My House of Horrors

“Why don’t you say something? So many people are waiting.” Chen Ge grabbed hold of Qing Ming. No matter what the man said, he had come up with something to counter it. Even if Qing Ming pretended to faint before the crowd, he had ways to resuscitate him.

“Everyone, please give me some time.” Qing Ming was desperate. He had a few excuses, but none of them seemed valid. For Qing Ming, every second standing next to Chen Ge was torture. He looked at Chen Ge pleadingly, hoping that Chen Ge would forgive him, but Chen Ge opened his own livestream on his phone. “The ban has been lifted. This is perfect.”

Chen Ge broadcasted the evidence before the millions of online viewers and ‘reconstructed’ the whole event. Chen Ge was a visitor and had gone to challenge the futuristic theme park’s Haunted House alone, but in the end, the six fake visitors were rendered unconscious, and he was the only one who survived.

The whole thing stank of fishiness. But no matter which perspective one took, Chen Ge was the real victim. Taking on the Haunted House alone, going to the other person’s territory, he was powerless if the futuristic theme park wanted to play dirty, and play dirty they did. But reality always took a funny turn. When the employees from the futuristic theme park went to visit Chen Ge’s Haunted House, New Century Park’s old fans had opened bet to see how many visitors would faint this time.

But the next day, when Chen Ge went to visit the futuristic theme park’s Haunted House. The online users had been betting how worse for wear Chen Ge would be after the ordeal, but in the end, it was the actors who were scared witless. The old fans finally got the lesson. Whether it was New Century Park’s Haunted House or another theme park’s haunted house, should Chen Ge visit, someone would faint. The man was like a walking taser.

Chen Ge was happily chatting with the viewers, but Qing Ming was at his limit. Thankfully, another manager from the futuristic theme park came over, and Qing Ming was rescued. After some persuasion and tact, they finally pulled Chen Ge into the themed scenario. When they noticed that Chen Ge was still on the livestream, they wanted to cry, but there were no tear left.

“Boss, you have already finished your tour. Our employees went to your haunted house to create trouble. As awful as that was, they have already received the punishment they deserved. After Liu Gang wakes up, we will urge him to publish an apology video.” Qing Ming had surrendered. He just wanted Chen Ge to leave.

“So, it will end up being Liu Gang’s fault for the whole thing, right?” Chen Ge looked at Qing Ming with a smile. “I promised to visit your haunted house alone, but you weren’t satisfied with that and found six other actors to work together to bully me. Isn’t that a bit too much? Didn’t that cross the line?”

“It’s mainly because you combined forty scenarios at once. We haven’t dealt with something like that before. We had them follow you because we wanted them to protect you.” Qing Ming had come up with this excuse after some time. He was quite a clever person, but when faced with Chen Ge, his tongue was caught by the cat. “It’s about noon. How about we take a break for lunch? We both need some time to calm down, and we can continue this conversation later. How does that sound?”

“It’s not even 11 am yet. Why are you talking about lunch break?” Chen Ge held the phone and dragged Qing Ming into the camera. “Don’t worry, I am a reasonable person. As long as you give me a satisfactory answer, I won’t keep hounding you.”

Chen Ge removed the wrist band. “I’ll return your stuff first. I remembered you saying that the points will be shown on the big screen outside the Haunted House.”

“I did.” Qing Ming accepted Chen Ge’s band and keyed in Chen Ge’s ID on the computer. Moments later, a number that stunned him appeared—4,200 points!

“So, how did I do?” Chen Ge was quite curious himself. Clearing one hellish scenario would nab him one hundred points, and he had combined over forty scenarios.

“There seems to be a problem with the computer. Let me recover the data…” Before Qing Ming could do any funny business, Chen Ge grabbed his hands.

“At least have some honor.” Chen Ge could see things from Qing Ming’s perspective. The current first place visitor had 105 points. It meant that Chen Ge’s name would stay on the scoreboard for a very long time unless the futuristic theme park cheated.

“Our visitation time is sixty minutes. You have seriously gone over the time limit, so this doesn’t count.” Qing Ming flung Chen Ge’s hand away. “We’re only following the rules.”

“It doesn’t count because I went over the time?” Chen Ge extended his hand toward Qing Ming. “Then give me back the wrist band.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Keep the forty scenarios combined. I’ll speedrun it in sixty minutes. This is perfect. This will give the viewers a chance to follow me on this journey.” Chen Ge put the wrist band on and turned to the camera. “The camera might be shaky because I’ll start running.”

“There’s no need to do that. You just came out, so you need to rest…”

“It’s fine. Visiting your Haunted House is just the relaxation that I need.” Chen Ge stood at the entrance. “You’re only following the rules, right? I have millions of viewers watching.”

…

Thirty-nine minutes later, the leader of the futuristic theme park was answering the media’s questions when the crowd suddenly quieted down. The leader was stunned. He followed the crowd’s gaze and almost lost his soul. “Why is it you again?”

“Just ignore me and do your thing.”

Chen Ge walked out from the haunted house’s exit the second time. “During my first challenge, the manager here said that they won’t key in my points because my time was overboard, so I speedran it.”

“Why did he refuse to key in your score?”

“A Haunted House can be speedrun?”

“Please wait!”

Walking through the crowd, Chen Ge removed the wrist band and handed it to Qing Ming. “This time, I’m sure it’s within sixty minutes. If you still have any problems, I can clear it again. After all, I have nothing better to do today.”

“I have no more problems. Since you have finished the tour, please return to your own haunted house. We know you are a busy man.” Qing Ming honestly keyed in Chen Ge’s score. “How did you speedrun such a high difficulty scenario? Are you born without fear?”

“The reason I can do that is because you have given me the random occupation of volunteer worker. The job looks normal, but it has a hidden buff. When your people try to challenge this, tell them to give it a go.”

“The volunteer? The most useless occupation was actually the most powerful?”

Chen Ge was just joking, but Qing Ming memorized it clearly.

Then yelps of surprise came from outside the Haunted House. Chen Ge’s name appeared on the big screen. He dominated the ranking with 8,400 points. He was over eight thousand points ahead of second place.

“Qing Ming, does the leader that is speaking outside have the surname Jiang?” Chen Ge sidled up to Qing Ming with the phone.

Qing Ming truly hated Chen Ge. If Chen Ge was not livestreaming, he would have asked the security to throw Chen Ge out. “Why do you want to know that?”

“I heard that your theme park initially didn’t plan to build a haunted house. It was at the insistence of someone by the name of Jiang Jiu that this project was approved. I believe that he is a Haunted House aficionado, so I wish to have a chat with him.”

“Manager Jiang is not someone whom you can meet freely, but his son is helping out at this haunted house. If you’re really that interested, go and find his son, Jiang Ming.”

“Jiang Ming?” Earlier, Chen Ge had run into a worker with the surname Jiang inside the Haunted House. The man looked about his age, and he was responsible for the rescue. The other workers called him Brother Jiang.