My House of Horrors

Walking to the entrance alone, Chen Ge was not as cocky as Liu Gang. But sometimes, even if one wanted to stay low profile, it was impossible. He used his ID to purchase the ticket at the auto seller machine. All the tickets there were sold by machines, and everyone was queueing up. But when he pressed his ID on a machine that had been working normally, the machine suddenly lit up with a red light. Three workers from the theme park then ran toward him.

“Is the machine broken?”

“What’s the meaning of this? Do we have a criminal among us?”

Chen Ge himself was as confused. When the three arrived, they surrounded Chen Ge. One of them said with a professional fake smile, “Mr. Chen Ge, we have been waiting so long for you. The Reincarnation scenario is already ready. Please follow us.”

“Okay then.” Chen Ge saved the ticket money. He looked at the price information and then only realized that the selling price for the ticket at the futuristic theme park was at least 1.5 times the price of a ticket for New Century Park. He was led down the staff pathway to the interior of the theme park. Many strange themed plazas appeared before his eyes, and together, they formed this futuristic city.

“The building for the reincarnation theme attraction is at the deepest part of theme park. Our people have already finished designing it.” The three workers led Chen Ge through the crowd and came to the Haunted House at the futuristic theme park, a themed building that was named Reincarnation. When Chen Ge arrived, there was already a bustling crowd outside the building, but most of them were workers from the park. They all looked like they were ready to jump and attack Chen Ge. However, they probably did not expect that Chen Ge would come alone, so all the workers had this feeling that perhaps they had overestimated their enemy.

A man in his thirties walked over from the building’s entrance to introduce himself. “Nice to meet you, I am one of the designers of this Reincarnation themed building. You can call me Qing Ming.”

“Just how many designers does this scenario has? I believe one of those currently lying in the hospital is also one of your designers.” The first thing that Chen Ge said made the workers at the futuristic theme park feel fairly awkward.

“Yes, Bai Buhui is one of our designers. Our scenario is themed with the concept of reincarnation. It combines elements from various urban legends and horror movies to create a unique and isolated world on its own, but through the concept of reincarnation, they all cleverly and expertly join together.” Qing Ming sounded proud of their accomplishment.

“I haven’t even started my livestream. There’s no need to start your sale pitch just yet.” Chen Ge patted Qing Ming on his shoulder. “Brother, I am going to queue up here. You should go and do whatever you are supposed to do. There is no need to mind me.”

“My work for the day is to accompany you during your visit. By the way, have your friends not arrived?” Qing Ming asked with some hesitation. From the bottom of his heart, he did not believe that Chen Ge would come alone to take on the challenge.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, I came alone.” Chen Ge took out his phone and clicked into his livestream services. Ever since his livestream was banned by the police, he had not used this service for quite some time. Once he started the livestream, before Chen Ge even said anything, the chatroom was already exploding with activity. The most annoying was the bunch of users who were spamming the chat feed with “Brother Gang is a Real Man”. In a few short minutes, the number of online viewers had shot through 50,000, and the number was still rapidly climbing.

“Good afternoon, everyone! Yesterday, I promised everyone that I would come to challenge the futuristic theme park’s Haunted House alone, and I am here already.” Chen Ge panned the camera to capture the themed building. “Honestly, I am quite scared that I will have to challenge this Haunted House alone. Liu Gang’s group challenged my Haunted House with eleven people in total, but all of them are now inside the hospital. But I am just one person, and I have to face this challenge all on my own.”

When Chen Ge said that, Qing Ming, who stood next to him, felt that something was not quite right. Liu Gang’s group of eleven all fainted during their visit, and Chen Ge came to visit on his own, so even if he fainted during the process, in the end, it would feel like Chen Ge was the more impressive party of the two.

This is too cunning!

Qing Ming gritted his teeth in anger, but he could not do anything to Chen Ge but smile and wave at the camera to show the kindness and openness of the futuristic theme park.

“The person standing right next to me is a worker at the futuristic theme park. He is also one of the designers for their Haunted House. Speaking of which, I am quite concerned about his colleague. At the end of the day, he fainted at New Century Park. I wonder if he has woken up at the hospital yet. I do not wish to have other people say that we are trying to shirk the responsibility…”

Before Chen Ge could finish, Qing Ming quickly jumped in to cut him off. “Mr. Chen, we are all ready, you can start the visit any time.”

Qing Ming was very afraid of that gab of Chen Ge’s. The man was highly sarcastic, and if he was allowed to continue, the futuristic theme park would end up the brunt of the joke.

“We’re starting so soon?” Chen Ge followed Qing Ming as they cut through the crowd and came to the entrance of the building. There was a super large screen hanging outside the Reincarnation scenario. The videos showing on the two sides of the screen were slightly different.

Chen Ge was studying the videos when the sound of an argument came from the visitors who were lining up. A few young men were making loud noises and complaining, “Why is it that he does not need to line up‽ We have even purchased the special VIP tickets. This is too much! We are going to make complaints about this! Just you wait and see!”

“Excuse me, I will go and deal with this.” Qing Ming ran over and discussed with the few young men before he came back. “Mr. Chen, I am so sorry. Initially, we wished to follow your intention of completing the visitation alone, but the few visitors refused to allow that. Do you mind if you let them enter the scenario and accept the challenge with you? Well, with the addition of more people, it should help lower the difficulty of the challenge and the terrifying factor.”

“Lower the difficulty of the challenge and terrifying factor?” Chen Ge stared at the faces of the few young men, and the corner of his lips curled up. The timing of their ruckus was too perfect, almost as if it was planned. This should be part of the futuristic theme park’s plan, and those so-called visitors should be park workers in disguise.

“They need to be trained to be better actors, but never mind, the more the merrier.” Chen Ge pointed that out directly to show that he had seen through their plan. Qing Ming’s expression froze, but there was nothing he could do but to continue to act dumb. “Then I will go and tell them to be ready.”

Chen Ge ignored Qing Ming. He turned to his own livestream. Many people on the internet saw through the futuristic theme park’s plan as well, and they were all trying to remind Chen Ge.

“It will be fine. This way, there will be a fair comparison.”

About ten seconds later, three men and three women walked out from the crowd.

“Alright, the whole group is ready. So, I will now explain briefly the rules of the game for everyone.” Qing Ming pointed at the super large screen outside the building. “Our reincarnation Haunted House combines the many latest 3D technology to highly recreate the scenes from various ghost stories and horror movies. This a world dominated by ghosts and a recurring nightmare created by man.

“You will encounter many classic scenes from various horror movies inside the haunted house, and you will be able to experience the most intense sense of terror.

“There are ghosts inside the scenario that are portrayed by our workers, but some are projections, and there are others that you will have to be careful about. To recreate the terrifying effect to its maximum originality, we have placed some of the ancient paraphernalia from the original ghost stories inside the scenario. If you feel that something is wrong, please do cry for help; I’m not kidding with you.” Qing Ming’s tone was serious, and when he was done, he even purposely turned to look at Chen Ge. “Do not push yourself. Safety first.”

Patting his own backpack, Chen Ge said with an equally severe tone, “You have successfully made me excited.”

“Our scenario is controlled by the central computer. The difficulty is split into easy, normal, difficult, and hellish—four different categories. Clearing the simple scenario will earn you one point, the normal scenario will earn you five points, the difficult scenario twenty points, and if you can clear the hellish scenario with one go, you will be able to get one hundred points. This big screen here will show the point ranking. Currently, the visitor who is placed first at our theme park is a Haunted House aficionado. He has managed to clear two difficult scenarios and several normal scenarios, so in total, he has gained 105 points.”

The higher the point, the higher the ranking. It was as if Qing Ming was purposely luring Chen Ge to pick the hellish difficulty.

“Is the most difficult category the hellish difficulty?” Chen Ge asked Qing Ming.

“Since we opened this scenario, there hasn’t been anyone who has been able to clear the hellish difficulty. Theoretically, that should be the hardest difficulty, but…” Qing Ming paused for dramatic effect before continuing. “There is a method where you can increase the difficulty level, and that is to challenge two hellish scenarios at the same time. Since the scenarios are controlled by the central computer, if you choose to challenge two scenarios at the same time, you will encounter the ghosts from two different ghost stories.”

“You can do something like that?”

“Theoretically, yes, we can. For example, if you combine the scenarios for Ju-on and The Ring, while you receive a call from the cursed spirit, you might be ambushed from the back by the ghost from Ju-on. In other words, your encounters with ghosts will increase.”

Qing Ming was just showing off his own Haunted House. He did not think Chen Ge would be dumb enough to challenge the hellish scenario.

“First, all visitors need to sign the disclaimer and then set up their own account before finally selecting the difficulty. Then, I will bring you into the scenario.” Qing Ming signaled for Chen Ge to come over to the control panel.

The disclaimer at the futuristic theme park was ‘signed’ using fingerprints and facial recognition technology. It was more official than Chen Ge’s Haunted House, which still relied on pens.

After signing the disclaimer, Chen Ge set up his personal account. Considering that the name would appear on the ranking on the big screen outside the Haunted House, he did not hesitate and set up his new account with the name ‘New Century Park’.

I suppose this can be counted as a chance for promotion.

Once he had keyed in those few words, the system showed that there were sensitive terms in the account name. Chen Ge was speechless; the futuristic theme park had even considered something as little as this.

He gave it several more tries before going with his real name—Chen Ge. Then it was time to pick the difficulty. The other visitors and Qing Ming all turned to look at Chen Ge.

“You guys want me to pick?” Chen Ge pointed at the other scenarios. “Are they going to enter the same scenario as me?”

“Yes, the same batch of visitors will enter the same scenario,” Qing Ming explained patiently. Hearing that, Chen Ge turned to the other visitors. “Are you guys sure you want to follow me? How about you wait for the next batch?”

“Are you looking down on us?”

“Acting tough, is it? Laughable!”

“This man is so funny.”

Since the other ‘visitors’ insisted on following him, Chen Ge had no choice. He clicked open the panel for the choice of difficulty and very smoothly moved to the choices for hellish scenarios.

“What should I do if I want to combine two scenarios?” This was the first time that Chen Ge had dealt with such a high-tech control panel.

“First, you click the tab at the bottom of the page for the hellish difficulty, and then you tick the scenarios that you wish to combine among the available hellish scenarios. After you are done, you can click confirm.” A smile finally appeared on Qing Ming’s face when he saw that Chen Ge was about to take the hellish scenario.

“Got it.” Chen Ge followed the given instruction and then put his phone away. His ten fingers were like those of a pianist, and he ticked almost more than forty hellish scenarios that were available for him to choose.

“Wait, wait a moment!” Qing Ming wanted to stop him, but he was too late. Chen Ge had already pressed the confirm button. At that moment, the control panel lagged slightly. It was probably because the central computer had to deal with too much data at one time. Even the lights inside the building flickered for a moment.

“Have you lost your mind‽” Qing Ming quickly rushed to the side of the control panel.

“Why would you say that? You did not tell me that I cannot combine forty scenarios at the same time.” After saying that, Chen Ge lightly nudged the ‘visitor’ next to him. “You guys are on my side, right? He didn’t say that, did he?”

Seeing more than forty horror movies, ghost stories, and scary scenarios that were being combined on the screen, the few visitors’ faces were as gray as ash, but Chen Ge looked perfectly fine. In fact, he took out his phone again to resume the live stream.

“Honestly, I did not expect your system here to suddenly go down. Don’t tell me your designers here have not considered a situation like this happening? How unprofessional is that?”