Chapter 220: It All Looks Real
"Teacher Han, are you sure the right side isn't as terrifying as the left?"
Little Du gripped the door handle, now feeling a pang of nostalgia for the Tian Teng Hospital and the iron cabinet that had once given him a sense of security.
"What are you all panicking for? Chen himself said the Third Ward isn't fully set up yet. What's there to fear about an incomplete scene?" Han Qiuming snapped out of his initial shock, grabbing the arm of the person in charge, Guo Miao. "Old Guo, you and I will take the lead."
"What does that have to do with me?" Guo Miao shook off his hand. "Didn't you say you'd go first alone?"
"I was afraid you wouldn't dare come in and would run off halfway through the tour." Han Qiuming's face was as dark as a pot bottom, though no one could see it in the dim light of the haunted house. "Fine, I'll lead. Stay close and don't fall behind."
Han Qiuming pushed the rusty iron door fully open, flakes of rust falling off as the group entered the Third Ward.
A strange, indescribable odor hung in the air. Scattered on the floor were pills and yellowed medical records. Han Qiuming walked ahead alone, growing more alarmed with every step.
The walls were covered in all sorts of mad ramblings—cruel phrases pieced together that sent chills down the spine, as if no sane person could have conceived them.
What unsettled him even more was that after walking several meters, the number of blood-red characters on the walls hadn't decreased but had instead increased.
Dense and packed, not a single one repeated!
"How did Chen come up with these sentences? Is he really not a madman?"
Crouching down, Han Qiuming lifted a corner of the bedding, revealing a dummy made from a pillow and sheets.
Yet this crude, almost laughable dummy held his gaze.
"Can dummy props in a haunted house be made like this? After years in this business, this is a first for me." Han Qiuming stared at the eerie face drawn on the pillow—seemingly random strokes, yet it exuded an indescribable strangeness.
"Look over here!" Su Luoluo stood at the entrance of the first ward. Everyone followed her gaze to the door hinge, covered in bloody scratches from fingernails.
She gestured with her hand. "It looks real, not like it was made with tools."
"If it wasn't made with tools, did the designer dig it out with their hands?" Han Qiuming covered the dummy back up with the bedding. "Don't touch anything in here carelessly, or you might trigger a trap. Especially these beddings on the floor—actors might be hiding underneath."
He was about to move forward, but the others hadn't budged. The short-haired woman had even entered the first ward alone.
The windows were sealed shut, with thick cement walls visible through the gaps in the wooden boards, exuding a sense of oppression and despair, like a prison cell.
Ye Xiaoxin ran her fingers over the bed frame, finding more scratch marks on both sides of the bed. "Come help me lift the bed board."
"We only have twenty minutes to clear this. Can you hurry up and stop focusing on the details?" Han Qiuming stood alone outside.
Little Du and Song An entered the ward to help Ye Xiaoxin lift the bed board. The scene underneath caught them off guard.
The edges of the bed board were marked with dark red fingerprints, with fragments of broken nails lodged in the gaps. It was clear that whoever had carved those bloody scratches had endured immense pain.
"After artificial blood coagulates, it turns light red. This dark red blood..." Song An shrank his neck and said to Ye Xiaoxin beside him, "It looks a bit like human blood."
"Are you sure it's human blood, not artificial?" Ye Xiaoxin tilted her head to look at the board, then bent down, bringing her nose close to the edge. "No smell."
Song An was startled by the bold move of the short-haired girl. He let out a dry laugh. "Could be pig or cow blood. Haunted houses sometimes use animal blood instead of artificial plasma for realism."
"It's also normal to have bloodstained props in a haunted house, especially for a fixed one like Boss Chen's. Many props are bought cheap from abandoned hospitals or mental institutions." Guo Miao seemed to have done this before. "But we can't be careless. Blood on the bed board at least means something bad happened in that mental hospital before."
Ye Xiaoxin nodded and continued, "Then how do you explain the bloody scratches on the door hinge? It can't be that the hinge was also taken from a mental hospital, right?"
Guo Miao was momentarily at a loss for words.
"Can't explain it either?" Ye Xiaoxin took out her notebook. "I've visited many haunted houses. Most of them focus on the scare points, but this one handles every detail with such realism. It's like the owner has OCD."
"I've noticed something terrifying too." Su Luoluo looked up at the ceiling. The fierce, bloody characters seemed to come alive, spinning around her. "The handwriting in every sentence is different. It shouldn't be from the same person."
"Different handwriting?" Guo Miao examined them closely, his face turning pale. "You're right. How did Boss Chen manage that?"
"Hasn't this haunted house been open for years? Give me five years to build it, and I could make it even better than his." Han Qiuming walked ahead a few steps, felt uneasy, and turned back, leaning against the door hinge as he spoke casually.
"Would you really settle down and spend five years crafting a single haunted house scene?" Guo Miao was a bit annoyed. He had everything arranged, but Han Qiuming had messed it up. "Boss Chen definitely wasn't lying. This place is the scariest scene in his haunted house. Let's hurry and find the recorder. Don't linger here too long."
Ever since entering the Third Ward, he'd felt an unsettling sensation. Seeing the interior layout only intensified it.
The red scratches on the door hinge, the fingerprints on the bed board edge, the blood characters on the walls—all of it made him uneasy.
Deep-buried memories resurfaced, and Guo Miao felt as if he had stepped back into the hospital where Xu Zhenzhen had committed suicide.
"Old Guo, I really don't get what you're afraid of. His haunted house's details are impressive, making it look real, but that just means he's good at imitation." Han Qiuming glanced furtively at Ye Xiaoxin and adjusted his glasses. "When I visited a massive fixed haunted house abroad, the staff told me all their props were real items once used by death row inmates. Compared to that, this place is just so-so."
"You'd rather suffer in silence than admit defeat."
"I'm just stating the facts." Han Qiuming waved at the group. "Sixteen minutes left. Let's get moving."
The others filed into the corridor, but Little Du lingered at the entrance of the Third Ward, staring at the characters on the ceiling. His heart pounded.
The longer he looked, the more the seemingly chaotic, random strokes seemed to merge, their lines intertwining to form "death" characters of varying sizes.
"This place is too creepy. I'll just stay by the door."
He stepped out of the Third Ward and glanced toward the left corridor. When he looked up, he was startled to find that the mannequins that had been at the end of the left corridor were now much closer to them.
"What's going on?"
Du Chaojin stepped back, unwilling to stay alone, and quickly caught up with the other visitors.
After he left, a mannequin with a school badge hanging from its neck quietly straightened its head.
I can't quite capture the feeling I want, afraid of wasting this plot... Originally planned for three chapters, but today only one. Two chapters owed. Also, thanks to zcch139 for the alliance leader! Thanks to Village Return for the alliance leader! A total of four chapters owed! I'll be home writing during the Mid-Autumn Festival break and won't go anywhere. I'll definitely make up for them!