"Don't worry, Boss. I guarantee I'll get the job done!" Qu Changlin slapped his chest in assurance, not even bothering to check whether his boss could see the gesture over the phone. He agreed right away.
"I like that attitude, Changlin. You're one of our haunted house's best employees, which is why I handed such an important scene like the bathroom over to you. I hope you won't let me down this time."
"As long as he dares to step inside, I guarantee he'll walk in but crawl out."
"That man is meticulous and extremely dangerous. I'm going to cut off communication with you shortly to prevent you from giving away your position, but I'll be watching you on the monitors the whole time."
"Boss, I won't let you down." After making his promise, Qu Changlin seemed to think of something else and lowered his voice. "Boss, the nearest scene to me is the Pen Spirit — Little Die's side, will she be—"
"Little Die is fine. Don't worry about anyone else. Stay focused! He's almost there. I'll be in the monitoring room waiting for your good news."
The middle-aged man finished speaking and hung up. At the same moment, the bathroom door let out a creak.
……
"Why don't any of the other haunted houses' bathroom scenes separate the men's and women's rooms? How unprofessional."
Chen Ge pushed open the door to the Nightmare Academy bathroom, and a pungent chemical stench wafted out. "That's a strong smell of disinfectant. What happened in this bathroom that they needed this much disinfectant to clean it?"
He pulled the diary from his backpack and tried to find an answer in its pages. But to his disappointment, the third entry about the bathroom contained no useful information — it only mentioned something hiding in the fourth stall.
"According to the diary, the haunted house actor should be hiding in the fourth stall. When a visitor walks past, the actor will burst out from the stall. But would Nightmare Academy really resort to such a cheap scare tactic?"
As soon as Chen Ge finished reading the diary, he had already formulated a plan: if the actor was hiding in the fourth stall, he would stand in the third stall first, observe the fourth stall, and take it from there.
But once he actually entered the bathroom at the end of the hallway, Chen Ge changed his mind. The smell of disinfectant in here was far too strong.
The other side had arranged things this way for a reason — they were trying to conceal something, using the disinfectant's odor to mask some other smell.
"What kind of thing would be both terrifying and strongly scented?" Chen Ge mused as he stepped further into the bathroom.
Cracks split across the floor. All manner of frightening words were scrawled crookedly on the walls. The occasional gecko scurried across the ceiling, making rustling sounds.
There were no windows. In the corner sat an old-fashioned desk lamp casting a red glow. Beneath it was a small black box.
"What's this?" There was no way a normal bathroom would have items like these. Chen Ge walked past the first stall and approached the old-fashioned lamp.
He reached out and opened the small black box. Inside was a single line of text — Did you like our prank?
Beneath the note was a group photo. A crowd of children stared at the camera with anxious expressions. Only one kid on the very edge grinned without a care in the world.
Behind the photo, Chen Ge spotted another line — It's just a joke, don't be angry.
"A prank?" The diary had given him very few clues, and Chen Ge still hadn't figured out what the theme of this scene was. He tucked the small box of uncertain origin into his backpack, figuring it might come in handy later.
Chen Ge's actions were being observed by a pair of eyes. The person lurking in the darkness didn't understand what he was doing.