Chapter 24.1 – One-Day Trip to a Haunted House (Middle part 0.2)

TL: Cloe
Unedited
Word count: 1644

Changming Ghost School is a semi-free exploration place that can accommodate ten players at a time. Each group of players has 40 minutes to explore. They need to complete the seven tasks on the access card in these 40 minutes, collect enough clues, and finally pass the level.

Chen Shu stared at the screen while sipping Coke. The people on the monitor had already entered the long corridor. Among them, the boy wearing AJ sneakers stopped and started to speak to everyone, as if assigning tasks.

This team of ten consisted of five men and five women. There was a couple, a pair of high school best friends, and the remaining four men and two women who knew each other were probably students from a nearby university. Chen Shu glanced at them indifferently. He wanted to take a look at the layout of the haunted house, but his eyes were unconsciously attracted to one of them.

He was one of the six college students in the group. He wore an oversized shirt and pants, had black hair and peach blossom eyes, and his appearance and figure were very outstanding. He stared at the man for a long time, but he felt an inexplicable sense of disobedience in his heart, like Chinese medicine that was heated to a boil, bubbling out.

The man on the screen did not join in the heated discussion, but he was always smiling as he looked at his friends. Chen Shu felt more and more uncomfortable, and a deeper sense of uneasiness swept over him. He leaned forward and enlarged the small screen, trying to see more clearly——

The moment the picture was enlarged, a pair of cold, dark eyes,  looked towards Chen Shu without any warning,!

Chen Shu was startled, and the mouse fell to the table with a clanging sound. When he looked at the screen again, the man had turned around and followed his other four teammates to the teaching building of St. Mary’s Academy.

He rubbed his thigh that was hit and sat back in his seat, thinking that after so many years of doing horror related things, he managed to scare himself. It was probably not because that person noticed him peeking, but it was just a coincidence.

“What’s wrong?” Zhou Ming, who was sitting next to him, asked.

Zhou Ming is the person in charge of Dream Valley and the only son of the president of Star Dream Culture and Entertainment Company. He and Zhou Ming met because of the development of the Midnight Zone, rolled into bed once because of drunkenness, and unknowingly developed a relationship that was more than friends but less than lovers.

Chen Shu frowned and said nothing. He turned the video to the front and played the clips of the man entering the haunted house and looking at the camera repeatedly. Zhou Ming saw him repeating these scenes and asked him, “What’s wrong? Are you attracted to him?”

“Not really.” Chen Shu finally spoke, “This person… is a little strange.”

But if he really needed to say what was wrong, he also couldn’t figure it out. The person in the video, from the way he walked to the expression on his face, was perfect. Zhou Ming had long been accustomed to his lover’s eccentric personality, and didn’t care about his behavior, just thinking that he was acting on a whim.

Chen Shu played the video more than ten times, and the sense of disharmony in his heart became more and more serious, but he still couldn’t find the reason. Finally, he gave up watching and turned to the live interface.

Staring at a person for a long time made Chen Shu’s eyes a little sore. He rubbed his eyes, and just as he put down his hand, he froze on the spot.

“I found the reason! Could it be……”

He then rewound the video to the beginning and watched it again. The young man in the video followed everyone else, with a polite smile on his face that never changed. This smile never changed from beginning to end, and not a single muscle moved.

He was like a puppet from a shopping mall, not even blinking.

*** ***

In a haunted academy.

Shao Wei splitted the group into two smaller groups according to his own selfish desires. He, Lin Dangdang, Lin Huai and the young couple were in one group, and the others were in the second group. On the way to the teaching area, he touched Lin Huai’s hand to express his gratitude¹Bc of the task he gave to Lin Huai.

The space occupied by Changming Ghost School was very large, and its interior was almost a miniature version of an actual school. After arriving at the teaching area, he said to the young couple, “You and Lin Huai go search the classroom, and I and Yaoyao will search the piano room.”

St. Mary’s Academy is located in a closed room with very little light. The staff distributed three electronic oil lamps to them. Shao Wei gave one to another team and kept two for himself. The man in the couple held the oil lamp and walked in front with the woman. Lin Huai followed them closely.

The air was filled with a stale smell, and there was a faint autumn breeze blowing, echoing in the room with a “woooo” resembling the crying of a ghost. The woman huddled beside the man, grabbed his sleeve and trembled, “A Jie²It’s a nickname, I’m a little scared…”

The man was also a little scared, but he didn’t want to lose face in front of his girlfriend, so he forced himself to tease her a little: “It was you who made a fuss about wanting to come in and play, and now you’re scared, don’t you deserve it?”

“But…” the woman said, “But I really am scared……” She looked around in the dim light of the oil lamp, and saw only dark shadows, as if there were hundreds of ghosts walking at night. Faintly, she could also hear a few tragic howls mixed with strange screams.

The two of them were flirting in front of him and were unwilling to move forward. Lin Huai stared at them, then looked at the time on his watch and decided to go to the classroom first and then find a chance to sneak away.

The man stopped where he was, hugging his girlfriend to comfort her, but someone tapped his shoulder. He letted out a miserable scream, but then he heard a kind voice: “You don’t have much time left.”

The woman also screamed, and the two turned around in shock, only to see Lin Huai with an innocent look on his face. Lin Huai pointed to his watch and said, “We will meet up with the others in 20 minutes, let’s get going.”

The man opened his mouth but didn’t respond, so Lin Huai said, “Then I’ll go first and you guys follow me.”

After saying that, he walked to the front. The couple followed behind, and the group arrived at the classroom three minutes later. The burnt outer wall was covered with dark green ivy, and the iron door of the classroom was also burnt and deformed. Lin Huai tried to open the iron door, but it didn’t budge.

The man came over, shone the oil lamp, and said, “There is a lock on it. We need to unlock the lock to get in. There should be a key nearby.”

At this moment, a loud “bang!” sounded in the darkness. The woman screamed again, and felt something brush past her head. Before the man could react, Lin Huai had already rushed in the direction of the sound. He picked up a notebook from the ground, which contained the duty record.

June 5th Sunny Day Student on Duty: Xiao Ai

I locked the door and put the key inside the ivy. No one could get out or open the door.

There were no new duty records after June 5. Lin Huai then turned to them and said, “The key is in the ivy.”

The man did not suspect anything and walked towards the ivy. The ivy was extremely dense, with dark green leaves covered with black and red blood stains, clinging and entwining on the wall. He tried to put his hand into the ivy, but felt it was very deep, and when he touched it again, he felt the uneven surface of the wall.

Just as he was about to ask Lin Huai how to find the key, he saw Lin Huai squatting beside him, reaching his hands into the ivy and starting to search for it.

Man: ……

He mimicked Lin Huai’s movements and searched. The woman stood beside them with an oil lamp in her left hand to illuminate them, and groped among the ivy with her right hand. The dark and dense creepers rubbed her hands, and she was unsure of what she could grab. The man gritted his teeth, reached down hard, and touched a cold metal.

He was just about to cheer “Found it” when a scream came from the woman’s side.

“Ahhhhh!” The woman screamed and fell backwards. Along with her, the entire ivy field and Lin Huai fell backwards. Lin Huai rubbed his tailbone which was a little painful from the fall.

“Ah! That ivy! There’s a hand in the ivy!” The woman was so frightened that she uttered incoherently, “There’s a hand!”

At this moment, the lights in the classroom flickered, and countless burnt black shadows were seen leaning on the windows, looking coldly at the three people outside.

“AAAAAHHH!!” The woman started screaming desperately. She threw the oil lamp onto the floor, turned around and ran. The man also struggled to stand up to run, but suddenly something cold grabbed onto his arm.

TL’s note: Guys I’m traveling to China and won’t be able to post bc of the security there, so this and “Fool! Grandpa Can Transform!” will be on a hiatus until the 15 of July.

• 1
  Bc of the task he gave to Lin Huai
• 2
  It’s a nickname