【I have a haunted house】Chapter 9: The Medical Student Was Scared to Tears

"Senior, why do I feel like these paper figures are watching us?" Diff gripped the doorframe, unwilling to step into the room. "I’m not joking! Those paper figures are definitely suspicious! Could they be people in disguise? Damn, I swear they’ll get up as soon as we get close!"

The paper figures, treated by Nick's embalming skill, emanated an inexplicable eeriness. Though inanimate, they exuded an unsettling aura of vitality.

Ice Sister shot him a glare, almost wanting to label him a 'pig teammate.' Fear was contagious, and though she had been relatively unafraid, Diff's words made her uneasy: "Can you please stop talking? If you keep whining, I’ll leave you here."

She entered the room first, surveying her surroundings. The window on the wall of the main room was purely decorative, offering no path to the outside.

"Senior, let’s leave quickly. This place feels really sinister. The surroundings are sealed off—there’s no way the exit is here."

"The haunted house owner is a master of psychological manipulation. He knows how to read people, so we must go against the grain. The more unlikely a place seems, the more thoroughly we should search it," Ice Sister said, moving about the room. Her actions caused the paper figures on the ground to sway.

Diff, trembling at the door, felt a chill crawl up his spine. "But there’s no cover inside—everything’s out in the open. Where could the exit possibly be?"

"No cover? Who told you that?" Ice Sister stood in the center of the main room, lifting her long, pale leg to step onto the red coffin. "Come over and help me. We’re opening the coffin!"

"Open the coffin?!" Diff’s face twitched, his unease clear. "Isn’t that a bit too much...?"

"Are you planning to stay in this haunted house forever?" Under Ice Sister's insistence, Diff reluctantly stepped into the room, carefully avoiding the paper figures on the floor, and crouched down to support the other side of the coffin lid.

"I’ll count to three, and then we push together."

"Okay."

"One, two..."

"Boom!"

Before Ice Sister could even finish counting, an odd noise echoed from inside the coffin.

"What was that sound?" Diff froze, clutching the coffin lid, shivering with fear.

"Shh." Ice Sister motioned for silence, her eyes darting around the room. Finally, she looked at the coffin in front of her. "The sound seems to be coming from inside the coffin."

The moment she spoke, Diff’s face turned pale. His throat trembled, and the hand clutching the lid felt as if it were grasping a searing piece of metal. "Sis, you’re my sister, right? Let’s get out of here!"

"Stay calm. Think about it—when we opened the coffin and heard a noise from inside, don’t you think that’s strange?"

"A noise from inside the coffin? That’s not strange—it’s deadly!" Under the influence of the eerie "Black Friday" music, Diff’s fear was magnified to unbearable levels. All he wanted now was to flee.

"Just think—there are only two possibilities for a noise coming from the coffin. First, there’s someone inside, maybe a staff member, and as soon as we open the coffin, they’ll jump out to scare us. Second, there’s some kind of mechanism inside, and opening the coffin triggers it, causing some third variable to happen. Either way, the coffin is a key prop in the marriage ceremony scene. If we want to escape, opening it is an essential step," Ice Sister said, tapping the lid. "Stop hesitating, let’s open it."

"Even though I don’t really understand what you’re saying, it sounds reasonable."

Together, they applied force, and the heavy coffin lid slid slowly. When they reached a quarter open, a loud bang erupted from within!

"Bang!"

The coffin toppled over, spilling countless paper figures and paper money. A strange woman’s eerie laugh echoed through the room, and the door to the room started to close by itself!

"Run!" Diff, close to the door, was so terrified that he didn’t even consider his sister. With one leap, he dashed towards the exit, but before he could stick his head out, a woman’s face appeared in the doorway!

Pale, delicate, and breathtakingly beautiful!

"Shit!!!"

Caught completely off guard, Diff swung his fist at the face, but it seemed as though the woman had anticipated his reaction. Without missing a beat, she dodged his punch as though it had been rehearsed countless times.

"There’s a ghost!" His punch missed, and in a panic, Diff scrambled away, rolling and crawling toward the other side of the courtyard.

"Diff! Don’t run!" Ice Sister shouted, her gaze following a red figure that had trailed behind Diff into the side room.

"The left and right rooms are for the younger generation. Oh no! The room Diff entered was the one where the vengeful spirit lived when she was alive!" Ice Sister rushed toward the exit, but the door was already locked, trapping her inside the main room. "They’re trying to separate us, take us out one by one? We’re just visiting a haunted house—does it have to be so deranged?"

The coffin was in pieces, paper figures scattered all around. In the middle of it all, Ice Sister was disoriented, her thoughts in turmoil. She kicked the door, and after more than a minute, managed to force it open.

In just one minute, everything outside seemed to have changed drastically.

"Xiao Shan? Diff!" Ice Sister called out twice, but no one responded. Apart from the eerie background music, the only sound was the rustling of paper money against the floor.

"What’s going on? The haunted house isn’t that big. Diff couldn’t possibly have not heard me. Did something happen to him?" Flashes of crime scene photos raced through Ice Sister’s mind, and she couldn’t understand why these thoughts were suddenly flooding her.

Following the corridor and relying on her memory, she arrived at the west wing room. "Xiao Shan ran in this direction just now."

"Creek..."

She pushed open the creaky wooden door, and a "joy" character made from white paper fell off. Ice Sister stepped into the side room.

The room was arranged like a bridal chamber, but the strange thing was that every decoration was white. It didn’t feel festive at all—instead, it was chilling.

"Where did he go?" The room had an unsettling atmosphere, and the only source of light was a white lantern hanging outside the door. Ice Sister moved cautiously forward, a cold breeze brushing against her skin, as if an invisible hand were gently sweeping across her.

Her shoes crunched on the paper money scattered on the floor, and strange things occasionally brushed against her feet. The light was too dim for her to see clearly, so she gritted her teeth and quickened her pace.

She pulled aside the curtain in the inner room and stopped at the doorway. The room was empty except for a bed wrapped in drapery and two copper mirrors standing side by side against the wall.

"I saw Diff run into this room. I only delayed for a minute or two. How could he have disappeared? Could the exit be hidden in this room? Did Diff accidentally escape?"

Thoughts raced through Ice Sister’s mind. She took a deep breath and stepped into the room. As her footfall echoed, two more footsteps sounded in unison!

"Who’s behind me?"

She whipped around, but all she saw was one of the copper mirrors, reflecting her own image.