor once more.
The dead appearing before him once more—Teacher Wang felt no fear. All he wanted was to catch up to him.
His "unconsciousness" had lasted too long, leaving his legs numb. No sooner had Teacher Wang gotten to his feet than someone grabbed his hand.
"Let go of me!"
He struggled, shouting his teacher's name at the top of his lungs—in that moment, he was like a child again.
"Truly a professor from the academy—his act of playing unconscious was convincing enough to fool even ghosts." Mr. Wood restrained Teacher Wang while Old Zhou placed a gentle hand on the back of Teacher Wang's head. Without any visible effort, Teacher Wang's body slowly slumped to the ground.
Quiet returned to the room. Only after Teacher Wang had truly fallen unconscious did Dr. Wei step back out from the inner room.
The old man's expression was complicated. He crouched before Teacher Wang and studied him for a long time. "This student's temperament is the most like mine—even more stubborn and perfectionistic than I was. You'd best find a way to make him lose this memory, or he'll spend the rest of his life butting heads with our haunted house, digging until he uncovers the truth."
"Are you certain you want him to forget? You're his mentor—maybe he just wants something to hold on to." Old Zhou felt it was worth clarifying.
"Hold on to what? While I, Wei Jiuqing, was alive, I finished everything that needed doing. I gave them all I had to teach—there are no regrets." Dr. Wei waved his hand dismissively. "The living should keep moving forward. Feeling sadness from time to time is understandable, but drowning in grief and the past will only trap them."
"All right, then I'll go get Zhang Yi." Old Zhou and another employee went to fetch Zhang Yi. Dr. Wei's gaze slowly drifted from Teacher Wang to Zuo Han.
He shook his head gently. "You may not realize this, but this is actually the third time you've played possum."
Zuo Han knew perfectly well that the old man was speaking to him. His eyelids trembled as he fought down the immense terror in his heart, refusing to open his eyes.
Dr. Wei looked at Zuo Han's young, vibrant face and slowly reached out to pat his head. "You are the most talented child I've ever seen. You possess every quality needed to become an outstanding forensic doctor. There's nothing left for me to teach you—I only hope you remember one thing: always uphold justice. The dead cannot speak; it is the forensic doctor's duty to speak for them."
The old man suddenly thought of Chen Ge. "Come to think of it, Boss Chen really has been doing what a forensic doctor does. Could the tangled connection between the haunted house and Hanjiang Medical Academy have been predestined all along?"
The relationship between the haunted house and Hanjiang Medical Academy was so close that people online had started speculating that all the Medical Academy students were "ghost" shills hired by the haunted house.
"Both seek justice for the dead who cannot speak for themselves—perhaps that's the key to why they understand each other."
Dr. Wei's palm barely applied any pressure, yet Zuo Han suddenly felt a chill at the nape of his neck and gradually lost consciousness.
Making a living person slip into unconsciousness without noticing was not a particularly difficult skill for a fierce ghost.
At Chen Ge's insistence, this ability had become one of the mandatory skills every haunted house employee needed to master.
A short while later, Old Zhou brought Zhang Yi into the room and had them erase portions of the visitors' memories.
"Let go!" Heshan flung his arm hard, but Qin Guang was likely too wound up, his mind fixated solely on escape—he couldn't hear a word Heshan was saying.
The two of them broke through the Red-Robed's encirclement and fled from Building One of the Jiuhong Complex.
The entire hidden scene was shrouded in black fog, making it impossible to tell direction. Qin Guang and Heshan didn't dare stop—they didn't even have time to catch their breath before plunging back into the fog at a full sprint.
"Zuo Han said the exit is at the very depths of the scene! I've got the doll's head—ghosts won't dare come near me. And if we really get cornered with no way out, I can always ditch this Medical Academy student beside me and use him to draw the ghosts' attention." Qin Guang ran for his life, clinging to the slimmest shred of hope that he might escape.
"Hey! Stop running around blindly!" Heshan shouted in alarm, but Qin Guang's eyes had already gone red with desperation.
This streamer who had only just gotten out of the hospital was once again teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown. He refused to be sent back after only two days of freedom.