Oh no! My yandere school beauty is so clingy!

"Uh...me? I'm fine."

Shen Yu replied, though he wasn't really sure how brave he was, since he hadn't encountered anything terrifying.

He was not afraid of anything specific.

After hearing this, Lin Anran nodded, then looked at the staff and said:

"Then let's make it a little scarier."

Are you sure?

"Yes, I'm sure."

The receptionist confirmed their choice again and said, "Okay, this way please. Let me explain the background and make the necessary preparations for you."

He led the two to a dimly lit preparation room next door, decorated like a dilapidated study.

The air was filled with deliberately blended aromatherapy, yet it inexplicably made my nose itch and made me feel uncomfortable.

Several antique-style paintings with somber brushstrokes hang on the wall, and the eyes of the figures in the paintings seem to move slightly in the dim light.

The background music changed to a lower, more intermittent sobbing and the sound of fingernails scratching wood, almost imperceptible.

Shen Yu frowned slightly. He was also filled with uncertainty about everything. He didn't know what would happen, or when the terrifying elements would appear. So, he became wary as soon as he entered...

I wonder if something might suddenly jump out and scare them.

The staff member lowered their voice in this environment, adopting a deliberately mysterious tone:

"You two are about to experience our 'Ghost Bride - Secluded Mansion' theme..."

The story is set in the early years of the Republic of China, in the Su family mansion outside Qingshui Town. Su Moxuan, the young master of the Su family, is frail and sickly. To bring good fortune, he marries Liu, but on their wedding night, Liu dies suddenly and tragically in their bridal chamber. The Su family keeps this a secret and gives her a hasty burial. From then on, strange things begin to happen in the mansion. Every midnight, the cries of a woman and the sound of suona horns are heard. Members of the Su family die mysteriously or go insane one after another, and the mansion becomes deserted...

He cleared his throat and continued:

"You two are reporters who have stumbled upon rumors and come to investigate. Your goal is to uncover the truth of what happened back then and find a way to leave the mansion. In the game, please look for clues, solve puzzles, and... be wary of any 'things' that may exist within the mansion."

"This is a walkie-talkie. Press this button in case of emergency or if you need to signal. This is an emergency flashlight; the battery is limited, so please use it with caution. Please lock all personal belongings, especially your mobile phone, in the locker."

Afterwards, Shen Yu and Lin Anran locked up their personal belongings, including their phones and the packaged cake...

"Please wear this."

The staff handed over two black eye masks, not completely black, but with tiny holes at the eye level to allow about 5% of visible light to pass through.

It's basically like a world where a severely nearsighted person takes off their glasses; everything is blurred, as if the whole world has been pixelated.

"Once inside the secret chamber, please do not remove your hat in the initial room without prior instruction. We wish you both a successful exploration."

Wearing the blindfold, the world is instantly compressed into a blurry, swaying shadow.

The staff members supported them by the shoulders, leading them forward as they stumbled along.

Lin Anran held Shen Yu's hand tightly, and Shen Yu didn't let go either. The two walked together, keeping close to each other.

The ground beneath my feet felt uneven, like a cobblestone path, and the air was getting cooler and cooler.

The sobbing in the background music seemed closer, mixed with the sobbing of the wind blowing through the broken windowpane.

I don't know how long we walked, maybe only a few dozen seconds, but it felt so long that my heart was pounding.

Finally, the staff stopped and let go.

"Please remove your blindfolds after the countdown ends. Countdown: ten, nine, eight..."

A cold, mechanical female voice began to count down, and Shen Yu felt Lin Anran's hand groping and grabbing his sleeve, gripping it tightly.

He took her hand in his own; he could feel her body stiffen slightly, and her breathing was a little rapid, but she didn't make a sound...

"...Three, two, one."

As the countdown ended, Shen Yu was the first to raise his hand and remove his blindfold.

Lin Anran followed closely behind.

Before me lay almost absolute darkness, with only a faint, eerie green light in the far distance, a few meters away, like the will-o'-the-wisps of legend...

It appeared to be a hall with high beams.

There was a deathly silence; even the countdown and background music had disappeared, leaving only the two of them breathing and beating their hearts.

"It's so quiet..." Lin Anran muttered softly, which was very clear in the space.

Shen Yu adapted to the darkness quickly; he squinted and tried to make out the sounds.

The green light seemed to be coming from an altar, and its vague outline could be seen.

He gripped Lin Anran's hand tightly and whispered, "Get used to the light first, listen."

His voice was extremely low, yet it could be clearly heard in the deathly silence.

Lin Anran nodded, even though she knew he might not be able to see it.

She tried to open her eyes wide, and after about half a minute, her eyes were barely able to capture more details.

They appeared to be in a place resembling a foyer or anteroom, with dark walls that seemed to show signs of peeling.

Directly opposite them was the source of the green light: an old altar with shadowy ancestral tablets behind it.

On either side of the offering table, two rows of tall, dark shadows are vaguely visible, resembling furniture or figures standing with their hands at their sides...

"There seems to be something over there," Lin Anran said in a whisper, pointing slightly with her finger into the shadow on the left side of the altar.

Shen Yu looked in the direction she pointed, and it seemed to be darker and more irregular in shape than other places.

He gently squeezed her hand, signaling her to stay where she was, while he slowly took half a step forward, pulling the small flashlight out of his pocket at the same time.

He didn't open it immediately, but continued to observe it with the naked eye.

The shadow seemed to be crawling extremely slowly...

No, is it an optical illusion, or...?

Just then, a chilling sound rang out.

"Click...click...click...click..."

It felt like the rubbing of old wooden joints, or like a fingernail gently scraping against something hard...

The sound seems to be coming from... above my head?

Shen Yu suddenly looked up, and the flashlight beam swept upwards instantly!

A dim beam of light pierced the darkness, illuminating the corner of the ceiling.

A distorted face hung upside down from the beam, about three meters off the ground, its long, wet black hair hanging down, almost touching Shen Yu's forehead...

The face had two black holes in its eyes, and its mouth was stretched wide open to reveal gleaming white teeth. The "click" sound from earlier seemed to be the click of a mechanism as its neck twisted...

"Ah!" Lin Anran couldn't help but let out a short exclamation this time, and took a step back, bumping into Shen Yu's back.

Shen Yu's hand was very steady, and the flashlight beam did not waver, firmly locking onto that upside-down ghost face.

He could see it clearly; it was a very realistic prop made of silicone, with subtle mechanical structures at the joints. There was an almost invisible thin line on the female ghost's neck, connecting to the track above.

In just a few seconds, Shen Yu squinted and analyzed the composition of this mechanism...

It's quite realistic, but also genuinely ugly... When he first saw it, he wasn't scared, he was shocked by how ugly it was...

"It's a prop, not a real person..."