The shrill, desperate screaming from the small-statured figure finally jolted his boss out of his euphoria.
"A red-robed vengeful ghost?"
As a haunted house owner, he knew many legends about red-robed vengeful ghosts. Only those with the deepest resentment, those who had suffered tremendous torment before death, had any chance of becoming red-robed spirits.
Whether it was true or not, at least that was what countless horror movies and urban legends claimed.
"There's a red-robed vengeful ghost in my haunted house? And it's not even one of my hired actors?" That was the situation in a nutshell, but actually wrapping his head around it was incredibly difficult. Some things you could only understand by being there, by experiencing firsthand the kind of despair it brought.
"Xiao Zhao, don't panic—I'm calling people over right now! I don't care what that thing actually is. On my turf, it plays by my rules. If it's a tiger, it stays curled up. If it's a dragon, it coils down—"
The call was abruptly cut off by the small-statured figure. He had no time to listen to his boss spout those useless words.
In the narrow, eerie corridor, the small figure sprinted at full speed. For the first time in his life, he realized just how terrifying the haunted house he worked at actually was.
The once-familiar environment had become alien and hostile. The props and mechanisms along the route seemed to be veiled in a thin gauze of blood. Every single audio playback device appeared to have malfunctioned, emitting a constant static hiss, within which mingled what sounded like agonized wailing and whispers.
It was as though the backstage system was playing a recording secretly captured at an actual murder scene. That wave of despair and anguish was spreading throughout the entire haunted house, hammering at everyone's eardrums, stabbing at their hearts, keeping their minds perpetually teetering on the edge of collapse.
"What's happening?! What the hell is going on?! Why does it feel like the entire building has come alive?! Why does it feel like this place is about to eat people?!"
The small figure screamed at the top of his lungs. He had never felt so helpless.
"You're asking me? Who am I supposed to ask? I rode a high-speed train all the way from Hanjiang just to visit your haunted house, thinking I'd take a walk through a haunted attraction and relax—and you hit me with a real ghost!" Chen Ge realized the small figure was running far too slowly. At this pace, even with Xu Yin intentionally holding back, they would be caught. Without hesitation, he scooped the man up.
"Don't squirm! Where's the exit of your haunted house?!"
"The elevator! The elevator is the only way in and out! Some floors can only be reached with an employee badge—those are the exits!"
The small figure, clutched by the collar like a human-shaped handbag, dangled in midair and screamed his head off.
"Got it!" Chen Ge committed that information to memory and charged straight to the elevator in the center of the first floor. He hammered the elevator button repeatedly, but the elevator remained stuck on the sub-basement level and refused to come up!
"What's the situation?! Did the elevator break down?!"
"That can't be! The boss was always worried something might go wrong in the haunted house—the elevator is inspected and maintained every single day!"
"Then tell me why it won't come up!" Chen Ge's tone was frantic, on the verge of snapping. "Are there other employees on the sub-basement level? Are they occupying the elevator?"
"No! There's only me down there on sub-level one! That set isn't normally activated at all. The only reason it's open today is because of the welcome—"
The small figure stopped mid-sentence, and the terror in his eyes deepened dramatically. "Wait… if the elevator keeps refusing to come up, that means someone on the sub-basement has been pressing the call button nonstop. Could there be more than one ghost down in that basement?"
The short man was horrified by his own speculation. He didn't even need makeup anymore—his face was already as white as a sheet.
"If a ghost has taken control of the elevator, then this only way out isn't safe either! Since the other party can control the elevator, it could very well appear inside the elevator car!"
An elevator was a completely enclosed space. The short man could barely bring himself to imagine what it would be like to encounter a ghost trapped inside one.