"Xiao Lan? Say something! What's happening over there?" Sister Cat shouted into her phone, but there was no reply from the other end — only a jumble of frantic noises.
"Old
Sister Cat set the phone down in a daze. "Xiao Lan said
"Didn't Xiao Lan shout for Old Zhou to come save her right at the end? Sounds like Old Zhou and his wife are probably victims too. We should go find Old Zhou and ask him — that'll probably give us the answer," Ma Tian, the tall one, suggested. "But we need to be quick. We have to find them before Bai Qiulin makes his move on the couple."
"I don't care whether Old Zhou and his girlfriend live or die, and I don't care if your two teammates are in trouble or not. I paid good money, and you need to finish my mission first." The one who spoke was Wang Ge. He held his phone in hand, blatantly ignoring the haunted house rules and recording everything.
"You…?"
Ma Tian was about to retort when Sister Cat stopped him. "Wang Ge, the situation's changed. It looks like one of the haunted house actors has mixed in with the visitors. We really need to figure this out."
"What danger could you possibly run into playing around in a haunted house?" Wang Ge held up his phone, capturing every inch of the interior scenery.
Sister Cat knew she wasn't going to convince him. "How about you wait here in this house? We'll be right back."
"Before we came in, you two were bragging that entering this haunted house would be like walking into your own living room. Now you've only made it halfway and you're already falling apart?" Wang Ge seemed to carry a certain status.
Sister Cat didn't dare talk back and could only nod. "That's our mistake. Wang Ge, just give us three minutes. If we haven't found Huang Xing and Xiao Lan by then, we'll come right back."
"Forget it, I'll just go with you." Wang Ge turned around, reviewing the footage he'd just captured.
"Thank you, Wang Ge." Sister Cat grabbed Ma Tian and headed out through the courtyard gate. "We'll wait for you outside."
The moment they stepped out, Ma Tian could no longer hold back his anger. "That old Wang really does treat us like his personal bodyguards."
"Just do the legwork and keep your cool." Sister Cat gently took Ma Tian's hand. "Calm down."
"Sister Cat, I'm actually curious — who is this guy exactly? We take the money and do the job, so why are we groveling like this? We don't owe him anything."
"Wang Ge is one of the executives at Virtual Future Paradise. He's incredibly well-connected in the industry. That's not the kind of person we want to offend." Sister Cat let go of his hand and glanced back toward the house.
"He's an executive at Virtual Future Paradise — so why would he personally come all the way to New Century Paradise's haunted house to investigate?" Ma Tian was baffled, finding the whole thing rather baffling.
"That's business between the two mega theme parks. We shouldn't stick our noses where they don't belong."
By the time Wang Ge came out, he'd already put his phone away. "Let's go."
The three of them rushed back to the center of the village — the spot where they'd split up from Huang Xing.
"There are so many courtyards, how are we supposed to find them?"
"Xiao Lan said on the phone that there was a sedan chair outside the room where she got into trouble. We'll search slowly along the direction they left in."