After I had tried several more cars, a driver finally stopped.
When I mentioned the amusement park on the west side, he hesitated. But unlike the others, he did not drive off the moment he heard the address.
That gave me hope. I quickly raised my offer to almost twice the usual fare. At last, he agreed to take me.
On the way, something occurred to me. If the drivers were all so afraid of the park, they must know its history.
Perhaps I could learn something before arriving. Knowing what I faced would give me a better chance.
'Why is everyone so frightened when I mention that amusement park?' I asked. 'You react as though there's something there. You're making me nervous too.'
'You haven't been in the city long, have you, lad? Stay a while and someone's bound to tell you the story. They built the park in the mountains. It was huge. Cost hundreds of millions, as I remember. They wanted to create the biggest fantasy kingdom. Then something dreadful happened, and the whole place was abandoned.'
He smoked as he spoke. At last, I had found the information I wanted. I listened eagerly and urged him to continue.
'The mountain's called Heiyao Mountain: the mountain of the black demon. Frightening name, isn't it? Perhaps something was wrong with the mountain, and that made the whole park wrong too. Strange things happened during construction. They brought in a feng shui master, I heard. He used some method to drive out evil and suppress what was there. But on opening night, dozens of people died.'
He went on, telling me the history of Heiyao Mountain.
The amusement park had been built among the hills. Its roller coaster, Ferris wheel, and every other thrill ride were all on the largest scale.
The roller coaster's length was remarkable even by national standards. That helped explain the choice of location.
Few other places could have offered so much space.
At first, I had thought the danger came from something inside the park. Now I suspected the park was not the true source. Heiyao Mountain was.
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That name could hardly have come from nowhere. There must be a reason for it.
The driver said there had been several deaths during construction, each strange in its own way.
Some appeared to have died of sheer terror. Others seemed to have been mauled by a wild animal. There were also people who vanished, leaving only a severed length of arm to be found.
Deaths of every kind followed one another. Eventually, a feng shui master was called in. He said the site was ominous, and that something already dwelt in Heiyao Mountain.
He performed rituals, and the park was finally completed. On that night, not long after the trial opening, the place was still bustling and brightly lit.
Then the power failed. The whole park went black. When the lights came back, the sight nearly frightened the survivors to death.
Dozens of mutilated bodies lay before them. Some had fallen from the Ferris wheel, the impact spilling their entrails.
Others had struck their heads against the poles of the carousel, scattering brain matter across the ground.
Still others hung dead from the rides. Everywhere the survivors looked, they saw another dreadful way to die.
The count that night came to dozens dead and dozens more missing. However powerful the park's backers were, after that it had to be abandoned.
From then on, everyone in the city called it forbidden ground. No one was to go there. People said science could explain anything.
But it could not explain this. That was why so many drivers had refused to take me.
Besides the eerie stories, there was the park's remote mountain location.
Getting there was difficult. When I asked why he was willing to drive me, he merely smiled and said this was the age of Marxism; he did not believe in supernatural nonsense.
'See those gates ahead, lad? That's the entrance. They used to be open, but they're closed now.' After about half an hour, he stopped the car.
The headlights illuminated the structures ahead, bringing them into clear view. He had driven up a mountain road.
There was scarcely any traffic on it at night. The silence was unnerving. Though it was summer, I could not even hear insects.
A massive gateway of reinforced concrete stood before us, with a clown emblem at its summit.
A clown was meant to amuse people. Here, its red nose and peculiar makeup looked disturbing in the darkness.
The park was indeed enormous. I guessed it covered dozens of acres.
Had it operated normally, it could have become famous across the country.
Instead, those events had destroyed the scheme before it could properly take shape.
I paid the driver, and he drove down the mountain toward home. He did not ask why I had come.
He only told me that since the disaster, some livestreamers occasionally came here, hoping to attract viewers.
Others with an interest in the supernatural visited at night as well.
However dangerous a place was, if it held enough fascination, people would keep coming.
The moment I got out, I felt a deeply unpleasant presence settle over me.
It came not from the park, but from Heiyao Mountain itself. The energy within the mountain was profoundly unstable.
It was chaotic and malign. There could not be just one kind of terrifying creature in there.