The Thing in the Honey Jars

To clear the Haunted House, they had to find the Cellar in the forest. After lingering in the warehouse for a while, Lin Xiaomei and the others chose to enter the forest trail.

The sun was nowhere to be seen.

The scene before Lin Xiaomei looked as though a red filter had been laid over it, or as if someone had dimmed the entire world. The oppressive atmosphere made it hard to breathe.

Zhao Haiyang, Hu Xin, and Dong Xing were carrying chainsaws, which slowed them down even further.

After walking straight ahead for what felt like half a day, the fear in Lin Xiaomei's heart began to swell uncontrollably.

She realized...

This place was even bigger than she had imagined.

"This isn't normal. We haven't turned or taken any forks in the road. We've walked in a straight line for at least several hundred meters—maybe even a kilometer. What kind of place is this big?"

"Exactly. Even if this is VR, at most it can alter the light information our eyes receive. It can't change the actual terrain. Where the hell are we?!"

Lin Xiaomei completely panicked.

In her imagination, once she entered the forest, she would only need to walk for a few minutes at most before reaching the edge of the venue.

As long as she reached the boundary, it would mean everything was fake. It would give her a sense of security beyond the game itself, like the invisible walls in horror games—a deus ex machina of sorts.

But she hadn't encountered an invisible wall. She hadn't found any boundary.

All she saw along the way, the occasional sound of wind and cawing crows, the crunch of leaves and crimson mud beneath her feet, and the faint rotten stench filtering through her gas mask...

It all felt far too real.

For an instant, Lin Xiaomei even had the illusion that this was not a virtual space, but a real haunted place.

Zhao Haiyang had sharp eyes and spotted what seemed to be a middle-aged man standing beneath a Korean pine in the distance.

"Hello?"

"Hello. Is this your first time here?" The middle-aged man noticed them as well. He straightened his suit and said, "You're lucky. The forest is safe for now. The crows haven't gathered yet."

"My surname is Zhou. You can call me Old Zhou. I've been trapped here for a long time. We can work together to find an exit."

So he was an NPC.

Lin Xiaomei let out a breath of relief. Finding a guide NPC in a place like this gave her a rare bit of reassurance.

"I'm Lin Xiaomei. That dead fat guy is Zhao Haiyang, this is Hu Xin, and this is my assistant, Dong Xing."

After the introductions, Lin Xiaomei got straight to the point. "We're looking for the Cellar. Do you know where it is?"

"The Cellar? Of course. The first group of survivors to enter the forest found it, but they're long dead by now." Old Zhou sighed. "The Cellar is hidden deep in the part of the forest with the most crows. If you go in there, you'll definitely die."

"What's so scary about crows? Can't a chainsaw kill them?" Zhao Haiyang could not help asking.

"Idiot, did you forget what the rules said? Don't go near crows. That means they're definitely dangerous." Hu Xin shot Zhao Haiyang a glare.

Old Zhou nodded. "That's right. Crows are the most dangerous animals in the forest. Usually, once the crows occupy the Cellar, there's no way you can leave through it."

"Unless..."

Old Zhou paused, then continued, "You find Little Bear. Little Bear will help you deal with the crows. If you're lucky, you can escape through the Cellar while they're in chaos."

"Little Bear lives in Tree Hole. They're all very friendly."

Lin Xiaomei considered it.

Little Bear was friendly.

That matched the rules in the cabin.

It seemed Old Zhou really was a guide NPC.

"Thanks. Could you lead us there?"

Old Zhou gave a bitter smile. "I'm afraid I can't leave this place. The only thing I can do is offer you a little insignificant help. You must make it out alive."

Lin Xiaomei was helpless.

Sure enough, this kind of NPC could only help them advance the plot. If he personally led the team, there would be far fewer scares.

That would not fit the Haunted House's frightening design.

After greeting Old Zhou, Lin Xiaomei and the others continued deeper into the woods, though they quickened their pace this time.

"Don't you think that NPC named Old Zhou looked kind of familiar? Have we seen him somewhere before?"

"You're overthinking it. He's just a Haunted House employee. At most, his appearance was altered a little with VR technology. How could we have seen him before?" Lin Xiaomei said. "Stop imagining things. We need to keep moving."

Since Lin Xiaomei had said so,

Zhao Haiyang could only shut up.

They had already gone at least two kilometers deep into the forest. Such a straight-line distance would be absolutely impossible for any Haunted House or escape room on the market.

Venue space and rent were always the biggest costs for this kind of attraction.

Anyone daring to use such a huge venue for a Haunted House while charging only fifty yuan per ticket would never even make back the rent.

Yet they had seen it with their own eyes.

"Why aren't we there yet?"

"I've been counting our steps. We've already taken more than three thousand. Does this place even have an end?"

"I can't take it anymore, Sister Lin. I don't want to play anymore. I'm taking this equipment off."

Hu Xin could not endure it any longer and wanted to remove his gas mask. Dong Xing reacted even faster and quickly stopped him.

"Don't give up."

"We've been in here for less than half an hour. We haven't even seen the exit. Maybe the Haunted House owner is watching us make fools of ourselves from the control room."

"And don't forget, that Boss Chen is on the other side. If he sees us acting like clowns, won't we lose all our dignity?"

Hearing Dong Xing's words, Hu Xin had no choice but to abandon the idea and leave his gas mask on.

This time, they were very lucky.

After only a few more minutes of walking, the road ahead suddenly widened. Looking up, they saw a gigantic banyan tree at least a hundred meters tall. Its roots twisted around one another, and directly in front of them was the entrance to a tree hole.

Tree Hole...

"Little Bear lives in Tree Hole..."

"Fuck, isn't this straight out of a cartoon?"

"No, did this Haunted House buy the rights or something? How can it turn a cartoon into a real set?"

Lin Xiaomei finally realized that she had watched this cartoon as a child, and she had loved it. Why had she not recognized it until now?

Perhaps the enormous contrast between the cartoon and the Haunted House had made her subconsciously overlook the connection between the scenes.

They entered Tree Hole.

There was no Little Bear and no one else. It was so quiet that they could hear their own footsteps. Several honey jars piled on the ground caught Lin Xiaomei's attention.

"Sister Lin, you should probably not touch that. I have a feeling there's nothing good inside." Seeing Lin Xiaomei walk toward the honey jars, Zhao Haiyang spoke nervously.

He really was getting scared.

Even the chainsaw could no longer give him a sense of security.

"Chekhov said that if a gun appears in the first act, it must go off in the third. These honey jars wouldn't appear here for no reason. They might contain a clue to the Cellar." Lin Xiaomei said. "Besides, we've reported murder cases where corpses were hidden in water vats before. These honey jars aren't even as big as pickle jars. What could they possibly hold?"