Guo Licheng instantly deflated.

Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t how the script was supposed to go.

Logically, with my appearance suddenly rushing out, followed by shouting and making a terrifying gesture, shouldn’t Bao Xu have been scared out of his wits and fled, scrambling away?

But not only did Bao Xu not run away, he actually tried to get familiar with him.

The key issue was that Guo Licheng had no solution. He had already done everything he could.

He couldn’t actually take the butcher knife and hack someone, could he?

Besides, this butcher knife was just a prop, not a real one.

Guo Licheng couldn’t keep up the act anymore and turned to leave.

Before he had taken two steps, Guo Licheng was stopped by Bao Xu, who said, “Hey, don’t go. Old Guo, quickly tell me where the clue in the Coffin-Dragging Gym is hidden, so I don’t have to waste effort looking for it.”

Guo Licheng was shocked!

Unbelievable! Bao Xu, you’re getting even more presumptuous now?

“Visitors must complete challenges on their own, don’t ask the ghosts!”

Guo Licheng had a dark expression.

However, Bao Xu had no intention of letting him go and was completely shameless about it.

Guo Licheng had a flash of inspiration. He went to the bone-covered strength training area, grabbed a huge bone dumbbell, and did a set each of bench press, squats, and deadlifts.

Then he looked at Bao Xu, indicating that he should do the same.

Now it was Bao Xu’s turn to be confused!

“What’s this? You want me to work out here?”

The monster played by Guo Licheng nodded and very thoughtfully removed a few plates from the dumbbell, adjusting it to a weight suitable for Bao Xu.

Bao Xu’s mouth twitched slightly as he began to quickly weigh his options.

Would it be more worthwhile to do a few sets of strength training as per Guo Licheng’s request and then get the clue? Or would it be better to ignore Guo Licheng and search for clues in the Coffin-Dragging Gym himself?

After much consideration, he decided to choose the former.

So, under the monster’s gaze, Bao Xu started doing strength training, huffing and puffing.

……

More than half an hour later, Bao Xu left the Coffin-Dragging Gym, supporting himself against the wall.

Before leaving, he gave Guo Licheng a thumbs-up in gratitude.

Because without Guo Licheng’s help, he might not have been able to find this clue.

This gym was called the Coffin-Dragging Gym, which, as the name suggests, had a huge coffin that could be pulled, similar to some conventional strength training equipment.

Bao Xu could choose to pull this coffin himself, but nothing would happen.

The correct approach was to lie inside the coffin, and then the ghost in the gym would appear, continuously pulling the coffin. Only after reaching a certain number of pulls would the clue drop from the coffin lid.

There wasn’t much difficulty in itself—as long as one could overcome claustrophobia and treat the coffin as a sedan chair or rocking chair, patiently waiting inside for a while would complete the task.

However, most people probably wouldn’t think of such a bizarre approach.

Although Bao Xu was exhausted from the workout, he still obtained this clue under Guo Licheng’s guidance and left the gym satisfied.

The managers’ channel had exploded!

“Coach Guo, you’re really embarrassing us. How could you do this?”

“Yeah, not only did you fail to scare Bao Xu, but you also directly gave him the clue!”

“Coach Guo, you wouldn’t happen to be a mole planted by Bao Xu in our group, would you?”

“That’s right, there’s no room for womanly compassion in this matter.”

Guo Licheng quickly defended himself: “Everyone misunderstands. My actions actually had deeper meaning.”

“I think we need to adjust our strategy. Personally appearing might not scare Brother Bao. Because Brother Bao already has a psychological expectation that any moving creatures are likely colleagues in disguise, so how would he be scared?”

“So I think we should use scene elements as much as possible and advance to the interactive performance stage early. Additionally, I’ve greatly depleted Brother Bao’s energy through exercise. Now Brother Bao can’t run as fast, so what we need to do next will become very simple!”

Chen Kangtuo agreed: “That’s right, I think Coach Guo’s approach is correct! On the surface, Brother Bao just did a few sets of exercises to get the clue, but in order to get this mere one clue, he greatly consumed his energy. Clearly, we’re the ones who gained more.”

“And Coach Guo has indeed proven that acting alone is probably no longer effective in causing a significant scare for Brother Bao. We need to upgrade quickly.”

“Alright, everyone listen to my command and prepare to act. Find a way to lure Brother Bao to a more thrilling place.”

……

Bao Xu walked while reading the text on the clue note by the dim light of the haunted house.

Surprisingly, it was just a small background story.

In simple terms, this was originally an ordinary gym. The owner, though not earning much and being childless and alone, lived a happy life.

One day, the gym owner found an abandoned orphan at the door and brought him home to adopt. However, shortly after, the gym began experiencing frequent disappearances: the drains were often clogged with large chunks of hair, and a series of strange incidents occurred.

But no matter how they investigated, they couldn’t find the cause.

Meanwhile, the orphan who had been taken in grew at an unexpectedly rapid rate, quickly becoming a burly giant, looking less and less human. Finally, one day, his bloodshot eyes turned toward the gym owner…

After reading the whole story, Bao Xu’s mouth twitched slightly.

He thought the knockoff vibes were quite strong.

After all that effort doing the three main lifts, his legs nearly breaking from exhaustion, and this was the clue he got.

Bao Xu turned the small note over and over, finding that besides this background story, there was basically no other content—it provided no guidance whatsoever.

“So, the ghost appearing in the gym is that abnormal child who was adopted.”

“Then, to find the next clue, I should probably look around the gym entrance.”

Bao Xu considered that there wasn’t much useful content in this background story. Most of the information about the gym probably wouldn’t be useful, so the only useful part would be the origin of the ghost.

So he went to the gym entrance and carefully searched around for a long time, finally finding another clue behind a brick of a different color.

This clue was different, no longer just a text background story, but had become a picture. From the structure, it seemed to be pointing to the Sloth Apartment next door. A special room number was marked on the picture.

Bao Xu took a deep breath and headed toward the Sloth Apartment, pondering as he walked.

Logically, Liang Qingfan was busy with work and hadn’t been “arranged” by Bao Xu before, so he probably didn’t have the time or inclination to play ghost at the Terrors Hotel.

Who knew which manager would be waiting for him in the Sloth Apartment this time?

……

Like the Hellish Internet Cafe and Hellish Delivery, the Sloth Apartment had also undergone deep renovation.

The Sloth Apartment sign at the entrance had become dilapidated, smeared with bright red bloodstains, making it completely unrecognizable.

The apartment was filled with various debris, with only a small path barely allowing entry.

With no front desk, there was naturally no need to register for check-in. Although the apartment was quite large, it wasn’t strictly built like the real Sloth Apartment, just a temporarily built set. On the first floor, many room doors couldn’t be opened, decorated as various crime scenes.

The second floor was where one could actually stay, though the conditions weren’t great—just small single rooms.

Before Bao Xu arrived, Qiao Liang and Chen Kangtuo, already disguised as ghosts, had set their ambush.

Chen Kangtuo, still concerned, reiterated: “Let me repeat our action plan once more.”

“First, you hide in the room at the end of the second floor and wait patiently. That room has the best conditions and the most supplies. Plus, some clues can be seen from the doorway, so Brother Bao shouldn’t miss it.”

“When Brother Bao arrives on the first floor, I’ll give him a surprise attack. But I definitely won’t embarrass myself like Guo Licheng. This time, I’ll interact with the pre-arranged mechanisms to create a more terrifying effect, surely driving Brother Bao upstairs.”

“After Brother Bao shakes me off, he’ll definitely calm down and search slowly. That’s when it’s your turn to appear.”

“There’s a prop corpse prepared on the bed. You hide in the closet in advance. When Brother Bao examines the corpse, you press the switch in the closet to make the corpse ‘come alive.’ And in the moment Brother Bao is startled, you suddenly burst out of the closet, giving him a second fright!”

“I think this should at least startle him, right?”

Qiao Liang nodded: “I think so too. Putting myself in his shoes, I’d probably be scared to the point of wetting myself.”

Chen Kangtuo’s approach effectively upgraded the scare level.

First, he would coordinate with the scene mechanisms on the first floor to scare Bao Xu once. Even if Bao Xu withstood it, he would likely let his guard down, assuming that each scene would only have one ghost. Having left Chen Kangtuo trapped downstairs, he might think searching upstairs would be safe.

But then, when searching and finding the fake corpse in that room, the corpse would suddenly move, startling him once. At this critical moment, Qiao Liang would suddenly burst out, which should inflict significant psychological damage!

The two agreed and went to prepare separately.

……

After a while, Bao Xu arrived.

He passed through the cluttered entrance hall of the Sloth Apartment and began walking inside.

The structure of the Sloth Apartment was quite special. From the entrance, there was a corridor, and only at the end would one see the stairs to the second floor.

In other words, one had to pass all the rooms on this floor before going upstairs.

The main issue was that there were too many paths, giving visitors too many choices, and they might not visit all the rooms.

Bao Xu was very cautious, carefully examining his surroundings.

The doors to these rooms varied—some were tightly closed, others slightly ajar. The conditions outside the doors also differed: some had piles of debris, others were covered in bloodstains.

He took out the previous clue and looked at it briefly. It only roughly circled an area with a red ring, within which there were two rooms each on the first and second floors.

It seemed that to get the next clue, he would need to search all four rooms.

These four rooms were located at positions farthest from the stairs. The first-floor rooms were near the entrance hall, not far, while the second-floor rooms required climbing the stairs and walking to the end of the corridor.

Bao Xu looked at the two first-floor rooms, which were largely similar—one had bloodstains, the other didn’t.

He already had a feeling that one of the rooms definitely had a mechanism, and possibly even a manager disguised as a ghost hiding inside.

But which room was it?

Logically, in typical horror movie scenarios, the room without bloodstains would be the most dangerous, while the room with bloodstains would be safe.

But maybe Chen Kangtuo was using this very logic to trap him?

After much consideration, Bao Xu finally decided to push open the door of the room with bloodstains.