After finishing his cigarette, Chen Ge stood up. "Who still uses cassette tapes these days? Even if I wanted to listen, I'd need a player first. Am I supposed to go to a salvage yard and dig up a tape recorder?"
He'd only just managed to stabilize Zhang Ya, and now he'd drawn another tape. Chen Ge truly hadn't expected that one day he'd be troubled by being too "popular."
"The haunted house has plenty of space. As long as this guy from the tape doesn't cause trouble, cohabitation isn't out of the question." Chen Ge scrolled through the information on the Black Phone and noticed a detail—the probability of drawing the Weeping Cassette was three percent, while the chance of drawing the Cursed Love Letter had been only zero point three percent.
Based on the odds published by the Black Phone, this ghost connected to the tape shouldn't be as powerful as Zhang Ya. Its strength probably fell somewhere between a Red-clothed ghost and an ordinary one.
"A weaker one might actually be better—easier to negotiate with." Honestly, Chen Ge was somewhat intimidated by ghosts like Zhang Ya who had their own dedicated page.
He wheeled his bicycle back to New Century Park. Visitors had already begun filtering in, and Uncle Xu and Xu Wan had been standing at the haunted house entrance for quite some time.
"Chen Ge, where did you run off to this morning? Why are there chicken feathers stuck to your clothes?"
There weren't many visitors in the park yet. Uncle Xu was practically a part-time haunted house employee by now, and when things were slow he stood outside helping sell tickets.
"Morning jog." Chen Ge nonchalantly brushed off the feathers, opened the haunted house barrier, and started the new day's business.
All day Chen Ge had felt out of sorts. The clues in his mind were scattered and chaotic, like wading through fog—he could faintly make out a gap ahead, but he couldn't tell if it was an exit out of this predicament or the gaping maw of a monster.
At four-thirty that afternoon, Chen Ge had Xu Wan leave early. He closed the haunted house doors and entered the staff break room.
"I need to prepare early." He set his backpack on the table and stuffed the tool hammer, the butcher's knife wrapped in red cloth, bags of salt, a lighter, and a flashlight inside. "Six bags of salt should be enough."
Opening the cabinet, Chen Ge pulled out a large duffel bag. He planned to bring the White Cat and Xiao Xiao along as well.
"Let me think—what else am I missing?" He opened a drawer and his eyes immediately fell on a cassette tape sitting inside.
There was no marking on it—only an irregular bloody handprint, as if someone had grabbed it with blood-soaked fingers.
"A relic abandoned by time, showing up in a haunted house drawer." Chen Ge didn't need to think twice to know the Black Phone was behind this. He knew nothing about cassette tapes and feared this "guy" might cause damage to the haunted house, so he decided to just stuff it into his backpack as well.
"Seems like I haven't forgotten anything." Chen Ge found Xiao Xiao and the old clothes that still carried the kitten's scent, stuffed them into the duffel bag, and then spent a long while gesturing at the White Cat before it reluctantly jumped inside.
"Stay put—I'm heading out for a bit." Chen Ge walked into the tool room and looked at the Skull Crusher Doctor's hammer hidden in the corner. "This thing has a heavy murderous aura. Maybe I should bring it along too."
To make room for the Skull Crusher Doctor's hammer, he reluctantly took out the tool hammer and three bags of salt.
"Salt might not even be useful, so carrying less is fine. The multi-purpose tool hammer works in almost any situation—this one has to stay on me." There really was no room left, so Chen Ge ended up strapping the tool hammer to the outside of his backpack.
Added to the black briefcase filled with various livestreaming equipment, the table in front of Chen Ge was completely covered. "I still feel like something's missing."
After thinking for a long while, Chen Ge left the staff break room and entered the underground Twilight High School set.
He was going all out for this three-star trial mission.
He went to the girls' dormitory, snatched up the battered ballpoint pen from the chair, and said, "Pen Spirit, I'd like to use today's fortune-telling opportunity. Please answer a question for me."
Holding the pen upright, Chen Ge began to play the Pen Spirit game on a sheet of paper.