Bao Xu asked, “Mr. Pei, you should have the design plan for the new haunted house project, right? I’d like to take a look at it.”

Pei Qian immediately nodded and found the design plan for the new haunted house project on his computer.

Although this project was jointly designed by Chen Kangtuo, Ruan Guangjian, and Ma Yiqun, since it was a Terrors Hotel project, it definitely needed Mr. Pei’s final approval.

Pei Qian had briefly looked at the plan at the time, thought it had great potential, and directly approved it without raising any objections.

Now it was completely understandable that Bao Xu wanted to see the plan. After all, he was going to be the chief experience officer actually entering the haunted house, so getting familiar with the situation in advance made sense.

However, Pei Qian hadn’t anticipated that after receiving the plan, Bao Xu wouldn’t carefully review the details at the beginning but would skip directly to the interactive content section.

This haunted house project was called “The Foreign Traveler,” and the storyline wasn’t complicated. It was about one or a group of tourists from a foreign land who arrived in an eerie, alternate-dimension version of Jingzhou and stayed at the Terrors Hotel.

However, all the businesses they could access, including Slackin’ Internet Café, Slackin’ Delivery, Tuoguan Fitness, and others, had all transformed into terrifying places crawling with ghosts and monsters. Their names had also changed, becoming Hellish Internet Café, Hellish Delivery, and Coffin-Dragging Fitness, among others.

In addition, there were many more directly terrifying fringe areas, such as the Demon Abyss and Yellow Springs Crossing, which were even more thrilling and exciting!

To escape this terrifying world, there were only two methods: either survive for a certain amount of time or search for clues to solve the mystery and leave.

This project could be experienced alone or with multiple people, with varying levels of difficulty.

Staff members would play various ghosts and monsters to scare the visitors. Each area had its own specific monsters who mostly patrolled their own territories. Visitors would need to avoid these monsters to obtain clues.

However, in some special circumstances, these monsters might gather together, depending on certain special mechanisms in the game.

For example, if visitors found a key clue, the monsters would gather for a sweep, and visitors would need to hide patiently to avoid being discovered.

Under this mechanism, visitors could do many things. They could choose to split up, with each person responsible for quickly collecting clues in one area before coming together to solve the mystery. Or they could choose to first obtain key clues, with a few brave souls leading all the monsters away while others searched for additional clues in the corresponding locations.

The staff members playing monsters wouldn’t walk fixed routes like robots. They could make adjustments and changes within certain rules according to their preferences, making the entire game more tense, exciting, and unpredictable.

Bao Xu only briefly scanned the puzzle section at the beginning, focusing all his attention on the monster role-playing section that followed.

After committing these things to memory, Bao Xu thought for a moment before saying, “Mr. Pei, I hope I can designate two people on the list of staff members playing monsters.”

“One is Qiao Liang, who will appear directly on the list as a monster actor. The other doesn’t need to be on the list but will also enter the haunted house as a monster actor—Ruan Guangjian.”

“I want to talk with both of them privately and separately.”

Pei Qian nodded, “Alright.”

……

……

July 24th, Wednesday.

The new haunted house project at the Terrors Hotel, “The Foreign Traveler,” officially entered its internal testing and trial operation stage.

Since it was in the internal testing phase, it wasn’t open to the general public. Instead, Bao Xu would serve as the chief experience officer for this project, experiencing the entire project.

According to Chen Kangtuo’s plan, he hoped that Bao Xu would stay in “The Foreign Traveler” project for a full month.

After all, the Suffering Travel experience lasted a full two months of suffering, so this was already cutting it in half.

However, considering the special nature of this project, Chen Kangtuo and the other participating managers unanimously agreed that if Brother Bao could quickly find the clues and exit this place, the internal testing activity would end early.

After all, they weren’t truly demons; they still felt brotherly responsibility toward Brother Bao.

So the internal testing activity might not last long—it could be a month or it could be a week, depending entirely on how quickly Brother Bao completed the challenge.

Of course, the managers would deliberately adjust this speed and not let Brother Bao complete the challenge too easily.

Especially considering that Brother Bao had likely secretly looked at the entire project design plan and might already have a good idea of where many clues might appear. They needed to ensure the project achieved its intended effect.

The managers considered that when they were playing monsters, they could slightly change the positions of the clues to make the entire game more tense and exciting. Otherwise, if Brother Bao completed the challenge in just two days, wouldn’t that be quite embarrassing?

Under Chen Kangtuo’s call, many managers enthusiastically participated, and even Qiao Liang actively signed up.

Qiao Liang was famously timid, and he had gone through an intense mental struggle to get through the Ultimate Terror project. His enthusiasm for signing up this time made Chen Kangtuo feel that Qiao Liang shared the same anger as everyone else, so he gladly agreed.

Chen Kangtuo had custom-made special costumes for these managers to wear when playing ghosts.

These costumes were made very well. In the dark, terrifying environment of the haunted house, their scare factor was off the charts.

However, wearing them wasn’t a big issue—as long as one didn’t look in a mirror, everything was fine.

Now, in the office of the Terrors Hotel, Chen Kangtuo was having a final communication with the managers.

“Let’s confirm one more time—everyone needs to be responsible for their own area and remember the mechanisms inside. Don’t accidentally scare yourselves.”

“Each of us will be given a small communicator. I will give real-time commands through the earpieces. Everyone can move freely during normal times, but when you hear instructions, you must follow them.”

“We must make sure Brother Bao has a good experience this time. Understand?”

The managers responded in unison, “Understood!”

Among these managers were Xiao Peng, Rui Yuchen, Huang Sibo, and Guo Licheng, among others. Other managers, like Min Jingchao, wanted to come too but couldn’t get away from their busy work, so they could only send their best wishes for the successful completion of the internal testing activity.

Every area had various mechanisms with specific triggering conditions.

The staff playing ghosts definitely needed to memorize all the mechanisms in advance to avoid triggering them, or at least be mentally prepared so that even if triggered, they wouldn’t be scared.

Otherwise, if they gave themselves high blood pressure and nervous exhaustion before the visitors even arrived, would that be appropriate?

Xiao Peng smiled slightly, “Rest assured, we’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time! We’ve also reviewed the detailed plan and even conducted on-site inspections over the past couple of days. It’s absolutely foolproof!”

Chen Kangtuo nodded.

The difference between these managers and Bao Xu was that Bao Xu might only have heard about part of the design plan and would find it difficult to see the complete plan. Even if he had seen the complete plan, he wouldn’t have been able to conduct an on-site inspection.

With haunted houses, there’s a big difference between looking at design plans and conducting on-site inspections.

Many scary things are primarily visual, and after seeing them once, their terrifying effect greatly diminishes when seen again.

The managers had already explored the haunted house several times over the past few days and were thoroughly familiar with the positions of various key props and mechanisms.

Compared to Bao Xu, who was entering for the first time, they had a definite advantage.

With this in mind, Chen Kangtuo gave the order: “Alright, everyone go put on your costumes. We’ll meet inside.”

……

Half an hour later, the managers were all in position.

Each was responsible for a small area, and the monster costume they wore closely matched the style of that area. They could perfectly blend in and be difficult to spot if they just found a place to hide.

This gave them a huge advantage in encounters.

The monster costumes were highly functional. Not only did these managers wear Bluetooth earpieces for communication with each other at any time, but they also had miniature sound devices that could emit very terrifying sounds.

This way, they wouldn’t encounter situations where visitors forcibly approached them to get familiar, and the managers playing monsters couldn’t scare the visitors away despite gesticulating wildly.

“Everyone in position. Brother Bao is entering through the main entrance.”

Chen Kangtuo’s voice came through the earpiece, and all the managers immediately went on alert. Some hid within mechanisms, while others found corners to blend in with the environment, patiently waiting for Bao Xu’s arrival.

……

At this moment, Bao Xu strode confidently through the entrance of “The Foreign Traveler.”

Outwardly calm as an old dog, but inside, he was a complete mess.

Although Bao Xu had briefly looked at the entire project design plan, there was still a big difference between remembering the design plan and actually being on-site.

Seeing the eerie layout around him, he felt as if he was stepping into a mysterious, unknown, and dangerous space, naturally evoking deep-seated fears within him, making it difficult to remain calm.

However, Bao Xu was also trying to tell himself that there must be cameras everywhere, and that group led by Chen Kangtuo was definitely monitoring his movements, waiting to laugh at him, so he absolutely couldn’t show any fear.

Walking in from the entrance, there was first a long corridor.

The design of “The Foreign Traveler” project was quite different from previous projects.

The previous three haunted house projects were directly converted from single abandoned warehouses, with Ultimate Terror using the largest warehouse.

This time, “The Foreign Traveler” project used several warehouses, connected by specially designed corridors.

This way, they didn’t have to worry about visitors feeling disconnected when moving from one warehouse to another, and it created a dangerous and oppressive atmosphere of horror, making people feel completely trapped in a space isolated from the world.

After the long corridor, Bao Xu felt his taut nerves were about to give out.

The central area of this project was the largest and could be considered the so-called living area, which included more common businesses like Slackin’ Internet Café and Slackin’ Delivery.

Distributed around the periphery were some more dangerous locations, such as Yellow Springs Crossing and Demon Abyss, which were the locations of some high-difficulty clues that could only be reached through certain corridors.

Visitors would walk from the entrance’s long corridor directly to the center of the entire haunted house, and after entering, the long corridor would temporarily close.

So after walking such a long, terrifying corridor, although no scary monsters had appeared, a great deal of psychological pressure had already accumulated.

When reaching the end of the long corridor, the gate behind fell with a loud ‘clack,’ making a huge noise.

When it sounded, visitors would mostly involuntarily cry out. This was the first scare that the new “Foreign Traveler” project gave to people.