A Haunted House on the Brink of Bankruptcy

"This is the first time I've seen a haunted house that isn't scary at all."

"The props are too fake. I walked through the whole thing and not only was I not scared, I actually felt like laughing."

"Materialists fear nothing!"

"I told you guys it was boring. We should've just stayed in the dorm playing games; my Kun is already level eighty."

At the entrance of the Hanjiang City Western Suburbs Haunted House, several students rode off on shared bikes, leaving without a hint of reluctance.

Watching this scene, Chen Ge, who was holding a stack of haunted house flyers, felt quite helpless.

Scaring people is a technical craft, but modern people have been baptized by all sorts of horror movies and possess extremely strong psychological resilience; walking into a haunted house is just like strolling through their own backyards.

"Boss!"

A clear, bright female voice came from behind. Chen Ge turned his head to see a petite "zombie" wearing a nurse's uniform running out of the haunted house, looking furious.

"What's wrong, Xu Wan?" The girl was named Xu Wan, one of the part-time actors in the haunted house.

"Those little brats just now tried to take advantage of me!" She gritted her fangs and clenched her delicate fists.

So she came to complain...

"That's too much. They didn't even spare a zombie." As the boss, Chen Ge naturally stood up for Xu Wan: "I'll go find the park manager to report the situation and check the surveillance footage."

"No need for that much trouble. When I sensed they had that intention, I struck first and beat them up." Xu Wan shook the bloodstains off the edge of her nurse's uniform: "This isn't makeup, by the way."

"Uh, fair enough. Girls should learn to protect themselves." Chen Ge wiped cold sweat from his forehead and glanced at the setting sun: "Let's call it a day then. I don't think there are any more tourists coming. Notify the others to clock out early."

After he finished speaking, the girl painted in zombie makeup before him didn't move an inch.

"Is there something else?"

"Boss..." Xu Wan hesitated, then slowly pulled a letter from her pocket: "These are the resignation letters from Tao Ming and Xiao Wei. You've treated them well, so they were too embarrassed to tell you in person and asked me to pass them on to you."

"They're leaving?" Chen Ge was stunned for a moment, then accepted the envelopes: "Everyone has their own path. You should head home early, too."

"Mm-hmm, I'm going to go take off my makeup."

Watching the cute, dazed little "zombie" leave, Chen Ge silently lit a cigarette.

Half a year ago, his parents mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind only this haunted house.

To keep their memory alive, Chen Ge quit his job and threw himself into running the haunted house, wanting to make it better.

Unfortunately, times change too fast. The haunted house industry is highly competitive, relatively niche, and carries many limitations.

The same horror scenes become boring after one viewing, and constant renovations require a massive amount of capital.

Starting a few weeks ago, the haunted house's operations had been running at a loss; the daily ticket revenue wasn't even enough to cover a fraction of the utility bills.

"I wonder how much longer I can hold on."

Extinguishing his cigarette, Chen Ge was about to return to the haunted house when a middle-aged man wearing a New Century Park uniform walked over.

Seeing him, Chen Ge felt like a mouse seeing a cat and quickly quickened his pace.

"Trying to pretend you don't see me?" The middle-aged man grabbed Chen Ge by the shoulder: "Let's get things straight today. You've been behind on your utility bills and venue rent for two months now. The higher-ups keep pushing me, and it's putting me under a lot of pressure!"

"Uncle Xu, it's not that I don't want to pay, but funds have been really tight lately. Give me one more month."

"You said the same thing last month."

"I promise you, this is definitely the last month!" Chen Ge patted his chest, his face full of sincerity.

"The haunted house business is sluggish right now and can't attract tourists. If you ask me, you shouldn't keep insisting on this." The man called Uncle Xu looked at the envelopes in Chen Ge's hand, his grip slowly loosening: "You're so young, why not do something else? Why live so exhaustingly?"

"Uncle Xu, I know you're looking out for me, but this haunted house has a different meaning to me. It's a memory my parents left behind." Chen Ge's voice was low, as if he didn't want anyone else to hear.

As the park manager, Uncle Xu knew everything about Chen Ge's parents. He didn't reply, and after a few seconds, he sighed softly, his heart softening: "I can understand your feelings to some extent. Fine, I'll try my best to stall for a few more weeks."

"Thank you, Uncle Xu!"

"Don't thank me. You should put in more effort and sell more tickets for the haunted house."

After seeing the park manager off, Chen Ge returned directly to the haunted house and began his daily routine: checking equipment wear and tear, maintaining props, and cleaning.

"The artificial blood in the repair room is almost out; I need to buy another batch. If I tilt this passageway inward, maybe it can better block the tourists' blind spots. The doll was torn; I need to patch it up. Damn! Where is the decorative lamp I installed? Who stole it!"

In the eyes of outsiders, he was a haunted house boss and a promising young man starting his own business, but in reality, only he knew the bitterness behind it.

A haunted house is a form of "horror" consumption. In a terrifying environment, a person's muscles and spirit become highly tense, and once released, it feels like a massage; this method can create a sense of satisfaction in a short period.

At the same time, a haunted house is also a one-time consumption. Many haunted houses on the market adopt a mobile approach across cities, constantly attracting new tourists to visit. For a haunted house fixed in one place like Chen Ge's, unless it possesses immense fame that draws people from afar, it cannot last long.

The fact that he had been able to hold on by himself for so long was already no small feat.

Dragging the torn doll, Chen Ge entered the repair room. He had majored in toy design and manufacturing in college, and many of the dolls and mechanisms in the haunted house were designed by him.

The repair process was complex and monotonous, requiring the doll's skin to be stitched, repainted, and weathered.

"Short on blood. I remember there's still some stock in the attic." The haunted house had three floors; the first and second were used for horror scenes, while the third was a storage room.

Pushing open the dusty wooden door, the attic was piled with all sorts of discarded equipment, most of which had been left behind when his parents ran the haunted house.

Seeing the objects reminded him of the people, which was why Chen Ge rarely came here.

"In the blink of an eye, more than half a year has passed."

Looking at the familiar equipment, Chen Ge was reminded of his childhood.

Back then, they operated a mobile haunted house, and his parents would take him traveling from city to city. Sometimes, when the young couple was busy, they would leave Chen Ge alone backstage to keep company with various ghost props. Being raised this way from a young age was exactly why Chen Ge had such immense courage.

After all, while his peers were playing with alphabet puzzles, he was already running around clutching a model human head.

"It's all just memories now."

Without realizing it, Chen Ge had walked over to the wooden chest containing his parents' belongings, inside which sat a crudely made doll and a pitch-black mobile phone.

The doll was the first toy Chen Ge had ever made as a child, but he had absolutely no memory of the phone.

These two items were found by the police in an abandoned hospital on the outskirts of the city. As for why Chen Ge's parents had gone there in the middle of the night, no one knew the reason.

"So much time has passed, where on earth are you?" Chen Ge picked up the doll, pinched its face, and sighed softly. "I'd better hurry and find some artificial blood. If I can't make it through this off-season, the Haunted House might really have to close down and be sold off."

Chen Ge was merely talking to himself, but the moment he mentioned closing down and selling off, the black phone in the wooden chest, which had never shown any signs of life, suddenly flickered, emitting a faint, cold light.

"What's going on? Black technology? A supernatural phenomenon?"

If it were anyone else, their heart might be racing, they would be looking around nervously, and their palms would be sweating. By comparison, Chen Ge's reaction was very direct; he picked up the phone, held it before his eyes, and began to double-check.

"I've tried to turn this phone on a hundred times before, so why did it suddenly start up on its own today? It was found where my parents went missing. Could it be that they know I'm in a difficult spot and are reaching out to me?"

Suppressing the excitement in his heart, Chen Ge swiped the screen. There was only one application on the pitch-black desktop, and its icon was the Haunted House itself.

"Not quite what I expected, but this icon looks familiar. It looks exactly like the entrance to my own Haunted House!"

Frowning, Chen Ge tapped on the app, and a line of blood-red text appeared on the screen--Do you believe that ghosts exist in this world?

Whether or not ghosts exist in the world was a surrealist philosophical question, and for a science-minded guy like Chen Ge, the difficulty level was quite high.

"I suppose so..."

Chen Ge made his choice. A few seconds later, new text appeared on the phone screen.

"What you think in your heart is the answer. From this moment on, you will officially succeed me as the new owner of the Haunted House. Of course, this is not something worth celebrating. In the final stage of the tutorial, I would like to give you a piece of advice: suicide is the most cowardly act. Please, strive to live on!"

"That's a lot of information to take in! But this chuunibyou tone of voice... why does it sound a bit like my old man?"

Chen Ge tapped on the Haunted House app again, and a brand-new interface appeared:

Hanjiang City Western Suburbs Haunted House

Status: On the verge of bankruptcy

Rating: None

Visitors today: Four

Visitors this month: Ten

My ghost team members: None

My prop inventory: None

Unlocked achievements: None

Existing facility scenarios: Zombie Resurrection Night (Terrible props, poor actors, no story or logic to speak of, Scream Index: None);

Unlockable horror scenarios: Midnight Escape (A dangerous mental patient has moved into a dilapidated apartment building; he is wandering outside your door with scissors and a hammer, Scream Index: One Star); Third Ward (This abandoned hospital emits strange sounds every midnight; you, as a newspaper reporter, will enter to investigate, Scream Index: Three Stars); Death Hearse (The hearse carrying the dead is already on the road; if you cannot leave within one hour, you will be left on the vehicle forever, Scream Index: Two Stars)

Daily tasks: Completing the Haunted House's daily tasks will provide corresponding rewards and unlock more horror scenarios.

Haunted House expansion requirements: Monthly visitors exceed one hundred, and the positive rating reaches over sixty percent (After three expansions, the Haunted House will be upgraded to the Trembling Labyrinth)

Horror Roulette (Consumes the fear value generated by tourists in the Haunted House to spin the wheel): Life and death are fated, wealth is in the hands of heaven. Here, there are spiritual fruits that increase lifespan, as well as vengeful spirits filled with hatred!

Other functions: Locked