Chapter 141: Scene Rating System
Wang Wenlong sat at the bottom of a dry well only a little over a meter deep, his hands flailing at the air as if wrestling with something.
"Stay right there. I'll get him out." Chen Ge shouted into the well a few times before Wang Wenlong stopped moving. He seemed severely frightened, staring blankly upward.
When his lifeless eyes swept over Pei Hu, his unfocused pupils suddenly sharpened.
His body trembled with rage, as if breaking free from some restraint, Wang Wenlong roared at Pei Hu: "Son of a bitch! You dare come back!"
"Listen to me, that situation was complicated. If I hadn't run, we'd both be in danger."
"Bullshit!"
"I'm serious! I used myself as bait to lure the scariest thing away! Ask the haunted house boss if you don't believe me!" Pei Hu felt utterly wronged. Lying motionless under a bed for over ten minutes while being stared at by a head—no one who hadn't truly experienced it could understand how terrifying that was.
"If you two want to argue, do it outside." Seeing Wang Wenlong so spirited, Chen Ge felt relieved. "Come on, give me your hand."
Noticing Chen Ge was there, Wang Wenlong finally calmed down a bit. "Can't, my lower body's numb."
"Numb?"
Chen Ge jumped into the well and, working with Pei Hu, managed to haul Wang Wenlong out.
After getting him out, Chen Ge didn't rush to leave. He had checked this dry well earlier when hiding his school badge—there were only two mannequin props inside, nothing too terrifying.
Outside the well, Wang Wenlong and Pei Hu were still arguing. Chen Ge crouched down to examine the mannequins' faces more closely. The male one's eyes were open, different from earlier that morning.
"The two mannequins buried in the well should be Fan Yu's parents. If they had turned into vengeful spirits, they wouldn't be this easy to deal with. They're probably just lingering thoughts."
Chen Ge recalled when Fei Youliang had visited. Back then, possessed by the Ouija board spirit, he tried to escape but was stopped by over twenty lingering thoughts in the classroom.
Later, several of those thoughts entered his body, guiding him to the dry well. They seemed ready to punish the Ouija board spirit but gave up for various reasons.
"The Ouija board spirit was in the wrong first. The other lingering thoughts came to the well to punish it—were they planning to throw it in?" Chen Ge looked again at Fan Yu's parents buried in the sand, more certain of his guess. The dry well was likely a place to seal away errant lingering thoughts.
"Thinking about it, those lingering thoughts in the classroom have a pretty strong sense of justice." All of them were orphans in life, adopted by the old principal and treating Muyang Middle School as their home. Now that Chen Ge's black phone had recreated the Muyang Middle School scene, these lingering souls probably just wanted to live there peacefully.
"As long as you don't do anything too extreme, my haunted house will be a home that takes you in." Chen Ge looked at the mannequins on the ground, said no more, and climbed out of the well.
When he looked back into the well, both mannequins' eyes were closed.
"Come on, time to get you out." Chen Ge helped Wang Wenlong up. The guy's fear still hadn't faded. The only reason he'd snapped out of it earlier was that seeing Pei Hu had ignited anger that overpowered everything else.
Dragging and pulling with all his might, Chen Ge finally managed to get the five of them out of the Muyang Middle School scene.
When the opaque curtain at the haunted house entrance was lifted, the gathered tourists all gasped.
They could hear the constant screams from inside, but no one expected it to be this brutal.
"What did these people go through?"
"Less than half an hour..."
"Pentakill?"
Xu Shu, who was still diligently selling tickets with his back to the haunted house, noticed everyone staring behind him. A bad feeling crept up, and when he turned around, his hair stood on end.
"Holy crap! They're all down!"
Xu Shu dropped the tickets and rushed over to help Wang Hailong and Xia Meili.
"Just a bit of a scare, worked up a sweat, nothing else." Chen Ge let go of Wang Wenlong's arm. "Can you walk on your own?"
Hearing Chen Ge's words, the onlookers instinctively stepped back.
"Can't even walk, and you call that just a bit of a scare?!"
"Just worked up a sweat? You're way too optimistic!"
Embarrassed by the stares, Wang Wenlong tried to take a couple of steps, looking like he was learning to walk for the first time.
"Wenlong, Pei Hu!" A burly man in a tank top pushed through the crowd, a wolf head tattooed on his shoulder. He strode over and grabbed Wang Wenlong. "What happened to you guys! I heard your screams from outside."
Chen Ge glanced at the man. They had come as a group of six. According to their original plan, this guy was supposed to go in alone next.
"Was it that loud?" Wang Wenlong wished he could crawl into a hole, shaking off the man's hand.
Seeing Wang Wenlong ignore him, the man turned to Chen Ge. "What did you do to my buddy!"
"Buddy?" Chen Ge found the man's tone odd but didn't dwell on it. He stepped forward, facing all the tourists. "I told them before they went in—horror scene rating system! Only by clearing the earlier scenes and proving you can handle the scares can you move on to the later ones. But they didn't listen, tried to push ahead, and ended up like this."
Standing in front of the haunted house, Chen Ge ignored the man and grew serious. "When I first proposed the horror scene rating system, many friends suspected I was just trying to rip them off with forced spending. That's really not the case. I'm just trying to protect everyone. Because this newly opened two-star horror scene isn't suitable for everyone. Its terror level far exceeds other haunted houses on the market!"
Chen Ge grabbed the railing by the entrance. "West Suburb Haunted House has been open for years, going from near bankruptcy to a ninety percent satisfaction rate—because we never cheat our visitors. If you come, you get the most thrilling experience!"
"But have you ever considered this? Everyone's tolerance for fear is different. We pursue extreme terror, but some scenes might be too intense for newcomers. That's why, after careful consideration, we established the horror scene rating system."
For a new system to work, it needed recognition from visitors, even their active support. Everything Chen Ge did now was to get them to accept it.
On one hand, he offered rewards for visiting the new horror scene to encourage participation; on the other, he used Wang Hailong and the others as cautionary examples to show the consequences of ignoring the rules.
To win the prize, you had to follow the haunted house's rules—start with the low-scream-index scenes, clear them, and only then challenge the new one.
Once implemented, this system would make efficient use of every scene in the haunted house. Most importantly, as long as he kept unlocking higher-scream-index horror scenes, all the scenes would stay active, attracting specific audiences more and more, laying the groundwork for a future horror theme park.