"Fainting's fine by me — saves me the trouble of talking."
Dragging the unconscious Han Qiuming, Chen Ge walked out of the haunted house and headed straight to the lounge. "Where's the doctor? This guy might need a little assistance."
"Chen Ge!" Uncle Xu came rushing over from the haunted house entrance in a panic, though the scene before him didn't surprise him one bit. The theme park had even prepared multiple emergency response plans specifically for Chen Ge's haunted house.
"There's a stretcher in the corner! Stop dragging him! Lay him flat on his back, keep his airway clear — everyone back off, make sure there's airflow!"
The on-call park doctor had been waiting nearby and ran over the moment he heard the call, beginning his examination of Han Qiuming.
"Physical condition looks fine, no obvious head trauma from impact. He didn't faint due to collision, suffocation, or cardiac issues." The doctor's expression grew increasingly strange the more he examined him. "It appears he was subjected to continuous, high-intensity stimulation, causing a temporary shutdown of brain function. This is a self-protective mechanism — he should wake up on his own after a while."
"Dr. Liu, will he have any aftereffects?" Uncle Xu asked with a worried look.
"I can't say for certain. Cases like his are quite rare."
Dr. Liu lifted Han Qiuming's eyelids. His pupils were dilated and unfocused, his mouth hung slack at an odd angle, and his body temperature was alarmingly low.
"What kind of torment did he go through…"
The several Tianteng Hospital employees who arrived on the scene shortly after were visibly shaken when they saw Han Qiuming's state.
"Boss Chen, Teacher Han went into your haunted house for a visit and now something's happened to him. You owe us an explanation."
"Actually, I'm quite curious about it myself — everyone else went in for a visit too, so why did only he end up like this?" Chen Ge waved them over, and the group walked together to where Guo Miao and Ye Xiaoxin were sitting. "Don't worry, our haunted house has plenty of experience handling situations like this. We'll definitely give you a satisfactory answer."
"Plenty of experience?" The employees followed blankly behind Chen Ge, feeling somewhat uneasy about the way this Boss Chen phrased things.
Ye Xiaoxin and Guo Miao were crouching on either side of the steps, still hadn't recovered from the ordeal after all this time.
"Boss Guo, Han Qiuming went in together with you all. Whatever happened to him in there, you should know best." Chen Ge deflected the question toward Guo Miao.
"I don't know either. We got separated somewhere along the way." Looking at the smile on Chen Ge's face, Guo Miao felt his scalp tingle. He muttered to himself: "How did he end up like that? You don't know?"
"Then let me ask a different question — at which corridor did you split up, and what was he doing at the time?"
Guo Miao couldn't quite read what Chen Ge was getting at. He glanced at Han Qiuming lying on the stretcher and swallowed his words with a bitter taste.
Han Qiuming had wanted to tear down Chen Ge's operation, and barely two minutes after spouting his bold declarations, he'd disappeared. That was indeed what had happened. The problem was, Guo Miao already felt he'd lost enough face today. Saying all of this in front of his own employees and fans — how would he ever hold his head up in the industry again?
Comparing it to what Chen Ge had done at Tianteng Hospital, Guo Miao clutched his chest. He felt a genuine ache right behind his ribs.
"Teacher Han may be a haunted house designer, but he's not particularly brave on his own. He probably just got scared by something," Guo Miao forced a thin smile, eager to wrap up the topic.
"Boss, I don't think Teacher Han is afraid of dead bodies…"
Ah Qin, the actress from Tianteng Hospital, started to say something, but Guo Miao's sharp glare cut her off. "We'll discuss this when we get back."
He subtly pointed toward the onlookers nearby — family shame shouldn't be aired in public.
They helped each other to their feet, and when they looked toward the lounge, Han Qiuming had already been carried away by the doctor and park staff.
The stretcher passed through the crowd, and tourists on both sides watched Han Qiuming's exit. Though he was unconscious and unaware of anything, his slumped, drooling figure had been seared into everyone's memory.
"My haunted house operates on a horror rating system. Ward Three is a three-star horror scenario — the most terrifying level we have. The fact that you were only paralyzed with fear is actually pretty impressive."