"Boss, your haunted house is really something." The man noticed Chen Ge watching him and gave a polite smile. "When I was little, I was a total coward — the neighborhood kids used to mess with me all the time. Later, my older brother brought me to a haunted house to build up my courage. Who would've thought I'd end up loving that rush of excitement."
"Then you're going to love the next area even more." Chen Ge found this guy a bit odd — he hadn't even asked for his opinion, yet here he was giving a review unprompted.
Am I that nervous?
Chen Ge didn't call him out. In front of visitors, he always kept a smile on his face, maintaining that warm, sunny first impression.
"All right, time to head in." Chen Ge led the way, pulling back the opaque curtain that sealed the haunted house entrance.
Inside, Chen Ge placed the liability waiver in front of the seven visitors. "The two-star scenarios are different from the one-star horror scenarios. To enter a two-star horror scenario, you must sign a liability waiver first."
He laid the printed waivers on the table. Three of the seven visitors signed without much hesitation. Two more picked them up and started reading through them.
"Is it really mandatory?" The ordinary-looking visitor grew hesitant after learning he had to sign, and his eyes darted furtively toward another person.
They've got an accomplice?
Chen Ge stood calmly among the visitors, not letting a single subtle movement slip past him.
Today was the first day of the amusement park's full-scale promotion. For the haunted house, it was a fresh start too — there absolutely could not be any mistakes.
The visitors finished signing one by one. The plain, unremarkable man was named Wei Wu, and the one he'd stolen a glance at was named Kong Xiangming.
Compared to the other visitors, these two lacked that spark of excitement and anticipation. They were keeping a low profile.
The remaining five visitors were comparatively much more normal. Three of them were younger, looking like university students, while the other two appeared to be a couple in the middle of a spat.
Chen Ge kept most of his attention on Wei Wu and Kong Xiangming. But what he hadn't expected was that when he collected the waivers, one of the female students actually called him by name.
"You're the haunted house boss Chen Ge that Heshan talked about on the forum, right?"
The moment Chen Ge's name left her lips, several visitors looked over.
"You know Heshan too? The three of you are students at Jiujiang Medical Academy?" Chen Ge discreetly pulled his gaze back. The two suspected Strange Tales Association members didn't realize they'd already been made.
"Heshan's become a celebrity at our school now." The girl wore her hair in a ponytail, was a little on the chubby side, had fair skin — not exactly pretty, but gave off a very clean impression. "A lot of people from our school have been here to visit, and on the forums everyone's been placing bets on which department will be the first to clear your haunted house."
"Clearing my haunted house isn't easy. You should probably ask Heshan for some tips first." Chen Ge's smile was as warm and friendly as could be.
"It really isn't easy. Six of us came to visit, and we've already lost half." Next to the girl was a rather thin-looking boy who seemed to have a bit of a crush on her. His face was pale from fright, and his steps were unsteady, but he'd insisted on following her inside anyway.
"Why talk so much? If you don't make it the first time, just try again. Play through the same scenario a few times and it stops being scary." The last student to speak had a short temper, standing on the girl's other side.
Chen Ge glanced at the names on their waivers and committed them to memory.
"Everyone's waited long enough, so I'll keep this short. The game rules are to find the school badges — your group of seven needs to find seventeen badges to clear the scenario." Chen Ge's gaze swept across the visitors. "Also, I've just rolled out a new service. For only twenty yuan, you can do a costume role-play experience — police officer, doctor, journalist, all sorts of roles to choose from."
"There's a costume option?" The girl was tempted, but the thin boy firmly stopped her.
"No thanks, the three of us won't be doing the experience."
"What about you all?"
The bickering couple didn't bother responding to Chen Ge, and the other two — who were likely Strange Tales Association members — showed no interest in role-playing either.
Chen Ge felt a pang of disappointment. He'd actually been looking forward to testing it out.
He lifted the wooden panel and guided the visitors into the scenario. "The area on the left is the Muyang High School scenario you'll be visiting. Whatever you do, don't go to the right — that scenario is called the Third Ward. It's our only three-star horror scenario, and it's extremely dangerous. Last time someone wandered in, they were scared straight into the hospital."
Chen Ge deliberately brought up the Third Ward not out of any altruistic desire to warn the visitors, but to test the two suspicious individuals' reactions.
If they were lunatics who had escaped from the Third Ward, hearing that name should provoke some kind of response.
The visitors all nodded and promised they wouldn't wander off. The two suspicious visitors' expressions didn't change either — they didn't seem to be aware of the Third Ward's existence.
"Was I wrong about them?"
After a few more instructions, Chen Ge closed the wooden panel and headed for the surveillance room.
"Those two probably aren't the madmen from the Third Ward, but there's a good chance they're members of the Strange Tales Association." Chen Ge's eyes were calm, the smile long gone from his face. "Captain Yan found photos of me entering Century Amusement Park on Xu Tong's phone. That means the association members should know what I look like."
Last night, the ghost on Number Five had been devoured by Xu Yin, and the new recruit Number Twelve — Litchi — had been arrested by the police. Most critically, Chen Ge had heard the voice of the person pulling the strings over the phone.
It was only three short syllables, but it was the biggest lead Chen Ge had gained that night.
"I've heard the president of the Strange Tales Association's voice somewhere before. There's a good chance he's someone I know!"
Every member of the Strange Tales Association likely carried a ghost within them, and they could only exert their full power at night. Yet they had chosen to enter the haunted house during the day.
From their abnormal behavior, Chen Ge gleaned two pieces of information.
First, with the president's voice exposed, he was deeply worried that Chen Ge might recall his true identity. That was why they wanted to silence Chen Ge for good as quickly as possible.
Second, they might be afraid of Zhang Ya. Ghosts were at their strongest after midnight and were affected during the daytime — and Zhang Ya was no exception.
"They didn't come early, and they didn't come late — they showed up right on my opening day. Looks like they planned this carefully, slipping in among the regular visitors, hoping to catch me off guard."