My House of Horrors

Last night, before leaving for Western Jiujiang’s Private Academy, Chen Ge had glossed through the three Daily Missions. The simple mission was to check for hidden security threats; the normal mission was to find a suitable location to expand the Haunted House; the Nightmare mission was to identify the other individual that shared his room.

If he wanted the biggest reward, naturally, the Nightmare Mission was the best choice. However, according to his previous two experience, Nightmare Missions had a time requirement, and they were mostly around midnight. Once he missed that period, there was high chance the mission would fail automatically.

There’s no need to risk it. Chen Ge selected to accept the Normal Mission.

“Normal Mission: You’ve achieved the criteria to enable the first expansion of the Haunted House, do search for a suitable location soon!”

This was the first time that Chen Ge had expanded the Haunted House. He did not know how to go about it, and the black phone did not give him any instructions.

I can’t find a guide, so it looks like I’ll have to slowly research it on my own. Chen Ge looked at the interface of the app, and two places captured his attention.

My Team of Ghosts and Ghouls was still empty, which meant that neither Zhang Ya nor Yin Xiaoxiao had become part of the Haunted House. Yin Xiaoxiao was probably because he had not earned enough affection points, while Zhang Ya… Chen Ge would be thankful if she just stopped trying to kill him, much less asking her to join the Haunted House.

The second thing that attracted Chen Ge’s attention was the tab for Haunted House Expansion. The original gray font had turned red. After clicking on it, a sentence appeared on screen.

“Please select the location of the entrance.”

If the words become red, it means that they’re clickable. The location of the entrance you say…

The underground parking lot Chen Ge rented was huge, but the only downside was that the entrance to the parking lot was outside of the park. The path was not streamlined, so he planned to open a new path underneath the Haunted House, one that directly led to the underground parking lot.

Normally, large attractions like rollercoasters or Ferris Wheels were not allowed to have any space underneath them, but since the Haunted House was located at the isolated corner, it was the sole exception at New Century Park. In fact, the space right underneath Chen Ge’s building was the parking lot.

Holding the black phone, Chen Ge walked to the entrance to the Night of the Living Dead scenario that was on the first floor. After gaining the two one-star scenarios, Minghun and Murder by Midnight, this scenario had pretty much been abandoned.

I’ll set the door beside the entrance to this scenario. If it is necessary in the future, I can just remove and replace the Night of the Living Dead scenario.

That was Chen Ge’s plan. He used a piece of chalk to mark out an area on the floor, but he realized after drawing it that he had no way of communicating his plan to the black phone. Since he received the mysterious phone, it had been a one-way communication.

Have I missed something? Chen Ge clicked through the app. When he tried tapping the home page twice, the Haunted House that was used as the background suddenly zoomed out until Chen Ge could see its layout, which was similar to his actual Haunted House, including the locations and set-up of the many scenarios.

So, I do it here?

Chen Ge found the scenario for Night of the Living Dead on screen. He clicked on an empty space beside the entrance, and a question instantly popped up on screen.

“Are you sure you want to place the entrance here?”

“Yes.”

“Please select the expansion direction.”

“Downward.”

After making his choice, the screen returned to normal, and several other messages popped up.

“Only through continuous expansion will your Haunted House be able to play host to more homeless spirits and thus collect more screams. Congratulations for completing the Normal Mission. Obtained reward—A free spin at the Wheel of Misfortune!

“Congratulations for completing your first ever expansion. Special reward, a unique construct obtained—Midnight Ticket Counter (Broken)!

“Midnight Ticket Counter (Broken): There’s a one in one thousand chance for you to attract special ‘visitors’. They are different from others and might lend you a helping hand.”

Chen Ge read the messages carefully. The mission had rewarded him with a free spin at the Wheel of Misfortune, but there was too much of uncertainty to this reward. Only by trading a hundred Screams would he get the chance to spin it once. According to the description on the phone, there were definitely some useful things that could be won from the lucky draw.

However, even Chen Ge had scared himself with how ‘lucky’ he was. What if he won another cursed love letter?

The two baleful specters might just split himself perfectly in half so that each of them could have their way with him equally. An image of the two spirits holding bloodied knives in their hands arguing over who would lay claim to his skull and body appeared in his mind.

Too soon, too soon.

The Wheel of Misfortune was thus put on the backburner, so Chen Ge turned to look at the other reward—the broken Midnight Ticket Counter. His Haunted House had been missing a specialized ticket counter. After all, before obtaining the black phone, he had at most ten visitors in a week, hence there was no reason to build a ticket counter.

The black phone has helped me solve a problem, but what is the meaning of this one in one thousand chance of attracting special visitors? Does it mean ghosts?

Chen Ge purposely walked to the front door, but the gate had remained the same; nothing had changed. Perhaps the change will happen after midnight like how it did with the Murder by Midnight scenario.

Since he had received the rewards, Chen Ge stopped worrying about them. He cleaned the place while waiting for midnight to arrive. Even though the mirror monster had been vanquished, it did not mean that the number on the mirror would disappear.

Chen Ge rolled up his sleeves as he cleaned the fake blood off the toilet’s mirror.

He was acting in such a hurry because there had been a little incident that afternoon. A visitor had asked to use the toilet when he was inside the Haunted House. Chen Ge had led him to the toilet, but when the man had seen the fake blood that pooled around the floor, he had refused to enter the toilet. He had held his pee in until his face was green as Chen Ge led him out of the Haunted House.

“The scary places should be scary, but other places should be as comfortable as possible. After all, we’re in the service business.”

That was some advice that Chen Ge’s father had once given him, and he remembered it to this day.

Chen Ge finished cleaning the fake blood at around 11 pm. He also fixed the broken toilet door. Then he stood before the mirror with his phone.

He checked his profile on the video-sharing app. His number of followers was slowly increasingly, and his videos were heavily shared. In fact, some advertisers had come to him with offers already.

I need to pay attention to the videos and livestreams as well. After all, they’re my main source of promotion.

When it was 11:59 pm, Chen Ge put away his phone and stood before the mirror. Similar to his first Nightmare mission, he locked the toilet from within and turned off all the lights.