A barrage of unpleasant memories flashed through his mind. Fei Youliang instinctively rubbed his eyes and looked away. "It must be a hallucination. My condition is unstable again. There's no way he could be here."
"Before I came here, I had no idea this haunted house had hurt so many people. You've all suffered." Shangguan Qinghong had just regained consciousness. He only knew that his haunted house was haunted, but he was still unaware of the connection between the spirits in his haunted house and Chen Ge.
The confusion in Shangguan Qinghong's eyes had faded. He could hear the resentment buried deep in Fei Youliang's tone, and when he proposed rallying everyone together to take down Chen Ge's haunted house, a spark lit up in the eyes of every patient present.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Shangguan Qinghong understood very well how to use every resource at his disposal to achieve his goals.
"Changyin, set up a group chat first and add everyone. Once I've recovered, we'll settle the score with that haunted house, slowly and methodically."
"Let's not rush." The engineer from Virtual Future Park was no stranger to high-stakes situations and didn't take kindly to taking orders from others. "If we could fight back, we would have done so already. But this isn't so simple."
He was dismissive of Shangguan Qinghong's proposal. Virtual Future Park was a corporate behemoth, and they had exhausted every means — both aboveboard and behind the scenes — to destroy Chen Ge's haunted house, all to no avail.
And now this patient, who had been scared unconscious just like the rest of them, wanted revenge? The engineer thought it was completely unrealistic.
"If you don't even have the will to fight back, then you'll all be doomed to live in the shadow of that haunted house forever. Your illnesses probably won't ever be cured, either." Shangguan Qinghong remained perfectly composed. He held his dizzy head and tried to sit up, because it would make him look more imposing.
"What do you mean we're doomed to live in the haunted house's shadow? You were scared unconscious in it too. It's the pot calling the kettle black." The engineer stood up and grabbed the teacup from the table. As his gaze swept the room, he suddenly noticed Fei Youliang trembling uncontrollably by the window.
"I'm not like you people." Though Shangguan Qinghong's face was pale, a victorious smile played at the corners of his mouth. "I wasn't scared unconscious in his haunted house. I was scared unconscious in my own."
"Your own haunted house?" The engineer thought about it. That didn't really seem like something worth bragging about, so why did the man look so proud?
"That's right. I run a haunted house too, and my haunted house is definitely scarier than the one in Hanjiang." Shangguan Qinghong maintained his enigmatic smile. "I have a secret weapon that no haunted house on the market possesses!"
"What secret weapon?" Every patient in the ward turned to look, curiosity written all over their faces.
"Would it still be a secret if I told you?" Shangguan Qinghong was supremely confident, because he had experienced that terror firsthand.
Shangguan Qinghong spoke in cryptic riddles, and Li Changyin beside him seemed to pick up on something. He whispered, "Boss, you don't mean that thing downstairs has come out again?"
"That's right. The one that scared Little Tan into his condition."
"Boss, calm down! That's no joke! If you let that thing loose in the haunted house, forget about the visitors — even the actors won't be able to handle it!"
"Desperate times call for desperate measures." Shangguan Qinghong lay in bed, pale-faced and limp-limbed, yet somehow radiating an air of absolute confidence and assured victory.
"Are you two putting on an act for us?" The engineer stared at Shangguan Qinghong. "You got scared unconscious in your own haunted house, so you have even less of a right to talk. I suggest you go take a walk through New Century Park's haunted house, and then come back to discuss cooperation."
"I know you don't believe me." Shangguan Qinghong struggled to turn his neck. "Changyin, take out my phone and open the third video file in the list. Show him."
Li Changyin retrieved the phone, found the video, and hit play. It was a clip Shangguan Qinghong had pulled from the surveillance footage of his own haunted house.
Chen Ge stood in the basement stairwell. Suddenly, as if he had seen something absolutely horrifying, he lost his balance and scrambled away in a full-blown panic.
"See that? The man you're all terrified of — he was reduced to a blubbering mess in my haunted house. In terms of sheer fear factor alone, my haunted house and his aren't even in the same league." Shangguan Qinghong had no intention of telling the other patients that his haunted house was genuinely haunted, and that he had experienced it himself.
"That really is the owner of New Century Park's haunted house!" The engineer watched the video several times over, and after confirming it wasn't doctored, he finally believed Shangguan Qinghong. He was just about to discuss the revenge plan in detail when he looked up and saw a familiar face at the ward's window!
"Wait..." The engineer's arm muscles spasmed. He didn't even have time to put the phone down before he saw the ward door gently swing open.