"Boss, we've already come all this way. You really want to go back and look for him?" Little Du was reluctant. Han Qiuming had a sharp tongue, and Du Chaojin already had a poor impression of him.
"If we don't go back for him, knowing his personality, something could really happen." Guo Miao's face was grim, dark enough to drip. "For all we know, something's already happened to him. No way — we're going back right now!"
"I agree with the boss." Surprisingly, Song An set aside his grudge this time and was willing to go search for Han Qiuming. "Splitting up is the biggest taboo in a haunted house. We'd better stick together."
Little Du hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded. "Fine, I'll go back with you to find him."
The most innocent of the group was Su Luolou. She had no idea what was going on, and she didn't understand what the Tianteng Hospital staff were talking about. She just followed them as they ran back and forth, her expression tense.
"Let's search more carefully — check every single ward." Under Guo Miao's leadership, the group headed back into the depths of the haunted house, inspecting the wards one by one.
……
Han Qiuming and Ye Xiaoxin entered the director's office. There were two rooms, inner and outer, furnished with desks, chairs, and stools.
"The drawers are empty, and there are no books on the shelves. Can't even judge the haunted house owner's personality from their reading habits. But I suppose that's a good thing — no books on the shelves means less time spent searching. A lot of haunted houses like to hide passwords and clues inside books." Han Qiuming was talking to Ye Xiaoxin, but it felt more like he was talking to himself.
Ye Xiaoxin split off from Han Qiuming and walked straight into the inner room. She eyed the oversized wardrobe.
"Let me handle this — that wardrobe is obviously custom-made. There's a ninety-percent chance there's a haunted house actor or some other scare prop hidden inside." Han Qiuming stepped forward and pulled the wardrobe doors open.
The wardrobe was completely empty.
He gave an awkward laugh and mocked himself. "Looks like the ten-percent scenario happened. I'd guess the actor scared Guo and the others, and hasn't had time to make it back yet."
Ye Xiaoxin had entirely lost interest in conversing with him. She tapped lightly on the inner wall of the wardrobe. "A special room with a special wardrobe — there has to be a reason."
When her finger tapped the partition between the wardrobe and the wall, the sound changed. Clearly there was empty space behind it.
The two of them worked together to pull the partition open, and a hidden passage appeared.
"A staff-only corridor inside the haunted house?"
"Probably not."
The passage had no lights. Ye Xiaoxin took out her phone for illumination. Once she and Han Qiuming had both entered, the wardrobe door in the director's office seemed to be pushed by some invisible force, slowly swinging shut on its own.
The passage was narrow — barely room to turn around — but fortunately only a few meters long.
At the end of the cramped, stifling corridor was an iron door. Ye Xiaoxin pulled it open. On the other side was a wooden board, which she shoved aside. The scene before her shifted: it was a ward she had never visited before.
"The director's office connects to a ward? What's the point of this layout?" The real interior of the third ward pulled Ye Xiaoxin completely into the experience.
"Could it be that the director considered the patient in this ward his personal property?" Han Qiuming came up with an explanation. "I've heard that a few years ago, some private psychiatric hospitals were poorly managed, and situations like this did exist."
"Could be." Ye Xiaoxin and Han Qiuming entered the room and began searching it.