After Yang Chen spoke, he walked forward a few steps. He felt cold gusts of wind at his back and turned around to discover that all the other tourists had stayed rooted in place, including Wang Yan and Li Xue.
"What are you all standing there for? Let's go!" Yang Chen wasn't particularly brave — he was just a bit more level-headed than the rest.
"Knowing the haunted house owner's personality, the most dangerous route might actually be the safest. You'd assume based on common sense that the path painted white is the body-transport corridor and that we should take the other one. But I think the path you chose is the truly dangerous one. We can't use normal logic to figure out the haunted house owner's design."
"Then which way do you suggest we go?" Wang Yan's tone was sharp. His group had put in all that effort only to receive a single photograph as their reward, and he was still sore about it.
"Which path we take doesn't really matter — what matters is that we stay together," said A Nan, a magazine editor, stepping forward. "As long as all twelve of us stick together and stay calm when things happen, we still have a good shot at clearing the level."
He glanced at the spherical object bouncing up and down deep in the corridor, and his expression grew somewhat uneasy. "We've got thirty minutes of experience time. Both corridors are worth checking out — there's no need to clash over small details like this."
With A Nan mediating, Bai Qiulin looked toward the three medical students and muttered as though talking to himself: "That's strange. Why are the three of them so determined to steer us down that particular path?"
His voice was low — only Fan Dade, Fan Cong, and Xiao Li, who were standing nearby, heard him.
Under the lead of the three forensic medicine students, the twelve tourists officially entered the corridor.
The lights on the walls flickered on and off. A faint smell of formaldehyde hung in the air. The corridor grew narrower the deeper they went, and stains appeared more frequently on the ground — nobody knew what they were, but stepping on them produced a sticky sensation that was deeply unpleasant.
"Bro, maybe we should just go back out." Fan Cong had his grievances but couldn't voice them. He genuinely had no idea why his brother had lost his mind and insisted on dragging him to a place like this for "relaxation."
"Don't worry — your brother's here." Fan Dade didn't even notice that his own voice trembled with nervousness as he spoke, that he looked like a thief sneaking into someone else's home.
Wet handprints began appearing on the walls, and the ceiling overhead seemed to have dropped much lower. Fan Dade, the tallest among them, could easily touch the roof just by raising his hand.
After the group had walked about ten meters inward, A Nan gradually noticed something was off. "Hold on — we've been walking deeper for a while now, but doesn't it feel like the distance between us and that bouncing sphere hasn't shrunk at all?"
Once he pointed it out, the others realized he was right.
The spherical object bouncing up and down in the depths of the corridor seemed to be moving as well, always maintaining the same distance from them.
"There's still time to turn back." Bai Qiulin stood in the middle of the group, keeping himself in a safe position. "You all know deep down that's probably not a sphere at all — it's a head that's jumping by itself. It's definitely a scare point the haunted house owner set up, just waiting for us to take the bait."
Bai Qiulin appeared to have extensive experience with haunted houses. He tucked one hand in his pocket, his tone detached and matter-of-fact, not targeting anyone in particular. "Imagine this: we're drawn in by the bouncing head and keep walking deeper into the corridor. What if that head suddenly accelerates toward us and catches us completely off guard? And if other monsters joined in from the sides at the same time, all twelve of us would very likely get scattered, the group split apart entirely."
A Nan nodded, agreeing with Bai Qiulin's analysis, and called out to the tourists behind them: "Everyone, stay close and don't run around — bunching together is the safest option."
"Talking about it is useless — everyone understands the logic, but when fear actually strikes, what controls us isn't reason but instinct. The body reacts before the mind can catch up." Bai Qiulin's tone was cold, yet what he said left no room for rebuttal. "If I'm guessing correctly, there'll probably be a fork in the path up ahead, and the corridor will only get more complicated. That's when the head and the other ghosts will make their move. The haunted house wants to amplify everyone's fear — it will do everything it can to separate us. When the fork appears and everyone panics and scatters, we'll end up running down different branches. Once you go in with how complex this layout is, getting back out could be extremely difficult."
"You're spinning a whole story out of your own imagination," Wang Yan shot back, frustration simmering inside him. His group had gone out of their way to bring the other tourists along, shared the tips their seniors had compiled, and even guided the way — and yet someone kept pushing back against everything they said.
"True — these are just my own predictions," Bai Qiulin conceded. "But I'd like everyone to be prepared in advance. If a fork does appear up ahead, please stay sharp and gather around me." He was clearly competing with Yang Chen's group for control of the team.
Wang Yan wanted to say more, but Yang Chen cut him off. "He's doing this for everyone's sake. No need to make a big deal of it."
A sense of unease stirred in Yang Chen's chest. He breathed in the familiar scent of formaldehyde in the air and swept his gaze across the tourists, feeling that something was off but unable to pinpoint what. "When I came to visit before, something similar seemed to happen…"
They continued forward, and iron doors sealed with strips of paper began lining both sides of the corridor walls. Rust covered them thickly, giving the impression they'd been there for a very long time.
"Where on earth does Boss Chen source all this stuff?"
The head bounced along ahead of them, always maintaining its distance. After another minute or so of walking, a crossroads appeared.
The left corridor was painted white, with various blood-written characters scrawled on the walls. The right corridor was unpainted, but the head had turned into it and continued bouncing along the ground. The corridor directly ahead of them was also unpainted, except that a room in that passage had its door standing open.
"This is practically a maze — we've only been inside for a minute and we've already hit two forks. Keep going and we'll get lost easy." Fan Dade was completely directionally impaired. He was the biggest and strongest of them all, yet he acted the most cowardly, constantly chattering with Fan Cong and Old
"I still think we should follow the head. First, I can guarantee you — I heard from a senior that after getting lost in an underground morgue, taking the unpainted corridor will get you out one hundred percent of the time. It was designed that way before the morgue was even built. Second, don't overcomplicate things. We're here to tour a haunted house, not go on some wilderness survival expedition. This head is basically our guide." Yang Chen held firm to his view.
"I think we should go check out that open door first — we might find something useful." This time, A Nan didn't side with Yang Chen.
"I don't care what choice you make. I just want to remind you — don't linger at the crossroads too long. It really is dangerous here." Bai Qiulin didn't look at Yang Chen or A Nan. His attention stayed fixed on what lay behind them, as though something in that dark, yawning corridor was slowly creeping closer.
He hadn't said anything particularly terrifying, but that single small gesture was enough to make several people around him instinctively turn their heads to look back down the corridor.
Deep in the dark, seemingly endless passage, something really did appear to be moving — and more than one something.
"Can't believe we've come this far already." Fan Dade let out a dry laugh and tugged his brother toward the front of the group. Until now, the two of them had been bringing up the rear.
"Um, excuse me — one moment." A hand raised beside A Nan. It was the girl called Weiba. Her voice was remarkably pleasant — there was simply no guessing her real age from her voice and appearance alone.