"I don't know why you ended up in my haunted house, and I'm not sure what to call you, but there's one thing I can promise you — I mean you no harm."
Only Chen Ge's own voice echoed through the room. He looked at the four stuffed dolls before him, and a contradictory thought took root in his mind.
Part of him wanted them to react, to agree with what he was saying. Another part was terrified that the dolls might suddenly move on their own and do something dangerous.
After a few seconds, Chen Ge decided he was overthinking it. He tried a different approach: "The Midnight Escape scenario recreates the Peaceful Apartment from five years ago. The four of you should be the victims of the massacre…"
Perhaps he had struck a nerve, because Chen Ge distinctly felt the temperature in the room drop a few degrees. The door lock clicked shut on its own — he wasn't sure when that had happened — and all the furniture around him began to tremble faintly.
"That case has already been solved! The lunatic who hurt you and destroyed your lives is being punished by the law!" A slight edge of panic crept into Chen Ge's voice. He pulled out his phone and pulled up the news clip online. "Look — the killer has been caught. And the person who caught him was me!"
Chen Ge knew the four dolls' fixation was tied to Wang Qi, so he wanted to use the video to prove he was the one who had captured the murderer. But it had little effect.
The atmosphere in the room grew more and more tense. The air was thick and heavy, and Chen Ge was anxious but powerless. Their inability to communicate was the biggest problem.
Something was wrong, but Chen Ge had no intention of backing down. This haunted house was everything he had. If he let four dolls run wild in it, the unknowns were too many. Sooner or later, a serious accident could happen.
"Calm down! I'm here to help you!" The dolls couldn't care less about what Chen Ge was saying. No amount of talking was going to make a difference.
"Guess I'll have to try this." Chen Ge pulled Wang Qi's missing person flyer from his pocket. The thin, yellowed paper was stained with a few blood spots, but other than that, there was nothing remarkable about it.
Yet, strangely enough, the moment Chen Ge took out the flyer, the commotion in the room died down considerably. The oppressive atmosphere lifted as well, like a hand tightening around his throat slowly loosening its grip.
"This is what you want?" The flyer worked even better than Chen Ge had expected. He placed the piece of paper in the center of the four dolls, and the moment their bodies touched the yellowed paper, the missing person flyer began to writhe and "struggle" as though caught in a violent wind.
The scene before him was deeply unsettling. A single sheet of paper surrounded by four dolls — there was no wind in the room, yet all of them were trembling.
Chen Ge watched closely. After a few minutes, a faint outline of a human face appeared on the missing person flyer, bearing a vague resemblance to Wang Qi.
Before Chen Ge could get a better look, the face was torn apart, each piece diving into the body of one of the four dolls. Then the room fell completely silent.
"That's it?"
The Black Phone in his pocket buzzed. Chen Ge pulled it out and found a brand-new message on the screen.
"Midnight Escape scenario — sole hidden mission complete! Vengeful ghost affinity increased by one. Obtained the goodwill of the lingering will of the Peaceful Apartment victims. They will clean up all trash for you daily and maintain the original state of the Midnight Escape scenario."
Staring at the message on his screen, Chen Ge stood in place for a long time without speaking. "Just like that, the unique hidden mission is complete?"
His mind was racing. "The trial mission has to be over ninety percent complete before you're rewarded with a hidden prop. And hidden props are the key to completing scenario hidden missions! That means if I want to fully control the newly unlocked horror scenarios in the haunted house, I have to finish the corresponding trial missions to at least ninety percent."
Looking back on his experience at the Peaceful Apartment — if he hadn't pursued the truth, he probably could have survived the night in peace. But the mission completion rate would have been abysmally low, and there was no way he would have obtained the hidden prop.
"Devious. This setup is basically encouraging players to court death." Chen Ge scrolled through the Black Phone, wanting to check for more information. He opened the Ghost Team tab first, but to his disappointment, the team count still showed zero.
"The mission says I obtained the goodwill of the lingering will of the Peaceful Apartment victims, but the Ghost Team tab shows nothing. Is it because they haven't fully submitted yet? Or does the lingering will of the victims not count as ghosts, so they're not eligible to be listed in the Black Phone?"
Chen Ge couldn't figure it out. He opened the item inventory next and found that Wang Qi's missing person flyer was still there, only the resentment value on it had been reset to zero.
"What exactly is resentment value? Why would the lingering will of the victims tear it apart and devour it?"
The door to an unknown world was slowly creaking open. Chen Ge didn't know if any of this would be useful, but he committed it all to memory anyway.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and got to his feet. "The lingering will of the victims can't communicate, but they can help me keep the scenario intact. All in all, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks."
Maintaining the props and sets in a haunted house was an incredibly tedious task. The appearance of the lingering will of the victims was going to save Chen Ge a tremendous amount of time.
He looked at the four dolls on the floor, and the last trace of fear in his heart slowly melted away. "Hiring ghosts to work at my haunted house — maybe one day that'll really come true."
He walked to the door, then paused and looked back out of habit. The dolls representing his parents and his sister were lying where they'd been, but the smallest one had crept off to the side by itself, sneaking around, clearly preparing to slip out again.
Chen Ge couldn't help but smile. Not all ghosts in the world were evil and vicious. This littlest doll, for instance — it was like a cat curious about everything. Naughty and skittish all at once.
"Hey, little one, don't wander off. You'll get stepped on." Chen Ge said it and walked out. After helping the victims of the Peaceful Apartment fulfill their wish, he had gained a deeper understanding of the Black Phone. "The locked horror scenarios in the phone probably aren't just there to scare people. Every scenario has its own story behind it, tangled up in cause and effect. And at the same time, they provide a home for those with nowhere to go."
He switched off his flashlight and walked through the pitch-black corridor. Once he had gone far enough that no one could possibly hear him, a grin spread across his face — the sly, satisfied smile of a fox. "No salary, no benefits. They never complain about being tired. They don't throw tantrums. And when it comes to scaring people, they're natural-born experts. These guys are literally the perfect employees!"
Happy times made for high spirits. Chen Ge felt more energized than ever when it came to scaring people.
"It's been dragged on long enough. Time to wrap things up. There are still three people left in the haunted house. Let me think — who should I start with?"