"So that's how it is." Xiao Gu felt a trace of disappointment.
"A straight back fears no crooked shadow. As long as you haven't done anything wrong and live with a clear conscience, even a ghost will think twice before messing with you."
"I understand. Thanks for the advice, Boss."
"There's still plenty you'll need to learn. I'll take you to see even more spectacular things." Chen Ge had no one reliable by his side, which made a lot of things inconvenient. Xiao Gu's arrival made Chen Ge feel that his opportunity had finally come—he planned to personally train a qualified haunted house employee.
"Whatever happened on that bus, don't tell anyone. Not even
"Then where will you sleep, Boss? How about we squeeze together?" Xiao Gu felt a little sheepish.
"Don't worry about me. Later I'll walk you to the bathroom so you can change clothes and use the toilet. After that, don't come out of the employee lounge until dawn."
"I can go to the bathroom by myself, I'm not a kid." Xiao Gu still hadn't grasped the gravity of his situation. The Western Suburb Haunted House was already considered the most dangerous among all the three-star horror attractions.
"There are some props in the bathroom. I'm worried you might accidentally touch them." Chen Ge made up a convenient excuse and dropped the subject.
He went into the employee lounge, grabbed two sets of his own clothes, and handed them to Xiao Gu. "Change into these first. Just give me the wet clothes."
Once everything was sorted out, Chen Ge closed the employee lounge door. "Get a good night's sleep. I'll come wake you up in the morning."
"Alright."
The door shut. Xiao Gu sat on the edge of the bed, feeling quite guilty about the whole arrangement. Here he was sleeping on the bed while his boss slept on the floor—this was a first for him. "Brother Chen talks sharp but has a soft heart. He doesn't say it often, but I can tell—he's a good person."
He lifted the thin blanket and was about to lie down when he heard a cat meow. He immediately jumped to his feet.
Beneath the blanket, a big white cat with mismatched eyes lazily glanced up at Xiao Gu.
The look in its eyes seemed to say: Where did this weakling come from?
"Hello." Xiao Gu clutched the blanket, standing by the bed in an aggrieved manner, unsure whether he should approach.
The white cat didn't bully him. It gently clutched an adorable little stuffed toy in its mouth and nimbly hopped onto the nearby desk.
Its paw pressed down on the light switch, plunging the employee lounge back into darkness.
Standing there holding his blanket, Xiao Gu stared blankly into the void.
"Good grief, it even knows how to turn off the lights…"
Chen Ge linger outside the door for a moment, and only after seeing the light go out did he leave with peace of mind.
He changed into a fresh set of clothes as well, then grabbed his half-soaked backpack and headed into the prop room.
"The situation in the Eastern Suburb is rather complicated. It might be connected to that out-of-control door in Liwan Town.
After rummaging through shelves and drawers, Chen Ge found the chairman's letter of appointment and the patient records from Ward 3. With these items in hand, he made his way down to the underground attraction area.
He pressed the switch on the tape recorder and pushed open the door to the last classroom in the Muyang Middle School scene.
Mannequins dressed in school uniforms sat obediently in their seats, looking every bit as solemn and focused as students preparing for their college entrance exams.
"Don't be nervous. I just want you all to meet a new friend." Chen Ge stood at the podium and, for the first time, communicated with the vengeful ghosts contained in the patient records, releasing the souls of all those madmen.
In life, they had been the most twisted and depraved of lunatics. In death, their resentment lingered on, and every last one of them had become a vengeful spirit.
The classroom was swept by cold, eerie winds. Desks and chairs rattled, windows and doors slammed back and forth, and piercing screams rang out. Some of them glared with vicious eyes and lunged directly at Chen Ge.
"
Blood flowed. Xu Yin materialized silently at Chen Ge's side, and in an instant every cry and shriek in the classroom was suppressed.
Once the vengeful ghosts born from those madmen had quieted down, Chen Ge walked past each of them one by one. These spirits were indeed different from ordinary vengeful ghosts—even under the pressure of a red-clothed ghost, their eyes still shone with a dangerous light as they watched Chen Ge with ill intent.
"No way to communicate?" Chen Ge produced the chairman's letter of appointment and displayed Doctor Gao's handwriting to the vengeful spirits. The moment those ghosts saw Doctor Gao's handwriting, black-red veins of blood appeared in their eyes. Within just a few seconds, every last vengeful spirit had bowed its head before Chen Ge.
"Is it that they truly can't communicate, or do they hold a grudge against me and refuse to speak?" As the Strange Tales Association's new chairman, Chen Ge still felt a certain sentimentality toward these veteran members. He summoned every employee in the haunted house, surrounded the madmen-turned-vengeful-spirits with them, and stepped out of the classroom himself.