Ma Qingyu had originally planned to go shopping with Wei Ziyue. After browsing their usual stores in the morning and finding none of the new arrivals appealing, they had a quick lunch and scrolled through their social media feeds. Seeing someone recommend a haunted house in an amusement park, they decided to drive all the way there.
Neither of them was afraid of ghosts, but they enjoyed visiting haunted houses. The first room they entered was a car crash scene quite realistic, but honestly, not as scary as they had expected. After triggering an interesting trap, they found a useful clue card. Following the instructions, they left the crash scene and pushed open the door to the morgue.
If Jiang Shuai knew how effortlessly they were handling it, she’d probably want to cry. Was she the only one terrified out of her wits here?
As it turned out, yes. Although Ran Shan was a little scared, she wasn’t as jumpy as Jiang Shuai, who screamed at every little thing like a human alarm.
Wei Ziyue nudged Ma Qingyu forward with a suggestive look. “What a coincidence, little sister! How about adding me on WeChat? My friend here is quite interested in you.”
Che Xiayun’s mind went blank for a moment. “No, thanks,” she mumbled.
Thinking she was just shy, Wei Ziyue pressed on enthusiastically, “Come on, add me! Don’t be fooled by my friend’s serious face, she’s actually a great person. Look at her face, her figure, her aura.”
Ma Qingyu, looking exasperated, quickly cut her off. “We’re already friends on WeChat.”
Wei Ziyue’s eyes lit up, but her tone carried a hint of complaint. “Qingyu, you’re not being a good friend! You’ve already added her, and last time I asked if there was any progress, you said no.”
Che Xiayun weakly explained, “We actually know each other.”
Wei Ziyue froze. “What?”
Che Xiayun added, “We’re already married.”
Wei Ziyue stared in disbelief, glancing from the composed Ma Qingyu to the equally calm Che Xiayun, and let out a cry of utter shock. “What?! You’ve only known each other for a few days, and you’re already married?!”
The girl’s voice was indeed loud so loud that Jiang Shuai suspected she might have scared away every ghost in the building.
Feeling awkward and unwilling to explain further, Che Xiayun stayed silent. Ma Qingyu calmly clarified, “You’ve misunderstood. We’ve known each other since childhood, grew up together, and now we’re married.”
Wei Ziyue’s jaw dropped so wide she could have swallowed an egg. “What?!”
She racked her brain, recalling the message Ma Qingyu had sent her earlier: “Yeah, she’s mine.” Good heavens, it made perfect sense now! From start to finish, she had been the one completely misinterpreting everything, like a clown.
All five people fell silent. Even the NPCs seemed stunned, and the atmosphere grew so quiet it felt like a mini haunted house within the haunted house.
Finally snapping back to reality, Wei Ziyue bowed deeply to Che Xiayun. “I’m sorry for misunderstanding your childhood sweetheart relationship.”
Though it wasn’t entirely inaccurate to call them childhood sweethearts, Che Xiayun waved her hands dismissively. “It’s fine, it’s fine.”
Wei Ziyue stepped forward, took Che Xiayun’s arm, and pulled her over to stand beside Ma Qingyu, winking exaggeratedly. “You two lovebirds stick together. I’ll take these two sisters and follow behind.”
The staff in the monitoring room were utterly baffled, they had never seen such a bold move before.
Jiang Shuai timidly raised her hand. “Sis, we’re a couple too.”
Wei Ziyue whipped around and glared at them. “Then don’t follow me. I’m going solo.”
The general quickly grabbed her, “No, no, no, sis, you’ve got to help us out.”
Before Che Xiayun could react, Wei Ziyue had already pulled the general and Ran Shan away, leaving only her and Ma Qingyu in the morgue.
After a brief moment of eye contact, Ma Qingyu took out the clue card she had obtained from the accident scene. “Our clue is that Xiao Fang was wearing a hand-knitted sweater and holding a cloth doll.”
Che Xiayun also produced her clue card. “The forensic report states that Xiao Fang had intermittent tinnitus, didn’t hear the car horn, and actively ran a red light. This was an accident, and the driver bears no criminal responsibility.”
Ma Qingyu nodded slightly. “Then let’s head upstairs. Ziyue probably took them to see the accident scene.”
“Alright.”
Che Xiayun nodded and stepped out of the morgue. In the middle was a staircase, and faint screams could be heard from another room, suggesting that it was likely the accident scene.
The stairwell was dim and eerie, with rusty iron handrails, cracked ceramic steps, and a flickering lightbulb overhead, all indicating its age.
Walking side by side up the stairs, Che Xiayun noticed some strange, indistinct graffiti on the walls.
The morgue door closed silently, and at the same time, a dripping sound suddenly echoed through the stairwell. A chilly wind swept through, and the lampshade above creaked and swayed.
Drip, dri the sound of water echoed in the corridor.
Ma Qingyu slowly ascended the final step and glanced at the doors on either side. There were no signs. “Which way?”
Che Xiayun closed her eyes and listened for a moment. “The right. The dripping sound is coming from the right.”
“Alright, let’s go right then.”
As she spoke, Ma Qingyu pushed open the door. A gust of dusty, cold air brushed past her face, and a large spider suddenly dropped from the ceiling. Ugly and covered in hair, it crawled stiffly across the floor. She quickly stepped back, and Che Xiayun steadied her shoulder. “What is it?”
Ma Qingyu composed herself and replied calmly, “A spider.”
Che Xiayun observed the little creature crawling on the floor. The spider’s two compound eyes glowed with an electronic red light. “Hmm, it’s fake. Kind of cute, actually.”
The monitoring room staff & the NPC in the room: How is that cute?!
Che Xiayun stepped around the spider and entered the room, half-covering her nose and mouth with one hand while using the other to wave away the dusty air. She scanned the dust-covered hospital room. “I have to say, the set design in this haunted house is really well done.”
Ma Qingyu nodded slightly. “It ranks in the top three among the ones I’ve visited.”
The room was lit with an eerie, dim blue light, making it even more unsettling. It was furnished with a bed, a wooden cabinet, a chair, and a private bathroom. The edges of the furniture were all wrapped in cotton cloth but were covered in dust. The dripping sound was coming from the bathroom.
Disgusted by the dirt, Che Xiayun avoided touching the bed’s sheets and pillow. When opening the cabinet, she used her pinky finger, leaned her head back, and yanked the handle open. Aside from a musty, dusty smell, the cabinet was empty.
Ma Qingyu noticed her meticulous little gestures and smiled faintly. Still the same severe germaphobe as before.
Che Xiayun straightened up, her gaze fixed on the bathroom as she brushed a speck of dust from her hands. “The key must be in there.”
Ma Qingyu nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
Drip, drip!
Water continued to fall onto the floor, echoing through the enclosed room with an eerie resonance.
Che Xiayun led the way, gripping the slightly rusted door handle and forcing it downward. The corroded lock groaned under the strain with a sharp crack. Once turned, she pushed the door open, and the motion-sensor light flickered on. In the bathtub lay the body of a young girl, her abdomen crushed, the scene gruesome.
Strangely, despite the unknown duration of storage, the corpse remained unnaturally fresh skin untouched by decay, blood still vividly red, as if preserved as a permanent work of art.
Yet, after observing the body’s attire, both women furrowed their brows and spoke in unison, “How can there be two Xiao Fang’s?”
Drip, drip!
The broken faucet continued its relentless dripping. The room fell into a heavy silence until Ma Qingyu suddenly realized, “Wait, if that’s the case, then there should be three Xiao Fang’s.”
Her remark sparked Che Xiayun’s recollection. “You mean one at the accident scene and another in the morgue?”
Ma Qingyu nodded. “Yes, we saw Xiao Fang’s body there too.”
Silence descended once more. A chilly breeze swept past their trousers, and the dim blue light flickered intermittently. Ma Qingyu felt a cold shiver run down her spine and subtly edged closer to Che Xiayun.
Che Xiayun scrutinized the Xiao Fang in the bathtub, comparing her to the one they had seen in the morgue. She narrowed her eyes, a faint smile curling at the corners of her lips. “This one is a fake. And if I’m not mistaken, the one you saw at the accident scene is also fake.”
Ma Qingyu looked puzzled. “Why?”
Che Xiayun broke into a radiant smile, her face alight with unwavering confidence. “Do you trust me?”
Seeing that long-lost smile, a warm current flowed through Ma Qingyu’s heart, dispelling her last trace of unease. She met Che Xiayun’s clear, deer-like eyes and nodded softly. “I trust you.”
Che Xiayun rested her chin on her hand and explained, “If I’m right, the patient who lived in this room must have been a bionics expert. This Xiao Fang corpse is his masterpiece, a creation that will never decay.
The hyper-realistic fake spider we saw at the entrance was likely a hint from the staff, and the empty cabinet was where the spider had been stored.
As for the sequence of events, the accident scene was probably staged afterward, and the body there was naturally a fake as well.”
The clue card placed conspicuously on the sink seemed to feel insulted, while the NPC hidden behind the bathroom mirror stared in disbelief. Without even stepping into the bathroom to investigate, these two had unraveled the entire plot.
Ma Qingyu pieced everything together in her mind, the logic was sound and flawless and nodded in approval.
Che Xiayun turned away from the bathroom door. “Let’s go. We should hurry to the next room and leave the rest to them.”
The two quickly exited the ward, just as Jiang Shuai and the others, freshly traumatized by the accident scene, arrived upstairs. Ma Qingyu glanced at Wei Ziyue. “Ziyue, take them to the ward to retrieve the clue card. It’s in the bathroom.”
“Okay.”
Wei Ziyue agreed readily and led the visibly shaken duo toward the ward.
The general’s lips trembled, his face pale and his gaze unfocused. He already wanted to leave this place, it was simply too terrifying, not fit for humans.
Che Xiayun and Ma Qingyu entered the last room on the second floor. The lighting here was the most “normal” they had encountered, a white light that illuminated almost the entire room. The layout resembled a recreational room for psychiatric patients.