Those three characters sent a wave of crawling dread and icy chills through all seven of them.

Hu Hanghang pressed himself against the wall, searching for something solid to lean against. His voice came out shaking. “……do we actually have to go in?”

“What choice do we have?” Guan Che wiped his sweaty palms. “We can’t go back.”

One thought of the figure still lurking outside the operating room door was enough to make going forward seem far more appealing.

While they were talking, the corridor suddenly let out a sharp, electric hiss — and then the motion-sensor lights in the ceiling started flickering on and off.

“Let’s just go in — staying out here is worse.” Jiang Yan said, then reached for the door handle — and immediately yanked his hand back. “What the—”

Lin Tao, standing closest to him, could see small red dots on his fingertip. “Did something poke you?”

“No.” Jiang Yan shone his flashlight on the handle. “Look at this.”

Everyone’s gaze followed the beam of light. Sure enough — the handle, which had been plain before, now bore a bloody handprint.

Song Yuan dug into his pocket and produced a wet wipe, which he passed to Jiang Yan. “That’s not actually blood, is it?”

Jiang Yan brought his fingers to his nose and gave a cautious sniff. There was a faint smell, but distinguishable enough — it was not the smell of blood.

He shook his head, wiped his fingers clean, and said: “No. Probably some kind of paint or dye. This is still just a haunted house — they wouldn’t use real blood.”

Jiang Yan laid the used wet wipe over the handle, then pressed down carefully. The door let out a small, subtle sound.

This door, unlike the operating room door, simply pushed inward.

The cold air inside was more intense than anywhere they had been before — uncomfortably so. The light was as dim as ever.

The mortuary was considerably larger than the operating room, but the number of “figures” inside was also considerably higher.

Remembering their lesson from the operating room, all seven of them entered and immediately pressed against the wall, making no further moves — only sweeping flashlight beams slowly across the room.

“One, two, three, four…nine, ten. Oh no.” Hu Hanghang lowered his flashlight. “There are ten of them in here.”

Guan Che, standing next to him, remarked coolly: “How do you know they’re all people in there?”

“……”

Song Yuan gave him a look. “Guan Che. You can always just not say things.”

“What do we do now?” Lin Tao looked at the figures arranged on both sides of the room, thought of the close encounter before, and felt her skin crawl.

“Only one option — run through the middle.”

The mortuary’s interior had almost no furniture. Beyond the figures lying on slabs — impossible to tell apart from costumed performers — there was nothing else.

The door to the next room was directly across from them. To reach it, they had to pass through the center aisle. The sides of the room offered no route through.

“It’s not that far, actually. What if we just sprint for it?” Xu Yichuan rolled up his sleeve. “I’ll go first to check it out.”

During the basketball match, Lin Tao had heard Hu Hanghang and the others mention that Xu Yichuan was the fastest mover and the most agile of the five of them.

“Be careful,” Song Yuan said.

“It’ll be fine — watch me.” Xu Yichuan glanced at the figures on both sides — still lying perfectly still — and took a deep breath, then broke into a sprint.

He was quick. He reached the door in moments, and without even pausing to catch his breath, reached out to open it. But the door did not cooperate — it refused to budge no matter how he tried.

He tested it in every direction — forward, back, side to side — and confirmed it was locked. Cursing under his breath, he sprinted back. “Damn it! The door is locked — needs a key!”

“……” Meng Xin said. “Isn’t this supposed to be a haunted house? When did it turn into an escape room?”

The words had barely left her mouth when Lin Tao grabbed Jiang Yan’s sleeve in a white-knuckled grip, her voice trembling. “Look — everyone, look!”

The sight that greeted them when they looked was enough to make their hearts stop.

The ten figures that had been lying silently on the slabs — half of them had sat up. The white sheets that had covered their faces had all slid away, revealing ten different death masks.

Horrific. Nightmarish.

“……”

Silence fell over the mortuary for one moment — and then a torrent of screaming broke loose.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! WHAT THE— AAAAAAAAAAA!!”

At this point, language had more or less deserted them. They were operating entirely on screams and an assortment of colorful exclamations.

And if just sitting up had been frightening enough, reality, as ever, decided to be worse — the five figures who had risen did exactly what the figure in the operating room had done, all of them dropping off their slabs and beginning to advance on the seven people cowering in the corner.

Accompanied, naturally, by a full sound design of horrifying audio effects.

“AAAAAA!! MOMMY HELP!!”

All seven of them fell into immediate chaos, running in circles inside the room — but the room was only so big, and every direction they fled still kept them trapped in the same space.

“How do we get the door open?!” Hu Hanghang threw himself against it, but it didn’t give an inch. “Where is the key?! WHERE IS THE KEY?!”

Song Yuan, screaming between breaths, fired back: “HOW WOULD I KNOW?!”

“The key must be hidden somewhere in this room.” Even Jiang Yan, not easily frightened, had taken his fair share of scares by now. He swept his flashlight along the corners of the room.

The five figures had reached the spot where the group had been standing moments ago, found no one, and turned — now moving toward wherever the group currently was.

“……oh god.”

Guan Che and Jiang Yan both searched for the key.

The five figures were getting close.

Everyone sprinted to a different part of the room.

After several rounds of this, Jiang Yan noticed a pattern. “It looks like they can only look straight ahead — they can only see what’s directly in their line of sight.”

To test his theory, Jiang Yan crouched down and slowly edged close to one of the figures.

The acting inside this haunted house was genuinely committed — when Jiang Yan wasn’t in the figure’s field of vision, the person ignored him completely. But the moment Jiang Yan stood up and entered their sightline, they immediately became agitated and lunged toward him.

Jiang Yan crouched again before they could reach him. Just as he’d suspected — out of sight, out of mind.

“Well, would you look at that.”

Everyone immediately did what Jiang Yan had done, crouching close to the ground. “But even so, we still can’t get out without the key.”

“Keep looking,” Jiang Yan said. “At least like this, they can’t see us.”

“Right.”

The seven of them split into three groups, creeping along the floor in slow, careful movements, terrified of straying into any figure’s line of sight.

They had been standing before — and their entire frame of reference had been based on standing height. Now, crouched low, they had a completely different perspective.

Lin Tao quickly spotted a key tucked beneath one of the slabs. She flickered her flashlight in its direction to signal the others. “I’ve got it — the key is here.”

The others converged on her quickly.

Jiang Yan bent down and fished the key out.

They were all about to stand up.

In the next second, the figure lying on that slab suddenly shot upright.

“……”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! WHAT?! HOW ARE THERE STILL MORE?!”

As it turned out, beyond the initial five figures who had moved, there had been a final boss lying in wait — and because everyone had assumed only those five were going to move, no one had looked closely at this particular slab when they’d gathered around it.

Every boss has something that sets them apart.

Sure enough — just as the screaming erupted, the boss on the slab shot an arm out and grabbed Song Yuan, who was standing closest.

“Let GO of me right now!!”

Song Yuan, in a blind panic, yanked his arm free. The figure, caught off guard, nearly toppled off the slab entirely.

That move seemed to enrage the boss. With a roar, he reached under the slab and pulled out a massive pair of scissors, which he began swinging in their direction.

“Go— GO OPEN THE DOOR!”

Everyone lunged for the door. The figure with the scissors screamed after them. In the last possible second before he reached them, Guan Che seized a nearby slab and dragged it across his path.

Jiang Yan had the door open in the same instant.

With a few close calls and a great deal of screaming, they made it through.

That was only the third level cleared.

Lin Tao had read in the story introduction at the entrance that this series had seven levels in total, with each subsequent level increasing in difficulty and terror.

“……”

At this point, there was no more standing on ceremony. All seven of them simply sat down on the cold floor.

Guan Che leaned against the wall. His hands and face were drenched in sweat, which the cold draft quickly dried. “Are we actually continuing?”

“If you want to stop, I’ll just—” Jiang Yan said, patting his pocket — and stopping. “……”

Lin Tao noticed the gesture. “What is it?”

Jiang Yan looked at her, then at the others, his expression odd. “The signal light. It’s gone.”

Six blank faces: “……”

“Must have fallen during all the running.” Jiang Yan pushed his damp hair back from his forehead with a hand, unable to produce a smile. “We have no choice but to keep going.”

Six despairing faces: “……”

Hu Hanghang asked: “Is there seriously nothing else in here we can use to call for help?”

“There is.” Meng Xin said. “There was a green button in the mortuary — it said SOS on it. Should have the same function as the signal light.”

Hu Hanghang stood up and peered through the glass panel on the door to check the situation inside. The figure with the scissors spotted him and launched himself at the door with a crash.

“……oh god.” Hu Hanghang sat back down. “I’d rather just die.”

Guan Che let out a low laugh. “You can stay here and wait while we go ahead and come back to rescue you.”

“……on second thought, no.” Hu Hanghang got up and dusted off his trousers. “Let’s go.”

Standing around here held no guarantees — unknown things could wander past at any time. Facing whatever came next as a group of seven was still far better than facing it alone.

“Right then.”

With no alternative, all seven of them were compelled to press on.

In the four levels that followed, the staff members monitoring the attraction from the control room — responsible for watching over both the guests and the performers inside — heard the most blood-curdling, most ear-splitting screaming they had ever encountered in their entire careers.

Without exception.

The haunted house journey through the Fujiki Hospital would prove to be one of the most unforgettable experiences of all seven of their lives. Many years later, when the seven of them found themselves together again, the memory would still be vivid in every detail — sharp as the day it happened.

But that, naturally, was a story for another time.

The seven of them howled and stumbled their way through every last level, and when they finally burst out the other side, they were in a state of considerable disarray.

A staff member was stationed at the exit, ready to receive them.

The young woman hadn’t even managed to say “Congratulations, challengers!” before a procession of shrieking, wild-eyed figures came hurtling past her one after another.

“……”

Free at last, the seven of them collapsed onto the grass outside, beyond caring about appearances.

Disheveled hair. Wrinkled clothes.

Like a group of survivors who had just escaped a disaster.

Lin Tao looked up at the blazing summer sun above her and let out a long, slow breath. “I have never in my life felt sunshine this warm.”

Jiang Yan sat down beside her. His white cotton shirt clung to his back. He said nothing — only quietly reached over and took her hand.

The summer wind blew past, soft and easy.

Hu Hanghang dropped back onto the grass with complete disregard for dignity, and from his heart spoke one sincere sentence: “Being alive is wonderful.”

The people beside him raised their arms in the air, one by one. “Me too.”

The seven of them rested on the grass for a while. Once the lingering dread had settled, the summer heat became, once again, simply warm.

“Come on — let’s go return our things.”

They still had the haunted house’s flashlights in hand.

Since the signal light had been left behind in the haunted house, they had to sit and wait after handing back the flashlights while the staff retrieved it from inside before the official completion certificates could be issued.

The signal light was indeed still inside, with no damage or malfunction, and the young woman at the exit finally got her moment to say what she’d been holding back: “Congratulations, challengers — you have successfully cleared all levels.”

Then a staff member presented each of them with a certificate bearing the official Fujiki Hospital completion stamp. “All levels cleared. You’re welcome to take a commemorative photo.”

None of them had any objection — not after surviving something like that. Taking a photo sounded like an absolute luxury by comparison.

The photo area was set up in front of a large printed backdrop bearing the Fujiki Hospital insignia.

The seven of them quickly got into position. Following the photographer’s directions, they arranged themselves in a line. “When I count down to one, hold up your certificates — and make sure they don’t cover your faces.”

The photographer adjusted the settings on the instant camera and began the countdown.

“Three.”

“Two.”

All seven stood at attention, waiting for the final count.

“One!”

The moment the word fell — just as everyone started to raise their certificates — the backdrop behind them suddenly dropped away, and the figures that had been concealed inside it came screaming out.

“……”

“WHAT—”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

All seven of them erupted in screaming as if their lives depended on it, the scene dissolving into glorious mayhem.

The photographer, clearly having anticipated this exact moment, laughed and pressed the shutter — capturing every instant in rapid succession.

In the frames frozen by the camera:

The summer sun blazed hot and brilliant. Every face wore an expression of half-recovered terror, each person screaming or running, eyes wide with fright — but also bright with laughter, and full of light.

That clear, moon-bright young man held the person closest to his heart firmly in his arms.

The shade lay deep and green beneath the summer sun. The sky above was blue tile, and the clouds stretched soft and boundless. The summer wind blew past, warm and unhurried.