My House of Horrors

Chen Ge was busy dealing with the issues inside and outside of the Haunted House. His previous adventure had lasted the whole night, and he did not have the chance to catch a well-deserved rest in the morning. So, when noon arrived, the man was almost at his breaking point already.

Opening his backpack, Chen Ge released Ol’ Zhou and the rest. He selected a few of the employees who looked presentable and had them enter the underground scenes to get them to help with the basic running of the place. Other than Xu Yin, most of the employees were not affected by the curse. If anything, most of them had gained nutrients from the blood fog and obtained some benefits. When their injuries recovered, their power would have an obvious improvement.

“For today, scaring the visitor should come second to everything. You should focus on resting, and do not overwork yourselves,” Chen Ge told his employees, basically telling them to go easy on the visitors. Even though the employees did not understand why Chen Ge was actively working against his own Haunted House, most of them followed his order.

At 12:30 pm, Xiao Gu and Xu Wan went for a half-hour break each. Most of the visitors also went to have their lunch, and the queue in front of the Haunted House had a sizeable decrease. As the number of visitors decreased, two men walked through the crowd.

One of them had his face covered in bandages while the other stood rigidly upright. The latter wore a suit, and his expression looked quite nervous.

“I’m sorry, but is Boss Chen here?” the man in the suit asked Uncle Xu, who was manning the ticket booth.

“Are you the visitors or families of the visitors?” When Uncle Xu saw the man’s bandaged face, his heart skipped a beat, and his first thought was that Chen Ge had created more trouble.

“We’re here to work. Boss Chen should have informed you about us, right?”

“Oh, are you the new employees? Okay, please wait here a moment, I’ll go give him a call.”

Several minutes later, Chen Ge walked out from the Haunted House. He was given quite a shock when he saw his two guests. These two were completely different from how he remembered them.

Half of Scissors’ face was covered in bandages. He was lanky and tall, his skin eerily white. He seemed to have lived a life away from the sun for a long time already. The impression that he gave off was not that of a murderer but a man suffering from a serious illness. Whereas the drunkard, Zhang Jingjiu, was the complete opposite of Scissors. After taking a bath and putting on his suit, he looked sunny and approachable, pretty much like those successful figures that were featured on magazine covers.

“Your timing is perfect. Since there aren’t that many visitors around now, I’ll take you on a tour around the place.” Chen Ge welcomed the two into the Haunted House. “By the way, where is the doctor? Did he not come with you?”

“After you left, we exchanged numbers, but for some reason, we’ve been unable to reach the doctor on his phone.” The mention of the doctor caused the expression on Zhang Jingjiu’s face to shift slightly. “I wonder if something happened to him, or could it be something else completely? I purposely went to the address that he gave me, but after asking the nearby neighbor, I found out that was not even where he lives.”

“Meaning the doctor is currently missing?” Chen Ge thought about it before nodding. “It does not matter; I have trust in him. We’ve been through far too much for him to harm us. There has to be a reason for his disappearance.”

Actually, to be fair, Chen Ge did not have faith in the doctor; he had more faith in the judgement of the black phone. The doctor was not a simple character, but at least he did not intend to harm others.

Leading the two employees into the Haunted House, Chen Ge gave them a brief introduction to each scenario. Unlike Xiao Gu and Xu Wan, Chen Ge planned to cultivate them to become full-fledged workers at the Haunted House, instead of having them just looking over a single scenario.

“When we resume working after lunch, I suggest the two of you follow the visitors and experience all of the scenarios in my Haunted House starting from the 1-star scenarios.” Chen Ge used the kindest and friendliest tone to deliver the sentence to Scissors and the drunkard, who still had no idea how cruel it was. “Since you are going to work here in the future, there is no way you can be scared of the things here.”

“Don’t worry, we will try to do our best,” Scissors and the drunkard promised easily. Perhaps from their perspective, since they had survived some place like Li Wan City, what else could possibly scare them in this world?

“Perfect, in that case, you should enjoy yourselves as the visitors this afternoon.” Chen Ge did not arrange a mission for Scissors and the drunkard. He merely told them to follow the other visitors—that was the best way for them to grow.

The lunch break was soon over, and Scissors and the drunkard began the most memorable day of their lives.

Hearing the screams and yells that came from the scenarios, Chen Ge scratched his chin. “They’re still too easily scared, still too unqualified to be Haunted House workers. I’m afraid that before they can scare the visitors, they will be scared witless by their colleagues. However, I need to start using Li Wan City’s scenario soon, so I have to train them as fast as I can.”

While Chen Ge was thinking, Uncle Xu’s voice came in from outside, and Chen Ge immediately jogged out to answer the summons. Uncle Xu stood next to Director Luo at the entrance, and they seemed to have something to tell Chen Ge.

“Director Luo, why have you decided to personally come visit me today?” Chen Ge was surprised. “Is it because the futuristic theme park has launched some kind of new tactic?”

“The futuristic theme park’s people is gearing up for their promotion and launch, but I’m here today to talk to you about something else.” Director Luo waved at Chen Ge, and the two wandered to a more secluded area. “Chen Ge, I’ve been looking through the little app that we designed earlier. I noticed that quite a number of visitors have cleared the three-star scenario. In fact, some of the visitors are close to clearing all the scenarios at the Haunted House. If this continues, your Haunted House will be completely cleared before the futuristic theme park even opens its door. When that happens, the attraction that the Haunted House has on the visitors will drastically decrease, and with the under-the-table work done by the people from the futuristic theme park, the situation does not look that optimistic for us.”

Director Luo had been in the business for many years. Even though he did not have the appearance, he was actually quite a wily old fox. “The biggest attraction at our theme park thus far is that no one has ever achieved a full clear of your Haunted House, so I hope you can increase the difficulty of all the scenarios. I know this will be a big challenge for you, but currently, we are left with no other choice, and if we are not to surrender, this is the only thing that we can do.”

“Director Luo, you’re here for that?” Chen Ge was surprised that Director Luo’s way of thinking was similar to his. “Don’t worry, I was purposely going easy on the people today.”

“You did that on purpose? But with the number of visitors clearing the scenario increasing, how will that be good for us?” Director Luo had great faith in Chen Ge, but he really could not imagine why he would do something like this.

“Yes, the more people who cleared the three-star scenario, the greater the number of people who could enjoy the scarier, newer scenario. If no one challenges the newly-open scenario, without even hype, it won’t be good for our promotion,” Chen Ge explained in a calm voice.

“A new scenario?” Director Luo grasped the main point of what Chen Ge said immediately. “You have finished building a new scenario?”

“Most of the ideas and material were prepared by my parents, so I merely needed to assemble them. Don’t worry, I guarantee that this new scenario will be scarier than all of our existing scenarios.” Chen Ge looked at Director Luo. Without the need to say anything else, the two shared a mysterious smile.

“Okay, then continue doing what you’re doing. If you need anything, come and tell me. I will try my best to cooperate with you.” Director Luo felt much better, and he left holding the document in his hands.

“With such a boss that will pour everything into theme park, how can the visitors fear for a lack of joy to be found?” Chen Ge returned to the Haunted House. He bustled both above and below ground. While he followed up on Scissors and Zhang Jingjiu’s status, he made sure that nothing happened to the visitors in the scenarios.

At 6:30 pm, the Haunted House sent away the last batch of his visitors. Chen Ge had Xu Wan and Xiao Gu leave first before coming to the steps. Scissors and Zhang Jingjiu were lying weakly on the ground, and their consciousness was flagging.

In reality, they had a clear memory of themselves fainting inside the Haunted House. When they said a silent prayer that they would be given a release from experiencing the Haunted House anymore, they opened their eyes and realized that they were still inside the Haunted House. They glanced at the time on their phone, and it told them only ten minutes had passed since they fainted.

After a few more rounds of torture, they had gotten somewhat desensitized to the scares. Even though their faces were still paper white from the spooks, at least they stopped fainting.

“So, how do you feel?” Chen Ge passed the two bottles of mineral water. He planned to cultivate Scissors and Zhang Jingjiu as employees, so to prevent accidents from happening to them, Chen Ge had purposely asked Doctor Wei’s group to follow them, to provide medical attention whenever necessary.

“I really can’t say. It feels like no matter what kind of trial life throws at me in the future, I can smile in its face and conquer it.” Zhang Jingjiu recovered quite nicely. He tried to twist the cap of the bottle open with his shaking hands, and he failed after multiple tries.

“What about you, Scissors?”

“How come it feels like I was more comfortable in Li Wan City? Perhaps there really is a maniac hiding inside me.” Scissors held his face in his hands. Before going there, he really did not expect Chen Ge’s Haunted House to be so scary. The wounds that were slowly recovering on his face almost bled from the scares.

“Very good, now that you’ve experienced things from the perspective of the visitors, I’m going to bring you to experience everything again from the perspective of the employees.” Chen Ge stood up and pulled over a trolley from the resting hall.

“What? Again?” Scissors and Zhang Jingjiu squeezed together, comrades of fear.

“If you are unable to move, I can push you around with this. Don’t worry, it’s very safe. I’ve been running this place for almost a decade already, and nothing huge has happened yet.”

With the urging from Chen Ge, Scissors and Zhang Jingjiu reentered the Haunted House. However, their visit this time was different from their previous visits. Chen Ge started to teach them how to scare the visitors.

“Haunted House actors have next to no script, so one’s acting skills become even more important. You have to really see yourself as the character you’re playing so that the presence can naturally flow out from you.”

From learning how to pick the best cover to applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation skills; from leaning how to use the small mechanisms that littered the haunted House to understanding the psychology of a maniac, Scissors and Zhang Jingjiu only then realized how much one needed to know to be a qualified Haunted House worker.

“It is getting late. You should go back home to take a rest. Come earlier tomorrow, and I will arrange some tasks for you to do, to have you really understand the joy and allure of working at a Haunted House.”

Once Scissors and Zhang Jingjiu left, Chen Ge sent them a bonus each. It was counted as the overtime fee.

After a day and night without rest, Chen Ge’s body reached its limit. He set the alarm and collapsed into bed.

At 4 am the next morning, Chen Ge was woken up by his alarm. He picked up the white cat that had crawled to curl beside his pillow from the bed and quickly switched open the black phone.

“3.5-star scenario—Li Wan City completed!

“Warning! The interior space of the Haunted House is full. Please expand as soon as possible!”

“There is a need for another expansion so soon? Just how big is Li Wan City’s scenario?” Chen Ge’s Haunted House had just been upgraded to a Maze of Terror. After another two expansions, it would upgrade to the next stage. “I will leave the expansion until later when it’s more convenient. For now, I should go check out the new scenario.”

The earlier the scenario was open to the public, the better it would be for Chen Ge. He put on his clothes, carried his backpack, and rushed underground. The path that led to Li Wan City was next to Coffin Village. The two scenarios was adjacent to each other, but this new scenario was bigger than Coffin Village and the Third Sick Hall combined.

“There’s a lake for the water ghost and the tunnel that leads to who knows where. Next to it is Coffin Village, and there’s even a hospital and a school down here. This place is coming up to be a perfectly well-functioning underground city.”

Walking down the street, the buildings around Chen Ge grew downward, instead of upward. There were basements, and most of the underground layout was interconnected, forming a maze of its own.

Out of concern for the visitors’ safety, Chen Ge checked all the buildings one by one. Just doing that took more than one hour; the size of this place was truly something to behold.

“But a big place has its advantages. I am free to make this place into anything I wish.” Chen Ge summoned all of his workers and started to modify the scenario. This included taking away objects that were sharp and dangerous. Then, he placed his new ‘trained’ employees into their set location.

“There are three main points of interest—the hotel, hospital, and residential area. Currently, I still have too few ghosts. After the sun rises, I can have Scissors and Zhang Jingjiu fill up the number in here, but other than that, I will need to make another batch of mannequins.”

The scariest thing about the hotel was the hidden room behind the fridge. Unfortunately, the gluttonous woman had been killed already, and a big element of fear had been lost. Chen Ge was trying to figure out a way to salvage that. He planned to recover Li Wan City to an authentic state as much as he could, to create the sense of despair where around every corner lurked a Specter and every turn led to a murderer.

“The other scenarios have less than ten scary points, and I’ve already placed more than that in Li Wan City. With such a high frequency of scares going around, I wonder if the visitors will be able to survive this.” Chen Ge was satisfied with his work at Li Wan City. He worked in there until 8 am. When he entered the scenario, his comic had been bulging with content, but when he left, it was practically blank.

“Yesterday, there were so many people who cleared the three-star scenarios. While their guard is down, there will definitely be many willing volunteers if I release the news that a new 3.5-star scenario is open to the public today. If I’m lucky, I might get some trolls among them; it would be best if there are people sent by the futuristic theme park.”

Leaving the underground scenario, Chen Ge took a cold shower and prepared to start his business. Today was the first day that Scissors and Zhang Jingjiu started their work, and they arrived very early.

“Boss, there’s something that I need to inform you about.” Zhang Jingjiu was still wearing his suit, looking very formal. “I still cannot contact the doctor; it feels as if he has disappeared.”

“I know. For now, let’s not worry about him.” Chen Ge led the two into the dressing room. “There’s no need to stand on ceremony, just treat this as your own home.”

Using the talent that he had gotten from the black phone, Chen Ge demonstrated his great skill in make-up to his two new employees. This surprised Scissors and Zhang Jingjiu—their new boss was truly an all-rounded genius.

“One has to know make-up to operate a Haunted House.” Chen Ge dressed Zhang Jingjiu in the image of the hotel boss from Li Wan City. Then he found the Jack the Ripper apparel in his Props Room and handed it over to Scissors. “Your character will be that of a crazed murderer. I’ve encountered more than ten different maniacs; I’ll jot down their qualities for you later. Hopefully, that will give you some inspiration and help.”