Bai Buhui was a man of iron will. The misfortunes of his childhood had made him cold and selfish — many who had worked with him said he lacked any trace of human warmth.
Yet this very man, when he caught sight of the playground at the edge of the Ghost School, felt a mist gathering in his eyes.
In the span of just over ten minutes, Bai Buhui had endured the baptism of dozens of urban legends.
The school infirmary, saturated with whispers and sobbing. The music room, empty yet constantly producing sounds. The stairwell where an extra step appeared as you walked. Sculptures that blinked and wept. A cafeteria that exuded the aroma of cooked meat. A human face hiding beneath a toilet stall. And footsteps that pursued you relentlessly without pause…
Too many. He had lost count entirely.
Other haunted houses set up individual scare points. This haunted house packed several scare points into a single legend — and the most terrifying part was that once you triggered a legend, the ghost within it would chase you endlessly, as if it would never rest until you were dead.
Bai Buhui had no idea how many things were trailing behind him now. His brain had long since stopped processing; he ran on willpower alone.
"The Wishing Well!"
As the haunted house designer for Virtual Future Paradise, he refused to admit defeat.
He would rather find the passage and escape on his own terms than suffer the humiliation of being rescued by someone else.
"I'm almost there!"
Summoning every last shred of his strength, Bai Buhui sprinted across the playground. In his mind, the iconic scene from The Shawshank Redemption played out.
Freedom was just ahead. In this moment, I am my own hero.
He had never run so fast in his life. He crossed the playground and threw himself down beside the well.
It was a tilted, dry well. A safety rope had been thoughtfully tied to its rim, with a bucket fastened to the other end.
Bai Buhui peered into the shaft. At the bottom, a faint red glow was barely visible.
"This should… be the place."
He pressed his palms together and made his wish with solemn sincerity: "I want to leave this haunted house."
After speaking, he took out a coin and tossed it into the well. Shortly after, he heard a clatter — the well was not as deep as he had imagined.
"It's now or never!"
Life or death would be decided in this one attempt. Bai Buhui gripped the safety rope and lowered himself into the dry well, inch by inch.
…
"Why hasn't Bai Buhui answered his phone yet? What is this guy up to?" Liu Kang's voice drifted out from beneath a table.
"Maybe they've already escaped? From the moment I first laid eyes on him, I got the feeling he wasn't reliable — always speaking in that odd tone, giving everyone the cold shoulder." The cameraman's deep voice came from under another table.
"I came all the way here specifically to help them trash Virtual Future Paradise, and if this little punk dares to ditch me and run off on his own, he'll see what happens to him," Liu Kang said angrily. "But you're not much better — sneaking around contacting my assistant without telling me, and as a cameraman, you went and threw away the camera."
"I had no choice!"
*Creaaak…*
The wooden door was pushed open. Hearing the sound, Liu Kang and the cameraman both fell silent.
"Brother Kang, come on out — that headless female ghost isn't chasing us anymore." Ali came running in from outside the door. "Let's hurry to the library."
"All our phones suddenly stopped working — I have no idea what everyone else is doing." Liu Kang pulled out his phone and fired off a group message: "The secret passage out is behind the mirror on the second floor of the library. Anyone who gets this text, get here now!"
"I've done everything I can. If they don't want to come, that's on them." Liu Kang brushed the dust off his clothes and crawled out from under the table. "We're not waiting any longer. Let's go."
The three of them crowded together, and the moment they pushed the door open, the cameraman let out a cry.
"What's wrong?"
"That doll's followed us again!"
The cameraman pointed outside. At the corner of the corridor stood a child-sized doll, its head resting on its shoulder, its dark, shiny eyes fixed squarely on Liu Kang and the others.
"I keep feeling like it's looking at me — like its gaze follows us wherever we move."
"Lan Dong's already gone missing, and this creepy doll still won't leave us alone?" The cameraman drew a sharp breath.
"Never mind it — let's get to the library!" Ali wasn't particularly afraid of the ghost doll. Creepy as it was, at least everyone could see it.
In his vision, however, a gaunt male student kept appearing at random — a phantom that seemed only he could perceive.
Along with the doll came barking, and the faint, drifting sound of crying.
The actors in the haunted house didn't seem confined to fixed scenes. They could all move freely.
This was Liu Kang's greatest worry — with fewer and fewer visitors left, the number of actors clustering around each guest would only grow.
"My head hurts." Strange, unfamiliar images began surfacing in Ali's memories, as though he had once lived here. As he gradually grew accustomed to that sensation, Liu Kang and the cameraman found that Ali beside them was starting to feel… unfamiliar.
None of the three said a word about it. They figured that as long as they could escape, everything would sort itself out.