Chapter 47.1
The clown had just finished speaking when the crowd was immediately in uproar.
All of a sudden, both those who had gotten the red ball and those who had gotten the black ball had a change in expressions. Some people were disappointed, some relieved, others had collapsed in disbelief. Naturally, these people were the unlucky one who had fallen from heaven to hell in an instant.
Xiao Tangqiu, “……”
Sure enough!
He knew that he and Tang Mianmian weren’t so lucky!
Tang Mianmian’s expression was very complicated. He gave Xiao Tangqiu a look, his face filled with bitterness. “You jinx!”
Xiao Tangqiu, “…Blame me.”
Clearly, the clown was duplicitous. How could he blame him for being a jinx?
“You said earlier that those who get the red ball have to go into the haunted house! How can you go back on your word?” The handsome boy who had been smug about taking the black ball immediately started shouting.
Although the others didn’t dare to shout at the clown, their expressions clearly implied the same thing.
The clown laughed strangely, “This is my playground! Naturally, the rules will be made by me!”
The handsome boy felt as if his breath was stuck in his chest. His face turned red while the others looked pale and humbled. Although they were very resistant to the clown’s deception, they had to bow down to whoever was in charge.
However, with the exception of Xiao Tangqiu and his party, the other people who didn’t have a chance to enter the haunted house looked really disappointed.
“Alright! Those who didn’t get it will have another chance! Those who were picked should come with me!” The man with the map had drawn a black ball. He put away his map and began to organize a haunted house expedition team. “Grab your flashlights! Let’s go!”
Obviously, this group of people had already made preparations for the haunted house expedition. Each person had a flashlight. But because not everyone could enter the haunted house, the rest had to reluctantly lend their flashlights to Xiao Tangqiu and several others.
Tang Mianmian gingerly took the flashlight and looked at the haunted house, which had an eerie vibe even without any sound and lighting effects. He gulped and hid behind Xiao Tangqiu silently.
Xiao Tangqiu glanced at Tang Mianmian but didn’t say a word. Although the two of them had gone through several instances, this guy was still as timid as ever.
Just then, the door of the haunted house slowly opened.
A cold wind blew out and Xiao Tangqiu instantly felt a chill climb up from his tailbone, his body covered in goosebumps. Before him was a sheet of black, giving rise to a feeling of uncertainty. Tang Mianmian silently hid behind Xiao Tangqiu.
The man in the lead had already entered the haunted house with a flashlight. Xiao Tangqiu also brought Tang Mianmian inside, but the handsome boy still resisted. “I don’t want to go in …”
This guy turned to run, but he smacked right into the clown’s painted face. The clown grinned at him, the corners of his lips almost reaching his eyes.
He fearfully took a few big steps back and fled into the haunted house at once.
“Ahhh!”
He bumped into Tang Mianmian, startling him. He also cried out, “Ahhh, ahhhh!”
The shrieks of the two men went up a pitch, one after another, and Xiao Tangqiu finally couldn’t bear to watch them any longer. “What’s your name?”
Tang Mianmian stopped and glared at the boy, “What’s your name?”
The boy shook as he said, “Just… just now, that clown… was so scary…”
Tang Mianmian rolled his eyes at him. “Hasn’t the clown been like that the entire time?”
“No! The clown… “
Seeing that the boy was still trying to argue, Xiao Tangqiu quickly interrupted, “Stop arguing, let’s go. The people in front have already left!”
Besides the three of them, the other four were from the other team. They were walking in the front and hadn’t stopped because of the loud cries of Tang Mianmian. Instead, they simply walked forward and at this time, some distance had gradually grown between them. If they didn’t catch up, they would definitely fall behind.
Xiao Tangqiu quickened his pace to catch up, while Tang Mianmian shrank behind Xiao Tangqiu and the boy shrank behind Tang Mianmian. The three men maintained this formation and soon caught up with the others in front.
Once in the haunted house, Xiao Tangqiu could clearly feel that the temperature had fallen several degrees. There wasn’t a light source in the haunted house. Although they had the flashlight, it couldn’t blot out the dark. No one knew what was hidden in the darkness and this unknown darkness was the most terrifying.
However, because there were people in front of him, he wasn’t that afraid. He was actually more terrified of monsters that would kill them rather than the “scary ghosts” in ordinary haunted houses. This fear made him carefully watch out for anything that might kill him.
From time to time there came a girl’s screams in front of him. Xiao Tangqiu immediately became more alert. However, when he walked to the front, he didn’t find anything. Nothing popped up at him and there wasn’t a scary “ghost” either, only a pile of broken, moldy wood and some damaged props – a skull with big hole in its eye socket, plastic eyeballs rolling all over the floor, half of a skeleton, a red axe missing its cutting edge, and a broken mirror.
What was there to be afraid of?
The deeper Xiao Tangqiu went, the more puzzled he became. After countless times of hearing screams and mentally preparing himself, finding nothing, breathing a sigh of relief, hearing screams and mentally preparing himself and so on again… he gradually became numb and even began to suspect that they and the four people in front were not in the same haunted house.
Even Tang Mianmian and the boy had gotten used to it. They soon forgot their differences and began to make fun of the situation, “Heh! It’s not scary at all!”
“Why are the people in front blindly shouting? Clearly, it’s not terrible at all! What a bunch of cowards! “
“The skull earlier had a big hole in one of its eye sockets, as if it had one big eye and one small hahaha….”
“From one glance, you can tell the axe is blunt. The staff didn’t sharpen it ah.”
Xiao Tangqiu glanced at the two men behind him and wanted to say something but suddenly he saw a dark shadow behind the boy…
Wait! Wasn’t that boy the last person in their small team? How could there be anyone behind him?
He didn’t have time to think about it, immediately crying out, “There’s someone behind! Run!
As soon as his words fell, the shadow that was still some distance away from the boy suddenly jumped to the back of the boy.
“Don’t frighten me, how is it possible…”
The boy laughed and turned around only to see the skull with a big hole in its eye socket. Only half its skeleton body was left and it was suspended in mid-air while its hand was holding up the blunt red axe.
He cried and stumbled onto the ground, watching the red axe fall suddenly!
At this critical juncture, Xiao Tangqiu quickly took out the crossbow he had exchanged points for and shot an arrow at the skull!
He was very fast, moving at an unprecedented speed. He thought that it would be too late but he somehow managed to make it in time.
He pulled the string!
And shot!
Because he didn’t undergo much training, Xiao Tangqiu wasn’t accurate enough. The arrow that had been shot at the red axe was deflected and hit the skull by mistake. The short-range shot had great impact and the skull was pierced by the arrow in an instant!
The skull that had been hit by the arrow fell to the ground and rolled several meters away.
He put down the crossbow, only to find that he had been so nervous that his palms were cold and his ears were filled with the pounding of his drum-like heart. Ba-dum! Ba-dum! Ba-dum!
However, before Xiao Tangqiu could breathe a sigh of relief, the skull that had been hit by the arrow came back to life and slowly floated to the front of them. It turned its back on Xiao Tangqiu and the others and seemed to be awkwardly looking for its body.
“Run!” He let out a cry, then turned and pulled Tang Mianmian to run. As for the boy who fell to the ground in fright, he didn’t have the energy to care about him.
But he also managed to snap the boy out of his trance with that shout. The boy woke up with a start, quickly scrambled to his feet and started running unsteadily.
The four people in front also seemed to have heard the movement behind them and shouted and ran. Xiao Tangqiu had no time to carefully find his way around. He could only blindly follow the people in front of him. As he ran, he prayed desperately that there was only one way out of the haunted house and that there weren’t any forks or dead ends.
He ran and ran, but his stamina was insufficient. Tang Mianmian pulled him to run again. The two men ran after the people in front of him. Just then, Xiao tangqiu suddenly discovered something was wrong. “Something’s wrong!”
He cried out breathlessly, “How long have we been running? Why haven’t we seen the exit yet! This isn’t right! It’s too far! How can there be such a big haunted house!”
Tang Mianmian also realized something off. “Yeah… it’s been over 20 minutes! We should’ve reached the exit after running for so long! How can this haunted house be so big!”
Xiao Tangqiu looked in front. The four people ahead of them were still running like crazy. They didn’t seem to find anything wrong with the situation, didn’t realize that the passage was too long and they didn’t show any sign of exhaustion.
But Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian were just ordinary people. They were already very tired and would soon reach their limit.