Chen Ge found Li Xu and Huang Hu in the morgue of the Liwan Private Hospital. Both had fallen unconscious, but their vital signs were stable — no need to hand them over to paramedics.
The child's handprint on the back of Huang Hu's neck had vanished. Tong Tong had been secretly manipulating things, affecting their phone calls all along.
"Go down to the underground morgue and bring a cart up." Chen Ge dragged his Skull Crushing Hammer as he spoke to the patient who'd been watching over Li Xu. "Don't worry, I won't hold it against you. For visitors who use their phones inside the haunted house and just won't learn their lesson — rude, stubborn ones like these two — you can do whatever you want. We've got the best doctors on site anyway, and once I've got more money, I'll import another batch of medical equipment. We'll make sure everyone has fun with complete peace of mind."
The patient, who'd been sulking in grievance, brightened at his boss's easygoing attitude and nodded eagerly, ready to leave.
"Wait." Chen Ge turned to look at him. "What's the rush? You took down both of these guys all by yourself?"
The patient's gaze swept across the row after row of gurneys draped in white sheets. Finally, he nodded with a show of loyalty.
"Liwan Private Hospital needs a team leader among the scenes, and you've got the right stuff. I'm going to make a priority project of developing you." Chen Ge wasn't just saying it — he was a man of action. "Becoming a Red-clothed is extremely difficult, but becoming a Half-body Red-clothed is relatively manageable."
The patient stood there in a daze. Moments ago he'd been having a grand time scaring people — a whole pack of patients chasing two visitors around for a solid ten minutes — but only after they'd actually fainted did he start to wonder whether he'd gone too far?
The image of that terrifying figure flashed through his mind. Most of the other patients had fled, but this honest-to-a-fault fellow had stayed behind.
He hadn't been feeling good about himself either. He'd worked his heart out to give the visitors the experience they needed, but who could have guessed they'd be so treacherous, deliberately playing him for a fool until the entire scene's patients went berserk?
Now that something had gone wrong, he figured he was mostly to blame, which was why he'd stuck around.
He'd been bracing himself for punishment, but instead Chen Ge not only hadn't criticized him — he was going to take him under his wing. The whiplash of that reversal planted a strange, indescribable feeling in his resentment-tangled heart.
"All right, stop standing there like a statue. Go down to the underground morgue, find a transport cart, and wheel these two out to the scene exit."
The patient took off running with a spring in his step. Chen Ge crouched beside Huang Hu and Li Xu to inspect them. "Li Xu's got makeup on his face. A visitor sneaking into my haunted house dressed as a ghost — was he trying to scare my employees?"
"Huang Hu comes to livestream my haunted house, exposing my interior layout to hundreds of thousands of viewers. Li Xu sneaks in to play ghost, disguising himself as staff to cause trouble behind the scenes. Very clearly defined roles — this was planned in advance." Chen Ge found a small makeup kit in Li Xu's pocket, along with a Virtual Future Theme Park access card.
Virtual Future Theme Park wasn't open to the public yet. All internal attractions were kept under wraps. The only way inside was to swipe a card.
"They really are connected to Virtual Future Theme Park." Chen Ge put everything back where he'd found it and didn't take a thing. "Virtual Future is about to open, and I can't afford to waste any more time. On the day they launch, I'll have a four-star scene ready to go!"
He stood, dragged his Skull Crushing Hammer behind him, and left the Liwan Private Hospital.
……
Basement level two of the Liwan residential district. Hei Qi and his female assistant, Xiao Xia, were carefully tearing strips of tape off the furniture in the room.
This was the task Wei Jinyuan had assigned them. What unsettled them, however, was that a few minutes ago, a scream like a pig being slaughtered had echoed up from even deeper underground — Wei Jinyuan's scream.
Neither of them was particularly brave. The sound of his shrieks set their already-unsteady hearts pounding even faster.
"Should we… go down and check?" Xiao Xia asked Hei Qi politely, though every line of her face screamed refusal.
"Let's not. Everyone has their specialties. Wei Jinyuan said he works at a haunted house — I'm sure he can handle whatever's down there." Hei Qi coughed dryly. He'd noticed the mark on the back of Wei Jinyuan's neck earlier and known something was bound to happen.
"Then what do we do now?" Xiao Xia raised a crucial question. Wei Jinyuan might have seemed a few screws loose, but being around him gave you a sense of security. Now that he'd been "taken out," the two of them would have to face those unknown ghosts on their own.
"Patience." Hei Qi thought for a moment and came up with a bright idea. "We wait right here. Wei Jinyuan has a companion in the neighboring building unit. He'll definitely come running when he hears those screams, and we'll follow him out together."
"Okay." Xiao Xia glanced at the half-open door — beyond it lay a pitch-black corridor. "Should I go shut it?"
"Mm. We'll pretend no one's in this room and keep an eye on things through the peephole."
"But the tape on the door has already been peeled off…"
"We can't worry about that now."
They shut the door and took up positions beside it.
Hei Qi pressed his face to the door and peered through the peephole. Outside was nothing but black — he couldn't see a thing.
Xiao Xia leaned against the wall, cold sweat trickling down continuously. She couldn't explain why her heart felt so panicked, as though someone else were in the room with them.
"Teacher, why do you think every piece of furniture in this room has been taped over?"
"No idea." Hei Qi answered absently, still pressed against the door, trying to figure out how to get a clear view of the corridor outside.
"The tape's there to keep things from splitting open on their own, right? Does that mean the furniture moves by itself? Every seam has been taped shut — you don't think the drawers could just fly open on their own? The owner taped everything up specifically to prevent that from happening, right?" Xiao Xia had no idea she was describing something truly terrifying.
"Fly open? Why would drawers fly open on their own?" Hei Qi turned around to face her.
"Maybe there's something hidden inside the furniture. Or maybe there's an invisible person in the room who goes through it."
"Invisible person?" Hei Qi's complexion turned a shade worse, though he managed to keep his composure. "That's actually a great concept — I could draw that into my manga. Not bad. We've only been here a few minutes and I've already found two pieces of material."
"Teacher, maybe we should just leave? Something about this place feels off." Xiao Xia looked around nervously, and suddenly she noticed the DVD player in the living room, which had been off when they arrived, was now on.
"Off is exactly what it should be! The scarier, the better! I'll make those people who think all I can do is draw dirty comics see what a real mangaka can do — any genre, any style!" Hei Qi had a volatile temper to begin with, and since apart from his risqué work he didn't have a single standout piece to his name, the more he thought about it, the angrier he got.
"When we first walked in, was that DVD player on?" Xiao Xia hadn't been listening to Hei Qi at all. She stared at the DVD player in confusion, and right before her eyes, the indicator light on the television in the living room flickered on.
"Look!" Xiao Xia yelped. "Teacher! I think we've triggered something!"
"Don't panic." Hei Qi signaled for her to stay calm as the two of them slowly approached the television.
"This has to be remote control — I've seen it in haunted houses in Japan. This isn't good — that terrifying haunted house boss is making his move on us!" Hei Qi inspected the television and, without even knowing what he'd touched, the screen suddenly burst to life with a picture.
Eerie cold light washed over their faces, and in unison they turned to look at the screen.
The image quality on the old television was terrible, but at a single glance they both recognized it — what the TV was showing was the very living room they were standing in.