After a moment, the ferocious ghost across from him finally spoke in a chilling tone. "Your story... it does sound pretty tragic." As it spoke, the ghost, with its horrifying appearance, smacked its lips as if still savoring the death tale Chen Mo had recounted. "Though we both died unjustly, there's no helping it." "After hearing your story, I suddenly feel much better. It's about time I headed back..." With those words, the terrifying ghost's figure gradually faded, eventually dissolving into a wisp of black smoke and vanishing. Inside the gondola, only Chen Mo remained.
Was it over? Had he passed this test? It seemed he had guessed correctly—this challenge of telling a story to the ghost required that the cause of death be set within this theme park. Whether it had to be specifically tied to the rides involved in the accident four years ago, Chen Mo wasn't entirely sure. But knowing this ghost had died from a high-altitude fall, and that the tasks required completing the Ferris wheel and drop tower—both fitting that condition—he had picked one at random to fabricate a story. It had successfully fooled the ghost.
After catching his breath, Chen Mo immediately pulled out his phone to call the others and warn them how to avoid the deadly trap. Frustratingly, though, the phone had no signal at all. No need to guess—this was undoubtedly part of the story's restrictions. After a few attempts, Chen Mo silently put the phone away. That meant he had no way of knowing how many participants would catch the hidden clues in the story and manage to confuse the ghosts beside them. This tale had separated them all, so even if someone figured it out, they couldn't warn the others.
Though the story only lasted three hours, Chen Mo felt its difficulty was extraordinary. Was it because of Li Yan? Among the participants, only Li Yan was entering the horror story world for the fourth time. Of the rest, Bai Yin was on her second, while Chen Mo, Wei Ran, Gao Jie, and Liu Bo were all on their first mandatory mission. Logically, they shouldn't have faced such frequent deadly threats. "It's like an exam," Chen Mo muttered to himself with a sigh. "It seems the examiner only sets questions for the 'top students,' and it's just our bad luck as the 'slackers.'"
Though the ghost had vanished, the Ferris wheel gondola was still slowly rotating high in the air. In this world thick with deadly traps, Chen Mo couldn't fully let his guard down. Looking out through the glass, half the amusement park was shrouded in a thin layer of mist. Beyond that, nothing was visible. Several rides in the park were illuminated by lights, clearly the ones designated for completion in this story. Other rides, including a massive roller coaster, seemed to have electrical failures, lying silent in the vast darkness.
Even though the ghost had temporarily disappeared, Chen Mo could still feel a chilling aura lingering around him. Until he left this theme park, true peace would likely never come.
About ten minutes later, the Ferris wheel gondola finally descended slowly to the ground. With a clang, the metal door sprang open automatically. Just as Chen Mo was about to step out, he suddenly noticed something hidden under the seat he had been sitting on. With a soft thud, a small red shoe fell out of the gondola. Its dark crimson color was eerily reminiscent of blood. Clearly, like the diamond necklace, this was a clue from the story. As Chen Mo reached out and touched the little shoe, the world before his eyes—just like what Li Yan had described—suddenly transformed into a bizarre scene.
The surroundings shifted dramatically in an instant. Darkness peeled away like old wallpaper, and the entire amusement park regained its bustling, lively atmosphere. Right before his eyes, the woman Li Yan had described was leading a little girl toward the Ferris wheel. It seemed that touching story-related items indeed triggered visions of the past.
But what surprised Chen Mo was that the woman didn't accompany the little girl into the gondola. Instead, she arranged for the girl to ride alone. As the Ferris wheel began to turn, the girl slowly ascended into the air. At first, the little girl excitedly waved at her mother, but gradually, her attention was drawn to the amusement park scenery below, and her gaze shifted elsewhere.
Then, another strange thing happened. As the little girl slowly disappeared from view, the woman's face showed a complex expression. Her dark, gloomy look revealed that she was hesitating over some major decision. After a few minutes, as if she had finally made up her mind, the woman turned around and fled, running away as fast as she could, quickly disappearing into the crowd. And she never came back.
At first, Chen Mo was puzzled, but as he watched, he gradually understood. This woman had brought the little girl to this lively theme park not to play with her. But to abandon her. Perhaps she was a single mother who couldn't afford to raise the child, or maybe she had found a wealthy man but hidden the fact that she had a child. In any case, when the child became a stumbling block to her new life, the woman cleanly shed the burden.
Once the woman had completely vanished, the surrounding world darkened again. Throughout the vision, Chen Mo never saw the little girl's reaction, but he could still imagine how terrified and helpless a child would feel when her closest family suddenly disappeared without a trace.
Still, one thing puzzled Chen Mo. If she had abandoned the girl, why would a missing person notice appear? Could it be that the mother regretted her decision? But when she came back to look, the little girl was already gone? If so, where had the little girl, who repeatedly appeared in the clues, gone? What had happened between the mother abandoning her and the search that followed? These mysteries remained unsolved.
At that moment, the other gondolas finally reached the end one by one. From the second gondola, Li Yan stepped out, his face pale. He had managed to complete the test. In truth, Li Yan had only realized the ghost's intent just before stating his cause of death, quickly changing the direction of his story, and like Chen Mo, barely saved his life. Then came Bai Yin. Though her face was as pale as Li Yan's, she too had passed.
After that, when another gondola opened, no one emerged. "It's Gao Jie." Li Yan's heart felt as if it had been violently twisted. Another participant had been killed in the story. Gao Jie had clearly failed to see through the ghost's trap, recounted the wrong cause of death, and triggered a dead end. Now, only the last participant of this story remained.