An Unexpected Reward

Perhaps the bathroom window hadn't been shut properly. The night wind blew into the room, brushing Chen Ge's face like an invisible hand.

The door of the Toilet Stall swayed gently, creaking. Drops of water from the ceiling ran down a pipe and fell to the floor. Something seemed to be crawling in the drain, rustling softly.

In the silence, every sound was magnified. Many people would have felt uneasy in such an environment, but Chen Ge was an exception. His childhood experiences had forged exceptional nerves and an ironclad resolve.

His mind was blank. He didn't think about anything; he simply kept track of the time.

Nearly twenty minutes passed. Chen Ge felt the temperature in the room inexplicably drop. It was as if someone had placed several ice cubes around him, and he shivered involuntarily.

"Stay calm! Don't think about why. Don't scare yourself. There are only ten minutes left. No matter what happens, I have to hold on!" A faint current of air brushed his ear, as if something were circling him. Chen Ge clenched his fists, the veins on the backs of his hands bulging, but his body remained rooted to the ground like a pine tree.

"Chen Ge, Chen Ge, Chen Ge..."

He murmured the name under his breath. With five minutes left, Chen Ge felt as if the flickering flame in the bathroom had gone out. In the darkness, it seemed someone else was chanting his name.

"An echo? That can't be!"

"Chen Ge..."

The voice seemed to be calling to him, growing somewhat urgent, as if it had something very important to tell him.

"Does that sound come from outside the door? Should I go take a look?" Chen Ge quickly dismissed the thought. The rules of the game were clear: he only needed to stay in front of the mirror.

He kept track of the time in his head. The voice in his ear gradually became distorted. He was sure someone else was calling his name, and that person seemed to be standing right outside the door.

"That person sounds really anxious, but I'm the one playing the game. What's he getting worked up for? This is obviously a trap. It's way too amateurish." Chen Ge pursed his lips. "The setting and atmosphere are great, but the scare tactics are too limited."

In the final three minutes, a piercing noise rang out from the bathroom door, like someone scratching it with their fingernails and gnawing at it with their teeth. The door shook as if it could burst open at any moment.

"1,798 seconds, 1,799 seconds, 1,800 seconds!" Half an hour had passed. The noises outside the door vanished, and everything returned to silence.

To make sure he hadn't miscounted, Chen Ge didn't open his eyes right away. He counted to three hundred again, then took a step back, raised his hands to his chest, and fluttered his eyelids.

The candle in the bathroom had long since gone out, leaving everything pitch-black. Chen Ge had the vague sense that something had changed.

He switched on his flashlight. When the light appeared in the room again, he froze.

The bathroom mirror was covered in cracks. His reflection had been split into countless pieces, making it look unreal. But what shocked him even more was the battered Doll that had appeared in front of the mirror at some point.

Its button eyes glinted in the light, and its patched body was stuffed with cotton. The Doll wasn't cute, but it meant a great deal to Chen Ge. It was the first Doll he had ever made, and it was the one his parents had taken with them when they went missing.

The Doll leaned against the shattered mirror, as if trying to stop whatever was inside from coming out.

"The bathroom door was locked. How did the Doll get in? Through the window? No, that can't be it! The real question is, why did it move by itself?" Chen Ge felt as if his worldview were crumbling. He was completely rattled.

The man and the Doll faced off for three minutes before Chen Ge finally calmed down. He flexed his cold fingers and slowly approached.

No matter what angle he looked from, the button eyes seemed to be staring right at him. Chen Ge gazed at the toy he had made, and the corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily.

Carefully avoiding the Doll, he picked up the phone beside it. "Good thing I was cautious and prepared."

The phone's recording had never stopped. Chen Ge carefully saved a backup before watching the video.

The footage wasn't very clear. The candle flame flickered, and Chen Ge, standing in front of the mirror, looked rather stiff. His reflection, on the other hand, seemed more animated.

The first ten minutes were uneventful. Things took a turn at the start of the eleventh minute.

The sound of the night wind hadn't been captured. The video only showed the door of the squat toilet stall swaying gently a few times.

Then static began to appear in the footage. The scene itself was perfectly ordinary, but it gave the viewer an indescribable sense of horror. Perhaps it was the fear of darkness and the unknown that lay in human nature.

Chen Ge's expression darkened as he watched. He remembered keeping his eyes closed and staying away from the mirror, but the footage showed his body slowly leaning forward, as if he were about to press himself against it.

By the twenty-fifth minute, his upper body had bent forward at a seventy-degree angle, his nose almost touching the mirror.

A few seconds later, without warning, cracks began to spread across the mirror. The sight left Chen Ge shaken.

Then the most unbelievable thing happened: the Chen Ge in the mirror changed expression, baring his teeth as he slammed hard into the glass!

At that exact moment, the candle went out, and the recording ended.

Because of the camera angle, the video didn't show the Doll at all. Chen Ge had no idea what had happened during the final five minutes.

"The thing in the mirror wanted to get out. In the end, the Doll seemed to stop it. If that's right, then it saved me." Chen Ge picked up the Doll from the washbasin and asked it very seriously, "Can you understand what I'm saying? Do you know where my parents went?"

The Doll didn't respond. Only its button eyes gave off a faint glimmer.

He held the Doll close, glanced at the bathroom door, and didn't dare go out. Instead, he huddled beneath the windowsill and took out the Black Phone. A message confirming that he had completed the task was already displayed.

"I have to say, you're lucky. Congratulations on completing a daily task on Nightmare difficulty! You've received the task reward—Beginner Talent Skill: Corpse Makeup."

"Corpse Makeup: I hope you'll be more solemn and serious as you inherit this talent. Unlike beauty makeup, corpse makeup artists only apply makeup to corpses. The beauty in your hands spans life and death, restoring the appearance of those who have grown cold and granting them eternal beauty."

"As this is your first time completing a daily task on Nightmare difficulty, you've received the title of newcomer to Nightmare City. You've also received an additional reward: the one-star horror scenario Midnight Escape trial task has been unlocked! Once the trial task is complete, the facilities for this scenario will appear in the House of Horrors!"

After reading the messages on the Black Phone, Chen Ge fell into thought. The development of a Haunted House depended on makeup artists. Both actors and props needed a second makeover from a makeup artist, and a good one could create a more convincing effect with much less effort.