Old Zhou? What Old Zhou?

Lin Xiaomei reached for the jar of honey.

However, before she could touch the jar—

Heavy footsteps suddenly sounded outside the Tree Hole. Lin Xiaomei jumped and looked toward the entrance.

Two burly black figures came into view.

Their faces could not be seen, only their thick outlines. They had no necks, and their limbs were absurdly thick. Rather than people, they looked like some kind of half-human, half-bear monsters.

These things were Little Bear?

Lin Xiaomei's eyelids twitched.

The rules had clearly stated that Little Bear was friendly.

But the Little Bear before her had nothing whatsoever to do with the word "friendly." They were unmistakably monsters!

Little Bear seemed to notice Lin Xiaomei beside the honey jar.

They approached Lin Xiaomei step by step.

When they were less than five steps away from Lin Xiaomei, Zhao Haiyang finally reacted. He yanked the chainsaw cord, and the chainsaw erupted in a violent roar.

"Kaka kaka!"

The saw teeth spun.

He slashed straight at Little Bear's forehead.

The chainsaw crazily tore through Little Bear's flesh, spraying black fluid everywhere. Hu Xin and Dong Xing beside him were terrified out of their wits and hurriedly stopped Zhao Haiyang.

"Are you crazy?!"

"That's a staff member! You're fucking killing someone!"

"Fuck, how could that thing be a living person? It was definitely a monster! I saw it—it was a monster!" Zhao Haiyang's face was pale.

Without thinking, he had split Little Bear apart with the chainsaw.

Only when he saw Little Bear's corpse torn into two halves, with black, viscous fluid splattered all over the ground, did a pungent stench of blood forcibly calm him down.

Only then did he remember that this was a Haunted House.

Fuck.

"It really wasn't my fault! That thing felt too real. It definitely wasn't a living person. I swear, those two lumps looked like monsters when I saw them!"

"I'm done playing. They're not going to call the police and arrest me, are they? I'll turn myself in right now!"

Zhao Haiyang could not take it anymore. Ignoring Hu Xin and Dong Xing's attempts to stop him, he ripped off his gas mask.

"Aah!!!"

A shrill scream rang out.

The next second, Zhao Haiyang vanished into thin air.

Hu Xin and Dong Xing's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. They were completely dumbfounded, unable to believe that a living person had simply disappeared before their eyes.

What kind of joke was this?

Could the Haunted House staff really beat up visitors?

No, if there really were staff members, hadn't Zhao Haiyang just killed them all?

Countless questions swirled through their minds. Lin Xiaomei moved first, tossing her axe to the ground and trying to run out of the Tree Hole.

However, she glanced at Little Bear's corpse.

The sight before her made her eyelids twitch violently.

On Little Bear's mangled corpse, the black fluid gathered into countless Crows. The Crows spread their wings, shrieking as they flew into the air. Amid them appeared the figure of a woman in a red qipao.

This Red-Clothed woman... Lin Xiaomei knew her.

It was Lingling!

Lin Xiaomei's impression of Lingling ran too deep. She had been the victim in the Hanjiang City Genius Girl Case. Due to an inborn genetic defect, her limbs had been disproportionately long and thin, especially her neck, which was three to four times longer than an ordinary person's, like that of a hanged ghost.

When she died, both her hands had been chopped off by her biological father. Her resentment had been immense, and the oil painting she created before her death had sold at auction for hundreds of thousands.

It was only after her biological father died in a detention center that rumors of the Cursed Oil Painting began to spread. Some said the woman in the painting opened her eyes late at night.

"This is insane! This is insane!"

"The Haunted House owner actually dared to put Lingling's image into the Haunted House!"

"No, Lingling's case happened years ago. Her real face can't be found online at all. To protect the victim, we never released uncensored photos. How did this Haunted House owner recreate Lingling's appearance perfectly??"

Lin Xiaomei's voice trembled uncontrollably.

That face was burned forever into her mind.

She could guarantee that Lingling's corpse had looked exactly like this back then. At most, her pupils had been completely dyed black, and she looked somewhat like some kind of bird, inhuman in every way.

But her features were almost exactly the same as when Lin Xiaomei had photographed her all those years ago.

This was not something that could have been found by searching for information online.

How had the Haunted House owner obtained Lingling's appearance?

Or was it...

Because the Haunted House owner had bought the painting Lingling created before her death, and that Cursed Oil Painting had affected the VR, what they were seeing was an actual ghost?!

"Help!!"

"It's haunted!!"

The three of them screamed as they fled outside the Tree Hole.

Lingling merely watched their retreating backs and did not pursue them. Several Crows cried out, spread their wings, and flew after the trio's trail.

"Phew..."

"Phew..."

"Wait... wait, I'm out of strength."

"That female ghost didn't follow us. Let's rest first. Fuck, this place really is haunted. That Haunted House owner is completely insane. To make money, he dared to buy something from an actual murder case. You have to know, once these things are tainted with a dead person's resentment, they really can become haunted!"

Lin Xiaomei panted as she leaned against a tree.

She wanted nothing more than to curse Zhang Ze a hundred times over.

Once she connected everything that had happened, it all seemed explainable.

Why Little Bear had looked nothing like a fake but like real monsters, and why Zhao Haiyang's chainsaw had been able to rip open wounds—it was because those things had truly been ghosts.

"Find the Cellar, quickly! If we can't find the Cellar, that ghost will definitely kill us!"

"Sis Lin, calm down. We can just take off our gas masks, can't we? Did you forget? This Haunted House is only a VR game at most. We can just quit," Hu Xin tried to persuade her.

"Idiot, have you forgotten Zhao Haiyang? If you dare take off your mask, your end will definitely be a hundred times worse than being caught by the ghost!"

"Maybe this mask is the Cognitive Filter. In reality, that female ghost is standing right in front of us, face-to-face with us!"

Lin Xiaomei nearly screamed hysterically at the two of them.

Hu Xin and Dong Xing were both startled by Lin Xiaomei.

But they completely understood her fear. They were terrified too. Zhao Haiyang's inexplicable disappearance and Lingling's sudden appearance had pushed their fear to its peak.

"Tap..."

"Tap..."

Suddenly, footsteps sounded again from behind the bushes.

Lin Xiaomei quickly shut her mouth and gestured for silence. The other two barely dared to breathe.

"Hello?"

"Is anyone there?"

"I'm a Haunted House staff member, Li Yang. Are there any visitors here?"

"I'm here to take you out of the game."

The staff member had arrived?!

Lin Xiaomei immediately clung to this lifeline and nearly burst into tears. She rushed out from behind the trees and saw Li Yang.

Li Yang wore a Haunted House staff uniform and looked at Lin Xiaomei in confusion. "Why are there only three of you left?"

"One of us was killed by a ghost! Your Haunted House really has ghosts. Take us out now! I'm calling the police. You have no idea what kind of thing you've brought into this Haunted House!"

"Didn't you have a staff member named Old Zhou before? He was an NPC too. He told us we could only leave through the Cellar. Take us to the Cellar, quickly!"

Li Yang looked confused. "Old Zhou?"

"Other than the owner, Zhang Ze, I'm the only staff member at this Haunted House. What are you talking about? What Old Zhou?"

Lin Xiaomei's mind instantly went blank.

She sucked in a sharp breath.

She finally remembered where she had seen Old Zhou's face before!