Chapter 96: The Game Begins
The last classroom was a place even Chen Ge was reluctant to linger in, yet Fei Youliang and Zhu Jianing strode boldly inside.
Something strange seemed to mix into the air. Walking through the classroom felt like being plunged into deep water, with an indescribable pressure pressing in from all sides, making even breathing difficult.
"Youliang, how about I wait outside?" The classroom was even more eerie than the corridor. Wang Jianing stood behind Fei Youliang, his face pale and sweat beading on his forehead.
"What did we say before coming to this haunted house? In together, out together. You're already chickening out this early?" Fei Youliang grew increasingly irritable. The dark uniforms around them were just ordinary clothes, far from the props in horror movie sets, yet these utterly normal uniforms made him afraid to get close.
Zhu Jianing clearly hadn't noticed his teammate's panic. He whispered cautiously, "Where do you think the haunted house actors might hide? Could they suddenly pop out from under those uniforms?"
"No idea. That's how normal haunted houses work." Fei Youliang moved down from the podium, clenching his fists as he walked between two rows of desks. Nothing terrifying happened. "Looks like no one's in here."
"If there are no hidden actors, why go to all the trouble of setting this up? Carving all those blood characters on the desks and deliberately placing old uniforms around." Zhu Jianing glanced toward the door nearby. "Also, that classroom door seemed to open on its own earlier, like someone was luring us in."
"Probably the wind." Fei Youliang shot Zhu Jianing a glare. "Instead of wasting time with nonsense, you could be looking for passages and mechanisms."
"Don't get mad. I'm just trying to help you analyze things." Zhu Jianing headed toward the other side of the classroom. His bulky frame accidentally knocked a uniform off a chair as he passed a desk in the middle.
He didn't care and didn't bother to pick it up, stepping right on it as he walked to the back door. "Nothing to be scared of. I thought something would jump out when I passed those desks..."
Mid-sentence, Zhu Jianing's voice trailed off. He turned around and found the classroom exactly as before, with nothing changed.
"When I passed by, I think a uniform fell on the floor. Youliang, did you pick it up?"
"A uniform fell? I didn't see that." Fei Youliang was on the other side of the classroom, several desks away.
"Hallucination?" Zhu Jianing retraced his steps, stopping by the desk in the middle. "I remember this uniform falling."
He picked it up and shook it. A strange smell wafted out, something like fishy odor.
"How weird." Zhu Jianing tossed the uniform onto the desk and crouched down to check for mechanisms.
He shook the desk and chairs—everything was normal. Just as he was about to give up, a sound of marbles clattering came from the desk drawer.
"Something inside?" Zhu Jianing bent over, one hand on the floor, and leaned his face close to the drawer opening.
In the pitch-black drawer, some test papers and textbooks were stuffed.
"Why would marbles clatter? Is there a hidden compartment?" He peered into the darkness, reaching in to pull out the waste paper. As he removed one sheet, he suddenly saw two round eyeballs staring intently at him from behind the paper!
"Shit!"
The sudden shock made Zhu Jianing, half-crouched, topple backward. His scalp tingling, he knocked over two desks in a row.
"What's wrong?!" The commotion startled Fei Youliang on the other side.
"There's someone in the drawer!" Zhu Jianing struggled to get up, his face drained of color.
"Are you out of your mind?! How could someone fit in a drawer?" Fei Youliang cursed under his breath, walking over to the middle desk. "It's probably just a prop."
He pulled out all the papers and textbooks from the drawer and tossed them on the floor. "Look clearly. Don't freak out over nothing. There's nothing there."
It took over ten seconds for Zhu Jianing to get up from the ground. "I really saw it—a pair of eyes. I swear I'm not lying! Really!"
"Even if you saw something, it's just the haunted house's scare tactics. Why panic?" Fei Youliang wasn't scared at first, but Zhu Jianing's words made his skin crawl. "Forget it, let's get out of here."
The two hurried out of the classroom, leaving a mess behind.
"Should we keep going?" Zhu Jianing, still shaken, looked at the dark, endless corridor and felt his heart tremble.
"We've been in here less than five minutes, and you want to bail? We're here to cause trouble, not to give this haunted house free publicity." Fei Youliang wanted to kick Zhu Jianing. "You're such a coward, you don't deserve those muscles."
He pressed on, and Zhu Jianing, though scared, followed to avoid embarrassing the Qin Guang studio.
As he walked, he kept looking back. When he saw the last classroom door slowly open again, he shuddered and quickly caught up with Fei Youliang. "Hurry up! Something's coming out of that classroom!"
They rushed forward, bypassing the corner restroom and arriving at the first fork.
"How big is this haunted house? Why are there two paths?"
Zhu Jianing was at a loss, and Fei Youliang frowned deeply. He loved horror movies and had visited many haunted houses, but this was his first time encountering one like this.
Throughout the entire experience, he hadn't seen a single staff member dressed as a ghost, yet the fear lingered, growing stronger the longer he stayed.
In the haunted houses he'd visited before, he could at least see "ghosts." When they appeared, they showed flaws because they were just people in costumes, proving that other living humans were part of the act.
But this haunted house completely overturned his previous impressions. No actors were involved, yet it created an inexplicable sense of dread, keeping him on edge, never knowing when something terrifying might happen.
"Let's check this way first."
The corridor narrowed as Fei Youliang and Zhu Jianing headed toward the girls' dormitory.
The first few rooms weren't too scary, easing their tension and dispelling some of the fear that clung to them. But then they entered the room where the spirit board was.
In the girls' dormitory, which looked like the scene of a crime, four chairs were lined up. On them lay several sheets of white paper and a pen held together with transparent tape.