"Come out, brother."
Chen Ge shoved the nursery bed aside with force. The wires attached to the doll's body went taut, revealing a thin, huddled man clutching a remote control. He wore terrifying makeup, his clothes splattered with artificial blood.
"Got a question for you. What kind of props are hidden in this room?" Chen Ge felt a bit awkward asking. "The security guard didn't tell me anything when I came in, and it's a hassle to search on my own."
The "male ghost" under the nursery bed didn't say a word. He just twisted his head and bolted for the exit. This sudden move caught Chen Ge slightly off guard.
"Running already?" To keep his heart rate steady, Chen Ge didn't chase after him; he'd been taking his time wandering through. "The doll grabbing clothes was an average scare. There's definitely a second act. The actor probably waits until you're about to leave before jumping out for the big shock."
He picked up the doll from the bed. The makeup work was decent, but still a noticeable step below his own.
"Xu Zhenzhen?" The name was scrawled on the thin blanket beneath the doll's body. "How is it her again?"
Chen Ge gathered up all the nearby dolls. Every single one had the same name written underneath.
"Ever since I entered the haunted house, this name keeps popping up. Is it some kind of psychological suggestion?" He searched the nursery and finally found a clue on one of the sheets.
It was a key-shaped pendant, with a white note pinned beneath it. The note read: For my daughter — Xu Zhenzhen.
Taking a deceased person's belongings creates the illusion that their spirit is clinging to you. This step was clearly designed to amplify the visitor's fear of Xu Zhenzhen. The key pendant was a necessary item to progress to the next stage; without it, you couldn't complete the course. It was an open challenge from the haunted house.
He casually picked up the key pendant. Looking at the note, he took out the ballpoint pen inhabited by the pen spirit and, mimicking the handwriting, added a few words on the back — I'm back.
"Leave them a little surprise."
Having seen through this room's scare, Chen Ge headed for the door. Just as he stepped out of the nursery, a sound of something rolling came from the darkness ahead. Immediately after, a woman with hair hanging in disheveled strands, her face smeared with blood, and her belly distended to an enormous size, came charging toward him pushing a stroller packed with baby dolls!
The most terrifying part was that the woman had no legs.
The sudden sight made Chen Ge's heart rate flicker, but he quickly calmed himself.
Her body pressed tight against the left wall. He had already confirmed before entering the nursery that there were mechanisms hidden inside the left wall.
Rather than saying the woman was pushing the stroller, it was more accurate to say most of her body was draped over it, and she was being pulled along by the stroller's momentum.
The passage was narrow, and the stroller was moving fast. The "ghostly figure" pushing it nearly scraped past Chen Ge's body. Her eyes, filled with venom, were locked on his face, the two separated by barely twenty centimeters.
"So the most terrifying thing was outside the door. That's some clever design."