Chapter 4: Unexpected Reward
Perhaps the bathroom window hadn't been shut tightly. The night wind slipped into the room, brushing across Chen Ge's face like an invisible hand.
The stall door swayed gently, creaking with each movement. Water droplets from the ceiling dripped along the pipes to the floor, and something seemed to crawl through the drains, rustling softly.
In the silence, every sound was amplified. Under such circumstances, most people would feel uneasy, but Chen Ge was an exception. His childhood experiences had forged extraordinary mental resilience and nerves of steel.
His mind went blank. He refused to think about anything, simply counting the seconds in silence.
After nearly twenty minutes, Chen Ge felt the indoor temperature drop inexplicably, as if blocks of ice had been placed around him. He couldn't help but shiver.
"Stay calm! Don't think about why. Don't scare yourself. Ten minutes left. No matter what, I have to hold on!" A faint current of air stirred near his ears, as if something was circling him. He clenched his fists, veins bulging on the backs of his hands, yet his body stood rooted like a pine tree, unmoving.
"Chen Ge, Chen Ge, Chen Ge..."
He murmured under his breath. When only five minutes remained, he sensed that the flickering candle flame in the bathroom had gone out. In the darkness, it seemed another voice was chanting his name.
"An echo? Impossible!"
"Chen Ge..."
The voice seemed to be calling out to him, urgent, as if it had something crucial to tell him.
"That sound seems to be coming from outside the door. Should I take a look?" He quickly dismissed the thought. The game rules were clear: he only needed to stay in front of the mirror.
He counted the time in his head as the voice by his ear gradually warped. He was certain someone else was calling his name, and that person seemed to be standing just outside the door.
"That person seems anxious, but I'm the one playing the game. Why is he in such a rush? This is obviously a trap—too low-level." Chen Ge curled his lip. "The atmosphere and setting are well done, but the scare tactics are pretty one-dimensional."
In the final three minutes, a grating sound came from the bathroom door, like someone scratching with fingernails or gnawing with teeth. The door wobbled precariously, as if it might burst open at any moment.
"1798 seconds, 1799 seconds, 1800 seconds!" Thirty minutes were up. All sounds outside the door vanished, and everything returned to calm.
To avoid miscalculating, Chen Ge didn't open his eyes immediately. He counted another three hundred beats before stepping back, placing his hands on his chest, and blinking.
The candle in the bathroom had long gone out, leaving the room pitch black. Chen Ge vaguely felt that something had changed.
He turned on his flashlight, and when light reappeared in the room, he froze.
The mirror's surface was covered in cracks. His reflection was split into countless fragments, looking utterly unreal. What shocked him even more was that, in front of the mirror, a worn-out doll had appeared out of nowhere!
Its button eyes glinted faintly, and its patched body was stuffed with cotton. This doll wasn't cute, but to Chen Ge, it held immense significance. It was the first doll he had ever made, and it had been with his parents when they disappeared.
The doll leaned against the cracked mirror, as if blocking something inside from getting out.
"The bathroom door was locked. How did the doll get in? Through the window? No! The real question is why it moved on its own!" Chen Ge felt his worldview crumbling. He was a mess.
He and the doll stared each other down for three minutes before Chen Ge calmed down. He flexed his icy fingers and slowly approached.
The button eyes seemed to stare at him no matter the angle. Chen Ge looked at the toy he had made himself and couldn't help but twitch his lips.
Carefully avoiding the doll, he reached for his phone nearby. "Good thing I was cautious and prepared."
The phone had been recording nonstop. After saving a backup, Chen Ge began watching the video.
The footage wasn't very clear. In the flickering candlelight, Chen Ge standing before the mirror looked stiff, while his reflection in the mirror seemed more lively.
The first ten minutes were uneventful. The turning point came at the eleventh minute.
The sound of the night wind wasn't captured on camera. The video only showed the stall door swaying gently a few times.
Then static began to appear in the recording. The images were ordinary, yet they evoked an indescribable sense of terror—likely due to humanity's innate fear of darkness and the unknown.
Watching the video, Chen Ge's expression wasn't great. He remembered keeping his eyes closed and maintaining distance from the mirror, but the footage showed his body slowly leaning forward, as if drawn to it.
By the twenty-fifth minute, his upper body was bent at a seventy-degree angle, his nose nearly touching the mirror.
A few seconds later, without warning, cracks began to appear on the mirror. The sight made Chen Ge's heart race.
Then the most unbelievable thing happened: his reflection in the mirror changed expression, baring its teeth and slamming violently against the glass!
At that same moment, the candle went out, and the video ended.
Due to the camera angle, the doll never appeared in the footage. What happened in the final five minutes, Chen Ge had no idea.
"Something in the mirror wanted to come out, and it seems the doll stopped it. If that's the case, it saved me." Chen Ge picked up the doll from the sink and asked seriously, "Can you understand me? Do you know where my parents went in the end?"
The doll didn't respond, but its button eyes glowed faintly.
He hugged the doll to his chest, glanced at the bathroom door, and didn't dare go out. Instead, he crouched under the windowsill and pulled out the black phone. The task completion message was already displayed.
"I have to say, you're lucky. Congratulations on completing the nightmare-difficulty daily task! Reward obtained: Primary skill—Mortuary Cosmetology."
"Mortuary Cosmetology: I hope you approach inheriting this skill with greater seriousness and respect. Unlike beauty makeup, a mortuary cosmetologist only works on the deceased. The beauty in your hands bridges life and death, bringing renewed vitality to the cold and granting them eternal elegance."
"First completion of a nightmare-difficulty daily task. Title earned: Nightmare City Newcomer. Additional reward: Unlock one-star horror scenario—Midnight Escape Trial Mission! Upon completing the trial mission, this scenario's facilities will appear in the Horror House!"
Scrolling through the black phone's messages, Chen Ge fell into thought. A haunted house's development couldn't do without makeup artists. Whether for actors or props, a good makeup artist could create a more realistic effect with ease.