Chapter Seventeen: A Complete Wipeout

"Ah!"

For a while, Yuan Rushuang had been feeling jumpy, suspecting shadows and phantoms, but finding nothing. Then suddenly, from an angle she never expected, a terrifying human face appeared right before her. The shock was so intense it felt as though her heart had stopped beating.

She screamed and stumbled backward, bumping into the cell door behind her with such force that it swung open.

She lost her balance and collapsed onto the cold prison floor.

Still reeling with fear, she barely had time to see what the person inside the cell looked like when a woman's voice echoed, chillingly close: "What a tragic way you died!"

The voice seemed to ring out directly above her forehead.

She pressed her hands to the floor and instinctively looked up, only to find that dreadful face now appeared upside down, looming closer.

A jolt of terror shot through her, and she leapt to her feet in a scrambling motion.

She had utterly forgotten she was merely visiting a haunted house; the tide of fear now overwhelmed her completely.

Without daring to look back, she raced headlong through the dim and chilly prison corridor.

Her suppressed terror welled up into tears that blurred her vision.

She stumbled up to the second floor, not encountering a single police academy classmate along the way.

Just as she reached the middle of the corridor, a figure who looked strikingly like the Duke came running toward her.

Her heart surged with relief—to finally see a familiar face! Without hesitation, she rushed forward, arms wide, and threw herself at the Duke.

The Duke, not expecting Yuan Rushuang to lunge at him, tried to sidestep but didn’t manage in time. She grabbed the corner of his jacket, yanking him off balance, and with a heavy thud, he crashed to the ground.

Yuan Rushuang herself hadn’t expected the Duke to try to dodge her as if he didn’t see her at all. As she seized his clothes, a strong pull sent her tumbling forward as well.

But she was a top student at the police academy, her physical training excellent. As she was about to hit the ground, she braced herself with both hands.

At that instant, looking up, she saw a hideous ghostly face suddenly jump before her eyes.

All her strength deserted her, and she collapsed flatly to the floor.

…

From the moment Lizard entered the restroom, he noticed the Duke standing before the mirror, his eyes utterly vacant.

Clinging to the Duke's back was an ugly white shadow.

The white shadow was attempting to merge with the Duke, but once Lizard burst in, it frantically manipulated the Duke’s body to flee.

Lizard dared not harm the Duke’s body, so he dodged the crazed Duke, keeping close behind while urgently alerting Shang Yi over the radio.

He saw Curly hair dash after the Duke into the medical storeroom, and soon followed himself.

The storeroom was a mess, boxes overturned everywhere, and Curly lay sprawled on the floor, eyes rolling back.

As Lizard closed in again, the Duke, crouching on the ground, suddenly grabbed a bottle from a box and leaped up.

Lizard’s vision blurred as a monstrous, red-eyed, fanged ghost, wielding an enormous lightsaber, slashed at him.

Unsure if it was an illusion or real, Lizard dared not hesitate, swiftly dodging aside.

Glancing back, he saw the white shadow still clinging to the Duke’s back, lunging toward the stairwell.

He hurried after, arriving just as Yuan Rushuang crashed into the Duke—resulting in both of them falling down.

Lizard inadvertently rushed right in front of Yuan Rushuang, frightening her into unconsciousness.

At that moment, Shang Yi arrived, carrying Tang Bohu.

He set Tang Bohu down, drew a demon-warding blade and a skull-crushing hammer from his personal space, and fixed a wary gaze on the Duke.

The Duke scrambled up, trapped between a blockade ahead and pursuit behind. Without a second of hesitation, he lowered his head and charged straight for the skull-crusher in Shang Yi’s hand!

Shang Yi, startled by the Duke’s reckless charge, feared hurting him and quickly withdrew the hammer, sticking out his foot to trip him instead.

Suddenly, a white shadow sprang from the Duke’s back, darting straight for Shang Yi’s face.

With the white shadow’s control lost, the Duke stumbled at Shang Yi’s trip, crashing heavily to the ground and losing consciousness.

As the white shadow lunged at him, Shang Yi instinctively blocked with the demon-warding blade in his left hand.

The white shadow seemed wary of the blade, twisting midair, when Tang Bohu suddenly leapt up from the floor, pouncing at it.

The white shadow, seeing Tang Bohu, immediately gave up on attacking Shang Yi, kicked off the wall to evade Tang Bohu, and landed on Shang Yi’s other side.

Tang Bohu missed, landed, and pounced again.

The white shadow, clearly terrified of Tang Bohu, fled headlong without looking back, with Tang Bohu in hot pursuit.

Once separated from a human body, the white shadow became incredibly agile, even faster than Tang Bohu, quickly pulling ahead and dashing into the restroom on the first floor.

When Shang Yi and Lizard arrived at the restroom, they found Tang Bohu spinning wildly on the ground, while the white shadow had vanished without a trace.

Shang Yi immediately used his left eye to scan the restroom, noting that the "C" on the fourth stall door had turned a silvery white and was flashing.

He signaled for Lizard to guard the stall door, picked up Tang Bohu, and pressed his paw to the door.

Soon, the flashing ceased and the "C" returned to its previous blood-red hue.

He guessed that the white shadow had fled back into the stall, but he wasn’t sure how it had escaped during the day to possess the police academy students.

To be safe, he locked the restroom door with a key, planning to investigate further once he understood the situation.

He then remembered the six police academy students still lying inside the scene and hurriedly told Su Xiaoxue to contact Uncle Li to borrow a stretcher from the amusement park’s infirmary.

While Uncle Li went for the stretcher, he quickly organized the prison staff to help carry the students.

Curly, Monk, Tian Yuan, Yuan Rushuang, and the Duke, who had all fainted on the second floor, were moved to the second-floor exit.

Butterfly, who had passed out on the first floor, was carried to the first-floor entrance.

Uncle Li soon returned with the stretcher, and together with Shang Yi, they carried the six students out to the shelter outside the haunted house, leaving the surrounding visitors stunned.

"My goodness! Did I see that right? Six police academy students walked in, and now they’re all being carried out?"

"Who ever heard of playing in a haunted house and ending up unconscious? This is the first time I’ve seen something so bizarre."

"Were they really scared into unconsciousness? How terrifying must this haunted house be to knock out police academy students? Weren’t all six of them in a group?"

"Good grief, these days you really need to buy insurance just to visit a haunted house."

Shang Yi, seeing that the students had not woken up, feared something might go wrong. He, Su Xiaoxue, and Uncle Li scrambled between cold compresses, pinching acupoints, and chest compressions, frantically trying to revive them.

"So, tell me—what on earth happened? Six went in, six passed out. Are you trying to get our amusement park on the headlines?" Uncle Li, busy as he was, shot Shang Yi a stern look.

Sensing Uncle Li’s accusatory tone, Shang Yi hurried to appease him with a smile.

"Uncle Li, this is the first test run of the new scene today, and suddenly six students from the police academy showed up."

"I figured they’d have nerves of steel, maybe went a bit too hard, but I never thought they’d all end up like this."

Uncle Li’s face was grim. "Never do this again. What if someone gets seriously hurt? Who’s going to pay the hospital bills? If we run into some troublemakers, you can forget about opening this haunted house again."

Shang Yi nodded fervently. "You’re right, Uncle Li. I’ll be much more careful from now on."

"Xiaoxue, go up to the third floor and bring some snacks—chocolate’s best, it helps calm the nerves."

"Alright, I’ll get it right away."

The surrounding visitors, seeing Curly with his eyes rolled back, the Duke foaming at the mouth, and Yuan Rushuang pale and tear-streaked, all turned into enthusiastic spectators.

"Weren’t they supposed to win six thousand yuan if they made it out?"

"Look at them, what a state they’re in! Did they come out of a haunted house or a psychiatric ward?"

"This is a total wipeout! Not a single survivor—unbelievable."

"What on earth happened to them in there?"

"It’s hilarious—a bunch of cops went into a fake prison and ended up all carried out."

"Are police academy students these days so timid? Can’t even handle a little haunted house—how will they catch bad guys in the future?"

"If you’re so brave, why don’t you go in and try?"

"I never said I was brave, but no matter what, I wouldn’t be scared unconscious in a haunted house."

"From a medical perspective, there are at least seven conditions that must be met to scare someone into fainting."

"Which seven? Tell us, I’m curious."

"That’s a secret. Experience being scared unconscious yourself and you’ll know."

"Bah! With all your expertise, you must get scared unconscious all the time."

…

As the onlookers chattered away, the police academy students gradually began to regain consciousness.

Shang Yi thoughtfully brought over several bottles of mineral water.

He used his ghost-face skill to show a look that said, "I truly have no schadenfreude, I genuinely care about your health."

The students, seeing the young haunted house owner’s sincere concern, swallowed back any words of complaint or anger they might have had.

Butterfly, who had fainted first and thus suffered the least fright, was the first to wake. Supported by Su Xiaoxue, she wobbled to her feet, her eyes fixed doubtfully on Shang Yi.

"Boss, I once said your haunted house wasn’t scary, but clearly, I was wrong."

"Your haunted house isn’t unscary—it’s too scary."

She took a sip of the water Shang Yi handed her. "Boss, I have a question that really puzzles me—how did you do it?"

"If you have any questions, feel free to ask. In this haunted house, we never hide anything from our guests." Shang Yi smiled at Butterfly’s pale face and disheveled hair—she was a completely different person from when she had first gone in.

"When I first entered the cell, I clearly saw no one, so how did a haunted house actor suddenly appear behind me?"

"And when I ran to the opposite cell, that actor managed to teleport there instantly. Did you guys dig a tunnel or something?"