"What's wrong?" Su Luoluo looked at Du Chaojin, whose face had gone pale and whose forehead was slick with cold sweat, and she started getting nervous too.
"Listen, I'm going to tell you the truth, so don't freak out." Little Du sidled up close to Su Luoluo. "I think this haunted house is actually haunted — for real."
"Stop trying to scare me on purpose." Su Luoluo was a haunted house enthusiast who had visited plenty of haunted houses before, but she had never seen one like Boss Chen's. The moment you stepped inside, it was like a maze — completely open, free to explore however you wanted.
"Teacher Han's deductions were all wrong. Not a single staff member is in that group of puppets! It's not the haunted house people moving them — they're moving on their own!" Little Du clenched his fists so hard his knuckles cracked. "Teacher Han is useless now. I need to report this to Boss and Brother Song right away."
"They've already walked too far ahead — don't run too fast!"
Little Du was too anxious to care. He took off running down the corridor. Su Luoluo stood frozen in the middle, unsure whether she should chase after him or stay with Ye Xiaoxin and wait for Teacher Han.
"A haunted house that's actually haunted? Puppets that move on their own?" Ye Xiaoxin took out a notepad and jotted both points down. "Even other haunted house professionals get fooled. This place is far from ordinary."
She offered her high praise: "It's been a long time since anything this interesting came along. I'm going to take a good look around today."
"From the way that boy was talking, he doesn't seem to be lying." Out of the goodness of her heart, Su Luoluo gave Ye Xiaoxin a warning. "We should pick up the pace too. There's safety in numbers."
"I've always believed haunted houses and magic tricks work on the same principle — they both use illusions to dazzle visitors. Whoever makes the illusion most realistic is the most successful." Ye Xiaoxin took off her jacket and tied it around her waist, then stretched languidly. The jaw-dropping curve of her figure made the only audience member on hand a little annoyed. "By that standard, the Western Suburb Haunted House is undeniably a success."
"Then you can stay here. I'm heading out."
Several visitors had drifted apart without anyone noticing. Not a single one of them spotted the red characters on the walls, their color deepening moment by moment, as though they were about to drip blood.
……
"Boss, don't try to talk me out of it. Han Qiuming may have some talent, but that doesn't mean we have to eat his crap!" Song An was furious on Guo Miao's behalf. "Fine, he came up with the design proposal, but the content was made by everyone together. All the actual scene setup and arrangement — we've been doing all of it. What does any of that have to do with him?"
"All right, all right, I know everything you're saying. Just bite your tongue for a little — he was hired by the boss, after all. He's the designer." Guo Miao was older and had learned to let a lot of things go. "The haunted house business isn't doing so great these days. We're all just trying to make a living. No need to make things ugly."
"But look at that smug face of his — and he's planning to snitch to the boss? Honestly, if the boss fires you and puts him in charge, I'll quit on the spot." Song An had a blunt personality and not an ounce of scheming in him.
"Don't worry. The boss won't agree to that." Guo Miao said the words, but he sighed afterward. He wasn't confident at all. Ever since they had been forced out of Xinhai, their haunted house had been going downhill. "Let's just find the recorder first. There are still Tianteng Hospital fans waiting outside the haunted house. We can't let them down."
"Fine."
The two of them walked at the very front. After turning the second corner, they found that the next section of the scene was — yet again — a corridor.
"What is this haunted house trying to do? Just keep us walking forever?"
The light grew dimmer. The corridor walls darkened in color, mottled and patchy, and what looked like threads of blood seemed to be stuck inside them.