Chapter 201: Come Visit My Place Next Time
All eyes were on him, but Chen Ge had no time to linger. He had just received a call from Captain Yan, and the news about the mental patient from the Third Psychiatric Ward made him uneasy.
"Boss!"
He Shan and Gao Ruxue pushed through the crowd and ran up to Chen Ge. "What did you do to those haunted house actors?"
"As a tourist, what could I possibly do to haunted house actors?" Chen Ge raised an eyebrow. "By the way, aren't either of you worried about my safety?"
He Shan and Gao Ruxue were taken aback. Right! Under normal circumstances, when a tourist is thrown into a haunted house alone, you should be worried for the tourist!
But neither of them knew why—the moment they saw Chen Ge go in, their instinct was to sweat for the staff.
"Worried? Of course we're worried." He Shan flashed his signature smile, awkward yet polite.
"Alright, next time you have time, come visit my haunted house. I've created new scenes—they're absolutely thrilling this time." Chen Ge was in a hurry to leave. He reached down and removed the portable ECG monitor and sound pickup device strapped to his body, then glanced back at the haunted house manager. "My heart rate didn't go over a hundred, did it?"
"No, lowest was sixty, highest was over ninety."
"Over ninety? How did it get that high?" Chen Ge was surprised. He felt completely calm inside the haunted house, like he was back home, yet his heart rate still fluctuated that much.
Seeing Chen Ge's dissatisfaction, the haunted house manager felt the world sink into despair. The bitterness in his heart was about to spill over. "This is my opening day..."
"For a haunted house to make my heart rate fluctuate this much, you guys are pretty impressive. But you're still a few tiers below the West郊 New Century Paradise Horror House, which you can reach directly on the No. 13 bus." Chen Ge said calmly. "Honestly, you have real strength. There's no need for all those extra moves—like badmouthing our local九江 horror house on your official site to boost yourselves, or using real news to grab attention."
Chen Ge looked at the disheveled, terrified haunted house actors, his mind racing. "Your scene layout is clever, and the story background is interesting. Setting up both a visible and hidden storyline, not forgetting to include puzzles amid the scares—frankly, I had a great time today."
Great time? You had a great time in a haunted house? Great time my ass!
Being praised by Chen Ge, the haunted house manager and his actors couldn't muster any joy. "A bet's a bet. We'll replace the false statements about your West郊 Horror House."
"Easy enough. If you guys run into similar problems, you can come to me. I appreciate your professionalism." The expressions of the cart-pushing female ghost and the corpse actor—they had practiced those in front of mirrors countless times. The actors at Tian Teng Hospital had years of experience; they were the hospital's greatest asset.
"That's all I have to say. You get back to work. If you get the chance, come visit my haunted house." Chen Ge's gaze passed over the manager to the actors behind him. He smiled, turned, and walked away gracefully, the whole motion natural.
Chen Ge didn't press his advantage or hurl insults.
The main thing was that all the actors had run out, leaving him, a tourist, alone inside the haunted house—that was already an incident.
If there had been fewer people, it might have been fine, but this happened in broad daylight on opening day. If Chen Ge had made a big deal of it, Tian Teng Hospital's opening would have been completely ruined.
But Chen Ge didn't do that. He even hinted at appreciation in his words, which surprised the manager and brought him some relief.
"This guy doesn't seem as bad as I thought. He must be the type who chases extreme terror." The manager watched Chen Ge leave, reminded of his younger self who loved horror movies and pranks. "The industry's been down these past few years. I've been so focused on money that I forgot why I opened a haunted house in the first place."
The manager was still too kind. Chen Ge had never seen them as competitors from the start. The reason he rambled on at the end was purely to lay the groundwork, planning to swallow Tian Teng Hospital whole in the future and merge it into his own horror theme park.
"Boss." The security ghost lightly tapped the manager's arm.
"I'm fine. Let's pull ourselves together and get back to work!"
"Um..." The security ghost lowered his voice. "It looks like he took our tape recorder from the haunted house."
"Did he? When did that happen?"
Walking out of the building, Chen Ge only realized as he got on the bus that he was still holding a tape recorder. "I was so into what I was saying, how did I end up taking their recorder? Oh well, I'll return it when they come to visit my haunted house."
Back at New Century Paradise, Chen Ge had just taken down the sign at the haunted house entrance when tourists started approaching. In just over a week, both the reputation and visitor numbers for his haunted house had changed dramatically.
"We'll open in the afternoon. Don't rush, everyone. We've designed new horror scenes—they're absolutely top-notch!" Chen Ge called Xu Wan and then went into the haunted house himself, jotting down some techniques he'd seen at Tian Teng Hospital, thinking about how to make his own haunted house even better.
"My haunted house scenes update fast. Some aren't fully developed yet. Once I finish the hidden mission for the Third Psychiatric Ward, I need to thoroughly organize my horror scenes and add some new props. Mixing real ghosts with fake ones—that's where the fun is."
Visiting Tian Teng Hospital had given Chen Ge some inspiration. He wrote down his ideas in a notebook to make sure he wouldn't forget them.
Around noon, Chen Ge took out the police files again and memorized all the information on the escaped patients. He didn't know when he'd need it, but in a critical moment, it might save his life.
After a simple lunch, he opened for business in the afternoon. Until all the hidden missions were completed, Chen Ge had no plans to open the Third Psychiatric Ward. The tourists hadn't yet finished exploring the earlier scenes, so he wasn't in a hurry.
He worked through the afternoon, and by six o'clock, the number of visitors had dwindled.
Seeing off the last tourists, Xu Shu at the ticket booth wore a rare smile. Chen Ge's haunted house was boosting the entire park's popularity, and the park was actively adjusting its strategy to further support the horror house.
"Thanks for the hard work, both of you."
Chen Ge waited until Xu Shu and Xu Wan left, then returned to the staff break room. He packed the tape, the butcher knife wrapped in red cloth, and other items into his backpack, then started looking for the white cat.
He searched the entire haunted house, only to find the cat outside, perched on a big tree by the entrance.
The cat was incredibly smart, as if it had sensed something bad was about to happen. It had climbed straight to the top of the tree and refused to come down, no matter how much Chen Ge called.
"What are you afraid of? I promise this place is safer than the Third Psychiatric Ward! Come down now!"