"What do we do now?" Lu Hui asked, trembling.
She had heard countless horror stories since she was a child: endless staircases, forever looping to the same floor.
"First, turn back the way you came; second, split into two groups, one half going up the stairs and the other half going down; third, jump down from the side!"
Huo Xun made these three suggestions. He was still looking down at his phone. The signal had been lost when he left the room, but the Big Dipper Forum app was still working. He was extremely interested in it and had been exploring it every day since becoming an employee.
Of the three suggestions Huo Xun casually offered, the third was immediately ruled out by everyone: the space inside the Haunted House had changed, light was blocked, and it was pitch black everywhere. What lay below might not be the living room on the first floor, but a bottomless abyss. They absolutely could not jump in recklessly!
A bead of cold sweat trickled down Ye Zhuxing's forehead. He dared to leave the room because he was prepared for the unexpected, but... why hadn't anyone died yet?
He wasn't hoping anyone would die, but rather... the patterns in Supernatural events are all filled with lives, yet so far, besides making them lose control of their emotions, the other anomalies in the Haunted House seem to be trapping them.
Ye Zhuxing's gaze involuntarily swept over Lu Hui. In Ye Zhuxing's mind, the first sacrifice should be this complete newbie. There was no need to hold a vote openly for this kind of thing. The most useless person in the team would be used as a stepping stone by everyone without anyone knowing.
"Have you thought it through?" Jia Hong asked impatiently. He was starting to have doubts about Ye Zhuxing. This person had gained leadership of the team at the beginning, but his performance along the way had been very unqualified. He was barely passable when nothing was going on, but when an emergency occurred, he was simply useless!
If it weren't for his fear of Ye Zhuxing's Supernatural Items, Jia Hong would have already turned against him!
Ye Zhuxing subconsciously looked at Huo Xun and Xiao Yu, but both of them had their heads down. He Tao and Lu Hui were clinging tightly to Xiao Yu, while Feng Tianyu stood silently behind Huo Xun.
Unbeknownst to them, the team seemed to have split into different small groups again, but Ye Zhuxing didn't notice, still naively believing that Huo Xun and Xiao Yu were his loyal partners.
"Say something!" Jia Hong slammed his fist against the wall next to the stairs in a fit of rage.
But then, a terrifying scene unfolded: his hand suddenly sank into the wall.
Glug--
Jia Hong felt his entire arm being sucked in by a strange force. Before he could even cry for help, he was instantly sucked into the wall, leaving only a faint human-shaped mark on the wall.
"Oh no! Don't touch the wall! That's a mechanism that triggers the killing pattern!" Xiao Yu shouted. Even if she hadn't said it, everyone else could have seen it.
"Are there ghosts in the wall?" Feng Tianyu's voice trembled. Despite his tall and strong appearance, he was actually very timid. He had built himself up to be strong in order to intimidate others and avoid being bullied.
Jia Hong, a perfectly healthy man, vanished right before their eyes. Xiao Yu felt a bitter taste in her mouth. This was the terrifying aspect of Supernatural events—death came without warning.
This wasn't the first time she had experienced such despair. Human life was less than that of an ant; one could die so easily. No matter one's status, wealth, or power, one would be killed with the same contempt by the Fierce Ghost.
This feeling of powerlessness, once experienced firsthand, will send chills down your spine and make you lose all courage to resist.
But Xiao Yu knew she had no other choice; she wanted to survive, by any means necessary. So she painstakingly packaged herself as a prodigy with the ability to warn of danger.
In reality, she was a fraud. She simply had better observation skills than others and remained relatively calm in the face of unexpected events. With a bit of luck, after accidentally pointing out the crisis in advance and being mistaken for having special abilities, she realized that this might be a way to survive.
This "danger warning" persona is enough to make her one of the core members of the team; at least someone will protect her, and she won't be easily pushed out as cannon fodder.
To maintain this persona, Xiao Yu's mind was constantly racing. She had to detect abnormalities earlier than others and maintain the composure of a master.
Her long bangs obscured her facial expression, and her taciturn and aloof demeanor made it difficult to find any flaws in her words.
She succeeded; the fabricated persona she created truly deceived everyone and fooled the entire team.
But a lie is still a lie. Others trust her, so she dares not lead the team. If she makes a mistake and a team member is killed for no reason, not only will she harm others, but her image will also collapse.
"Let's try going back. See if this staircase continues in a loop or if we can get back to the room we just left?" Ye Zhuxing sighed helplessly.
He Tao frowned, hesitating to speak, but ultimately said nothing. Faced with the current situation, she had no solutions and could not offer any useful suggestions, but she hoped that her leader could make a reasonable and effective action plan, instead of acting like a headless fly.
Ye Zhuxing who insisted on coming out just now, and now he's the Ye Zhuxing who wants to go back. Is this fickle, impulsive, and irrational personality really suitable for being their captain?
He Tao was also a newcomer; this was her second mission. When the seven of them first gathered, Ye Zhuxing openly displayed the precious, Supernatural Item Hexagonal Copper Bell before everyone, using it to intimidate them and become the team leader. He Tao had assumed he was incredibly powerful and didn't care about the principle of "not flaunting wealth," but now it seemed she had been overthinking things...
The group retraced their steps, but the situation was completely different. The staircase no longer looped, and they soon reached its end. There, they saw a large pool of blood at the top of the stairs, resembling a crime scene.
"The bloodstains look very fresh; they haven't congealed yet," Huo Xun said.
"Whose blood is this? With such a large amount of bleeding, no one could survive!" Ye Zhuxing's voice was calm. He didn't care about the life or death of the person who bled, but rather he was afraid that the person would become Ghost Slave after death and attack the living.
"Could it be Jia Hong's blood? Or perhaps someone else accidentally broke into the Haunted House?" Huo Xun stroked his chin, suddenly feeling that something was off.
"Something's not right!" Xiao Yu stared at the pool of blood. "So much blood, yet it doesn't smell at all?"
"Could it be another hallucination?" Huo Xun cautiously took out a tissue from his bag and bent down to touch the bloodstains.
The tissue remained white and showed no signs of absorbing liquid.
"It's an illusion, but more accurately, it should be called Phantom."
Hallucination and Phantom —a difference of only one word, yet worlds apart.