As Ernis opened the notebook, he felt an electrifying thrill, as if the surrounding props had come to life.
Moreover, the diary-style entries in the notebook corresponded to the haunted house’s mechanisms, clearly serving as hints for the players.
The setting of this haunted house seemed to be a thousand years after the Nest Laboratory era, now an abandoned, desolate planet. Many buried sins and lost evidence remained scattered here…
Until one day, you mistakenly entered this place.
“…”
With each page Ernis turned, his face grew paler. This eerie narrative was exactly the same as the atmosphere in the book.
He still remembered the night Fish Soup Noodles released the first chapter of the novel, he had read all the chapters in one go and was unable to sleep after. The next day, his manager scolded him.
“You handle the decoding, I’ll push forward. There’s even a route map drawn here, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. Every secret room should have clues to uncover.”
Gradually becoming intrigued, Douglas began urging his older brother to carefully read the strategy guide.
Left with no choice, Ernis clutched the key card, trembling as he swiped it while Douglas stood guard with the red flashlight.
In the pitch-darkness, a dust-covered hidden door suddenly slid open with a loud rumbling noise.
In fact, not only the two brothers were feeling tense, even the actor playing a ghost for the first time was nervous.
That’s right, this offline pop-up haunted house had thoughtfully arranged live actors!
Thus, the two brothers quickly embarked on a full-fledged haunted house adventure.
First, they encountered a dusty laboratory filled with skeletal remains in white lab coats, screaming until their faces turned white. Then, upon accidentally touching the cold, slimy preserved brain of an experimental subject, Ernis screamed and clung to his younger brother for dear life.
And when he thought he had finally reached the “safe zone” on the notebook’s map and leaned back against a cabinet to catch their breath, Ernis suddenly froze and his pupils shrank as the sound of nails scratching in the cabinet rang out.
“Dou…Douglas… Isn’t this haunted house supposed to have only the two of us!?”
“AHHHHHHHHH…”
Just as Ernis turned around, a grotesque experimental subject suddenly crawled out from the cabinet, scaring him so badly that he burst into tears.
The now pale faced Douglas swallowed hard as he watched the figure vanish into the darkness.
“The notebook said never to lean against anything in this safe house. We must have triggered a death point rule, which is why this happened.”
Douglas took the notebook Ernis had dropped and attempted to analyze the situation calmly.
“But how was I supposed to know?! We were so close to the end!”
Ernis glanced at the game light-brain that had been placed alongside the notebook. The haunted house’s light brain served as a tracker for their progress, and it currently showed they had already reached 75%.
“How about we stop here and just press the exit button?”
Before entering, they had been informed that if players felt too frightened, they could crush their ticket chip at any time to call for help.
However, a destroyed chip ticket would not be reissued, meaning they would fail the experience.
“No way! We’ve made it to 75%!”
To Ernis’s despair, his little brother had developed a fiery determination to achieve perfect completion!
After overcoming numerous obstacles, the two brothers finally reached the crucial experimental incubation base from the novel, and Ernis was almost crying for joy.
“Fuck, Experiment 114! They even recreated this with full holographic effects?”
Ernis’s eyes widened in surprise as he gazed at the breathtakingly handsome experimental subject before him, as if witnessing a divine miracle.
Yes, Ernis had always been a face con, and Experiment 114 had always been his personal eye candy. Was this some kind of pop-up haunted house fan service?
Tsk, look at those body lines…
“Wait, don’t get too close?”
[Intruder detected– Identity verification failed!]
In the next second, a giant robot guardian, buried deep underground, suddenly activated. Its electronic eyes lit up with a red laser, locking onto the two brothers.
“Fuck!”
Ernis immediately grabbed Douglas and ran away, never daring to look back at Experiment 114.
At least the haunted house was considerate, aside from the safe zone where they had to find the key, none of the other challenges physically blocked their escape.
If players couldn’t handle the interactive side missions, they could simply follow the notebook’s map and run for their lives.
“It’s finally ending, right?! The notebook says we just need to board this escape hovercraft and we’ll be out!”
Seated in the floating hovercraft heading toward the exit, feeling the cool breeze against his face, Ernis nearly wept when he saw the light brain display 99%.
Indeed, up ahead, a giant door identical to the entrance appeared, displaying a message to scan the chip for exit authorization.
As a result, just as the door opened, revealing the outside world once more, and Ernis relaxed completely, an actor playing the evil director suddenly dropped down from above.
Ernis: “AHHHHHHHHH!”
“Fuck, I think the player just fainted…”
The stunt actor barely had time to make a proper expression before realizing, in a panic, that Ernis had shut his eyes and lost consciousness. So he rushed forward to catch him.
“Ahh…don’t hit me! I’m not a ghost!”
A second later, he was punched in the stomach by the pale faced Douglas, whose subconscious reflexes had sent him into action.
Only then did the actor realize he had forgotten to take off his mask.
“Wait, why is someone actually injured?”
“Oh my god, where’s the ambulance?! Someone call an ambulance!”
The chaos at the exit quickly attracted the attention of numerous staff members. They had been prepared for post-exit interviews, so why had things gone wrong all of a sudden?
Meanwhile, Douglas stared blankly at his own fist, realizing he was now surrounded by staff dressed in normal clothing…
‘So it wasn’t a ghost,’ he subconsciously let out a deep sigh of relief.
Although he hadn’t fainted like his brother, Douglas had unknowingly remained in a state of extreme mental tension for quite some time.
‘That’s right, how could ghosts possibly exist!?’
[Important Reminder: Players are strictly prohibited from attacking our performers! All living beings in the haunted house are played by human actors!]
As the second group of players prepared to enter, they received this temporary notice in bold and marked in red.
Soon, the rest of the queue was also handed a more detailed guide for the haunted house experience.
“Uh… did the first group of players really beat up the actors? Isn’t that a little too violent?”
“Ugh, the worst part is that this totally spoiled the surprise. Now we know there will be live interactions, the thrill is gone.”
It could only be said that behind every ridiculous rule, there was always a ridiculous incident.
Huanyu’s latest notice made it obvious that the first group had caused some kind of trouble.
Clueless fans in the queue started condemning them.
“Well… everyone, there’s really no need to worry…”
The staff’s expressions were rather subtle.
Even if people knew the actors were human, it wouldn’t make the haunted house any less terrifying.
In fact, when the second and third groups came out, not a single person wasn’t pale and trembling, barely able to stand.
“I… I have nothing to say. It was exciting, way too exciting!”
When the latest interview videos of players exiting the haunted house were uploaded to the star network, the hot searches about the haunted house pop-up event for Fish Soup Noodles’ new book skyrocketed to the top of the list.
After all, it really did look like a lot of fun.
[What exactly is in there? Why does every player come out looking half-dead? I heard someone accidentally punched an actor so hard they broke their mask? This is too funny!]
[Has no one posted a guide yet? Usually, feedback posts flood in right after these events go live, why is it so quiet this time?]
[+1! I’m going the day after tomorrow and I’m dying of curiosity!]
Online fans were laughing at the various reports while also baffled by the unusual silence.
[It can’t be that it was so scary that they don’t have the energy to log on to the star network after coming out? This is the interstellar era…there are no ghosts. No matter how realistic the book is, it’s still just fiction.]
[Indeed, is it reasonable for a haunted house to generate so many hot searches?]
Some skeptical onlookers even suspected that Huanyu had bought hot searches to promote the event.
[But Teacher Fish Soup Noodles’ book is already very popular, so there’s no need to buy this kind of fake hype.]
Fans were quick to defend, though their reactions only made everyone even more curious.
What exactly was in this haunted house?
It wasn’t until late at night, when all the first-day players had finished, that Ernis finally posted a picture on his StarBlog.
[Ernis: …I went, but I need time to recover. I’ll post a guide tomorrow at the earliest.
Also, thank you Huanyu for the completion souvenir. Great gift, but please don’t give it out again. I almost had another heart attack the moment I opened my eyes. [Sunglasses Crying]]
The souvenir Ernis posted was a chibi-style light brain pendant featuring a green digital time display.
With a push of the button, the display would switch to the book’s iconic green smiley face character, creepy yet cute.
Every player who completed the haunted house, as long as they hadn’t crushed their chip to quit early, received this souvenir regardless of their clearance rate.
[Fuck, it’s so cute… but don’t think I don’t recognize you just because you’re cute…you’re still the Evil Light Brain [Crying behind Sunglasses]]
[Huanyu, you are so creative this time. I actually want it. Please make the haunted house permanent, I really want to play too!]
Many online Fish fans were strangely tempted by the haunted house.
However, the ones most dissatisfied with this offline haunted house event were the Fish fans from other star systems.
After all, once news of the event spread across the stars, fans from outside the Federation became deeply invested.
[We’re all Fish fans, why do only the Federation Star Fish fans get to have fun? We demand our own offline haunted house event!]
[Exactly! Time to fight for our rights! @Huanyu, let us experience it too, we definitely won’t be scared to tears!]
[Federation Star Fish fans are just too timid. They don’t cherish such good benefits. If this event came to Kael Star System, we’d show you what real warriors look like!]
Even fans who had to rely on translation software flooded Huanyu’s official account overnight, protesting the unfair treatment.
They felt that the Federation Star Fish fans simply didn’t know how lucky they were!
