"The Supernatural Research Society's documents are in Teacher Bai's dorm room, and the dormitory building and office building are both down another corridor. The haunted house owner designed it this way to split our forces on purpose." Bai Buhui was perfectly calm. "Even if we run into haunted house actors with all eleven of us together, we won't be scared. But once we split up, we'll be picked off one by one."
"Picked off one by one? We're just touring a haunted house. Everyone's got a phone—if anything happens, we just call and sort it out, no problem." Lan Dong thought Bai Buhui was being overly cautious. The way he acted, it wasn't like touring a haunted house at all—it was like gambling with death itself.
"Too deep in character." Lan Dong silently slapped that label on Bai Buhui in his head. He didn't know who the man really was; Liu Kang hadn't told them anything about the Virtual Future Theme Park.
"When people get scared, their brains go haywire for a short time. If we set our phones to one-touch dial, we can notify everyone right away if something happens." Ali pulled out his phone and demonstrated. "We do this all the time when we go ghost-hunting. There are plenty of other safety tricks too—if you want to learn them, I can teach you."
"Professional." Liu Kang was quite pleased with Lan Dong and Ali. "Let's do as Xiao Dong says. Those three, plus me, the cameraman, and my assistant—that's six of us going down the other corridor to check things out. The rest of you five keep searching here."
Liu Kang gave the order, and nobody objected. Bai Buhui couldn't exactly argue in front of so many livestream viewers.
"Don't waste time. The haunted house owner gave us sixty minutes—let's aim to clear it in forty. I want to be at the exit to watch his expression up close." Liu Kang finished speaking and led Lan Dong and the other two back the way they'd come. "We've been in here this long and haven't even seen a ghost's shadow. Even if my viewers don't find it boring, I'm bored out of my mind."
The camera followed closely behind Liu Kang as they quickly disappeared around the corridor's bend.
"That Lan Dong kid isn't old, but he's got plenty of tricks up his sleeve. A chance to show his face to millions of people, and he just snatches it away like that." Ghost Girl rolled her eyes and poked Big Ghost and Little Ghost with her finger. "Say something, you two! I was planning to use Liu Kang's popularity to drive traffic to our stream, and now look at this."
Without the camera on them, everyone dropped their guard and said whatever they wanted.
"So... should we keep exploring?" Bald security guard Liu Guangming was the most honest of the bunch. He was the most innocent person here—just doing whatever the boss told him to do. He hadn't given it much thought when he came to tour the haunted house.
"Of course. We'll go find those paintings right now. As long as we find more than Lan Dong, the viewers will probably side with us." Ghost Girl tidied up her clothes. "And here I went and got all dressed up today for nothing."
"Don't rush." Bai Buhui stopped Ghost Girl. "We'll go back the same way and follow behind Liu Kang and his group. If they run into anything terrifying, we can step in right away."
"That doesn't seem right..." Ghost Girl and Little Ghost both felt it was a bit underhanded.
"Liu Kang is streaming the whole thing—the camera is with them. You're dressed to kill today. You really want to show off that much skin for ghosts to see?" Bai Buhui's words hit Ghost Girl right where it counted. "You three want exposure? Following Liu Kang is your best bet. As long as they don't notice us, it'll be fine."
Bai Buhui was a clever man—he knew how to exploit people's desires. "Besides, those three little brats are useless. The moment they break down from fear and we show up? Doesn't that sound a lot more interesting?"
"Impressive. Let's head back now—hurry up, or they'll get too far ahead." Ghost Girl and the other two were convinced, and security guard Liu Guangming had no choice but to agree.
The five of them backed out of the club activity center. The corridor outside was now empty—there was no sign of Liu Kang and his group.
"Don't let them spot us. Keep your eyes open, too. The haunted house owner is waiting for us to split up before he strikes. Judging by the timing, he should be about to make his move."
Bai Buhui and the other four retraced their steps. After rounding the corner, they still couldn't see Liu Kang, but they could hear footsteps not far ahead.
"Let's keep this distance."
Under the dim lighting, footsteps echoed from the corridor ahead. Following that sound, Bai Buhui slowly closed in on the group on the other side of the hallway.
……
"Achoo!"
The assistant sneezed. He clutched his phone and kept glancing behind them.
"Brother Kang, Muscle Man—did you guys hear footsteps behind us? Something seems to be following us."
"Let it follow. We're in a haunted house—what are they gonna do, actually eat you?" Liu Kang was focused on the bullet comments flooding his livestream and hadn't really listened to a word the assistant said.
They reached the fork in the corridor and were about to head down the right passage when the male assistant suddenly stopped.
"What now?"
"When we came through here earlier, I'm pretty sure all the doors in the corridor were open. We even went into that bathroom—I was the last one out, and I clearly remember not closing the door..." The assistant's gaze swept across the hallway, and his face turned pale. "Brother Kang, look at the floor."
Dust-covered footprints and handprints now dotted the ground, along with a trail that looked like something round had been rolled across it.
"Something really is following us! It's been following us this whole time!"
"What are you panicking for? We're touring a haunted house—of course haunted house actors are going to trail behind us. This is all fake; they're not real ghosts." Liu Kang scuffed his shoe over the rolling mark on the floor. "Obviously a prop. You think a real ghost would hop around on its head? Could there really be a ghost that stupid?"
"It might just be a haunted house actor making a mistake. For a small haunted house, these kinds of slip-ups are inevitable." Lan Dong grinned. "The footprints and handprints are all different sizes—looks like they used molds. If they were all real people, I'd estimate the haunted house owner would go broke just paying salaries."
Under Lan Dong's insistence, the group entered the corridor on the left. After passing several empty classrooms, they followed the signs and found the boys' dormitory.
"Why are there stairs? Is there another level underground?"
The doors on the dormitory's first floor were all shut. They descended to the second basement level and found another torn-up diary in the first room around the corner.
"**th Year *th Month *th Day. I lost a bet with my friends, so I came to this abandoned school to test my courage. The three of us have to play three games: Guess Who's Behind the Door, Sitting in a Row, and Upside-Down House."
"The first two games were played by my friends. They went smoothly. The last game was my turn."
"But halfway through the last game, I turned upside down and glanced at the room. That's when I noticed the two friends' faces looked wrong—like, like dead people."