Chapter 222: Five Children?

My gaze lingered on the rag doll's cheek for a moment before I squeezed every inch of its body. "No mechanical parts, no strings attached. So how did it suddenly appear on the stairs?"

Unable to figure it out, I tossed the doll back where I had found it and climbed the creaking stairs to the second floor.

The narrow corridor could only fit three people walking side by side. Bizarre abstract paintings hung on both walls every few steps.

"Three rooms in total on the left and right, with no special markings on the doors. Looks like I'll just have to go in and find out." I walked to the first door and pushed, but the harder I shoved, the more resistance I met. It felt as if someone inside were intentionally blocking the door. Even using all my strength, I could only force it open about ten centimeters.

"Someone's inside?" I took two steps back and delivered a flying kick to the lock. A crisp snap echoed from within the room, and two sections of a foldable spring tube popped out.

The door swung wide open. I stepped inside, only then noticing a girl's corpse hidden behind the door. The word "Envy" was carved into her forehead with a knife, and her clothes were soaked in bright red.

There was no stench of blood or rotting flesh; it was just a dummy made of rubber and paint.

"The door couldn't be fully opened. If someone forced their way through the gap, seeing this thing right away would definitely give them a scare." I pulled the realistic dummy closer. It was secured from behind by two levers—pushing the door from the outside would make its head jut forward.

"That's a pretty terrifying design."

One wrong move and you'd get caught off guard. The Haunted House seemed ordinary on the surface, but every layout hid a deeper intent.

I took a quick glance around the room. It was a girl's bedroom, simply furnished. I checked under the bed and inside the wardrobe. While they contained their own scares, they didn't have much of an impact since I was already mentally prepared.

"They aren't here." I sighed. After searching the entire room, I couldn't find any trace of Tie Ningxiang or Yi Yi. Even though this Haunted House oozed weirdness from every corner, it didn't seem to have much to do with them.

I left the bedroom and headed for the room opposite it. Since the staff had already gotten off work anyway, I grew much rougher with my actions, simply kicking the door open to save myself the trouble.

The second room appeared to be the parents' bedroom. Thick quilts were piled on the bed, and red paint was splattered everywhere.

"Compared to Huang Xue's Middle Dream Layer, this Haunted House falls far short." I lifted the quilt to reveal the bedsheets underneath. I didn't know what mechanism I had accidentally triggered, but a muffled thumping sound came from inside the bed frame, as if someone were knocking from within.

"I've heard knocking coming from inside a coffin before. You think these little parlor tricks scare me?" The moment I yanked the bedsheet away, a pale, severed hand thrust out from a crack in the bed frame.

"I'm used to this. Nothing surprising." I touched the severed hand. It carried the faint chill of rubber, its texture vastly different from actual human skin.

I flipped the bed frame open. Inside lay the "corpse" of a young boy, the word "Resentment" carved into his forehead. It was highly realistic and electrically powered. A wire connected the quilt to the bed frame; the moment the quilt was lifted, the switch engaged, and the rubber corpse began violently bashing its head against the wood with heavy thuds.

"Give me some peace and quiet, will you?"

In the dead of night, inside a genuinely haunted Haunted House, even the slightest rustle of the wind was enough to put someone on edge, let alone that continuous, heavy thudding. Even without real ghosts, the sound alone was enough to make anyone panic.

I snapped the wire, tossed the dummy back onto the bed boards, and, finding nothing else of note, moved on to the third room.

It was an excessively large bathroom. Stepping inside, I relied on my rich experience in paranormal investigation to steer clear of things like mirrors. I went straight into the deepest part of the room and pulled back the shower curtain. A small girl's plastic "corpse" floated in a bathtub filled with red paint.

I fished the "corpse" out. I had to admit, the Haunted House's designer paid incredible attention to detail. This "corpse" had the word "Curse" carved into its forehead. Its face was pale and bloated, the symptoms of drowning replicated perfectly.

I turned and entered the final room. Pushing the door open with caution, everything that greeted my eyes looked completely normal, yet it still sent a chilling shudder down my spine.

This last room had no red paint acting as blood, nor did it have any exquisitely crafted plastic corpses. It was just packed to the brim with ugly rag dolls.

They were everywhere. The moment I walked in, I felt dozens of gazes staring at me from every direction. "This room is quite interesting."

Suppressing a shiver, I casually picked up one of the dolls. Its original facial features had been completely torn off, replaced by a new face drawn on with a red marker.

"Every doll in this room seems to have a very strange expression." Remembering the two rag dolls by the entrance, I picked up a few more from the floor to compare. To my surprise, not a single doll in this entire room shared the same expression. It was as if they were independent, living people, each with their own unique traits.

"This goes way beyond detailed. It's downright psychotic!" Looking at the room overflowing with rag dolls, I felt a genuine sense of fear for the first time.

"According to the theme introduction outside the Haunted House, there should be five children in here. Four of them were murdered and turned into vengeful spirits. Finding the one that's still alive is the key to clearing the level."

I activated my Chasing Eye to scan the massive pile of rag dolls in the room. I quickly spotted a human foot poking out from a pile of dolls in the corner.

Wading through the room with difficulty, I reached the corner, grabbed its ankle, and dragged it out.

"This should be the fourth victim."

The word "Despair" was carved into the plastic dummy's forehead. It felt very elastic to the touch, but again, completely different from human skin.

"If a life-sized plastic dummy can be hidden in a pile of rag dolls without being noticed, then is it possible... someone else is hiding in here too?" I looked over the vast sea of dolls, each bearing a different expression, and gritted my teeth as I searched the room. Never let a single potential clue slip by—that was the first thing my instructor had told me when I entered the police academy.

When I had searched through about two-thirds of the room, I suddenly felt my calf brush against something.

I looked down, my gaze piercing through the overlapping layers of rag dolls. Through a small gap, I faintly spotted a lock of black hair.

"The fifth plastic dummy?" I reached out, ready to pull out whatever was buried at the bottom. But before my fingers could even touch it, a familiar heavy thudding echoed from the previously dead-silent corridor!

Startled, I yanked my hands back and hurried outside. My eyes widened in horror. The boy dummy was lying on the stairs, and its internal motor had been activated. It was violently bashing its head against the floor, over and over!

Staring at the dummy's bizarrely lifelike expression, I narrowed my eyes and gripped a Talisman Paper as I approached.

One step, two steps. Right as I took the third step and the plastic "corpse" was right in front of me, a picture frame hanging on the wall beside me crashed to the ground with a loud clatter.

It happened so suddenly that I only reacted when glass shattered and flew everywhere, snapping my head to look at the wall.

The spot originally covered by the picture frame revealed a pitch-black hole. It was just the right size to fit a grown man's head.

"False alarm. This hole was probably left for the staff. When someone walks by, they hide behind the frame and stick their head or arms out to scare the visitors." Thinking about it that way made sense, but in reality, there was a glaring flaw in that logic. Why did the frame fall on its own? The staff were long gone, and there was no one behind the wall to operate it. How did it just fall by itself, exactly when I walked past?

The more I thought about it, the more terrifying it became. The staff had gone home, and the Haunted House should have been completely unmanned. Yet every single trap had not only been perfectly triggered, but the timing was immaculate. If it had been anyone else, they would have suffered a mental breakdown by now.

"If this isn't someone playing tricks, then it's actually haunted."

I cast another glance at the plastic corpse still bashing its head against the floor. A cold chill ran down my spine, as if something were staring dead at me.

"I shouldn't stay here for long. It isn't even midnight yet, but the vibe I'm getting is already similar to my previous few livestreams. Once midnight truly falls, let alone finding Tie Ningxiang and Yi Yi, I'll be lucky just to survive."

Ignoring the horrifying dummy still thrashing against the floor, I returned to the fourth room. I looked at the sea of rag dolls, recalling the exact spot where I had seen the black hair.

"Judging by the color and texture, that hair might belong to a living person..."