Chapter 139: So That's Where You Were Hiding (3)
"Wenlong? Pei Hu?"
Xia Meili called out twice at the entrance, but the haunted house didn't even echo back, as if everything had been swallowed by the monsters lurking in the darkness.
"What's up with those two?" She didn't want to stay with Wang Hailong and Dou Menglu, nor did she dare explore alone, so she had to come looking for her companions. "They couldn't have actually run into trouble, right? But Wenlong's voice earlier didn't sound like he was in danger."
Unable to figure it out, Xia Meili stood at the doorway for a moment, then pushed open the nearest door.
"304? There's a number on the door? What does that mean?" She peered inside. Unlike what she'd imagined, the room was very clean.
"Why does the cleaner it looks, the more uneasy I feel?" Standing at the threshold, she called out her companions' names twice again, growing more anxious with each shout. "Where could two grown people have gone?"
She pulled out her phone for light, but as the area in front of her lit up, the surroundings grew even darker. Something seemed to be moving at the corridor intersection in the distance.
"It's too dangerous out here. I'd better go inside first." Xia Meili stepped into Room 304 and closed the door behind her. "This room is perfectly normal in every sense, like an ordinary rental unit. But the more it's set up this way, the more likely it hides something scary. The haunted house owner wouldn't waste money building useless spaces."
She was sharp-minded and braver than most girls. Pressing her body against the wall, she used her phone to scan the area before daring to take a single small step.
After a few minutes, Xia Meili had felt every inch of the living room walls and found nothing unusual.
"No scary setups in the living room means the other two rooms are dangerous! Wenlong and Pei Hu probably let their guard down and got caught when they entered another room." Gripping her phone tightly, she slowly approached the bedroom.
"The bedroom has no door, so there's no chance of a haunted house actor hiding behind it, but there are blind spots on both sides of the doorframe. I need to be careful." She moved slowly, but her heart beat faster and faster.
When she reached the bedroom entrance, Xia Meili turned on her phone's camera and extended it into the room, rotating the lens.
After filming a full circle, she pulled the phone back to check. The footage was dark, but she could confirm no one was hiding in the bedroom.
"No one in the bedroom either? Almost forgot—the scariest spot, under the bed, I haven't checked yet." She retreated far into the living room, chose a specific angle, crouched down, and shone her phone light under the bed.
"Nothing there at all. Guess I've watched too many horror movies." Xia Meili relaxed a little. "If I were designing this, I wouldn't let such a terrifying spot as under the bed go to waste. I'd set up a mechanism with a half-body dummy that pops out the moment someone sits on the bed."
After saying that, she went into the bedroom to inspect it herself. There were no mechanisms installed, only a faint scent of laundry detergent.
"Even the rag for wiping the table smells like laundry detergent. The person who lived here must have been a neat freak with OCD." Leaving the bedroom, Xia Meili looked toward the last room.
"The bathroom is another classic horror movie scene, but this one looks tiny, no stalls, not even a place to hide."
Walking slowly, Xia Meili truly felt like she was navigating a life-or-death survival game in this haunted house. She was extremely cautious, every step deliberate.
Tourists like this were notoriously difficult to deal with. They'd find every possible way to spot the scare setups in advance, and once the hidden fright points were exposed, the horror effect would be greatly diminished.
The bathroom in Haiming Apartments was uniquely designed, with the mirror directly facing the door. Whether passing by or stepping inside, the mirror immediately drew attention.
Xia Meili was no exception. Staring at her reflection, she felt a vague unease. "Is it the setting giving me psychological cues? Why does the person in the mirror not quite look like me?"
She stopped at the bathroom entrance, then shone her phone light onto the mirror. "It reflects light—it's definitely a mirror, not a haunted house actor standing in the frame."
Holding the wall, she entered the bathroom. The space was small, and she quickly reached the mirror.
"This room probably hasn't been set up yet, or the actor hiding here already left to scare Wenlong and Pei Hu." Xia Meili reached out and touched the mirror, her tense nerves finally relaxing. "False alarm. An empty room scared me this much. It's all Pei Hu's fault for being so jumpy, making me tense up too."
She looked at herself in the mirror. Up close, it seemed more normal. "This is just an ordinary haunted house. We've been scaring ourselves all along. Since Pei Hu and Wenlong aren't in this room, they must be in one of the other two."
Phone in hand, Xia Meili dialed Wang Wenlong's number again. "The ringtone seems to be coming from next door."
She listened intently, her eyes unconsciously fixed ahead. Just then, a drop of water fell from the ceiling, landing on the edge of the sink.
All her focus was on pinpointing the ringtone's location, so she didn't think about why water was dripping from the ceiling.
"That's right, it must be from Room 303 next door."
Soon, another drop of water slid from the ceiling, landing on the tip of her shoe. Before she could react, a third drop brushed past the tip of her nose.
This time, Xia Meili finally noticed. "Why is this crappy room leaking water?"
Frowning, she looked up. On the ceiling panel above her lay a woman, soaked through.
Her twisted, agonized face silently stared at Xia Meili, black hair hanging down, nearly touching her eyes!
"No wonder I couldn't find you—so that's where you were hiding..."
A drop of something thicker than water landed on Xia Meili's face. Up close, she could see it looked like blood.
Her body went limp, and she thudded to the floor.
...
After attaching all the mannequin heads, Chen Ge walked out of the last classroom. "Where's the mannequin I placed at the intersection?"
The female mannequin had vanished. Chen Ge immediately ran toward the entrance, remembering the warnings in the black phone: once a mannequin leaves the haunted house, it could go out of control.
He checked the entrance and found the wooden board still intact, finally breathing a sigh of relief. "It's about time. I should go get them out."
Without even grabbing the Skull Physician's hammer, he walked into the scene wearing only a bloodstained shirt.
Halfway there, a scream that seemed to tear through the throat erupted from the direction of the female dormitory!
"It sounds like it's from the Ouija board area, but I don't recall the Ouija board spirit being this irritable."
Chen Ge quickened his pace. Before he'd gone far, he saw a woman in hot pants, having lost her shoes, charging toward him.
Thanks to Moonlight Dries the Heart for the alliance leader! I'll continue with three updates tomorrow (if I don't finish, I'll make it up on Saturday or Sunday...)