The situation at the futuristic theme park was more serious than Chen Ge had anticipated. He initially thought they had just stuffed some old objects into the Haunted House, but through the conversation, he realized that they did more than that; they made use of the haunted house to provide the old objects with a home. They assimilated objects with real spirits into the Haunted House, thus giving the Specters possessing the objects a new chance at ‘life’. The key difference from Chen Ge’s Haunted House was that the Specters possessing these objects were not brought under control, and they were free to attack the visitors. These Specters were shapeless, and after the visitors finished their tours, they would not realize what had happened to them in a short period of time, but the symptoms would appear after some time.

  “You guys are so irresponsible toward your visitors.” Chen Ge wanted to meet the leader responsible for the Haunted House. That person had to be hiding something.

  “Xiao Ling’s friend is a bit too sensitive, and that’s why she said something like that. As you know, when someone is under great tension, it’s normal for them to see stuff that’s not there.” The police officer was afraid that Chen Ge might have misunderstood.

  “My friend is telling the truth, but no one cares. Everyone knows that there are no ghosts in this world, but the problem is, how can you explain the things that she saw?” Xiao Ling argued with the police officer. Chen Ge leaned against the wall and listened with interest.

  Before he arrived, he had known that the futuristic theme park would have their workers act as visitors, but he did not expect the workers to be so unprofessional. Perhaps combining forty hellish scenarios was too much and broke their mental defense, or perhaps the process of building the Haunted House was too, so the basic workers knew about its hidden trapping. In conclusion, many factors had likely led to this situation, where the ‘visitors’ argued among themselves, and the real visitor became the leader.

  “Stop arguing. We’re here to visit. If you do not wish to give up, we’d better work together.” Chen Ge’s voice sounded particularly sensible at that moment. His presence was like a ray of light, bringing people warmth and reliability. Xiao Ling ignored the police officer and turned her face away.

  “We’re all friends here. There’s no need to get into an argument due to a small misunderstanding.” Chen Ge consoled Xiao Ling before cutting to the chase. “Does your friend know the story about the objects here? These objects, especially the altar, where did they come from?”


  “They were taken from a village near the dam at Eastern Jiujiang. It had nice scenery, but the place was a bit secluded, and the locals were hostile against outsides.”


  “When they went to take the objects, did the people in the village say anything?” Chen Ge did not mind the other items, but the altar was the key problem. It was the source of the curse.

  “Not many people were left at the village, and most of them were aging elders. After my friend explained her reason for being there, they chased her out. Then my friend’s manager gave a young man from the village two hundred RMB to have the man lead us into the village in the dead of the night.” Xiao Ling remembered many things.

  “The village wasn’t that big, and many houses were empty. The altar was in the oldest home in the village, facing away from the sun. It was the biggest home in the village, and it had been abandoned years ago.”


  “The young man that was our guide told us that many bad things had happened there.

  “A few decades ago, the owner of the house married the daughter of a rich family. Even though the daughter was ugly, she came from money, and she had a good life. Then the daughter got pregnant. They hired a maid from outside to come take care of her, but strangely enough, after the maid arrived, she was never seen again. The villagers initially did not think much of this. After all, the husband and wife were kind. The real tragedy came about several weeks later when a thief sneaked into the home, but that thief went insane after he got out.

  “No one knew what the thief saw inside the house. The excuse given by the man of the house was that he was too fluttered when he saw the thief. In the moment of panic, he grabbed a wooden staff and hit the man’s head, and that knocked him senseless. It was a lawless era. The man threw some money around, and people stopped asking question.

  “But that was when the rumors started to fly. Some said that the owner got into an affair with the maid when his wife was pregnant. The wife got so angry after she found out that she murdered the maid and buried her in the yard. Some said the maid was actually the owner’s old flame. The wife purposely tricked her into going there because she was envious of the woman’s beauty, and she wanted to swap faces with her.

  “No one knew the truth. A few months after the maid’s disappearance, the wife became half insane. She would be found yelling and scolding the mirrors and walls around midnight. Then the owner hired a travelling priest, and it was that man who built the altar inside the old house.

  “Several years later, the wife passed away. The owner raised four kids alone and was always kind to the other villagers. The villagers soon forgot about this until the day of the burial for the owner, when his youngest grandson opened the altar out of curiosity. It was a sunny day, but suddenly, winds gathered, and the rain clouds hung low. It didn’t take long for the rain to pour. The burial time had been decided, and it couldn’t be changed, so the family conducted the ceremony in the rain.

  “When the coffin was lifted, the four pallbearers found it impossibly heavy, like there were several dead bodies lying inside. The family didn’t know what to do. In the end, they spent more money to hire four more pallbearers and finished the burial.

  “After they went home, they realized that something was wrong. The old man had turned around in his white and black picture, and the youngest grandson that he cherished had disappeared. The family searched for days, but they couldn’t find him. There was no body. Later, someone said that the grandson drowned at the lakeside.

  “The family was certain that something was off about the house, so they sold it at a low price. They thought that could spare them from the ill fortune, but I heard from my friend that they all had a terrible death.

  “The tragedy did not end after the family moved away. The new family that moved in was flushed into the dam along with their car due to a landslide. Only their eldest son who was studying in the city survived it. The eldest son inherited the old house. One summer, he invited his friends there for a holiday. That night, like the old man’s burial, it started to pour. No one knew what happened that night, but all seven that went there for a holiday were never seen again.

  “The old house lost its owner, and the villagers knew to stay away from the place. My friend and her colleagues were the first to visit it in about five years. You know what happened next. With the young man leading the way, they got some old objects out of the house and used it to create this scenario.”


  Xiao Ling’s story was long, but it was chronologically clear, and it helped Chen Ge understand many things.

  The maid was the first to die there. After her death, she cursed the old house and was trapped by the priest inside the altar. The scariest Specter here shouldn’t be the grandmother but the maid. It is her Specter that is possessing the altar!