Her hair hung loose and wild, her delicate features twisted by fear. Her face was bloodless, one foot bare — the sexiness and allure she'd had when she first entered the haunted house had vanished without a trace.
"Dou Menglu?"
The moment Chen Ge spotted Dou Menglu, the woman sprinting with her phone in hand spotted him too.
But unlike Chen Ge, who remained calm, she let out a piercing shriek as if she'd seen a ghost, spun around, and bolted back the way she'd come.
Left standing in place, Chen Ge touched his face: "Is it because of the mask?"
Having been scared twice in a row, Dou Menglu had erupted with unprecedented power. Her long legs pumped furiously, and in the blink of an eye she had disappeared from Chen Ge's field of vision.
"Surely it's not that bad?" Chen Ge removed the mask and walked further into the set. "Why is she alone? Did the five visitors get separated?"
He reached the first fork in the path and still couldn't see Dou Menglu anywhere. "Forget it. I'll go check on the Pen Spirit first — can't have someone throwing up on me."
Just as he was about to move forward, a phone in his pocket suddenly rang. The ringtone echoed far through the quiet haunted house.
……
In the fourth stall of the bathroom, Dou Menglu had completely abandoned all concern for her image. She lay on the ground, her beautiful wide eyes peering out through the gap at the bottom of the stall.
"She didn't follow me. Thank goodness, thank goodness." Her chest heaving violently, Dou Menglu leaned her back against the stall wall, traces of tears still glistening in her eyes.
Fragmented images from the Pen Spirit game flickered through her mind. The game had gone smoothly at first, but after she'd asked who Wang Hailong's future wife would be, a scene straight out of a nightmare had appeared.
"That girl hanging from the ceiling — what was that about? She couldn't be a haunted house actor, and she didn't look like a projection either." The more Dou Menglu thought about it, the more terrified she became. Alone in the cramped bathroom stall, fear pressed against her like invisible hands clawing at her body.
"I need to get in touch with the others. We should all group together and rescue Brother Long first." Wiping her tears, Dou Menglu pulled out her phone and dialed Wang Wenlong's number, but it rang over a dozen times with no answer. "What's going on? Did something happen to him and Pei Hu too?"
She hung up and immediately called Xia Meili.
Still no answer. Dou Menglu felt even more helpless, fear and panic curling her into the corner. "Don't tell me something happened to everyone? There are five of us!"
Her fingers trembling, Dou Menglu refused to give up. Clinging to her last shred of hope, she dialed Pei Hu.
"Please! Pick up, you fat idiot! You used to like me — how can you just leave me to die!" From sheer tension, blue veins stood out against her pale white skin. Dou Menglu's expression had turned almost savage.
Three seconds passed, and her heart slowly sank. "What are you all doing?"
Five seconds passed. She clung to that final glimmer of hope, fists clenched tight.
Ten seconds passed. Dou Menglu's face had gone rigid, and she was on the verge of tears from sheer grievance.
But in the thirteenth second — just when all hope had died — the call suddenly connected!
"You piece of — fat boy, why did it take you so long to pick up?!" Dou Menglu nearly burst into tears. She was like a drowning person who had finally grabbed a lifeline, encountering the "most beautiful surprise" in her deepest moment of despair.
"Why aren't you saying anything? Brother Long got scared unconscious. I'm hiding in the fourth stall of the bathroom — come save me!" Her voice was threaded with sobs. "I just saw some kind of blood-covered monster outside. Be really careful when you come!"
She poured out everything in a single breath, too agitated to stop, but after waiting for a long while, no one on the other end said a word.