Something Happened?

"Why has it gone quiet outside?" He Shan turned to look at Lao Zhao. "Should we go out and take a look?"

"If the enemy doesn't move, we don't move. We'll wait until we hear a scream, then go out and search in the opposite direction. That way, we're sure to avoid whatever's scaring people." Lao Zhao spoke with absolute confidence.

"Doesn't that mean we're selling out our teammates?"

"Selling out my ass. We're using our teammates' sacrifices to buy time for victory." Lao Zhao was as round as a ball. He stood behind He Shan, but He Shan's skinny frame couldn't even hide half of him.

"How much longer do we have to hide? What if we're the only two left in the Haunted House?" He Shan was an honest sort. Looking at the Senior Student hiding behind him, he couldn't help feeling that the guy was setting him up.

"We've searched every room on the second floor, and we searched most of the rooms on the third earlier. I suspect the exit is on the first floor. In other words, we're already very close to it." Lao Zhao patted He Shan on the shoulder. "Keep your spirits up. Don't give up right outside the door to success."

"How can you still be trying to cheer me up at a time like this?" He Shan wore a helpless expression, with all his grievances stuck inside. He'd only come along to show the Senior Student around. He'd never planned on going in.

"Don't be so pessimistic." Lao Zhao started counting on his fingers. "I heard Monkey and Xiao Hui scream earlier. They might have already been sent out. And if we subtract the eighth person who slipped in among us, that means there should still be five people from our school in the Haunted House. There's a three-in-five chance the killer is chasing someone else. We don't need to rush. We can just wait."

"Fine. I'll listen to you." Crouching by the doorway, He Shan pressed his eye to the gap in the door to look outside. In the blink of an eye, something seemed to have appeared in the dim corridor.

He rubbed his eyes and looked that way again. At some point, a shabby rag doll had appeared on the floor.

"Am I seeing things? Was there already a rag doll on the floor? That can't be right. I've been hiding here for over ten minutes, watching the corridor the whole time." He Shan lightly slapped his own face, then looked again. The rag doll was still there, and it had moved closer to the door.

"Can it move on its own? Or am I so nervous that I'm starting to hallucinate?" He shook his head and looked again, but the rag doll had disappeared from the gap in the door.

"That's strange. Did I really see it wrong?"

In the staff passage on the first floor, Chen Ge had changed into the Skull-Crushing Doctor's coat. He'd sent Xu Wan outside to look after the medical students and had gone into the Haunted House himself to catch the intruders.

Dressed in the bloodstained Doctor Uniform, with chains engraved with human faces wrapped around his body, the Skull-Crushing Hammer in his hand, and a replica Human Skin Mask on his face, Chen Ge's Skull-Crushing Doctor was far more intimidating than Xiao Wan in both stature and presence.

"Are those brats trying to wear me down?" The chains clinked with every step. They sounded imposing, but also gave away his position. Chen Ge had been wandering through the attraction for five minutes without seeing anyone.

"Boss, I can't see anyone on the surveillance cameras. They must all be hiding in rooms, so you'll have to check them one by one." Xu Wan's voice came through his earpiece. "I recommend we install cameras in every corner of the Haunted House in the future. Only having them at the corridor intersections leaves too many blind spots."

"We'll talk about it when we have the money." Chen Ge carried the hammer and pushed open room after room. When he reached the corner of the second floor, he suddenly spotted a rag doll lying in front of a door.

"How did this little guy get out again? And why is it lying right in front of a room?" Chen Ge carried the hammer and thought for a moment before figuring it out. "Someone must be hiding in there. The little guy's helping me."

He pretended not to notice anything and strolled past the door as if nothing were amiss.

After walking more than ten meters, Chen Ge picked up the chains trailing along the floor and crept toward the door, keeping close to one side of the corridor.

Staying out of sight, he crouched down and peered through the gap in the door.

Inside the room, He Shan and Lao Zhao huddled behind the door with their hands over their mouths.

"The chains have gone quiet. The killer must have gone far away." Lao Zhao's face had gone pale with fright, but he still forced himself to stay calm and maintain his dignity as a Senior Student. "Actually, I'm not scared at all. Judging by my reasoning, the killer just came up from the first floor, so he definitely won't go back down anytime soon. This is our chance!"

It took a lot of effort for him to get up off the floor. "We'll move to the first floor right now and avoid the killer completely. We'll have him eating out of our hands. He Shan, go look at the door again. If you're sure the killer has left, we'll move immediately."

He Shan thought Lao Zhao made sense. Without giving it much thought, he pressed himself against the door and looked through the gap.

A faint warmth brushed his face. This time, what He Shan saw was different from anything he'd seen before. There was no dark corridor, and no scary doll. There was only an eyeball veined with blood, pressed against the other side of the door and peering inside!

"Holy shit!"

He Shan felt like his scalp was about to explode. He fell over and frantically scrambled backward.

The sight terrified Lao Zhao, too. "What did you see?"

The only answer was the sound of the door lock turning. The shabby door swung open, revealing a figure drenched in blood and exuding evil and horror.

At the sight of him, Lao Zhao kept backing away as if he wanted to squeeze himself into the wall.

"It's not a good idea to stand so close to the wall. What if there's someone inside it?" Chen Ge slipped a hand into his pocket and quietly tapped the option on his Black Phone to activate the scene's mechanisms.

Lao Zhao trembled so hard his rolls of fat shook. Before he could understand what Chen Ge meant, something suddenly touched his back.

He instinctively turned around. The smooth wall covering parted, revealing a wooden panel, and embedded inside the wall was an expressionless woman!

Lao Zhao's mind went blank. It was as if all his strength had been drained away. He dropped onto the floor, and the world spun around him. His gaze went unfocused.

"Your experience is over. I'll take you both out."

Chen Ge had only just finished speaking when the sound of shattering glass suddenly came from the third floor. A moment later, Feng Ge screamed.

"Something happened?" Chen Ge hurriedly contacted Xiao Wan and told her to come in. Leaving He Shan and Lao Zhao behind, he rushed upstairs.

Following the sound, Chen Ge found Feng Ge in a room on the third floor, gripping a wooden chair and apparently fighting something.

He took off his mask and waited until Feng Ge had worn himself out and collapsed on the floor before entering the room.

"What happened?" Chen Ge took the chair from him and tossed it aside. Feng Ge was in a very unstable state, and terror practically poured from his eyes. "Did you see anything strange?"