Chapter Six: Who Would Trust a Novice Boss

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The taxi arrived at its destination. Shang Yi paid the fare, got out, and greeted Old Wang, who sold tickets at the entrance to Tianmeng Amusement Park, as he carried a cage containing a honey badger. He quickly made his way to the front of his family’s haunted house.

It was already close to five in the afternoon, and the haunted house had just closed for the day. As Shang Yi walked up to the entrance, he saw five employees who had just finished removing their costumes and were preparing to leave.

In this world, Shang Yi's main task had always been his studies; he seldom participated in the management of his parents’ haunted house.

However, since he lived right upstairs, he was well acquainted with every employee.

As the employees saw Shang Yi approach, they greeted him warmly, but all their attention was focused on the small animal in his hand.

“What kind of animal is that? It looks adorable.”

“Adorable? Ha! Clearly, you don't recognize the Honey Badger, do you?”

“If you saw it take on lions and tigers single-handedly, I bet you wouldn’t call it cute anymore.”

“Is it really that fierce? It’s so tiny…”

Seeing that the staff were all staring at the honey badger and nearly ignoring him completely, Shang Yi deliberately cleared his throat and placed the cage under the ticket counter.

“Everyone, I have something rather important to discuss with you today.”

The employees instantly stopped talking, their eyes fixed on him.

He straightened his collar and assumed a mature air.

“You all know this haunted house was built from nothing by my parents. Its success today is due to your hard work.”

After this opening, the five employees glanced at each other, sensing something ominous.

One tall, thin employee, impatient by nature, interrupted, “So what you’re saying is—the haunted house is closing down?”

Shang Yi paid him no mind, continuing, “On the contrary, not only will the haunted house stay open, but it will also expand and continue to operate.”

“Then what are you getting at?” The tall employee looked puzzled.

Shang Yi cleared his throat, sweeping a solemn gaze over them. “My parents have left this city for rather special reasons.”

“Before they left, they entrusted me with full responsibility for the haunted house. From now on, I’m the new owner.”

“When are your parents coming back?”

“You’re still a university student—how will you run a haunted house?”

“Are you not going to study anymore?”

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The five employees immediately started chattering, bombarding Shang Yi with a barrage of troublesome questions.

“They’re right. I’m still an undergrad, how am I supposed to run a haunted house?” Shang Yi wondered. Three of these employees were older than him—could a student boss really win their respect?

“Being a student shouldn’t be a problem. It’s summer break anyway; nobody’s watching me. I’ll just run things for a while and see how it goes,” he thought. But of course, he couldn’t say that out loud.

He pressed his hands down in a gesture to quiet them.

“Everyone, my parents have years of experience running a haunted house. I’ve lived here for years myself and am very familiar with how things work.”

“If my parents have entrusted the haunted house to me, it means they believe I can make it thrive.”

“They’ve left the city, and even they don’t know when they’ll return. That’s why they handed everything over to me.”

“As for being a student, it won’t affect my ability to manage the haunted house at all.”

“If necessary, I could even quit school to focus on the business.”

“My major is game design, which is completely applicable to running a haunted house. You have to trust that I can do better.”

Hearing this, the five employees had nothing more to say. They offered a polite farewell to their new boss and left, one after another.

From the confused and doubtful looks in their eyes, Shang Yi sensed there might be a wave of resignations tomorrow.

But there was nothing he could do—after all, he was a rookie boss.

He carried the honey badger’s cage up to his room on the third floor, found some pieces of meat in the fridge, and tossed them in.

Watching its adorable way of eating, Shang Yi decided to give the honey badger a good name.

“There’s a Tang Ya sleeping in your belly, and when you grow up, you’ll be able to take on tigers.”

“So, I’ve decided to name you—Tang Bohu! How about that? Awesome, right? Aren’t you moved to tears?”

Tang Bohu stared at Shang Yi, licked the meat, and scratched his own head with a paw.

It seemed to say, “As long as you feed me meat, you could call me anything—even Candied Hawthorn!”

Settling Tang Bohu in, Shang Yi pulled out the haunted house ledger from a drawer and began to study it carefully.

It was his first time reviewing the family’s accounts. As he read, he shook his head, then closed the book with a heavy thud.

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“With losses like these, how on earth did my parents manage?”

Before he turned twenty, Shang Yi had lived like a hothouse flower.

It wouldn’t be fair to say he was spoiled, but he had certainly never concerned himself with the family’s finances.

Only after reading the accounts did he realize how hard it had been for his parents to keep their home afloat.

The haunted house business was fiercely competitive and rather niche.

Compared to the now-popular VR, AR, and MR horror games, it had many limitations.

Unlike games, which could be updated endlessly, the haunted house’s settings were fixed—more or less a one-time experience.

Once a visitor had been through, or even watched a clear walk-through video online, the novelty was gone.

That’s why many haunted houses took a traveling approach, touring cities to attract new customers.

A fixed-location haunted house like his parents’ would struggle unless it was especially famous and could continuously draw visitors from afar.

Compared to other amusement park attractions like roller coasters—which provide a visceral rush of adrenaline—a haunted house offers a different kind of thrill: psychological tension and fear.

Once that tension is released, it feels almost like a massage—relieving and satisfying.

It’s much like the appeal of horror games and novels.

But nowadays, most haunted house visitors were young people, already inured to horror films and games, with nerves of steel.

For them, an ordinary haunted house was no more thrilling than their own backyard; it barely registered emotionally. This, too, was a major reason for the business’s decline.

“A haunted house needs to be truly terrifying to be worth visiting!”

Shang Yi watched Tang Bohu pounce around his little “yard,” while the two question marks in his mind remained unresolved.

He decided he would experience his own haunted house as a guest—maybe then he’d see where the real problems lay.