"Why are there so many 'death' characters carved inside the shrine? This doesn't look like a place where a god would live at all!" The detective was crouched at the very front, and after seeing the inscriptions inside the shrine, his face turned white with fright.
"Didn't the recording just say that the shrines placed on the tables are meant to worship gods, while the ones tucked away in corners are for worshipping other things?" A woman mustered her courage and squatted down in front of the shrine, cautiously peering inside.
No one knew what material the shrine was made of. It looked like wood, but touching it gave a slick, sticky sensation—like running your fingers across a puddle of blood that was about to clot.
Ever since the small door beneath the shrine had been opened, a faint stench had been continuously wafting out from within.
"I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I doubt even ghosts would want to stay in this box." The policeman quietly stood beside Chen Ge. "Also, I should tell you something—last time I came to attempt the challenge, there were no bloody characters in the shrine."
After saying this, he looked toward the girl who was squatting in front of the shrine.
The girl slowly rose to her feet, confusion in her eyes, and she secretly shook her head at the policeman and the black-haired woman.
Several of the "tourists" seemed to be responsible for different jobs inside the haunted house. This girl appeared to be in charge of fine-tuning the props and mechanisms.
Seeing her shake her head, the policeman's expression grew even more grim. He hesitated, then said to Chen Ge, "Maybe we shouldn't go any further. Don't be so reckless about clearing the level—just explore the first few scenes with us properly."
The policeman's words were practically a direct hint to Chen Ge: we won't scare you, so don't keep pushing forward and making things difficult for us. Everyone can be on good terms, and we'll all get through this safely.
"Stopping here is definitely not an option. Even if we don't go looking for them, they'll come looking for us." Chen Ge had already noticed the tourists exchanging glances with each other, and he had seen the girl shake her head at the policeman. It was only after receiving the girl's signal that the policeman had suggested they stop exploring further.
The "tourists" were frightened, and whatever was scaring them had something to do with this shrine.
Chen Ge gripped the edges of the shrine with both hands, wanting to get a different angle to look inside, but he was surprised to discover that the shrine was fixed to the floor, fused with the house as a single unit.
The Reincarnation Haunted House had been built by Virtual Future Paradise—so why were they so afraid? Though these employees were not particularly brave, anyone selected to play along as companions had to be sharp and highly capable. For something to make them this frightened and eager to retreat, something seriously wrong had to be going on.
Chen Ge casually asked, "Could it be that even the designers of the Reincarnation Haunted House never imagined the scenes inside would turn out like this?"
"More or less, yeah." The policeman answered with a pained expression, and only after blurting it out did he realize it sounded a bit inappropriate. He quickly added, "Last time I was here, I overheard a few designers arguing. Apparently, under the control of the central computer, some hell-level scenes had undergone changes that weren't part of the original design."
"No matter how powerful an intelligent system is, it can't affect the physical world. It has to work in combination with human effort and mechanical systems to have any real effect." Chen Ge stared into the interior of the shrine, his nose twitching slightly as he activated his newly acquired talent—Spirit Sniffing.
"That may be true, but not everything in this world has an answer." The policeman didn't know how to explain it to Chen Ge either.
"I think I've got a rough idea." Chen Ge took a deep breath. "All the scenes are controlled by the central computer, and when they merge together, errors and anomalies occur. But these anomalies were within an acceptable range, so the designers didn't bother addressing them—they were actually quite pleased with their creation. But they overlooked one critical factor: these idiots brought old objects scavenged from the eastern suburbs into the haunted house! The central computer controls the projections and mechanisms, altering the scripts and various development patterns, but the things attached to those old objects have been silently changing the scenes themselves."
"Wh-what are you talking about?" The policeman couldn't understand.
"My parents run a haunted house. I grew up in one, so I naturally know more about this than you do." Chen Ge gestured for the detective to come over with his phone. "A haunted house is already a place saturated with yin energy, and even the slightest carelessness can give rise to unpleasant things. This haunted house deliberately stuffed a whole collection of inauscious items inside, so it's perfectly normal for them to attract those kinds of presences."