Uncle Xu had been worrying himself sick over Chen Ge's haunted house. "Why can't we just happily send the tourists in and then safely bring them back out? Wouldn't that be nice?"
"Fine, fine, don't worry about it. Everything's under control." Under Uncle Xu's repeated reminders, Chen Ge led the five tourists into the first floor of the haunted house.
"Sign the liability waiver first." Chen Ge pulled a few sheets of paper from under the table and handed them to the five tourists. "All the precautions are listed here. Give them a quick read."
"Pretty official setup." The man at the front didn't even glance at it before signing his name. His name was Wang Hailong — 185 centimeters tall, roughly Chen Ge's age from the looks of him.
"Hey boss, is that reward you mentioned outside for real? If somebody actually finds all twenty-four school badges, you're not gonna back out, are you?" The slightly shorter man beside Wang Hailong was named Wang Wenlong — likely his brother. The two looked quite similar, though their personalities were clearly different.
"When you're in the business of entertaining guests, integrity is everything." Chen Ge flashed a professional smile.
"Going in alone to find all twenty-four badges gets a twenty-thousand reward — how about we make a deal? If the five of us go in and find all twenty-four, how about you give us five thousand?" The speaker seemed to be Wang Hailong's girlfriend. She wore hot pants and a thin top, the buttons loosely fastened, a dancing butterfly tattooed along her beautiful collarbone.
Her name was Dou Menglu. Pretty girl, but her handwriting was atrocious.
"No problem at all. The whole point of coming here is to have fun. As long as you find all the badges and make it back out within twenty minutes, you'll get every cent of that five thousand." Chen Ge smiled at the group of tourists.
"Generous! Next time I'll bring all my buddies to support your business." Wang Hailong tossed down the pen and spoke up.
"Well, I'll hold you to that." What warm, enthusiastic customers — Chen Ge was genuinely touched. "Signatures done? Then follow me. Oh, and a friendly piece of advice: don't linger too long in that last classroom."
The group arrived at the end of the first-floor corridor. Chen Ge lifted the wooden panel covering the floor. "Countless legends circulate about the abandoned campus. Believe them or not, either way — be careful. Once you go in, no photos and no video. Violators bear the consequences themselves."
"Underground?" The five of them peered into the dim passage below, where something seemed to be shuffling back and forth in the gloom.
"Whoa, what the hell is that?!" The fat man among the five — the only one who hadn't spoken until now — took a step back. He had a pronounced belly, tiny eyes, and not much courage to speak of.
"Pei Hu, we haven't even gone in yet and you're already turning into a scaredy-cat?" Wang Hailong grabbed Pei Hu's soft, fleshy arm. "It's all fake. If you're scared, stand behind Meili."
"Two grown men, chattering away — are you going in or not?" The other woman spoke up, looking fierce. She wasn't tall, her body roughly the same width from top to bottom. Despite her best efforts at dressing up, standing next to Dou Menglu, she looked like a plain green leaf playing backup.
Chen Ge glanced at her signed waiver. Her name was Xia Meili.
"What's the rush?" Wang Hailong gave Chen Ge a wink. "Boss, start the timer after we've gone down, yeah?"
"Sure thing." Chen Ge pulled out his phone and pretended to open a stopwatch.
Once the five tourists had descended and he'd closed the wooden panel over the entrance, he pocketed his phone right away.
Timer? As if.
If they could walk back out on their own, that would already be pushing the limits.
Chen Ge entered the makeup room, put on the Skull-Crusher Doctor outfit and mask, then stepped into the control room.
He queued up the background music, thought for a moment, and decided against looping "Gloomy Sunday" on repeat.