Something Really Did Seem Wrong

Monkey hid alone on the second-floor stairs, keeping a close watch on his surroundings.

He stood in a corner where he could see the entrances to both the second- and third-floor corridors. No matter which direction the killer came from, he'd be able to escape as quickly as possible.

The lights in the scene seemed dimmer than before. In the pitch-black corridor, the eerie background music made his heart race.

Monkey pinched himself hard, then took a deep breath. As a medical student, he knew very well that a little pain and plenty of oxygen could help someone calm down quickly.

"The timing of the monster's appearance is suspicious. Lao Zhao had just realized there was an eighth person among us when the monster charged over. That can't have been a coincidence." He replayed everything that had happened in his mind. "After Lao Zhao noticed the extra person, everyone panicked. If Feng Ge had taken out his phone then and looked at everyone's faces, he would definitely have spotted the eighth person. We missed our first chance. Then, when the monster charged at us, if we'd all stayed where we were instead of letting it scare us, we wouldn't have been scattered. We missed our second chance."

Monkey sighed softly. "Everyone was scared when the monster charged, but not so scared that they'd run away. It was all because of the first person who fled. He started it and threw off our thinking. If I'm right, the first person to run was the extra one. I heard Xiao Hui scream just now. She was the second to run, and she was closest to that person. That also supports my theory."

He wore a bitter smile. Guessing correctly was one thing; being afraid was another. Alone in such a gloomy, terrifying place, he could feel a chill running down his back. "The monster and the extra person worked together, using the urge to flee and the herd mentality to spread fear and scatter us before picking us off one by one. Is it really necessary to devise a whole strategy just to scare someone?"

Monkey was clever, but he was also a coward. At school, he never dared to go in or out of the Laboratory alone. "I need to tell Feng Ge and the others right away, then meet up with them."

He took out his phone. Its dim light fell behind him, and he suddenly shivered. "How did this Ragdoll end up on the stairs? Didn't I leave it in the third-floor corridor?"

Afraid of attracting the monster, Monkey didn't dare turn on his flashlight. He turned up his screen brightness and pointed it toward the wall. A battered Mannequin lay flat there.

"Did someone accidentally kick it downstairs while we were running?" After thinking it over, Monkey could only come up with that explanation. The Rag Doll was stuffed with slips of paper and contained no mechanical parts, so it couldn't possibly be controlled remotely. "It does look pretty scary."

Aside from being a little worn out, there was nothing particularly frightening about the Rag Doll. But the longer you looked at it, the stranger it felt, as if it were alive.

Monkey found the feeling inexplicable himself. He stared at the Rag Doll on the ground, and it didn't look like a Doll at all. It looked like a pitiful little girl, with a hint of hurt in her expression.

"It's just an illusion. I need to stay away from this thing. This Haunted House is going to give me psychological problems." Monkey called Feng Ge. A phone rang in the third-floor corridor.

"Is he on the third floor? Or did he accidentally drop his phone, like Lao Zhao?"

The phone ringing inside the Haunted House somehow made everything even more terrifying.

Monkey didn't hang up. He slipped the phone into his pocket and quietly went up to the third floor. Peeking in from the entrance to the corridor, he saw Feng Ge's phone lying on the floor.

"Neither Lao Zhao nor Feng Ge has his phone on him. I'll have to try someone else." Monkey stood alone at the third-floor landing, staring at the empty corridor and the doors on either side, swaying open and shut in the breeze. His legs went weak with fear.

He frantically swiped through the screen, searching for everyone else's numbers. But just then, his phone buzzed and suddenly rang.

"Shit! What's going on?" He looked down and saw someone calling him. "Shi Ling? Why is she calling me? Is she alone too?"

Around girls, Monkey always acted fearless. It was a common trait among passionate young men. "Shi Ling, did you get separated from everyone? Where are you? I'll come find you."

"I'm locked in a room on the third floor. I didn't get a good look at the room number. Hurry over. There's something wrong with this room!" Shi Ling was usually quiet and gentle, but now she sounded frantic, as if she were about to cry. Who knew what had happened to her?

"Take it slow. How did you get locked inside? The rooms along the corridor aren't supposed to lock, are they?" Monkey spoke as he walked along the corridor, trying to work out where Shi Ling was from the sound of her voice.

"I don't know either. I went inside to hide and closed the door, but now it won't open! And this room's different from the others. There are two Rag Dolls sitting side by side in the middle of the room!"

"Sitting?!" At the mention of Rag Dolls, the hair on Monkey's arms stood on end. He knew just how eerie the Rag Dolls in this Haunted House were.

"Hurry!" Shi Ling's voice grew sharper, as though she were about to lose control.

"Coming! Stay away from the Dolls for now. Do what He Shan said earlier, and don't touch anything in the room. I think that Doll..." Monkey stopped mid-sentence. He stared at the ground in front of him. Half a meter from his toes, a Rag Doll lay flat.

He could barely resist the urge to smash his phone as he edged up to the Rag Doll.

"Long hair, a pained, remorseful expression. It doesn't look like the one in the corridor. It seems much more mature." After saying that, Monkey's eyes widened. "What the hell? Why can I tell so much about a Rag Doll? Am I so scared that I'm hallucinating, or is this Rag Doll just incredibly lifelike? I keep feeling like they're real people with emotions of their own."

"This isn't the time to think about that. As long as the Rag Doll in front of me is different from the one on the stairs, at least that means these Dolls can't move on their own. Things haven't reached the worst-case scenario yet. My priority now is rescuing Shi Ling." He shook his head and tried to encourage himself. "I'm just scaring myself. If the Rag Doll from the corridor had followed me, how could it have ended up in front of me? It should be behind me. Looks like this is just one of the Haunted House Owner's tricks. There's no need to be afraid."

After saying that, he glanced nervously behind him. "See? There's no need to—"

Monkey's gaze froze on a spot a meter behind him. The rest of the sentence caught in his throat. A Rag Doll lay motionless there.