The college entrance examination is the final battle of a long-lasting war. As the smoke clears, the veterans returning from the battlefield, although still needing to plan their futures, feel a sense of relief from finally shedding a heavy burden. This relief brings joy and an impulse to go out and enjoy nature, to let loose.
"So," Zhang Wenli said during a voice chat with her roommates, "let's go out and have fun for two days!"
"Where to?" came Li Jia's lazy voice.
"How about going to see pandas? I've never seen them before," Zhang Wenli suggested.
"Pandas are bears, not cats, and they're not that interesting," Gu Huijun replied, her tone serious as always.
"Okay!" Zhang Wenli persisted, instinctively trying to be cute, a demeanor that often warmed Gu Huijun's serious heart.
"Let's go to the Horror Amusement Park," Li Jia suddenly proposed. The Horror Amusement Park is a special tourist area built with significant investment in the neighboring city of Qiushan, claiming to create a unique horror tourism city in the country. "I heard they recently opened a haunted campus area."
"Is that a good idea?" Zhang Wenli asked, "Is Xinyi willing to go?" She asked thoughtfully, as she herself wasn't very afraid of haunted houses.
"Ah, what? Sure, let's go, I'm not scared," Zhao Xinyi said, her anxious personality evident even in a voice chat.
"What about Huijun?" Zhang Wenli asked.
"I can go."
"Great, it's settled then. This will be our first trip together after graduation, so we need to plan it well." Under Zhang Wenli's leadership, they finally agreed to go on a two-day graduation trip to Qiushan City three days later.
When the agreed time arrived, Zhang Wenli's pink and white knee-length dress nearly stunned Gu Huijun.
"Oh, you're dressed so beautifully." Li Jia's tone had a hint of sarcasm, but after three years of high school, the other three roommates were somewhat used to it.
"Why are you wearing your school uniform in this hot weather?" Zhang Wenli asked Gu Huijun.
"Actually, this outfit is more comfortable and can keep mosquitoes away."
"I brought mosquito repellent," Zhang Wenli said, flashing a cute smile.
"Um, are we going to spend the whole day in haunted houses today?" Zhao Xinyi asked hesitantly.
"If you're scared, we can always do something else," Zhang Wenli gently took Zhao Xinyi's hand.
"What are you afraid of? Huijun is here," Li Jia said.
"That's right, I'm here," Gu Huijun smiled.
Taking the intercity express train, they arrived in Qiushan City in just an hour and a half. Under the overall strategy of the horror tourism industry in Qiushan City, the entire city tried to create a terrifying atmosphere, such as the welcome message at the bus station exit, which was inscribed in a classical horror style on a giant skull. However, the clear and hot weather completely suppressed this horror atmosphere, causing the timid Zhao Xinyi to even take a photo with the skull.
At 10:30 AM, they arrived at the hotel they had booked next to the Horror Amusement Park. After dropping off their simple luggage, they hurriedly set off for their destination. There were many tourists, but fortunately, they had already booked tickets on their phones, so they only needed to queue to scan the QR code to enter. They quickly moved forward in line, and the weather became increasingly hot.
"Good thing I brought a small fan!" Zhang Wenli playfully took out a rechargeable mini fan from her handbag, which drew a chorus of "oohs" from a nearby group of boys. Zhang Wenli shyly handed the fan to Zhao Xinyi.
"I'm not hot," Zhao Xinyi quickly declined, but in reality, beads of sweat were already forming on her forehead.
Zhang Wenli held the fan up to Zhao Xinyi's face.
Zhao Xinyi's face turned red, and she squeezed out a "thank you" before taking the fan.
"Such a slow line," Li Jia complained.
Two minutes later, they entered the park.
Gu Huijun looked at the map on her phone to plan their route: "On the left is Zombie City, this road leads to the Apocalypse Temple, the big road ahead is Demon Square, and after passing Fox Demon Forest is the newly opened haunted campus area. On the right is the Liaozhai World. Let's wander around, starting from Liaozhai World and then moving to the haunted campus area."
"Sounds good," Zhang Wenli said, "Let's buy some drinks first."
Liaozhai World is an area made up of many small amusement venues, each with a special theme, most of which are adapted from Liaozhai stories. They saw the Zhe Long, Yan Luo Banquet, and Hua Guzi, as well as Gongsun Jiuniang, Painted Skin, and Nie Xiaoqian. They watched a debate in the Human Ghost Pavilion featuring holographic projections of a person, a ghost, a demon, and an immortal: What defines a person, a ghost, a demon, an immortal, what is living, what is death... But the content of the debate was merely a collection of clichés from the internet, such as "Some people seem alive but are already dead"; watching for a few more minutes became tiresome.
By the time they left Liaozhai World, it was nearly 1 PM, and the oppressive heat had dissipated significantly, with a cool breeze beginning to blow. The four girls chose a restaurant called "Fox Fairy Palace" for lunch. The restaurant was decorated in a cozy Japanese style, with waitstaff dressed as Japanese fox girls or fox butlers, which felt out of place, but the four girls were happy to switch up the style. Although there was some novelty in Liaozhai World at first, after a while, they could sense the repetitive pattern, which became tiring.
"It was just okay," Li Jia said lazily while eating fries.
"It looks like it's going to rain," Zhang Wenli pouted, "Xinyi, what do you think?"
"Not as scary as I imagined."
"Of course, it won't be too scary," Li Jia said.
"Because amusement parks have commercial considerations; if it's too scary, there won't be any customers," Gu Huijun said.
"I heard the haunted campus is quite scary, the atmosphere is well created, just like a horror movie," Li Jia said.
"I've seen their promotional video; it was indeed quite good," Gu Huijun said.
"And to avoid people being overly frightened, there are some safe zones in the haunted campus area, which are completely normal elements, not scary at all," Li Jia glanced outside, noticing that the originally pleasant breeze had intensified due to the change in atmospheric pressure, stirring up dust into small whirlwinds, "It looks like it's going to rain heavily; we should head to the haunted campus area sooner."
They quickly finished their lunch, then took many photos at Demon Square accompanied by the increasing wind, before entering the haunted campus area.
Perhaps by coincidence, shortly after they entered the haunted campus area, the wind signaling the storm turned into a chilling breeze mixed with damp cold moisture. Zhang Wenli gently pressed down her dress, and then Zhao Xinyi lightly linked her arm.
"Are you scared?" Li Jia asked sarcastically, "This is what creates the atmosphere."
"No," Zhao Xinyi was indeed a little scared, but it wasn't severe; after all, the haunted campus area was newly opened, so there would be more tourists, and crowds always provided extra courage.
The haunted campus area was set up as a middle school campus, including high school and junior high school sections, dormitories, a gym, a cafeteria, and a club building. The four girls, having just graduated from high school, entered through the southeast gate, which was closest to the club building, so they naturally chose this supposedly most terrifying place in the haunted campus area as their starting point.
It started to rain, and the four girls jogged into the main entrance of the club building. Whether it was the sound of the wind or the sound system installed in the building, they could hear a continuous wailing as soon as they entered. The girls wiped the slightly damp parts of their clothes with tissues and began their adventure in the building along with many other tourists who had rushed in to avoid the rain.
There were too many people, and some scenes that could have been very scary became mundane due to the noise and laughter. Li Jia was somewhat dissatisfied and suggested taking the elevator to the fourth floor to experience the scenes above first. "There might be fewer people up there," Li Jia said, "If we keep following the crowd, there will always be many people."
Since there were also horror scenes set up in the stairwell, basically no one would use the elevator, which was part of the safe zone. The four took the elevator to the fourth floor, and the noise of the crowd was replaced by the simple sound of wind and rain. Looking around, they found that there wasn't a single other person.
"Looks like we have the place to ourselves!" Li Jia happily announced, "Let's go this way first; this one looks good." She led the way, with the three girls following her into a room marked "Mask Department." The walls and ceiling of the room were covered with all kinds of masks, which seemed to watch every person entering the room, as if ready to judge and execute them on the spot. In such a room, they unconsciously became cautious even in their speech.
"I told you, it really needs fewer people to create an atmosphere," Li Jia seemed somewhat smug.
As soon as she finished speaking, the door to the Mask Department room suddenly slammed shut, eliciting a simultaneous gasp from the four girls.
"What happened?" Zhao Xinyi nervously clutched Zhang Wenli.
"It must be the wind," Zhang Wenli reassured her.
"It might have been set up this way on purpose," Li Jia said, walking to the door to try to pull it open, "What's going on?" There was a hint of tension in her voice that she had never shown before.
"Can't open it?" Gu Huijun said, "Maybe we should push."
"Still can't open it. This is too scary."
"Choose!" a stern voice commanded from above, likely coming from a speaker hidden behind those masks.
"Choose what?" Gu Huijun asked.
"Choose!" the voice repeated.
Gu Huijun looked around but saw no clues: "This place must be monitored; otherwise, they wouldn't scare us like this. Don't be afraid; this should be a escape room game." Gu Huijun's calm analysis greatly eased the tense atmosphere.
"Are we supposed to choose a mask?" Zhang Wenli asked.
"Choose!" the voice repeated.
"Are there any clues?" Gu Huijun asked, as she actually enjoyed escape room games.
"Choose!"
"I feel like the clues are already in the room or need to be triggered," Gu Huijun said, taking down the nearest mask from the wall and placing it on her face. It was a black spider monster mask, with twisted human figures reflecting in its dark eyes. "You all should wear one; it should trigger some clues."
Li Jia picked up a seductive ghost mask, Zhang Wenli layered a vampire face on top, while Zhao Xinyi hesitated, unsure of which one to take.
"Just grab one for now," Gu Huijun said.
Zhao Xinyi took a pure green tree person mask and placed it on her face.
"Wrong! Choose!" a new clue appeared, which was an error message.
"With so many masks, are we really supposed to try them one by one?" Gu Huijun said.
"Wrong! Choose!" The voice clearly had no intention of giving more hints.
"I think we need to find four masks that are different from the others," Gu Huijun said, having played many escape room video games on her tablet, so she had some experience. "Let me think." She took off the mask and began to observe the various masks on the wall.
"Do we need to turn off the lights?" Li Jia suggested, starting to analyze, "Maybe they glow in the dark."
"That makes sense!" Gu Huijun seemed to have an epiphany.
"Of course," Li Jia said, somewhat smug.
"Yeah, you guys are really smart," Zhang Wenli said in a cute, natural tone.
The light switch was right by the door, easy to find. She pressed the switch, and darkness fell. There wasn't a single place in this room for outside light to penetrate, but a rectangular light door was clearly displayed on one wall, while the masks that had been hanging there had vanished. When Li Jia turned the light back on, those masks were still in place.
"What is going on?" Zhang Wenli asked, feeling Zhao Xinyi tighten her grip on her hand.
"Is this technology really possible?" Even the usually calm Gu Huijun found it hard to believe.
"Choose!" the voice urged.
"Turn off the lights," Gu Huijun said, deciding to try going to the light door.
Darkness fell again. Zhao Xinyi held Zhang Wenli's hand, moving a bit closer to her. She could smell the faint scent of sweat coming from Zhang Wenli, reminiscent of a newborn baby, which gave her a slight sense of reassurance. Then Zhao Xinyi saw a faint light shining through Zhang Wenli's hair, which looked like the afterimage transmitted to the retina after the lights suddenly went out, but Zhao Xinyi quickly realized that it wasn't; that light was clearly intensifying.
Unable to resist, Zhao Xinyi reached out to brush Zhang Wenli's hair aside, wanting to see what was glowing inside.
She saw it! Then she let out a scream, breaking free from Zhang Wenli's hand and crashing heavily against the wall, crouching down while holding her head.
"What happened?" Zhao Xinyi's scream startled everyone who was already on edge.
Then Li Jia turned the light back on.
"Face—" Zhao Xinyi's voice trembled as she crouched on the ground, afraid to look up.
"What face?" Li Jia asked, taking a sharp breath, sensing something was wrong.
"In Wenli's hair—" Zhao Xinyi trembled in fear, "There's a face."
"What!" Li Jia's face turned pale, stepping back nervously from Zhang Wenli.
Zhang Wenli instinctively reached for the back of her head but found nothing unusual.
"Let us out!" Gu Huijun shouted, "We're done playing."
"Choose!"
"This place is wrong!" Li Jia said, "It's been so long, and not a single person has come."
No one spoke, and the air grew quiet, a silence like death, where they could hear nothing but their heartbeats and breaths.
"Ah!" Zhao Xinyi covered her head and started to cry.
"Don't be afraid!" Gu Huijun said in a commanding tone, then ran to the door and began to sprint. She jumped up and kicked the door, which echoed with a loud cracking sound.
Gu Huijun clutched her calf and began to wail. A broken tibia had pierced through her bent leg, tearing through red muscle and spraying dark blood. "Ah!" Gu Huijun screamed with all her might, her voice hoarse, as if that was the only way to relieve some of the pain.
The other three girls also began to cry out loudly, as if that fear had taken away their last bit of sanity.
"Help! Help!" Li Jia shouted, filled with despair.
Zhang Wenli and Zhao Xinyi crouched on the ground, covering their heads and crying, not daring to look at Gu Huijun.
"Choose!" the voice echoed again.
"No!" Li Jia cried, tears streaming down her face, ruining her carefully applied makeup, making her look like a mask hanging on the wall.
Then the masks on the wall began to tremble, producing a rustling sound, like a strong wind rushing through a dense forest, or like demons whispering softly.
"Ah!" Gu Huijun's cries gradually faded, "Help me."
Li Jia shook her head, sobbing, while Zhao Xinyi curled up completely, trembling uncontrollably. Zhang Wenli looked up at Gu Huijun.
"Help me," Gu Huijun said weakly, her face pale from blood loss, even her lips losing color.
"Choose!" the voice came again.
Zhang Wenli wiped her tears and crawled over to Gu Huijun, starting to tear her skirt to bandage her. "Hang in there!" she shouted to give herself courage, trying to stop the bleeding for Gu Huijun.
"Ah—" Gu Huijun could only weakly call out before losing consciousness.
"Huijun!" Zhang Wenli patted Gu Huijun's face, "You can't die!"
"Choose!" the dancing masks brought a sense of evil closing in.
"Don't!" Zhao Xinyi covered her head and cried out, her nails digging into her scalp, not even noticing the blood seeping out.
Rustling, rustling...
"Don't!" Zhao Xinyi was engulfed in uncontrollable fear, gagging and crying, falling into despair, losing her sanity, gripping her scalp tighter. It was tearing, blood gushing from her head.
Li Jia screamed and dodged. Zhang Wenli rushed over and hugged Zhao Xinyi, "Please stop," she begged, not knowing to whom she was pleading.
Zhao Xinyi continued, her skin tearing apart from the center of her body, exposing subcutaneous fat, muscle, and pulsating blood vessels.
"Xinyi!" Zhang Wenli couldn't accept the sight before her, screaming and backing away, leaning against the wall and vomiting the fast food she had eaten for lunch, mixed with stomach acid, spilling everywhere.
Zhao Xinyi's skin had torn to her neck, where it met the obstruction of her clothes, but Zhao Xinyi's pulling force remained undiminished, so the skin on her neck gradually tightened and stretched in her hands, finally snapping. At the same time, Zhao Xinyi collapsed to the ground, her heavy, slow breaths signaling the approach of death.
"No!" Li Jia shouted, thinking she might be next, "Don't kill me, kill her, kill her."
"Choose!"
"Okay, I choose, don't kill me." Li Jia stood up, grabbed a mask from the wall, and put it on her face, "Is this it? Please don't kill me."
After vomiting, Zhang Wenli stopped crying. She leaned against the wall, sitting in her own vomit, surrounded by the nauseating smell of blood mixed with Gu Huijun and Zhao Xinyi's bodies—she had vomited everything from her stomach, leaving only the bitter taste of bile in her mouth. She stared blankly at Li Jia, clearly in despair, as if she knew she was about to be devoured alive by a hunter, and any struggle had lost its meaning.
Li Jia frantically tried different masks, but the voice gave no feedback, not even a "wrong" warning. But Li Jia didn't give up; she kept trying, letting the masks fall to the ground behind her.
Suddenly, Li Jia stopped moving, standing still like a statue.
"Haha," Li Jia suddenly began to laugh maniacally, "This one, I chose right! This one is different."
She turned around. Zhang Wenli saw a squid-like creature lying on her face, expanding and contracting while oozing blood that dripped down Li Jia's chin.
"I chose right! I chose right!..." Li Jia kept repeating, while her once vibrant body gradually deflated like a punctured balloon, the creature on her face slowly swelling. Li Jia's legs began to tremble, shaking, and finally, her almost emptied body gently fell to the ground without even stirring up a bit of dust.
Zhang Wenli just stared blankly, mentally preparing for the inevitable destruction.
Shortly after Li Jia fell, the creature on her face slipped off, sliding down her now bark-like face, transforming back into a mask—a facehugger mask.
Zhang Wenli closed her eyes, waiting.
"What choice is there?" Zhang Wenli thought, her best friends had painfully died, it would be better for her to die quickly too. She remembered how they had discussed their future majors before the college entrance exam. Li Jia wanted to study business management, saying she wanted to become a civil servant because her cousin did that, and it was an easy job. Huijun wanted to study linguistics, saying that decoding text games was her hobby. As for Xinyi, she had always been indecisive, but she said her parents wanted her to become a teacher, though Xinyi's personality was completely unsuitable for teaching. A bitter smile appeared on Zhang Wenli's face; perhaps things would be different once Xinyi had a boyfriend.
The college entrance examination was a war, and they hadn't had a proper chat afterward. She didn't know how they had done, whether they could get into their desired schools. Zhang Wenli felt she hadn't done well; she didn't understand many English questions, and the English exam paper was just like now, filled with multiple-choice questions.
"Choose!"
Zhang Wenli sensed that death was approaching, as the air filling her nostrils began to smell different, reminiscent of the rotten, maggot-infested mouse she had once stepped on in a park's bushes as a child. That smell signaled death, instinctively making her want to vomit. But Zhang Wenli had already vomited enough, and couldn't bring herself to vomit anymore, only managing a burp.
"Choose!"
Zhang Wenli knew this would be the last "choose" she would hear, reminding her of the answer techniques shared by her classmates before the college entrance exam. It was a humorous poem that was said to be quite accurate: "For three long and one short, choose the shortest; for three shorts and one long, choose the longest. For two longs and two shorts, choose B; for the same length and same shortness, choose A; for uneven lengths, choose D; for unevenness, C is invincible." Zhang Wenli had memorized this poem, perhaps even more clearly than her favorite "Yu Meiren: When will the spring flowers and autumn moon end?" because several bold boys always used this poem to metaphorically refer to the girls' breast sizes, and moreover, Zhang Wenli had indeed used this poem's technique when facing unsolvable problems in exams.
"I choose C," Zhang Wenli murmured with a smile that seemed to have already detached from life and death.
In an instant, the nauseating rotten smell suddenly vanished, leaving only the scent of blood and vomit.
"Correct," the voice said.
Zhang Wenli opened her eyes in surprise, seeing that the masks on the wall had disappeared, leaving only three differently shaped corpses scattered in the corners of an empty room.
The door clicked open. Zhang Wenli leaned against the wall and slowly stood up, walking outside. The rain had stopped, and the air was fresh as if it had been washed, with sunlight filtering through sparse clouds onto her face. She lifted her head, letting the tears fall.
"This female ghost looks so real; can I take a photo?" Zhang Wenli opened her eyes to see two tourists approaching her with their phones raised.