【I have a haunted house】 Chapter 12: The Spinning Wheel

Having spent years studying human anatomy, Ice Sister had spent more time with corpses than with her roommates. She was not particularly adept at socializing, and compared to the living, she found herself more attuned to the dead.

“Our haunted house actors all wear very unique makeup, combined with the complex environment of the house and the psychological cues you give yourself, it’s easy to fall into an illusion,” Nick explained. The details about the embalming process and Black Friday were matters not meant for public discussion, and Nick would never disclose them to outsiders.

He swiftly brushed past the topic, not delving further. "If there’s nothing else, I’ll be off to take care of some things," he said.

After bidding farewell to the forensic students, he instructed Xu Wan to tidy up the props from the ghost wedding scene and then hurried off alone to the control room.

The truth behind Diff’s fainting was known only to Nick. The creature hiding behind the mirror had not left—it still lurked within the haunted house.

“Leaving it here is ultimately a danger,” he mused. This was the first time he had been assigned a nightmare-level task, and he hadn’t anticipated such consequences.

Turning off the eerie background music of the haunted house, Nick pulled up the surveillance footage and began scrutinizing the video of Diff entering the west room, pausing frame by frame. Soon, he made a discovery.

At 9:24:11, Diff entered the west room, visibly terrified, rushing through the space in a panic. At 9:24:14, he arrived in the inner room and saw the copper mirror for the first time, and that was when something strange appeared on the footage.

The once-frantic Diff suddenly calmed down upon seeing the mirror, as if time had stopped. He stood motionless in front of it. The time indicator on the video kept ticking forward until, at 9:24:17, Diff slowly raised his left hand and began walking towards the mirror as though something was pulling him toward it—like an invisible force was leading him, unwillingly.

At 9:24:20, Xu Wan, wearing her wedding gown, entered the room from behind. By that time, Diff’s half-body was already pressed against the mirror. The footage clearly showed a flash of something inside the mirror before Diff collapsed to the floor.

"Did Xu Wan’s arrival disrupt the creature’s plan in the mirror?" Nick replayed the video multiple times. In those few short seconds, so much had happened. He rubbed his temples, unable to come up with a good solution for the moment.

"It seems the only option is to cover all the mirrors in the haunted house for now. Once I figure out how to deal with that creature, I can eliminate it for good."

He slipped into the prop room, gathered some black cloth, and entered the ghost wedding scene.

"Boss, what are you doing here? Leave this to me," Xu Wan said, spotting Nick from a distance. She was busy putting paper figures and money back into the coffin.

"I’ve come to tell you something. All props related to mirrors in the haunted house are temporarily out of use. Also, when you’re playing the ghost, avoid standing near any mirrors," Nick said, holding the black cloth as he helped her reassemble the scattered coffin props.

Xu Wan didn’t quite understand Nick’s decision, but she didn’t ask any further questions.

After rearranging the main room, Nick entered the west room alone.

The white paper lanterns hung high, casting dim light around the room. He stood where Diff had collapsed, silently staring at the copper mirror.

“A person living in the mirror? Could it be that the mirror hides another world?” Nick touched the cold surface of the mirror, staring into his own reflection. The longer he looked, the stranger it felt. "When I handed Diff the water bottle, he instinctively reached for it with his right hand, meaning he’s not left-handed. But in the footage, the first thing he does is raise his left hand. Why would he act against his own nature? Was he already being controlled by whatever was in the mirror, helpless against it?"

Nick pressed his left hand against the mirror, aligning it with the reflection. “After all, only what’s in the mirror is the opposite of reality.”

He covered the mirror with the black cloth and, sitting in the haunted house, took out his black phone. "To untangle this, I need the thing that brought it about. The creature’s appearance was triggered by this black phone. To eliminate it, I’ll likely need this phone’s assistance."

He swiped the screen and opened the haunted house app. The interface had changed slightly. The daily visitor count and the monthly count had both increased by two.

Under the section for unlockable terrifying scenes, a new trial task had appeared. After clicking it, a message popped up: completing the trial would unlock a corresponding terrifying scene.

"This game is designed with fairness in mind. Completing tasks earns rewards, and the reward’s value depends on the task’s difficulty. If I want to quickly develop the haunted house and deal with whatever’s in the mirror, I need to complete as many tasks as possible."

Since only one daily task could be completed, Nick immediately focused on the trial task.

“Midnight Escape Trial: A dangerous mental patient has moved into an old apartment building. He wields scissors and a hammer and is now lurking outside your door.”

“Task location: Western Suburbs, Ping'an Apartments.”

“Task requirements: Arrive at the location before 11 PM tonight, find the killer, and survive until dawn.”

“Task hint: He hides in plain sight, beneath a kind exterior lies a heart full of wounds.”

"Accept task? Note: Trial tasks are only available for 24 hours. If not accepted within this period, the task will be permanently unavailable."

Nick hesitated for a moment, but upon seeing the final note, he decisively chose to accept.

“Fortune and misfortune are intertwined. Now that the haunted house is showing some potential, I must seize every opportunity to improve it.”

With the task accepted, he continued scrolling down and noticed that the terrifying wheel had been activated.

Curious, he clicked on the wheel’s interface, and a line of text appeared on the screen:

“Life and death are fated, wealth and nobility are decreed by the heavens. Here, there are longevity fruits that can extend your life, as well as vengeful spirits full of hatred.”

"First-time collection of visitor screams activates the wheel, granting one chance to spin (only screams above 70 decibels can be collected, and after accumulating 100 screams, a single spin will be granted)."

“A hundred screams for one chance to spin?” Nick stared at his phone with a strange expression. “This wheel is quite a scam. The conditions are hard enough to meet, and even after that, the outcome is uncertain. If it spins out a vengeful spirit, things could get out of hand fast.”

He glanced at the remaining spins, a peculiar itch in his mind, like the compulsive need to click on a notification, even if it’s just spam.

“Trying it out shouldn’t hurt, right?” Nick muttered to himself, and with a light touch of his finger, the wheel began to spin.

“As long as it’s not a vengeful spirit, anything else will do!”