Ali clutched the wooden box as he walked at the back of the group.
He was honest and straightforward, not as sensitive as Xiaochun—he just had a vague feeling that something was off.
"Why does the name Lin Sisi keep popping up in my head? Is it because I took his painting? That can't be it. It must be psychological."
Walking through the pitch-black corridor, Ali couldn't stop his mind from wandering. His memories seemed to be getting overwritten by something, and in a haze he thought he saw a thin, frail boy standing not far away.
He couldn't make out the boy's face. There were no obvious wounds on his body, but his clothes were in tatters, his backpack zipper had been ripped open, his hair was drenched, and his face was covered in mud.
Compared to his filthy body, the boy's numbness was what truly broke your heart.
"You…"
"What?" The burly cameraman was startled by Ali. "Something wrong?"
"N-no, nothing. Sorry." Ali quickly apologized. He glanced around—there was absolutely no child there. But what struck him as odd was that despite the grim and terrifying setting, he felt a strange sense of familiarity, as if he had been here before. "Was I brought here as a kid? Or did I dream about it in a nightmare?"
Arriving at an unfamiliar place and suddenly being hit with a sense of familiarity—many people had experienced that. If it were some ordinary tourist attraction, it wouldn't matter. But this was the third basement level of a haunted house, an "unopened area" that didn't even have lights installed.
Once Ali started thinking about it, all manner of terrible images flooded his mind again. A child cornered in a classroom, shoved into a bathroom stall, distorted faces grinning at him, splashing ink and filthy water everywhere.
"Enough!" Ali suddenly shouted, making everyone ahead of him flinch.
"Lan Dong, what's wrong with your friend? He almost made me drop the camera." The burly cameraman was clearly annoyed.
"Bro, you okay?" Liu Kang frowned at Ali. Since they were livestreaming, he still had to maintain his composure.
"I don't know either. I just feel like I've been to this place before," Ali muttered in an almost trance-like state. "Maybe I dreamed about it. Wasn't there news coverage saying that a lot of coma patients who woke up had dreamed about this haunted house? I don't think all those media reports were making it up."
"Ahem!" Liu Kang cut Ali off. He quickly signaled the cameraman with a hand gesture, and the burly man understood, angling the lens away.
Liu Kang removed the lavalier mic from his collar and whispered to Ali, "We're here to bust a fake, understand? Even if you're putting on a show, there's a limit."
Liu Kang's face flipped like the page of a book. Just moments ago in the dormitory, he'd been praising Ali. In the blink of an eye, his tone had completely changed.
"I'm telling the truth!" Ali tried to say more, but Liu Kang couldn't be bothered to listen. He motioned for Lan Dong to come over. "Teach your friend some manners."
Putting the lavalier mic back on, Liu Kang returned to normal. He walked up to the camera and calmly explained to the audience that it had just been a minor incident.
The camera had deliberately panned away, the audio had been turned down—every anomaly only fueled the viewers' discussion further.
Watching his own livestream filling up with people talking about the news coverage and Chen Ge's haunted house, Liu Kang grew even more irritated. "My friend was just joking earlier. Don't take it seriously. We've always been visiting with a fun attitude. Now it's time to officially start the debunking."
Whether Chen Ge's haunted house was actually scary didn't really require Liu Kang's commentary—the atmosphere alone said it all. Even all his wisecracks couldn't diminish the terror of it.
"A haunted house that relies on buying trending spots, deceiving tourists, and fooling its audience wants to go viral?" Whether it was true or not, Liu Kang had to pin a few labels on Chen Ge's haunted house first, positioning himself on the moral high ground—as if doing so would give him a sense of mission, and he'd never have to be afraid again.
"Enough stalling. Today I'm going to expose the truth about this place in front of everyone!" Liu Kang was working himself up emotionally, but the moment he finished the sentence, his phone suddenly rang.
It was his personal phone. Not many people had this number.
Liu Kang hesitated for a moment, then slowly pressed the call button.
Before he could even react, a man's voice erupted from the other end of the line in a hysterical scream.
"Brother Kang! This haunted house is really haunted! On the ceiling! All the ghosts are crawling on the ceiling!" The male assistant sounded like he was sprinting for his life, gasping for breath between words.
"Where did you go? Whose phone is this?" Liu Kang's heart lurched. He had just put the lavalier mic back on, and now everyone in the livestream could hear the assistant's voice.
"I was rescued by other tourists! Get back here now! This haunted house has no way out! If you don't leave now it'll be too late! Don't come over! Help! There are ghosts everywhere! There are ghosts everywhere!"
The assistant's tearful, hoarse wailing struck Liu Kang across the face like a slap. His eye twitched, and he immediately hung up the phone.
He had come to the haunted house to debunk it, but now it looked like he was broadcasting an advertisement for the place in front of the entire internet.