Running alone down to the third basement level, standing in a locked room that resembled a murder scene, with a strange, blood-soaked woman right in front of him — anyone would be terrified by such a scene.
Wei Jinyuan scratched his neck. His back was already drenched in sweat, his Adam's apple bobbing as cold perspiration trickled down his forehead.
He had been searching for the haunted house's actors, trying to figure out why this place had become so popular, but once he actually laid eyes on the performers inside, he was struck by an inexplicable wave of unease.
He couldn't articulate the reason. She was clearly standing several meters away from him, yet his heart was racing with dread.
"Is it the atmosphere, or the makeup?" His heart pounded furiously. It took Wei Jinyuan more than a full minute to calm down, and throughout that whole time, the woman in red simply stood against the wall without showing the slightest intention of approaching.
"Just like that dark figure I encountered in the hallway — they don't seem to actively try to scare people, and they don't hide either. Are these haunted house actors overly confident, or are they worried about something else? Could it be that they're afraid of being too scary and causing actual harm to visitors, so they use this approach to 'intimidate' them?" Wei Jinyuan's thoughts were a jumbled mess. He slowly shuffled forward.
Every hair on his body stood on end. His instincts screamed at him to flee, and each step required tremendous courage.
"Hey, are you an actor in this haunted house?" His voice trembled without his permission. Wei Jinyuan kept telling himself there was nothing to be afraid of — she was just a female actress, and once she removed her makeup, she might even look quite adorable.
The woman in red didn't respond. She held her hands protectively over her chest, her back turned to Wei Jinyuan, her head resting against the wall in a deeply unsettling posture.
"No response? Fine — I'll figure out what you're up to." Walking across the blood-stained floor, his shoes made a soft, gritty sound with each step. The short distance of a few meters took Wei Jinyuan more than ten seconds to cover.
He stopped beside the woman in red and leaned over to get a look at her.
A female ghost in blood-soaked robes, radiating intense resentment, the kind that made you shudder with a single glance — yet her hands were pressed together over her chest as though she were cradling something?
"Don't tell me the clue is hidden in her arms?" Wei Jinyuan's eyes went wide. "This haunted house owner really is something — hiding a clue in a place like this."
If the clue was in the woman in red's hands, then visitors would have to approach her closely to obtain it. If a visitor was too scared to get near, they'd be stuck in the scene or forced to search for other clues elsewhere.
"Good thing I'm brave — you can't scare me." Wei Jinyuan steeled himself and reached out to grab the several sheets of paper cradled between the woman's hands. Just as he was about to pull them away, the head resting against the wall slowly turned.
Her body still maintained its original posture — even her neck hadn't moved. Only her head had tilted to one side.
A ghastly pale face, completely devoid of color. Her features were actually quite delicate, but those two black, hollow eyes were genuinely terrifying.
The woman in red seemed confused about what Wei Jinyuan was doing. Resentment churned in her gaze, but when she noticed the black hair on her wrist, she grew calm again.
"Wearing pure-black contact lenses? If I didn't work in a haunted house and know these makeup tricks, I might actually be scared by you." Wei Jinyuan forcefully yanked the sheets of paper from the woman's hands and held them up to his phone's light. "Employee Handbook for Haunted House Staff? Do not make physical contact with visitors? Do not actively harm visitors? If a visitor shows symptoms of unconsciousness, they should be promptly transported to the underground morgue?"
Wei Jinyuan flipped through the pages, his head full of question marks. "What on earth is this? Where's the clue?"
He looked up at the woman in red. She had resumed her eerie pose — body half a foot from the wall, head resting against it, eyes fixed on the papers in his hand, as though she was waiting for Wei Jinyuan to return them.
"That's it?" Wei Jinyuan clutched the papers. "You're a haunted house actress, right? Is there some hidden message between the lines?"
The woman in red had no idea what Wei Jinyuan was saying. Her patience was being worn away bit by bit. Blood began to seep through the red fabric, and a faint metallic scent drifted through the air.
"Oh? A second phase?" Wei Jinyuan watched the blood dripping from the woman's red dress, struggling to keep his composure. "You've got blood packs hidden under the costume? But this is really unprofessional. Haunted house actors are supposed to be fast, ruthless, and precise. Moving this slowly, visitors would have plenty of time to brace themselves."
In truth, Wei Jinyuan had no idea how she was doing it. He kept talking solely to mask his own growing anxiety.
"Looks like just finding the clue isn't enough — I need to decipher its secret." Wei Jinyuan felt an increasingly irritating itch on his neck, as if something were sitting on his shoulder, trembling. He even felt a faint pulling sensation backward, something urging him to leave immediately and not stay here any longer.
"Is it psychological suggestion? What exactly is suggesting this to me? Before I came, I saw online that a lot of people said this haunted house owner was a master of psychology. I must have fallen into his trap without even realizing it." Wei Jinyuan held his phone in one hand, its built-in light illuminating himself and the woman in red beside him, while his other hand clutched the papers. "Where exactly is the problem? It's not even that scary — so why is my heart beating so fast?"
Bathed in the light, with her employee handbook snatched away, faint lines of blood slowly surfaced on the woman in red's face. She seemed to feel that he was deliberately humiliating her.
The scent of blood in the air grew thicker. Viscous crimson dripped from her red dress, producing a steady drip, drip, drip.
Wei Jinyuan was still thinking, feeling as though he had stumbled into some kind of bizarre loop. "From the moment I entered the haunted house, there were several empty rooms in a row — nothing set up at all. Forget jump scares, I couldn't even find a single drop of fake blood. How can a haunted house like this make me feel so uneasy? What exactly is conveying this indescribable sense of oppression? I feel like I can smell blood — is it a hallucination, or is he unconsciously projecting psychological suggestions onto me?"
None of his questions had answers. Everything was a mystery. Wei Jinyuan scratched his neck and furrowed his brows. "The complex environment creates an indescribable horror, and the clue is handed out in the most baffling way imaginable. Completely mind-boggling."
He was still lost in thought when a pale hand suddenly seized the papers in his grip.
"What are you doing?"
Wei Jinyuan looked up. His mouth fell half open, his expression freezing in an instant.
The woman in red who had been standing against the wall — her body was still there, but her head was gone!
Jagged, uneven flesh, blood flowing ceaselessly — the scene hammered into Wei Jinyuan's brain like a sledgehammer. He stood as if struck by lightning, countless jolts of electricity surging through his veins!
"Where's the head?!"
He was certain this performer standing before him was a living person. Those delicate features, the rich expressions, even that look of disdain, as if she were gazing at something revolting — no prop could ever replicate that.
Yet in the blink of an eye, this living person's head had vanished!
"Give it back."
A woman's voice drifted from one side of his shoulder. Wei Jinyuan turned his neck mechanically, and what he saw next was even more shocking: the woman's head, linked to her body by threads of blood, was now resting on his shoulder.