1121 Rise in Game Difficulty 2 in 1

Xiao Sun was about to turn back and run back to the house where Wu Jinpeng was, but he hesitated for a moment. He turned to grab the handle of the iron door. “Should I try to keep the door open? If the visitors are lucky enough, they might have a one percent chance of coming back the way they came.”

What he was doing, he was doing out of the kindness of his heart. All he wanted to do was save a route for the visitors retreat through. Sliding down the chain that was filled with blood vessels, Xiao Sun placed it next to the door. With the chain removed, the iron door would not be completely locked anymore. He started to pull the door open, but he stopped when the door was opened a small gap. Endless black fog slithered out from the gap and started to crawl into the tunnel and the world beyond it!

The black threads formed from curses seeped into the building. The people who had been harmed by the ghost fetus in its memory appeared in another form. They turned into strange shadows and wandered among the black fog. These kinds of monster had no physical form, and they would not cause any actual harm to human beings or ghosts, but they would be able to evoke the sin and fear buried in the depths of people’s hearts.

The red high heels wanted to use the ghost fetus’ past to reconstruct the curse; she wanted to gradually recreate the steps the ghost fetus followed to slowly become a Demon God. These shadow monsters were just a byproduct of this process. Once the iron door was open, the shadows from the ghost fetus’ memory started to scurry madly out of the world of the black fog. They were a part of the black fog. Unless they wanted to show themselves, they were impossible to spot.

“Always leave a little kindness whatever you do. This is the best I can do given the circumstances.” Xiao Sun turned to leave. The sign next to the black iron door that said ‘please close the door after use’ flew over his head. It was like he did not see the sign at all. He hurriedly ran out from the hidden path. Just as he returned to the room, he heard footsteps coming from the outside corridor. “The haunted house’s actors would not make such sounds; it has to be the visitor who are coming!”

The faded black fog was floating out from the entrance of the hidden path. Xiao Sun looked around and thought, This is bad. If the other visitors follow the three and enter the hidden path, it will only be worse.

“It is not such a big deal if I am exposed, but to have everyone sent into the hidden scenario not five minutes into the game is a very big deal!” This was Xiao Sun’s first time working inside the haunted house; he had no experience at all. Even though he was quite a clever person, being caught between a rock and a hard place like this, he found himself at a loss as to what to do. “I should close up the hidden door first to prevent more visitors from entering the hidden scenario. After I find Brother Chen, we can enter the hidden scenario to find the three visitors from this hidden pathway.”

The footsteps slowly approached. All kind of sound was amplified in this scenario. Xiao Sun felt like the footfalls were falling right on his heart. He closed the door with the drawing of the red snail on it and grabbed the edge of the mirror with both of his hands. “When I pushed the mirror up earlier, I accidentally triggered the mechanism. So, the way to reverse the mechanism should be to push the mirror down.”

He applied force on his arms as Xiao Sun grabbed the sides of the mirror and pressed it down, but both the mirror and the door showed no response to his action.

“What’s going on‽” Footsteps were flying down the corridor. If Xiao Sun was not already a ghost, his shirt would probably have been drenched in cold sweat by now. Veins pulsed on his arms as he nudged the mirror harder. His eyes were wandering everywhere nervously. “This is bad, this is bad. How do I even close this thing‽”

As Xiao Sun moved the mirror madly up and down, more blood droplets and traces of blood appeared on the surface on the mirror. A confused face seemed to appear inside the mirror, looking suspiciously at Xiao Sun. “Is the direction of the movement wrong? Is it not up and down?”

Holding the sides of the mirror tight, Xiao Sun attempted to twist the mirror, but as he gathered strength in his arms, the support frame that held the mirror in place snapped off instead!

“What the hell!” Looking at the mirror that he had forcibly yanked off the wall, Xiao Sun was stunned beyond words. Subconsciously, he turned to look at the hidden pathway that the black fog was still streaming out from. The wall gradually closed, and it appeared as if the door with the red snail had never appeared in the first place at all. The door outside the hidden path had been closed, but the black iron door inside the hidden path was still left open a tad. The black fog was free to leave through the gap. They crawled into the outside building and seeped through the walls to spread to the rest of the room. When one after another strange and despairing faces surfaced on the walls, it meant that the difficulty of the whole scenario was continuing to rise.

“What are you doing?” The people from Jiujiang Medical University who were exploring on the same floor ran over. They saw the room that was covered in black fog and Xiao Sun who was holding the mirror alone inside the bathroom.

“To be honest, I have no idea what I am doing either.” Xiao Sun was still holding the mirror. It felt wrong to put it down, but it also felt wrong to keep holding it.

“Where are the other people who are supposed to be in your group?”

“They refused to listen to me and left me behind on my own.”

The two other groups who were looking for the rag doll’s body parts on the other floors of the building heard the commotion, and they all ran over to this room as well. In less than three minutes, the first floor of the building had changed fully. A scary mannequin that looked like a pile of rotten mud was lying on the door of the room, black fog kept drifting out from inside the room, and some in the groups even doubted that this was the place that they had visited earlier.

“Why are you guys gathered here? Where are Liang Er and Liang San, and what is going on with this monstrosity at the door?” Fu Bole glanced inside the room, and he failed to see the three haunted house designers.

“I have no idea either. The three of them told us to stay here and try to stay out of their way. And then they appeared to have found a hidden pathway and triggered some kind of trap. After that, they disappeared.” Xiao Sun purposely kept the words ambiguous. He was not a person who was good at lying.

“How would actual people, not one but three of us just disappeared like that? Where was the last room they were in before they disappeared?” Just after they split up, three people had disappeared. This caused Ma Feng to frown deeply.

“They were on this floor. Of that, I am sure.” Xiao Sun was very desperate at the moment. He was afraid that if he dragged this further, they might be going back to collect Liang Er and Liang San’s bodies. From his perspective, the most important thing to do now was to find Chen Ge and then quickly inform the red high heels that there were already visitors that had wandered into the hidden scenario.

“The three people from your group have all disappeared, but only you remain. I can’t help but feel that it is a little bit strange.” Zuo Han was about to say something when Fu Bole suddenly walked to the few from Jiujiang Medical University. “What are you doing?”

Fu Bole stared directly at Zuo Han, and his expression was dark and threatening. “It was the three of you who were behind this, wasn’t it?”

“Us?” He San used his finger to point at himself. “Have you lost your mind? The three of us were not even close to the four of them. We also just arrived here not too long ago.”

“Who knows whether that is true or not? That claim can only be verified by yourself now. But all I know is that it is certain that the three of you were on the same floor as the four of them. You three are the people who were closest to them!” Fu Bole placed his hand on the mud mannequin next to him. “When we were here earlier, this mannequin was not even here. In other words, someone moved it here after we split up and separated. Just take a look at how heavy this thing is. A single person could not have silently moved such a big mannequin and placed it here without making any noise, so it had to have been a group effort!”

After hearing Fu Bole’s analysis, both the people from Jiujiang Medical University and Xiao Sun were startled.

“If not for the fact that you have been slandering Boss Chen’s haunted house since you entered this place, I would have suspected you are the actual actors hired by Boss Chen.” He San was truly speechless. “Even if there is a possibility of an insider among us, the person with the biggest suspicion should be this Xiao Sun. The other people in his group other than himself have mysteriously disappeared—is that not suspicious to you? Simply because you think he cannot move this mannequin alone, you are deciding to just overlook him like that?”

He San’s analytical power could be said to have been honed inside Chen Ge’s haunted house. Before this, he believed in the kindness in people’s hearts, but after many experiences in Chen Ge’s haunted House, he had caught a glimpse of the ‘many colors of human nature’. It was indeed the most complicated thing in the world.

Hearing He San point the suspicion toward him, Xiao Sun sighed in relief for some reason. He was glad that someone was finally suspecting him. If he continued to fail in his role, he had already decided to quietly slip away. Being stuck with so many living humans was putting too much stress on him.

“You are unable to find anything to counter my claim, so you start to direct the suspicion to someone else, huh? You wish to muddy the water, to distract our attention? Do you think we will fall for a simple trick like that?”

From the very beginning, Fu Bole had been suspecting Zuo Han’s group. In the few years he had running a haunted house, he had not encountered visitors like Zuo Han and He San. They were just visiting a simple haunted house, yet they had come up with various analyses and guides. It was like they had fully transported themselves into a horror film.

With the fault of prejudice, Fu Bole always looked from his perspective to consider the problem. All the thoughts that he had were based on his own viewpoint.

“So, you are going to push the blame onto us no matter what? Do you have some kind of bad history with forensic doctors?” While the group was arguing, the black fog inside the room thickened even further. There were even human faces that could be seen flickering inside it. Standing inside the black fog, Mr. Wang felt strangely agitated. Memories that were buried deep inside his heart kept flashing in his mind. Among them were recollections of murderers committing their crimes and victims screaming for help. The people in those past crimes appeared to have come alive, and they were reaching out toward him. Those with greater harrowing experiences in real life would have a greater influence inside the black fog. Shaking his head, Mr. Wang reached out to grab the door frame for support.

“Sir, are you alright?” Zuo Han was the first to notice the strange way his lecturer was acting.

“I was fine when I first entered this place, but just now, I was feeling a bit wobbly. However, I am feeling much better now.”

“That is probably related to the black fog. I am feeling a bit disturbed by it as well.” Zuo Han purposely lowered his voice to a whisper.

“You feel it too?” Mr. Wang was shocked.

“Yes.” Zuo Han stood close to Mr. Wang. The former’s lips moved slightly, and his voice was so small that the others could not even hear him at all.

“What are you two grumbling about?” Wei Chaochao asked in a purposely loud voice. He had been keeping his eyes on Zuo Han and Mr. Wang. Due to Fu Bole’s multiple claims, he had also begun to believe that these people from the so-called Jiujiang Medical University were actually actors hired by the haunted house.

“We are not obligated to share with you what we are discussing. You can continue to see us as the actors hired by this haunted house. After all, that does not affect us in any way.” Zuo Han was quite an eccentric person; he was not that sociable. He was too lazy to argue with the group of haunted house designers anymore. He directly turned to He San and Mr. Wang and said, “The sudden appearance of the black fog should be some kind of signal. It’s probably trying to inform us of the danger of staying in one place for too long. As the time continues to move, the black fog might envelope the entire scenario. In other words, the chance of our survival will get lower and lower, and the difficulty of the scenario will get higher and higher.”

“Does that mean this black fog is kinda like the concept of a ‘poison zone’ in some video games? As the fog continued to spread, the movement range of the visitors will dwindle. Staying inside the black fog for too long will draw the attention of black things.” He San understood his friend instantly.

“Now I have two predictions. The first is that the three missing visitors have managed to find the hidden pathway. They used the pathway to head to another location and sped up the gaming progress, and the appearance of the black fog signals the beginning of the second stage of the game. If we wish to avoid the black fog, we will also need to find the hidden pathway and enter the other scenario just like they did.” Zuo Han used the few clues to start his analysis. “But the problem is that we have just entered the haunted house. Based on Boss Chen’s previous behavior, he only amps up the difficulty about halfway into the visiting time. Today’s challenge is rather out of the ordinary.”

“Then, what is your second prediction?”

“My second prediction is that some kind of accident has happened inside this scenario, and it has triggered this event that no one anticipated.” Zuo Han did not go and argue with the group of haunted house designers. But when he spoke, the group of haunted house designers slowly quieted down, and they started to listen to him speak quietly. Zuo Han had a natural talent for getting the room to listen to him. That was a sign that he would become a good forensic doctor in the future.

“Then, what should we do if it is the second situation?” He San asked the question that was in everyone’s mind.

“If my second prediction is correct, then we are in a horrible position. Do you still remember what I said when we first entered the haunted house?” Zuo Han’s expression was not looking so good.

“What did you say again?”

“That this haunted house might really be haunted.” Zuo Han did not wish to continue on this topic. “Sir, He San, we will search for the hidden pathway in these few rooms on the left. In terms of time, the three disappeared visitors most likely found the hidden paths inside these few rooms.”

Skipping the meaningless argument that would only waste time, with Zuo Han leading the group, everyone started to look for the hidden path on the first floor. “The black fog is still spreading. We have limited time! If we cannot find the hidden path within the next five minutes, we will leave this place immediately!”

Seeing how busy everyone was, Xiao Sun was still holding the mirror with both of his hands. His face was as bitter as a bitter gourd. He could not bring himself to say that he had already broken the mechanism that would have opened the secret pathway. Now the door outside could not be opened, and the door was not closed. The black fog kept leaking out, and that continued to increase the difficulty of the game. Five minutes later, the black fog had spread out to fill the entire sub-scenario. It had even floated out from the sub-scenario and drifted out into the street. Many half transparent faces started to appear on the walls of various buildings.

“The hidden pathway is probably a one-time use only! We’d better leave this scenario now. The black fog will continue to spread with the passage of time. We’re now racing against time to explore the rest of the scenario before things get worse!” Zuo Han rushed out of the building without any hesitation after saying that. He San and Mr. Wang followed closely behind him.

“We should also move to the other scenarios.” Shang Guan Qing Hong signaled for the rest to follow Zuo Han. “We will ignore the issue of whether he’s a haunted house actor or not for now. Even if he is, we should stick close to him to see what he will do next.”

“This Zuo Han is like an NPC inside this scenario. He keeps giving us hints and telling us the progress of the game to create the emotion of desperation and urgency. Following him might lead us to the same ending as Liang Er and Liang San.” Fu Bole still stood by his opinion, but he was not going to be abandoned by the rest of the group.

After everyone had left the building, the child inside the picture on the missing person’s article winked several times. At the same time, from the third floor underground, a child in a red shirt walked out from his hiding place. He rushed to the entrance and watched the retreating visitors. He grabbed the script that was hidden under his red shirt and slammed it angrily on the floor.

“I’ve practiced for three full days, and you decided to leave just like that?” The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. The child in the red shirt picked up the script again and chased after the group of visitors.