"Should I go in and take a look?"
"There was a post on the school forum saying that five students once entered Muyang Middle School for a dare. They played pen spirit in the last classroom — could that paper and pen on the desk be theirs?"
He thought it over and figured it was unlikely. According to the post, the five students discovered two extra people by the end of the game. They were so terrified they nearly had a breakdown and fled the classroom in a panic. In that process, they would definitely have bumped into desks and chairs. But the desks and chairs in this classroom were arranged in perfect order — it didn't look like anyone had come or gone at all.
"Of course, I can't rule out the possibility that someone tidied up after they left. Or maybe all five of them were replaced, and the ones who walked out of the classroom were five ghosts."
At that thought, Chen Ge set down the tool hammer. He decided it would be safer to leave this classroom for last.
Leaving the teaching building, Chen Ge arrived at the entrance of the dormitory building.
It was a shabby two-story structure with only a handful of rooms. He wandered around for a while before finally finding a paint-chipped iron sign in the hallway. The lettering was faded, but the gist of it was that the second floor housed female students — males were not permitted.
"This school really is something else."
Chen Ge took off his raincoat hood and wiped the water that had seeped into his collar. Just as he was about to head inside, his phone buzzed — someone was calling.
He glanced at the caller ID and picked up. "Heshan?"
"Hey boss, I gave your number to the senior. She said she'd contact you once her dad gets home."
"Got it. Anything else?"
"It's nothing major, really. That Qin Guang guy has already started his stream. Are you sure you don't want to check it out? He hired an actor to play the killer next door, and the whole opening was just copying you — even the deductions were exactly the same. I couldn't be bothered to tear it apart."
"Let him stream. I'll be going live myself in a bit — make sure you tune in."
"Holy crap! You're actually going live!" Heshan's pitch shot up, brimming with excitement.
Chen Ge felt a warm glow knowing his audience cared that much. "Haven't streamed in a while. This time I'm planning something thrilling."
The other end went silent. A few seconds later, he heard the sound of footsteps — it sounded like Heshan was sprinting through the dorm in slippers, slapping every bunk bed frame: "Get up, everyone! Time to watch the stream! It's another life-or-death showdown today!"
Heshan was nothing if not enthusiastic, but listening to him from the other end, Chen Ge couldn't shake the feeling that something was a little off.
After hanging up, Chen Ge opened the short-video app. Qin Guang's haunted house stream was featured prominently on the homepage banner. He clicked in and watched for a while. The other guy had a whole team behind him — a dedicated cameraman, with Qin Guang handling only the deductions and clue-hunting.
Setting everything else aside, just the stream quality alone crushed Chen Ge's. They had clearly come well-prepared.
"Six hundred and eighty thousand in viewership… If I could use that to promote my haunted house, wouldn't tourists blow the park gates wide open the next day?"
Live streaming and short videos were Chen Ge's only promotional tools at this point. Qin Guang's banner-featured stream had actually pointed Chen Ge toward a path — if he could grow big enough, maybe one day the platform would pour all its resources and channels into promoting him.
"No rush. Take it slow. Set a small goal for yourself first — survive tonight."
Chen Ge exited Qin Guang's stream and launched his own. He was deep in the wilderness with terrible signal. The stream was blurry, and the chat sometimes froze, going unresponsive for ages.
"The video quality may be terrible, but at least my stream has substance. Compared to Qin Guang, I'd say we each have our own strengths…"