Standing before the door of the secret room,
Separated by a wall plastered with talisman paper, just hearing that woman's voice was enough to close one's eyes and envision green bricks, glazed tiles, and curtains of every color, as if one had been transported back in time. A deep breath filled the lungs with the faintly mournful fragrance of rouge and powder.
"Surprisingly beautiful. This Red-clothed is a bit special." Chen Ge perked up. "My haunted house doesn't have any employees who can sing ancient tunes. If she's willing, I could probably help her out."
The woman's voice was mesmerizing. She was singing in dialect, and Chen Ge could only make out a very small portion. He couldn't tell whether she was singing an opera or singing about herself.
"Which room will you choose? The secret room covered in talisman paper is the most dangerous — would you come here?" Chen Ge clenched his fist tightly. Just then, he heard the sound of a door being pulled open. The bedroom door outside the secret room had been opened!
At the same moment the door creaked open, the long-haired woman sitting alone in the bedroom outside the secret room let out a scream.
"
Chen Ge decisively yanked open the secret room door. He saw a gaunt woman in a blood-red opera costume standing at the bedroom doorway.
Her fingers pressed against the door, her crimson eyes burning with an indissoluble hatred. Her body leaned against the wall, and scars were visible here and there on the skin exposed beyond the costume.
"Watch out!" Chen Ge shouted at the black-haired woman inside the room, grabbed her arm, and shielded her with his back.
He blocked the danger for her, and in doing so, also blocked her line of sight.
While she was still frozen in shock, Xu Yin stepped out of the secret room plastered with talisman paper and charged straight at the costumed Red-clothed standing in the doorway.
"Red High Heels has the shrine sealed off, blocking the front. Xu Yin is in pursuit from behind. Where exactly do you think you're going to run?" Chen Ge glanced sideways behind him. Only after Xu Yin and the costumed Red-clothed had left did he stand up.
He was about to head out when his clothes were suddenly grabbed.
"D-don't go over there. That woman in the opera costume isn't a haunted house employee!" The woman struggled to squeeze out a complete sentence. Her messy long hair clung to her face. This woman, who had been looking at Chen Ge with disapproval the whole time, had now drastically changed her opinion of him.
When danger had struck just moments ago, this man had thrown himself in front of her without a second thought.
Setting aside their business rivalry, on a moral level, there was absolutely nothing to fault about him.
"How do you know she isn't a haunted house employee?"
"I…"
"Don't worry. She might just be a projection. This place is, after all, a fusion of forty hell-level scenarios — it wouldn't be strange for all sorts of peculiar projections to appear." Chen Ge acted as though he hadn't noticed the change in the woman's tone and dashed out of the bedroom.
The other visitors who had heard the commotion all emerged as well, but there was already no trace of the female ghost in red along the corridor.
"Where did they go?" Chen Ge wasn't particularly worried about Xu Yin and Red High Heels' safety. With the two of them together, they could hold off even a top-tier Red-clothed for a good while. "Now we can confirm there really is a Red-clothed in the haunted house, but her condition is very strange — quite different from any Red-clothed I've encountered before."
Exactly how she was different, Chen Ge couldn't articulate. All he could do now was think of every possible way to bring that costumed Red-clothed under control.