The moment he pushed open the door, nothing particularly unusual happened. Bao Xu walked in and looked around. Though there were some cluttered items and small scary pranks set up, he couldn’t find any especially useful clues.
“It seems the issue must be in that room without bloodstains,” Bao Xu thought.
He returned to the door of the room without bloodstains and carefully pushed it open, fearing that he might encounter some surprise attack. Despite his mental preparation before opening the door, he suddenly heard a loud thud. Bao Xu stumbled backward, but didn’t see anything unusual behind the door. Instead, the ceiling on his right suddenly collapsed, and a hideously disfigured hanging ghost instantly fell down from above.
“Ah!” Bao Xu was so startled that he literally jumped. After realizing it was just a prop—albeit a large one similar to a real person’s size—he relaxed slightly.
However, just as he was examining it carefully, the hanging ghost suddenly began to move! Its mouth extended a long tongue while emitting bone-chilling whispers. It even cut the rope hanging around its neck and crawled on the ground toward Bao Xu, step by step.
Bao Xu screamed again and instinctively ran to the left. He had initially thought the hanging ghost was just a prop, so he had lowered his guard. He never expected it would suddenly start moving. This entrance was far more creative than Guo Licheng’s appearance, so fear overcame reason. He couldn’t muster the courage to approach it and try to get friendly—instead, he just turned and ran.
There was only one path in the entire corridor. The entrance had already been blocked by the hanging ghost, so Bao Xu could only rush to the stairwell, quickly go upstairs, and close the stairwell door behind him.
Watching Bao Xu escape upstairs as expected, the hanging ghost stood up with satisfaction. Inside the costume, Chen Kangtuo spoke into his Bluetooth earpiece: “Lao Qiao, heads up. Brother Bao has gone upstairs. Everything’s proceeding according to plan.”
Meanwhile, Qiao Liang was hiding in a room at the end of the hallway. Hearing Chen Kangtuo’s instructions, he quickly hid in a nearby cabinet. The cabinet was specially made—very spacious—so even though Qiao Liang was wearing a ghost costume, he didn’t feel cramped. Through the cracks in the cabinet, he could clearly see the “corpse” on the bed outside.
The sound of soft footsteps came from outside, indicating that Bao Xu had regained his composure after discovering the hanging ghost downstairs wasn’t pursuing him. After going upstairs, Bao Xu decided to continue searching the two remaining rooms on the map—Qiao Liang’s room and the adjacent one. This time, however, Bao Xu seemed much more cautious and didn’t rashly enter.
Qiao Liang waited in the cabinet for a while but got bored when Bao Xu didn’t arrive. Chen Kangtuo asked through the earpiece: “How’s it going, Lao Qiao? Has Brother Bao come yet?”
Qiao Liang replied somewhat helplessly: “Not yet, but he should be here soon.”
“By the way, this project is really spending big money—such a small bed, yet they’ve put two props on it,” he added.
Chen Kangtuo was confused: “What two props?”
Qiao Liang said: “Well, there are two… Oh, Brother Bao is here. I’ll talk to you later. I need to watch for the right moment to scare him.”
Chen Kangtuo became even more confused. He quickly asked: “Lao Qiao, explain yourself clearly. What do you mean by two props? There should only be one corpse on the bed, right? What else did you see?”
Just as he finished speaking, three consecutive screams came through the earpiece! Then chaos ensued.
The first scream was likely the automated sound—whenever Qiao Liang triggered the mechanism, the corpse on the bed would suddenly “explode” and emit a ghostly wail. This was a mechanical corpse that would simply spring up from the bed then return to its original position, posing no actual threat.
The second scream naturally came from Bao Xu. When he was examining the room near the corpse on the bed, Qiao Liang suddenly triggered the mechanism, obviously giving him a fright.
However, the third scream came from Qiao Liang himself.
Chen Kangtuo was completely baffled. He couldn’t figure out what was happening and hurried up the stairs. What he saw was Qiao Liang in his ghost costume and a pale-faced Bao Xu running frantically one after another, with someone wielding a bright red axe chasing behind them!
Bao Xu was running in front, clutching his left arm, which seemed to be bleeding—a truly frightening sight. Qiao Liang followed closely behind, possibly covering for him, but clearly also running in panic.
Chen Kangtuo was so frightened that he quickly removed his costume head and asked: “What happened?” He was especially alarmed seeing Bao Xu’s left arm with blood seeping through his fingers.
Bao Xu spoke with both shock and anger: “You guys are going too far! How could you play for real?”
Qiao Liang hurriedly said: “Brother Bao, you’ve misunderstood! We don’t know who this person is—we’ve never seen him before!”
Just as he finished speaking, the figure behind them raised the axe high and brought it down violently. Fortunately, both Qiao Liang and Bao Xu had practiced at Suffering Travel and managed to dodge aside. The axe struck the table next to them with a loud thunk, leaving a deep notch.
Chen Kangtuo immediately panicked. How could a criminal have gotten into the Frightening Inn?
“Run!” Chen Kangtuo grabbed a chair from nearby for a simple defense, then all three of them fled at full speed.
Though it was three against one, Bao Xu was already injured and had no fighting capability. Meanwhile, Chen Kangtuo and Qiao Liang were both wearing heavy costumes that restricted their movement. Their defensive capabilities might have slightly improved, but not significantly. Moreover, they had no idea who this person was—they could only see that he had disheveled hair and what appeared to be a scar on his face, looking like a ruthless criminal who could kill without blinking an eye.
It was better to escape quickly first and then devise a plan after finding other staff members.
As Chen Kangtuo ran, he shouted into the communication channel: “Quick, quick! We have an emergency! Whoever’s closest to the exit, grab a phone and call the police!”
According to normal procedure, Chen Kangtuo should have been monitoring the situation from the control center, but he had gotten carried away and joined in personally, so no one was at the control center. Additionally, since all staff members had to wear costumes, they couldn’t carry phones and had left them near the entrance backstage.
The channel immediately erupted into chaos. Clearly, the other staff members were confused about what was happening after hearing the commotion.
“Lao Chen, what’s going on? Is this part of the script?”
“What’s happening? Why do we need to call the police? There’s nothing about police in our script.”
“Guo Licheng should be closest to the phones. He’s already gone to get them.”
“Lao Chen, where are you guys? I’ll come find you.”
Several staff members who had been hiding nearby couldn’t sit still anymore and began leaving their posts.
Meanwhile, Chen Kangtuo and Qiao Liang, along with Bao Xu, temporarily managed to lose the axe-wielding maniac, thanks to their familiarity with the area.
However, before they had gone far, they heard Guo Licheng’s shocked voice through the earpiece: “All the phones that were left here are gone!”
The staff members in the channel were all shocked.
“The phones are gone?”
“Who did it?”
“So someone came here shortly after we entered and took all our phones?”
“That’s not right—our venue should be in a closed state. We’re not receiving outside visitors.”
“But if some people with ulterior motives wanted to get in, they could still make it in. Has any fugitive escaped from Jingzhou Prison recently?”
Chen Kangtuo was completely flustered. What had started as a haunted house internal testing activity might actually turn into a real crime scene. His mind instantly flashed through several horror movie scenarios: what was supposed to be a horror film shoot turns real, with many people losing their vigilance during filming and getting picked off one by one by the killer.
Thinking of this, Chen Kangtuo quickly said: “Don’t worry, everyone. We have numbers on our side. Let’s all gather at the entrance and leave together, then find someone to call the police.”
The two of them supported the injured Bao Xu as they headed outside. Along the way, many “ghosts” hidden in other locations also appeared and joined together. Everyone removed their costumes, their expressions serious and highly alert.
However, just as they reached the entrance, they suddenly discovered that the criminal had somehow appeared and was blocking the way out. The criminal still carried that axe, which seemed to be dripping with blood.
Meanwhile, Bao Xu appeared to be suffering from excessive blood loss and was falling into a daze. Although Qiao Liang had earlier torn off a piece of cloth to bandage him, it didn’t seem to have helped much.
Seeing the entrance blocked by the criminal, the staff members’ faces showed expressions of fear mixed with determination.
Guo Licheng took the lead, dismantling a dumbbell rod from the gym equipment, and said: “Everyone, don’t be afraid. There are many of us—let’s attack together!”
“How dare they cause trouble during Tenda’s staff team-building event? Let’s show him the results of our Coffin Gym training.”
There were other exits, but given Bao Xu’s condition, he clearly couldn’t hold out much longer.
The staff members instantly united against the common enemy, all stepping forward together: “Right, we have numbers on our side. Let’s get him!”
The atmosphere in the venue was extremely tense, with a bloody battle seemingly imminent. Many were nervous—this criminal looked ruthless. Would Tenda’s team competition staff all be wiped out by this one person? That would be ridiculous. Each of them was an important figure outside, responsible for a key industry within Tenda, yet they might be massacred because of one criminal. If word got out, it would be both tragic and somewhat comical.
After a standoff, Guo Licheng shouted and was about to charge first.
But just then, the criminal broke into uncontrollable laughter.
Bao Xu, who had seemed on the verge of passing out, shrugged off his injury. Qiao Liang, who had been prepared for a big fight, also burst into laughter.
The criminal removed the wig on his head and tore off a piece of fake skin used for makeup. Everyone looked closely—wasn’t this Ruan Guangjian?