The atmosphere in dormitory room 413 had taken a strange turn. Ali was Lan Dong's best friend—there was no way he'd conspire with the haunted house to deliberately scare Lan Dong. He must have genuinely seen a ghostly figure.
Could there really be ghosts in the world?
Liu Kang shook his head, banishing the far-fetched thought from his mind. He didn't really believe what Ali had said, but he reached down and picked up the phone from the floor.
"A few years ago, I saw a similar mini-program in an app store—something that could add ghost figures into normal camera footage. A lot of people downloaded it back then to prank their friends." The camera was still rolling. Liu Kang picked up the phone and pointed it at Lan Dong.
There was nothing on Lan Dong's neck. What was odd, however, was the wall behind him—that human-shaped stain pinned by the nail seemed to be moving.
"There's nothing on his neck at all." Liu Kang showed the screen to everyone. "It's all fake."
"Brother Kang, I've used that same mini-program," Xiao Chun said, "but it was pulled from every major app store. Do you know why every platform eventually banned it?" For some reason, Xiao Chun seemed to have taken a dislike to Liu Kang—perhaps she wasn't fond of that pretentious, slick middle-man type.
"Why?"
"Someone actually saw a real ghost using that mini-program. The app stores would never state the reason openly, but I have a friend who experienced it firsthand." Xiao Chun glanced at the camera. "Brother Kang, I know you don't believe in ghosts. You're free not to believe, but don't be disrespectful—especially... in a place like this."
"Kid, you're not that old, but you sure have a lot to say." Liu Kang didn't take it seriously.
"We're not close enough for you to call me 'kid.'" Xiao Chun was a perceptive person. She didn't talk much, but the quieter someone was, the more they noticed the subtle shifts around them.
From the moment they had entered this haunted house, she'd noticed everyone's emotions being deliberately manipulated. The darker sides hidden within their personalities were slowly surfacing. This haunted house was like a labyrinth that pulled you deeper and deeper the further you went.
"Out there in the sunlight, everyone gets along just fine. Why does everything change once we step inside? Is it the background music? Or is the set design too oppressive?"
Xiao Chun didn't know how to evaluate a place like this. The good side was that people who'd been repressed too long in reality could come here and vent freely, being their true selves in the darkness and terror underground before putting their masks back on and getting on with life. The bad side was that the process of transformation was inevitably filled with screaming and horror.
"A paranormal app?" While the others in the room argued, Lan Dong rubbed his neck and knelt on the bunk. "When Ali was filming me just now, I really did feel a chill on my neck—like an invisible pair of hands was trying to pull my head off. But when Brother Kang filmed me, that feeling disappeared."
"Could there really be ghosts?" the burly cameraman muttered under his breath. He was a professional—under normal circumstances, he'd never speak during a shoot, unless he absolutely couldn't help himself.
"I don't know if there are ghosts in this world, but I'm certain someone in this haunted house is pretending to be one. Right now, they're probably hiding behind the surveillance cameras, laughing at us on the screen." Lan Dong glanced toward the corner of the room. "They want to watch us make fools of ourselves, but I'm not going to let them have the satisfaction!"
Lan Dong hopped down from the top bunk. "Let's go. I've already got the key to the haunted house's key room. All we need to do now is open the rooms one by one, and we should be able to clear this haunted house."
"Shouldn't we search a bit more? I glanced around earlier, and it seems like bullying happened in this dorm. The boy being bullied was called Lin Sisi—the owner of that phone."
"Ali, we're looking for the Art Club. Don't get distracted by irrelevant things." Lan Dong's face stiffened.
"But I checked the phone just now—there are a few text messages related to the Art Club." Ali opened Lin Sisi's phone and tapped through the messages one by one.
"Sender: Teacher Bai—'Lin Sisi, from today you will live in dormitory 413. Get along well with your classmates and don't let your parents down.'"
"Sender: Painter—'Lin Sisi, why did you hide a knife under your pillow? Don't you know you have a sleepwalking habit?'"
"Sender: Painter—'Lin Sisi, what is your favorite color? Deep red? Or dark red?'"
"Sender: Painter—'Lin Sisi, I've seen your paintings. Welcome to the Art Club.'"
Ali showed the messages to everyone. "This Lin Sisi was a member of the Art Club. We can pull a few clues from their text exchanges. The president of the Art Club seems to be someone called Painter, and this club is definitely not some ordinary painting hobby group—they're probably a bunch of lunatics. I have a feeling the task we drew isn't as simple as it sounds on the surface."
"You're overthinking it." Lan Dong cut Ali off before he could finish. "The task is what we drew—we can't change it. Our priority right now is to find the Art Club as quickly as possible within the time limit."
"Hold on!" Ali didn't follow Lan Dong out. He lifted Lin Sisi's blanket, opened the wardrobe, and at the bottom found a handcrafted wooden box. "Lin Sisi was a member of the Art Club. There could very well be oil paintings hidden in this room."
The wooden box Ali had found was almost identical to the one they'd drawn tasks from outside the haunted house—it had clearly been made by the same person.
He opened the lid, and a faint smell of blood drifted into his nostrils. Inside, someone had crudely stuffed a folded oil painting.
"Folding a painting like this does a lot of damage to it. Well, I suppose the haunted house owner doesn't know much about art—it's just a replaceable prop to him." Liu Kang unfolded the painting and took a look. Even as amateurs, they were stunned by the scene depicted in the work. An upside-down oil painting, deep red against blank white in stark, jarring contrast—it made their hearts clench.
The canvas appeared to be made from some unusual material—it felt cold to the touch.
Once fully unfolded, the crease lines on the surface slowly began to fade, as though human skin healing after a cut.
"Ali, you did well." After ten-odd minutes inside the haunted house, Liu Kang and the others had finally found the first painting.
"Come on. We still need to find twelve more oil paintings." Lan Dong left the dormitory without looking back. Ali carefully placed the oil painting back in the box. Just as he was closing the lid, an image of Lin Sisi being beaten surfaced in his mind out of nowhere—the scrawny child begging for mercy, but no one answering.
He shivered and glanced around. "Don't come looking for me. I'm just the errand boy."
His gaze shifted to the wall, and he froze. "That human-shaped stain on the wall—how come a piece of it is missing? Lan Dong was sitting right there just now."
A deeply unsettling feeling washed over him. Instinctively, he pulled out Lin Sisi's phone and aimed it at Lan Dong. Everything about Lan Dong looked normal—only his shadow, skewed and lopsided, seemed conspicuously off.
"No dark thing followed him. Looks like I was imagining things."