Chapter 194: Getting More and More Interesting
Tape recorders were very popular in the 1980s and 1990s, but with the rapid development of the times and the internet, they had long been phased out.
Tianteng Hospital might have been trying to evoke that sense of era, so this room was filled with many old objects, the most conspicuous being the tape recorder and an old-fashioned flashlight.
The scene reminded Chen Ge of a horror movie he had watched long ago. The plot seemed to involve a tape recorder that started playing on its own at midnight, and everyone who heard the sound ended up meeting with an accident.
"Is it a prop?" Chen Ge completely ignored the "corpse" lying motionless on the table, walking past it toward the bookshelf.
When he was just one meter away from the bookshelf, the buttons on the tape recorder suddenly pressed down on their own.
"Heat sensing? No, it should be staff controlling it remotely." Chen Ge glanced back. The corpse was lying on the table, its head buried deep in its arms.
Compared to the corpse, Chen Ge was more curious about the tape recorder in front of him. After the button was pressed, the indicator light came on, and accompanied by the sound of static, a middle-aged man's voice emerged.
"Please spare me! I beg you! I beg you!"
The man was crying and shouting; death had become a luxury for him.
Along with his pleas, the tape recorder continuously emitted sounds of cutting and tearing, very bloody and direct. Upon hearing it, Chen Ge almost immediately conjured up such images in his mind.
Bones being smashed, skin being slashed—it was the cruelest form of punishment.
"When Tianteng Hospital passed the review, they must have hidden the recording content."
The corpse lying on the table moved slightly when it heard Chen Ge's words. The truth was close to what Chen Ge guessed: the tape content had been replaced, specially prepared for him as the highest difficulty experience.
Chen Ge was accustomed to fear and horror, but pure bloodshed and cruelty made him somewhat uncomfortable—a normal reaction for any person.
"Why isn't it over yet? Are they planning to use the recording as background music?" The reason Chen Ge patiently listened on was that he guessed the recording might contain clues for clearing the level. But after listening for nearly a minute, it was still just sounds of abuse and pleading.
"After a minute of heavy bleeding, they'd already be in shock. How could they still have so much energy? But the voice actor they hired is pretty good, creating that atmosphere of despair."
Toward the end, the man's voice grew weaker and weaker. Under the demands of certain things, he began to confess.
Only then did Chen Ge realize that the victim was the director of Tianteng Hospital, a man who would do anything for money.
"Didn't expect it to be a story of good begets good and evil begets evil." Chen Ge listened patiently to the end. The director admitted to all the sins he had committed. Before dying, he begged those monsters, pleading with them not to harm his daughter.
A twist appeared in the story. Just as the director begged them not to hurt his daughter, the recording played the sound of a door opening, followed by a woman's scream, and then the director shouted—Zhenzhen, run!
The recording ended there. Chen Ge didn't know how to evaluate this story.
The director was guilty; the daughter might have been innocent or an accomplice. But none of that mattered anymore.
What mattered was that the daughter had witnessed all of this while the monsters tortured her father, so her fate might also have been to be tortured to death.
"Every mannequin in Tianteng Hospital has the name Xu Zhenzhen written on it. What does that mean?" Tianteng Hospital was very famous in the circle. Its haunted house scenes were designed by experienced professional teams. Such a large mobile haunted house's highest difficulty challenge must have a trump card hidden away.
"Are the actors in the haunted house playing fake ghosts? Is everything they do meant to fabricate a real ghost?"
From the "female corpse" hanging in the corridor at the entrance to the models with missing organs in the dissection room, Tianteng Hospital had left the name Xu Zhenzhen everywhere. Chen Ge had already guessed some of the reasons for this.
"No matter how realistic the actors' makeup is, tourists can tell the difference when they touch them. So they might be trying to create a 'real ghost' that can't be touched but feels like it's always following behind. Xu Zhenzhen plays that role."
Tianteng Hospital's creativity was good and had given Chen Ge a lot of inspiration. "Wanting a real ghost? That's not hard at all."
Chen Ge looked at the tape that was almost finished playing. He reached out and pressed the button on the tape recorder, his back to the "corpse." No one in the room knew what he was about to do.
"Tape recorders aren't sold on the market anymore. You can only try your luck at flea markets. Now that I've finally found one that works, it's the perfect chance to listen to my tape."
He took out the tape he had drawn from the wheel and placed it into the tape recorder, pressing the play button.
The tape began to spin, but no sound came out of the recorder.
"A blank tape?" Chen Ge waited for a while but didn't turn off the tape. He walked around the room, seeming to enjoy the process of solving the puzzle.
Having just come out of a place like the Third Ward, entering Tianteng Hospital felt like a vacation. Chen Ge felt his body and mind were greatly relaxed. "Haunted houses really are a great place for modern people to relieve stress. When I get back, I'll change the slogan on our official website."
After circling the room, Chen Ge picked up a few yellowed newspapers from the floor. He glanced at them and found that these newspapers didn't seem to be fakes. They were marked with dates, from a few years ago.
"Xinhai Morning Post?" Chen Ge became interested. The articles in this newspaper seemed to be about real events.
Four years ago, a woman had run into an abandoned hospital to commit suicide. After investigation, the deceased was found to be named Xu Zhenzhen, and her father was the director of that hospital. He had committed suicide in his office more than a decade earlier.
The same location, different people. This bizarre suicide case had also caused a stir in Xinhai.
The coroner determined it was a suicide, but shortly after the woman's death, obvious red handprints began to appear on her body, looking very strange.
In the end, the case was left unresolved, with no follow-up.
"The deceased's name is Xu Zhenzhen. So this must be the Easter egg hidden in Tianteng Hospital." Chen Ge put down the newspaper. Timid tourists, screaming all the way through, wouldn't discover these things.
Only bold people would search carefully, and when they learned that Xu Zhenzhen was a real person and a real event, a psychological loophole would appear, leading to self-doubt and constant self-suggestion, amplifying their inner fear.
Tianteng Hospital's design approach was comprehensive, but unfortunately, the designers with over a decade of experience never imagined they would one day encounter a tourist like Chen Ge.
"This haunted house is getting more and more interesting." Chen Ge recalled the map he had seen in the security room. He had already passed through two-thirds of the scenes and was getting closer to the exit.