Chapter 747 - Games (2/2)
With Ol’ Zhou in tow, Chen Ge ran to the first floor. The end of the stairwell was not the exit but a large door painted on the wall. “The door is drawn on the wall. According to the game rules, if the visitors found out the large door was merely a painting, they would definitely panic.”
After spending so much time inside the building, Chen Ge had familiarized himself with Nightmare Academy’s layout. Both left and right sides of the building had a ‘not so safe’ safety corridor leading to dead ends. The real path was the elevator in the middle, the elevator used by the visitors when they started the tour.
There were pros and cons to this arrangement. On one hand, it could elicit the darkest fear in the visitor’s heart, but on the other hand, should they encounter a special visitor, the employees themselves had no place to run.
“Ol’ Zhou, after we find the boy, you stay near the elevator. Keep the elevator on your floor.”
“Understood.”
With Ol’ Zhou’s help, Chen Ge felt much more relaxed. However, the man in the surveillance room was in for a surprise because he was about to witness something inexplicable.
After Chen Ge and Ol’ Zhou arrived at the first floor, they soon realized that the building not only went up, it also had a staircase that led down into the basement. Staring at the basement first floor that was specially painted using red paint, Chen Ge paused. The atmosphere there was completely different to the scenarios above. The staircase was filled with dust and littered with dusty newspapers. Some of the copies even had dark brown stains on them.
Picking up a random one, Chen Ge scanned through it. “Carelessness of the father, the violation of building rules by the contractor, who is responsible for the boy’s disappearance?”
It was unclear whether the copies were the Haunted House’s doing or real articles. In any case, they were all articles about the missing boy, and they made the readers feel rather uncomfortable.
“The expert’s final analysis was that the boy should be hiding inside the incomplete underground basement.”
Chen Ge tossed the copy aside and bent down to glance at the basement corridor. There was no light, and the Haunted House seemed to have left this place untouched.
“If this is not a scenario, there should be a no-entry sign near the entrance, but there isn’t one, so this means that even though it might not be related to theme of phantom school, it is a part of Nightmare Academy. Technically, it should be a hidden scenario.”
To prevent being discovered by the camera, Ol’ Zhou maintained a distance from Chen Ge. The latter walked down the stairs alone. His shoes stepped on the newspaper, and they rustled noisily. When he was halfway down the stairs, Chen Ge suddenly stopped. He turned back to look before turning back forward. His eyes landed on the last step. “This staircase has thirteen steps?”
Chen Ge was sure that he was not wrong; the staircase that led underground indeed had thirteen steps. “Is it a mistake by the builder, or did Nightmare Academy do this on purpose? Why would there be an extra step?”
Carrying the backpack, he moved downward. His left feet landed on the thirteenth step. Looking around, Chen Ge did not see anything special. However, when he tried to move forward, standing only on his left leg with his right leg moving in midair, the ground before him suddenly ‘opened up’!
A man about the height of a seven-year-old child jumped out, screaming. Red paint covered his face, and he attempted to grab Chen Ge. Chen Ge’s full attention was on the thirteenth step, so he did not expect there would be a hidden compartment on the ground just beyond the last step.
The man surprised him, but Chen Ge’s reaction when he was surprised was different from all the other visitors. Before confirming the man’s identity, Chen Ge’s swung his backpack at his attacker and yelled out a name subconsciously. “Xu Yin!”