Chapter 1: The Haunted House on the Brink of Closure
"This is the least scary haunted house I've ever seen."
"The props are too fake. I walked through the whole thing and wasn't scared at all—actually, I almost laughed."
"A materialist fears nothing!"
"I told you it's boring. We'd be better off playing games in the dorm. My Kun is already level 80."
At the entrance of the haunted house on the west outskirts of Hanjiang City, a few students rode off on shared bikes without a hint of reluctance.
Watching this scene, Chen Ge, holding a stack of haunted house flyers, felt a bit helpless.
Scaring people is a craft, but modern folks, seasoned by all kinds of horror films, have rock-solid nerves. Walking into a haunted house feels like strolling through their own backyard.
"Boss!"
A clear female voice came from behind. Chen Ge turned to see a petite "zombie" in a nurse's uniform storming out of the haunted house, fuming.
"What's wrong, Xiao Wan?" The girl, Xu Wan, was one of the temporary actors in the haunted house.
"Those little jerks tried to take advantage of me!" She gritted her teeth, clenching her small fists.
So she came to complain...
"That's too much. They wouldn't even spare a zombie." As the boss, Chen Ge naturally sided with Xiao Wan. "I'll go talk to the park manager and check the surveillance footage."
"No need for all that. When I sensed their intentions, I struck first and gave one of them a beating." Xu Wan flicked a bloodstain on the edge of her nurse's uniform. "This isn't makeup, by the way."
"Uh, fair enough. Girls should learn to protect themselves." Chen Ge wiped cold sweat from his forehead and glanced at the setting sun. "Let's call it a day. There probably won't be any more visitors. Tell the others they can leave early."
After he spoke, the girl in zombie makeup didn't move.
"Something else?"
"Boss..." Xu Wan hesitated, then slowly pulled a letter from her pocket. "These are resignation letters from Tao Ming and Xiao Wei. You've treated them well, so they were too embarrassed to hand them to you directly. They asked me to pass them along."
"They're leaving?" Chen Ge paused, then took the envelope. "Everyone has their own path. You can clock out early too."
"Mm-hmm, I'll go remove my makeup."
Watching the cute, slightly clueless little "zombie" leave, Chen Ge silently lit a cigarette.
Half a year ago, his parents had vanished without a trace, leaving behind only this haunted house.
To hold onto that connection, Chen Ge quit his job and poured all his energy into running the haunted house, striving to make it better.
But times had changed too fast. The haunted house industry faced fierce competition, was niche, and had many limitations.
The same scary scenes, once seen, grew dull on repeat, and constant renovations required a lot of money.
For weeks now, the haunted house had been operating at a loss. A day's ticket sales couldn't even cover a fraction of the utility bills.
"I wonder how much longer I can hold on."
Stubbing out his cigarette, Chen Ge was about to head back inside when a middle-aged man in a New Century Park uniform approached.
Seeing him, Chen Ge quickened his pace like a mouse spotting a cat.
"Pretending you don't see me?" The man grabbed Chen Ge's shoulder. "Let's settle this today. You're two months behind on utilities and venue rent. The higher-ups keep pushing me, and it's stressing me out!"
"Uncle Xu, it's not that I don't want to pay. I'm just in a tight spot financially. Give me one more month."
"That's what you said last month."
"I swear, this is absolutely the last month!" Chen Ge patted his chest, his face full of sincerity.
"The haunted house business isn't doing well. You can't attract visitors. If you ask me, you should stop pushing this." The middle-aged man, Uncle Xu, looked at the envelope in Chen Ge's hand and loosened his grip. "You're young. There are plenty of other things you could do. Why live so stressed?"
"Uncle Xu, I know you mean well, but this haunted house means something special to me. It's like a keepsake my parents left behind." Chen Ge's voice dropped low, as if he didn't want others to hear.
Chen Ge's parents' situation was well-known to Uncle Xu, the park manager. He didn't respond for a few seconds, then sighed softly, softening his stance. "I can understand your feelings to some extent. Fine, I'll try to stall for you a few more weeks."
"Thanks, Uncle Xu!"
"Don't thank me. Just focus on selling more tickets for the haunted house."
After seeing off the park manager, Chen Ge went straight back into the haunted house and began his daily routine: checking equipment wear, maintaining props, and cleaning.
"The artificial blood in the repair room is almost out—I need to order more. Tilt this passage a bit inward to better block visitors' sightlines. The mannequin's torn—need to patch it up. Damn! Where's my craft lamp? Who stole it!"
To outsiders, he was the haunted house boss, a young entrepreneur making his own way. But only he knew the hardships behind it.
A haunted house is a form of "horror" consumption. In a scary environment, people's muscles and nerves tense up, and when released, it feels like a massage, giving a temporary sense of satisfaction.
At the same time, it's a one-time experience. Many haunted houses operate by moving between cities, constantly attracting new visitors. For someone like Chen Ge, stuck in one place, unless he had a huge reputation to draw people in, he couldn't last long.
It was already impressive that he'd held on this long alone.
Dragging a torn mannequin, Chen Ge entered the repair room. He'd studied toy design and manufacturing in college, so many of the mannequins and mechanisms in the haunted house were his own creations.
The repair process was tedious and monotonous: stitching the mannequin's skin, repainting, and aging it.
"I'm almost out of blood. I think there's some stock in the attic." The haunted house had three floors. The first two were for horror scenes, and the third was a storage room.
Pushing open the dusty wooden door, the attic was crammed with discarded equipment, most of it left over from when his parents ran the haunted house.
Seeing these things reminded him of them, so Chen Ge rarely came here.
"Half a year has flown by."
Looking at the familiar gear, Chen Ge recalled his childhood.
Back then, they ran a mobile haunted house. His parents would take him from city to city. When they got busy, they'd leave him alone in the back with all kinds of horror props, training him from a young age. That's why Chen Ge had such a strong nerve.
While other kids played with alphabet puzzles, he was already running around with a fake head.
"All memories."
Without realizing it, Chen Ge found himself next to the wooden box holding his parents' belongings. Inside were a rough cloth doll and a pitch-black phone.
The doll was the first toy Chen Ge had ever made as a child. He had no memory of the phone at all.
These two items were found by the police in an abandoned hospital on the outskirts. Why his parents had gone there late at night, no one knew.
"It's been so long. Where are you?" Chen Ge picked up the doll, squeezed its face, and sighed softly. "I'd better find that artificial blood. If I can't get through this slow season, the haunted house might really have to close or sell."
He was just talking to himself, but when he mentioned closing or selling, the black phone in the box, which had been silent all along, suddenly flickered with a faint, cold light.
"What's this? Black tech? Paranormal phenomenon?"
If it were someone else, their heart might race, they'd look around, palms sweating. But Chen Ge's reaction was straightforward: he picked up the phone, held it close, and double-checked.
"I tried turning this phone on a hundred times before, and it never worked. Why did it start up on its own today? It was found where my parents disappeared. Could they be contacting me, knowing I'm in trouble?"
Suppressing his excitement, Chen Ge swiped the screen. The black phone's desktop had only one app, with a haunted house as its icon.
"Not what I expected, but the icon looks familiar—it's the front door of my own haunted house!"
Frowning, Chen Ge opened the app. A line of blood-red text appeared on the screen: "Do you believe in ghosts?"
Whether ghosts exist is a surreal philosophical question, a tough one for a science-minded guy like Chen Ge.
"Probably..."
Chen Ge made his choice. A few seconds later, new text appeared on the screen.
"What you think in your heart is the answer. From this moment on, you will officially take over as the new owner of the haunted house. Of course, this isn't something to celebrate. At the end of the tutorial, I want to leave you with one piece of advice: suicide is the coward's way out. Please, strive to live!"
"That's a lot of info! But that cheesy way of talking—kinda reminds me of my dad?"
Chen Ge opened the haunted house app again, and a brand-new interface appeared:
Hanjiang City West Suburb Haunted House Status: On the brink of closure Rating: None Today's visitors: Four Monthly visitors: Ten My ghost team members: None My prop inventory: None Achievements unlocked: None Current facility/scene: Zombie Resurrection Night (Terrible props, lousy actors, no story or logic, scream index: none) Unlockable horror scenes: Midnight Escape (A dangerous mental patient has moved into a rundown apartment building, armed with scissors and a hammer, pacing outside your door, scream index: one star); Third Ward (This abandoned hospital makes strange noises every night. As a newspaper reporter, you'll investigate, scream index: three stars); Doom Hearse (The hearse carrying the dead is on the road. If you can't leave within an hour, you'll be trapped on it forever, scream index: two stars) Daily tasks: Completing the haunted house's daily tasks will yield corresponding rewards and unlock more horror scenes. Haunted house expansion conditions: Monthly visitors exceed 100, positive rating above 60% (after three expansions, the haunted house will upgrade to a Shudder Maze) Horror Wheel (Consume the scare points generated by visitors in the haunted house to spin the wheel): Life and death are fated, fortune and wealth are in heaven's hands. Here, there are spirit fruits to extend life, and vengeful ghosts full of hatred! Other functions: Not yet unlocked