"How did they follow us here?"
Little Du's voice was trembling. He was walking at the back of the group, closest to the mannequins.
"Do you hear footsteps?" Han Qiuming shifted his gaze to Du Chaojin. "To move this many mannequins, there should be more than one staff member mixed in among them."
"I don't hear anything. They just appeared behind us out of nowhere — I swear," Little Du said, desperate to make Han Qiuming believe him.
"No sound at all?" Han Qiuming furrowed his brows, stared at the mannequins for a moment, and then suddenly broke into a smile. "I know the reason!"
He strode toward the mannequins as though he had truly uncovered their secret. "The third ward's floor is covered with bedding everywhere. As long as the staff walk on the bedding, they won't make a sound."
"The person who designed this haunted house thinks meticulously. He knows exactly how to play with people's minds. He deliberately hid terrifyingly shaped dummies under the bedding to divert our attention, making us overlook the bedding's real purpose."
Han Qiuming stopped beside a female mannequin, the corner of his lips curling upward. "Using bedding to muffle footsteps — that's a clever idea. But their performance is terrible. If you want to give visitors a sense of psychological pressure, you need to keep your distance. Let them feel your presence, but never let them reach you. That's the best approach."
Little Du didn't quite understand what Han Qiuming meant. "Why is keeping your distance scarier? I think slowly closing in is more frightening."
"Too much of a good thing. Push too hard, and the visitors start getting defiant — then they'll do something like what I'm doing now." Han Qiuming ripped the head off a mannequin and shoved its body to the ground. Staring at the remaining mannequins standing in the dark corridor, he called out in a loud voice: "Walk out on your own. Don't make me drag you out — it'll be ugly for everyone."
"Who are you talking to?" Little Du realized he could barely keep up with Han Qiuming's train of thought.
"The staff of the third ward. They've done special-effects makeup and are hiding in among the mannequins right now!" Han Qiuming pushed his glasses up, his expression calm, as though everything was under his control.
But after more than ten seconds, the mannequins in the corridor remained exactly as they were.
Several pitch-black silhouettes stood interspersed in the middle of the corridor. Even motionless, they were eerie to look at.
"Teacher Han, why don't we just leave? If their staff don't want to come out, just let it go."
Little Du tried to persuade him, but Han Qiuming felt his pride taking a hit. "Now that I've caught on, they don't get a say in this. As it happens, I'm in a bad mood today — didn't that guy surnamed Chen make a huge scene in our haunted house? Today I'm going to tear his haunted house apart from top to bottom!"
Han Qiuming walked toward the cluster of mannequins on his own, ripping the head off every one nearby and kicking their bodies to the ground. "Keep hiding, then. Let's see how long you can hold out."
Heads rolled across the floor, making the scene even more grotesque.
"Come back, Teacher Han!" Little Du watched the mannequin heads tumbling along the ground, his heart pounding faster and faster.
"What's the rush?" Han Qiuming ripped off four or five more heads in quick succession. "These actors are really holding their composure — they'd rather let the props get destroyed than show themselves."
"Boss and Brother Song are already far ahead. Let's go!" Little Du kept urging him. The severed heads rolled this way and that, and what made his scalp tingle even more was that the expressions on the mannequins' faces seemed to be gradually changing — they looked like they were smiling!
"Don't panic." After ripping off the eighth mannequin's head, Han Qiuming himself was starting to feel something was off. "Mannequins have metal frames and joints inside. It's already hard enough for an adult to carry four at once. Could all the actors be hiding at the very back? That makes sense — even with makeup on, if the staff get too close to us they'll be spotted. So they must be hiding at the very end."
Han Qiuming convinced himself and kept moving forward. Behind him, headless mannequin bodies lay scattered all over the ground.