"This is the first time I've seen a haunted house that's not scary at all."
"The props were so fake that after walking around, I wasn't scared at all and even felt like laughing."
“Materialists have nothing to fear!”
"I told you guys it's boring. You might as well play games in the dormitory. My Kun is already level 80."
At the entrance of the horror house in the western suburbs of Jiujiang City, several students rode shared bicycles and left without any regrets.
Seeing this scene, Chen Ge, who was holding the haunted house flyer, felt quite helpless.
Scare people is a technical job, but modern people have been baptized by various horror movies and have very strong psychological qualities. When they enter a haunted house, it is just like entering their own backyard.
"boss!"
A clear female voice came from behind him. Chen Ge turned his head and saw a "zombie" wearing a nurse's uniform, with a petite figure and a proud bust, running out of the haunted house angrily.
"What's wrong, Xiaowan?" The girl's name was Xu Wan, and she was one of the extras in the haunted house.
"Those little bastards just now tried to take advantage of me!" She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists.
It turns out that he came to file a complaint...
"This is too much. They didn't even let the zombies go." As the boss, Chen Ge would naturally speak up for Xiao Wan: "I'll go find the park manager to report the situation and adjust the surveillance."
"No need to go through so much trouble. When I realized that he had this intention, I took the initiative and beat him up." Xu Wan shook off the bloodstains on the corner of the nurse's uniform: "This is not makeup."
"Uh, that's fine. Girls should learn to protect themselves." Chen Ge wiped the sweat from his forehead and glanced at the sunset. "Then let's stop here for today. I guess there won't be many tourists. Notify others to leave work early."
After he finished speaking, the girl in zombie makeup in front of him didn't move.
"Anything else?"
"Boss..." Xu Wan hesitated as she slowly took out a letter from her pocket. "This is Tao Ming and Xiao Wei's resignation letter. You treated them well, so they were embarrassed to tell you in person, so they asked me to pass it to you."
"They're leaving?" Chen Ge was stunned for a moment, then accepted the envelope: "Everyone has their own aspirations. You should also get off work early."
"Yeah, I'm going to take off my makeup."
Watching this cute little "zombie" leave, Chen Ge silently lit a cigarette.
Half a year ago, his parents mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind only this horror house.
In order to fulfill his dream, Chen Ge quit his job and devoted himself to running the haunted house, hoping to do better.
Unfortunately, times are changing too fast. The haunted house industry is highly competitive, the industry itself is relatively unpopular, and there are still many limitations.
The same horror scene will become boring after watching it once, and constant renovation requires a lot of money.
A few weeks ago, the haunted house was running out of money, with the daily ticket revenue not even enough to cover the water and electricity bills.
“I don’t know how long I can hold on.”
After putting out his cigarette, Chen Ge was about to go back to the haunted house when a middle-aged man in New Century Park work clothes came over.
Seeing him, Chen Ge quickened his pace like a mouse seeing a cat.
"Are you pretending not to see it?" The middle-aged man grabbed Chen Ge's shoulders and said, "Let's make things clear today. You have been in arrears with your water and electricity bills and venue rental for two months. The higher-ups have been urging me to pay, and I am under a lot of pressure now!"
"Uncle Xu, it's not that I don't want to give it to you. I'm just having financial difficulties recently. Please give me another month."
"You said the same thing last month."
"I promise you, this is definitely the last month!" Chen Ge patted his chest with a sincere look on his face.
"The haunted house business is not doing well right now and it can't attract tourists. I think you shouldn't keep going." The middle-aged man called Uncle Xu looked at the envelope in Chen Ge's hand, and the strength in his hand gradually decreased: "You are so young, why don't you do something else? Why do you have to live such a hard life?"
"Uncle Xu, I know you are doing this for my own good, but this horror house means something different to me. It is a memory my parents left me." Chen Ge's voice was low, as if he didn't want more people to hear.
As the park manager, the middle-aged man knew everything about Chen Ge's parents. He didn't reply. After a few seconds, he sighed and softened his heart: "I can understand your thoughts to some extent. Okay, I will try my best to delay it for a few more weeks for you."
"Thank you, Uncle Xu!"
"Don't thank me. You should try harder and sell more tickets to the haunted house."
After seeing off the park manager, Chen Ge went straight back to the haunted house and began to repeat his daily work, checking equipment wear and tear, maintaining props, and cleaning.
"The artificial plasma in the repair room is almost used up, so we need to buy another batch. If we tilt this passage inward, it may be able to better block the blind spots of tourists' vision. The doll is scratched and needs to be repaired. Damn! Where is the craft lamp I installed? Who stole it?"
In the eyes of outsiders, he is the owner of a horror house and a promising young man who started his own business. In fact, only he himself knows the sadness behind it.
Haunted houses are a form of "horror" consumption. In a horror environment, people's muscles and minds will be highly tense. Once they are released, it is like a massage. This method can make people feel satisfied in a short period of time.
At the same time, haunted houses are also a one-time consumption. Many haunted houses on the market adopt the method of moving around in various cities to continuously attract new tourists to visit. Haunted houses like Chen Ge's that are fixed in a certain place will not last long unless they are particularly famous and can attract people to come.
It's not easy for him to hold on for such a long time alone.
Dragging the torn puppet, Chen Ge entered the repair room. He majored in toy design and manufacturing in college, and many of the puppets and mechanisms in the haunted house were designed by him.
The repair process is complicated and monotonous, requiring the doll's skin to be sewed up, repainted and aged.
"Almost plasma. I remember there is some stock in the attic." The haunted house is divided into three floors. The first and second floors are used to set up horror scenes, and the third floor is a storage room.
Pushing open the dusty wooden door, he saw the attic filled with all kinds of discarded equipment, most of which were left over from when his parents ran the haunted house.
Seeing things reminds me of people, so Chen Ge seldom comes here.
"It's been half a year in a flash."
Looking at the familiar equipment, Chen Ge recalled his childhood.
At that time, they were still running a mobile haunted house, and his parents took him to various cities. Sometimes when the young couple were busy, they would throw Chen Ge alone in the backstage to be accompanied by all kinds of ghost props. This training started from a young age, which also led to Chen Ge's great courage.
After all, when his peers were playing letter puzzles, he was already running around with a human head model.
“They are all memories.”
Unconsciously, Chen Ge walked to the wooden box where his parents' belongings were stored. Inside was a rough rag doll and a black mobile phone.
A puppet was the first toy Chen Ge made when he was a child, but he had no memory of a mobile phone.
The police found these two items in an abandoned hospital in the suburbs. As for why Chen Ge's parents went there late at night, no one knew the reason.
"It's been so long, where are you guys?" Chen Ge picked up the puppet, pinched its face, and sighed softly: "I'd better find artificial plasma as soon as possible. If we can't survive this off-season, the horror house may really have to close down and transfer."
Chen Ge was just talking to himself, but when he mentioned the closure of the business and transfer of business, the black mobile phone that had been silent in the wooden box suddenly flashed and emitted a faint cold light.
"What's going on? Black technology? Supernatural phenomena?"
If it were someone else, their heart rate would probably speed up, they would look around, and their palms would sweat. In contrast, Chen Ge's reaction was very direct. He picked up the phone, put it in front of his eyes, and began to confirm it again.
"I tried to open this phone a hundred times before but failed. How come it suddenly turned on today? This was found at the place where my parents disappeared. Could it be that they knew I was in trouble and took the initiative to contact me?"
Restraining the excitement in his heart, Chen Ge swiped the screen. There was only one application on the dark desktop of his mobile phone, and it used a haunted house as its icon.
“It’s not quite what I imagined, but this icon looks familiar. It seems to be the door to my own house of horrors!”
Chen Ge frowned and clicked on the app. A line of bloody words appeared on the screen - Do you believe that there are ghosts in this world?
Are there ghosts in the world? This is a surrealist philosophical question. For a science and engineering guy like Chen Ge, it is very difficult to answer.
“I think so…”
Chen Ge made his choice, and a few seconds later, new words appeared on the phone screen.
"What you think in your heart is the answer. From this moment on, you will officially take over from me as the new owner of the horror house. Of course, this is not something worth celebrating. At the end of the novice tutorial, I want to give you a piece of advice. Suicide is the most cowardly act. Please try your best to live!"
"That's a lot of information! But why is his immature tone of voice a bit like my dad's?"
Chen Ge opened the Haunted House app again, and a new interface appeared:
Jiujiang City Western Suburbs Horror House
Status: On the verge of bankruptcy
Positive reviews: None
Number of visitors today: 4
Number of visitors this month: 10
My ghost team members: none
My prop library: None
Unlocked achievements: None
Existing facility scenes: Zombie Resurrection Night (bad props, bad actors, no story and logic, no screaming index); Ghost Marriage (not a couple when alive, buried in the same grave after death, ghost wife chasing the soul, screaming index half a star)
Unlockable horror scenes: Midnight Escape (a dangerous mental patient lives in a dilapidated apartment building. He is wandering outside your door with scissors and a hammer. The screaming index is one star); The Third Ward (this abandoned hospital makes strange noises every night. As a newspaper reporter, you will go in to find out. The screaming index is three stars); The Hearse (the hearse carrying the dead is on the road. If you can't leave within an hour, you will be left in the car forever. The screaming index is two stars)
Daily tasks: Completing the daily tasks of the horror house will give corresponding rewards and unlock more horror scenes.
Conditions for expansion of the haunted house: the number of visitors exceeds 100 in the month, and the rate of favorable comments reaches more than 60% (after three expansions, the horror house will be upgraded to a thrilling maze)
The Horror Wheel (you can spin the wheel to consume the fright points generated by tourists in the haunted house): Life and death are determined by fate, wealth and honor are in the hands of God. Here you can find spiritual fruits that increase your lifespan, as well as evil spirits full of hatred!
Other features: Unlocked
(.=)