Chapter 581: Gradual Progression of Horror Experience

There was another long corridor ahead. However, this time, it was more mottled, dilapidated, and scary compared to the previous one. It had more turns and twists as well.

Every turn was a shock to Qiao Liang.

The long corridor was very quiet as if no monsters would suddenly appear, but such a cramped environment gave Qiao Liang great mental stress.

It was only then that Qiao Liang finally remembered.

He was being tricked!

The girl at the front desk with the zombie getup was terrifying but not scary. She first raised Qiao Liang’s psychological state and alertness more gradually.

Right on the heels of that, the psychiatrist—through a series of arrangements—made Qiao Liang mistakenly believe that Ultimate Horror had not officially started. He made him think that it was a routine physical and psychological test.

Qiao Liang let down his guard as a result.

Of course, the ECG machine should be real so should the psychological test. They could indeed show the health status of the player. They might be asked not to continue on the spot if they were deemed unsuitable for the game.

However, once they find out that tourists had no problems with his health, the horror game would begin as soon as the psychologist announced it!

Qiao Liang was now 100% sure that there must be some hidden mechanism under the table controlling all these. However, he was so scared that he did not possess the courage to explore all these.

Qiao Liang could only hold the golden lantern tightly and walk forward guardedly.

He had to say that these initial arrangements were very extensive, especially when the gentle-looking doctor suddenly started to scare him. It challenged Qiao Liang’s psychological defense.

He escaped, and the path seemed safe, which quickly calmed Qiao Liang down. He might still be frightened, but he would not give up immediately because of excessive fright.

Of course, Qiao Liang was thinking of giving up now, but the current level of horror was maintained at an appropriate level: To yell to the staff to give up the challenges might seem to be making a mountain out of a mole hole.

He felt that he had to continue sticking to it, but he would feel the sense of horror lingering around him, swallowing him up bit by bit as he continued walking.

He looked around, thinking that there must be microphones, cameras, and secret doors everywhere. There would likely be staff coming to rescue him whenever he wanted to give up.

However, it was also because of that… that he felt that he could continue persevering.

“I heard there is a safe house here. I should at least persevere until the first save point?”

Qiao Liang might have dropped out wholeheartedly if he knew that he would have to suffer for another half an hour. However, he looked at the golden lantern in his hand and thought about the safe house. He defeated the inner demon and decided to continue moving on.

…

In the safe house after a while…

The Ultimate Horror project had a loop structure. The central most area was the safe house. Many doors led to the various areas of the Ultimate Horror project.

There was a staff behind every door who would record the progress of the tourist. There must be a corresponding record no matter whether they were entering the safe house or leaving it.

The number of times they entered the safe house and the props they carried would have an impact on the ticket refund at the end.

To put it simply, if they passed the game in one go with the headwear with little devil horns on without entering the safe house, then the ticket would be refunded in full. Moreover, a certificate would be issued.

It could also be viewed as saving their progress. For example, Ruan Guangjian challenged it twice. Ruan Guangjian would head to the safe house on his second try through a special passage and start over from a specific area.

Lin Wan, Ruan Guangjian, Chen Kangtuo, and the rest were at the safe house, waiting for Teacher Qiao to arrive.

The decoration style of the safe house was much more normal than the setting style for the rest of the game. However, there was still a sense of age. That was to prevent tourists from feeling too comfortable, affecting subsequent visits.

In other words, entering the safe house would naturally relax the player. However, the setting in the safe house would constantly remind visitors that they were still in the Ultimate Horror project. That was just a temporary rest point, not the end of the adventure.

Ruan Guangjian looked at his watch, more than 10 minutes had passed.

The amount of time everyone toured around in the Ultimate Horror project was different. That was because some of these projects needed exploration.

For bold people like Ruan Guangjian who walked fast, it would take a shorter time. If one was a cautious and indecisive type, the overall timing would be longer.

At the same time, the staff would closely monitor everything through real-time surveillance cameras.

On the one hand, it was to ensure that the passenger flow was not congested because some projects could only be experienced by one person at a time so they would only let more people in when the other was done with it.

On the other hand, it was also to ensure that the staff could rescue the tourists as soon as possible if they were to give up.

“He wouldn’t give up halfway, right?” Ruan Guangjian was a little worried.

Everyone came to the safe house because they wanted to welcome the exhausted Teacher Qiao when he arrived, to cheer him on so that he could finish the game as soon as possible.

However, it would be awkward… if Teacher Qiao did not persevere to the safe house.

Chen Kangtuo thought for a while. “It should not be. The Ultimate Horror experience was personally adjusted repeatedly by me. I have also limited what the staff could do so the early stages are not so scary. Teacher Qiao has the golden lantern with him so it would make no sense for him not to reach the first save point.”

“But isn’t he taking a bit too long?”

The second save point of the safe house was pushed open as everyone discussed.

Qiao Liang’s face was pale. He stubbornly held the golden lantern in his hand. He let out a sigh of relief after seeing the scene in the safe house.

I’m saved!

Everyone was taken aback. They did not expect Qiao Liang to enter from the second save point instead of the first!

Actually, Qiao Liang wanted to enter the safe house during the first save point to rest. However, the first two projects were a little too ‘weak’ for him. That made him swell and feel that he could persist until the next save point.

He, therefore, chose to skip the first save point.

That decision made his intestines squirm. He really beat himself up after experiencing the other two projects.

Qiao Liang first came to an experiment laboratory after escaping the doctor’s room for a psychological test. High shelves were all around, with all sorts of organs such as eyeballs, tongues, and gums preserved in yellow solution. They might be fake, but it still felt very scary.

The shelves were arranged in a maze structure. One should go around it and find a workbench full of various medicine bottles and reagents as if the perverted scientist doing experiments here left temporarily.

Qiao Liang did not dare linger for too long. He did not dare make any sound while in the state of high alert. Yet, he never stopped observing the situation in fear that the perverted scientist would suddenly jump out from somewhere.

Fortunately, no monsters appeared, and he passed it safely.

The second project was two rows of shoe cabinets. No abnormalities were found after careful testing, but after he crossed about a third of the room, a roaring zombie—with the appearance of a cleaner—suddenly appeared behind him and caught up to him.

Qiao Liang ran quickly subconsciously, but the shoe cabinets around him began opening automatically one by one without any warning. The metal cabinet doors flapped against each other to make a ‘ping-ping, pong-pong’ sound as stuff even sprang out from the drawers.

These cabinets obviously had sensors. Contraptions would pop out scary stuff when people walked by it and would return to their original state after they left.

The cleaner zombie behind him was actually walking rather slowly. Its purpose was purely to scare the tourists. The shoe cabinets were the things that really scared them as they were automatic. The faster the tourists ran, the faster they popped out.

A large number of shoe cabinets would open at the same time, making it more terrifying.

The third project was a classroom with a few students taking exams with an invigilator.

The invigilator asked Qiao Liang to sit down in the back row to answer the questions. However, during the process of reading the question, a student in the front on his left raised his hand and said that his pen was broken. The teacher gave him something like a mousetrap with a pen inside.

This student began to dismantle it carefully but failed in the middle of it. Both his hands were clamped directly, bone and blood clearly visible. He began to howl in pain, but the more he struggled, the tighter the clamp became. In the end, his right wrist broke. Four fingers dropped off from his left hand, and he passed out on the floor.

The other students and the teacher were still answering their questions casually while all these happened, turning a blind eye.

Qiao Liang knew that these were all fake. They were all props, but that actor’s skills made it so realistic that he was still frightened out of his wits.

After a period of waiting, Qiao Liang realized he could leave now. However, the student who passed out just now blocked his path so he would have to step over the ‘corpse’.

The fourth small project was a very large space. It was much more spacious than the other small projects he was in previously. It was an oversized kitchen with a complicated structure. The visibility was very low, and the sound of chopping came from in front of him where the light was the strongest. He could see a door.

However, when he got closer, he found a figure that was a sturdy pig-headed man with a butcher knife. When he was chopping were stumps of arms, and the surrounding barrels were filled with disgusting and bloody meat.

Qiao Liang did not even dare approach it. He carried the lamp and circled around two or three times before finally being able to determine that the place might be large, but there seemed to be only one exit. These dark places were all scary scenes, probably made for timid people like Qiao Liang.

When the pig-headed butcher saw Qiao Liang approaching, he squatted down to fill a bowl with broth from the cauldron and handed it to Qiao Liang.

Luckily, it was just a normal bowl of chicken soup.

Qiao Liang finally saw the second save point after he bolted out of the butcher’s room. It was also the second entrance of the safe house. He opened the door to enter without any hesitation.

Qiao Liang finally heaved a sigh of relief after seeing the setting in the safe house. The hand grappling on the golden lantern finally relaxed.

He had revived!

However, he had to say that this arrangement was very insidious.

There was a corridor between every project. It made the tourists able to relax for a short while. However, the subsequent corridors were becoming even more scary and twisted.

The horror levels from the small projects were also gradual.

The first project only had scary scenery, creating an illusion that ‘monsters may appear at any time’, making tourists panicky.

The second project had a zombie that slowly approached them, forcing the tourists to quickly pass through the shoe cabinet hallway where the really scary things were hidden in the shoe cabinets.

The third project had a live performance. He might just be watching it, but the terror had risen to another level.

The fourth project was even worse. They started to engage the tourists directly by getting them to drink something in such an environment.

All projects were not like a monster suddenly popping up to scare people, but they created a subtle atmosphere of terror, slowly pushing up the psychological tolerance of the tourists.

When one was about to lose it, one could then enter the safe house to rest for a short while and to adjust yourself.

Qiao Liang realized that he seemed to be fooled.

This haunted house was not particularly excessive in its degree of horror.

However, it was interesting how they could always control this sense of horror at the critical point so that one could still continue to persevere even though you were frightened!