At four thirty in the afternoon, Chen Ge stood alone in the haunted house prop room, staring at the pile of items on the table with some uncertainty.
"What do you need to prepare for an overnight stay in a haunted house?"
"ID card, phone, power bank, lighter, fruit knife, multi-tool hammer… oh, and this cloth doll too."
Chen Ge stuffed the cloth doll that had appeared in front of the mirror last night into his backpack. After confirming he hadn't forgotten anything, he zipped up the bag and walked out of the room.
"Xiao Wan, you're getting off work early today. Lock up in a bit — I've got something to take care of, so I'm heading out."
"Boss, it's not even five yet. Are you going on vacation or something?"
"Key's on the table in the prop room. See you tomorrow."
Seeing Chen Ge looking like a man set free from his chains, Xu Wan let out a resigned 'oh,' tossed down the haunted house flyers, and darted into the prop room in a flash.
"That girl." The evening breeze ruffled the flyers. Chen Ge shook his head, picked up a stone, and weighed them down. "Hope she doesn't see me on tomorrow's morning news."
Beneath the relaxed exterior he was putting on, Chen Ge was actually extremely tense. His nerves had been fraying all afternoon.
Last night's nightmare-level mission had opened a door to another world, and it had also made him acutely aware that the tasks issued by the black phone were not without genuine danger.
"The trial mission is bound to be harder than the daily ones. I need to be extra careful tonight." To make it through the night safely, Chen Ge set out for Peace Apartment on a shared bicycle while it was still daylight.
The mission info provided only a place name. To find Peace Apartment, Chen Ge pieced together clues from a complaint left nine months ago, asking directions as he went — it took over two hours before he finally reached his destination.
"An apartment building in the middle of nowhere like this — would anyone actually live here?"
A weed-choked dirt path meandered crookedly into the depths of a forest. There were no streetlights along the way, but through the sparse branches he could just make out a dark grey building in the distance.
Along the way, Chen Ge had asked plenty of people about it, but the vast majority had never heard of Peace Apartment. In the end, it was a man in his sixties who pointed him in the right direction — and kindly tried to talk him out of it, saying that people had died there, that the place was terrible luck, and that even the locals gave it a wide berth in broad daylight.
Chen Ge could hardly explain his real reasons. If it weren't for the black phone's mission, who on earth would willingly spend the night in a place like that?
"It's six fifty now. The mission requires me to arrive before eleven p.m. I've still got plenty of time to scope out the situation inside."
Following the winding dirt path deeper into the forest, Chen Ge walked a few dozen meters before finally laying eyes on the legendary haunted house.
The compound was enclosed by tall, dark grey walls, with only a single entrance. A rust-eaten iron gate stood open on both sides, and a brand-new padlock hung from its center.
"The gate is falling apart, but the lock is practically new. Wait — what's this?" Pinned to the wall beside the iron gate was a sheet of white paper. Chen Ge had assumed it was some kind of flyer or ad, but when he held up his phone for a closer look, he realized it was a missing person notice.
"Zhang Qing, female, 27 years old, 157 cm tall, on the thin side, with a mole near the bridge of the nose on the right eye, tends to wear red clothing… If you have any information, please contact Mr. Wang. A generous reward will be offered!"
At the bottom of the notice was the contact information and home address of the person who had posted it. What caught Chen Ge's attention was that Mr. Wang's listed address was none other than this very haunted house.