"Are the odds of encountering special visitors doubled during nighttime operation? Is the Black Phone encouraging me to open a night shift?"
During the day, hostile ghosts could only hide beneath the haunted house. Even powerful ones like Old Zhou and Duan Yue feared sunlight, managing only a few minutes of activity under its rays, and never under direct exposure.
At night, though, hostile ghosts would be completely unrestrained. The haunted house would become several times more terrifying than during the day—not only because of the change in environment, but because the majority of Chen Ge's staff were real ghosts. The closer to midnight, the more active they became.
"The problem with the door hasn't been resolved. If hostile ghosts snuck in among the visitors, it could easily lead to accidental harm to innocent people."
Chen Ge wasn't ready to open a night shift. After a brief consideration, he dismissed the idea entirely.
He grabbed a bag of cat food from the shelf, lured the white cat over, and scooped it into his arms. "Come on, come with me to check out the new scene."
The white cat was extremely sensitive to ghostly obsessions and grudges. Bringing it along would serve both as an early warning system and as a way to screen for unstable elements in the new scene.
The white cat, crunching on cat food and rubbing its head against Chen Ge's chest, had no idea what danger awaited. By the time it realized Chen Ge was heading underground, it was already too late to escape.
"Look how fat you've gotten. If you don't get some exercise, forget being called the White Tiger—call yourself the White Pig."
Shouldering his backpack, Chen Ge opened the iron door leading underground.
A wave of bone-chilling cold surged straight into his brain. With the unlocking of the Medium-Sensitive Ghost School, the entire underground scene seemed to have grown even more sinister.
He could hear the whistling of wind in his ears. In the dim underground, there was no telling where it came from.
Yellowed test papers were blown into the air, and occasionally he caught sight of a mannequin head quietly rolling away.
"Running around everywhere this late at night—be careful or I'll bring the old principal back and have him watch over you all the time." Chen Ge held the white cat in one arm while clutching the Black Phone in his other hand, following the phone's directions to the back of the staircase.
The entrance to the Medium-Sensitive Ghost School lay between the Twilight Sun Middle School and the underground morgue. Reaching it required passing through three sets of iron doors, and simply pushing open those heavy slabs was enough to make anyone feel crushing pressure.
The interior layout of the ghost school looked unremarkable at first glance, but the deeper one ventured, the more things one noticed that were terrifying upon reflection.
For instance, the windows along the corridors were covered with heavy curtains. Some curtains, when pulled aside, revealed concrete walls. Others, when pulled aside, revealed an entirely different room.
Even with the map from the Black Phone as a reference, Chen Ge felt dizzy. The Medium-Sensitive Ghost School was simply too vast—it filled the entire underground parking lot and had been dug down several more levels.
"Who would have thought such a school existed deep underground." Chen Ge glanced back the way he'd come. "Or perhaps 'small town' would be more fitting."
This four-star scene of his was a perfect recreation of the Medium-Sensitive Ghost School beyond the door. Nightmare and reality overlapped, and wave after wave of terrifying memories flooded Chen Ge's mind, transforming into material he could use.
"Walls of dormitory rooms bristling with nails, a cafeteria that only opened at night, the deceptive little girl in the faculty dormitory, heads buried inside tree hollows along the green belt, an elevator that automatically lit up certain numbers, statues that blinked, a blackboard where bloody words appeared, upside-down shadows that followed you from behind, students who died and came back to life, and Teacher Bai—a name that appeared nowhere in any records..."
Chen Ge reached into his pocket. Teacher Bai's faculty ID and his own student ID were still there, though after emerging through the door, both had become stained with bloodstains that couldn't be wiped away.
It was as though they had been soaked in blood for a long time before being taken out.
"I've got plenty of material, but not nearly enough staff. This scene is just too big." Chen Ge took out the comic book and called Yan Danian out once more, instructing him to release every obedient ghost and obsession from within its pages.
Back when Chen Ge had ventured to Liwan Town and the Living Coffin Village, he had helped a great number of ghosts along the way. Now it was time for them to repay the favor.