MY HOUSE OF HORRORS

Dying House of Horrors

"This is the first time I've visited such an un-scary Haunted House."

"The props are too fake; I didn't feel scared. If anything, it all felt like a joke to me."

"Materialists like ourselves naturally have nothing to be afraid of! Ghosts aren't real!"

"I hate to say it, but I told you so. We should have stayed at the hostel; I was so close to gaining another level on my online game."

A group of students grumbled with disappointment in front of Western Jiujiang City's House of Horrors before they left on their motorbikes. Chen Ge, who held a stack of advertisement flyers for the Haunted House, shook his head despondently when he saw this.

The art of scaring was a skill, but with the introduction of scary movies, many modern-day citizens' threshold for scares had been increased. A visit to the Haunted House was no different from a stroll in one's own backyard.

"Boss!"

A clear female voice erupted from behind him. Chen Ge turned around and saw a slender 'zombie' in a nurse outfit running out of the Haunted House in a fit of anger.

"What's wrong, Xiao Wan?" The zombie's name was Xu Wan; she was one of the temporary actors hired by the Haunted House.

"Those few ruffians earlier, they tried to take advantage of me!" the girl hissed through gritted teeth, her fists gripped tight.

So, it is merely to complain...

"That's horrible; they wouldn't even leave a zombie in peace." As the boss, naturally Chen Ge was on Xiao Wan's side. "Later, I'll have the amusement park manager to pull up the surveillance footage."

"There's no need for that. When I realized their intentions, my punch went flying straight at the boy's face." Xu Wan pointed at the bloodstain at the edge of her outfit and exclaimed rather proudly, "See, this isn't fake blood."

"Good, good, a girl should learn how to protect herself." Chen Ge wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. As he turned to look at the setting sun, he said, "I suppose it's time to call it a day. We probably won't have any more visitors, so help me go and tell everyone that we can get off work early today."

However, he realized the girl in zombie make-up didn't make an attempt to move away.

"Is there anything else?"

"Boss..." Xu Wan hesitated before pulling two letters out from her pocket slowly. "These are the resignation letters from Tao Ming and Xiao Wei. You've been a great boss to them, so they didn't have to the face to give these to you in person and had me pass them to you."

"They're quitting?" Chen Ge asked the obvious question as he accepted the letters, then he added, "Everyone has their own dream to chase, so be it. Xiao Wan, you can leave now if there's nothing else."

"Okay, I'll go remove the make-up first."

After the cute little zombie left, Chen Ge lit a cigarette silently. Half a year ago, when his parents mysteriously disappeared, the only thing they left him was this Haunted House. To keep their memory alive, Chen Ge had resigned from his day-job to focus on managing this Haunted House.

Alas, times were changing. Despite the niche genre, there was huge competition among Haunted Houses, and there were plenty of limitations as well. A scary scenario would lose its scare factor after the initial experience, but a constant update would require plenty of resources and money.

Starting from a few weeks ago, the Haunted House had been in the red; the income from the daily ticket sales barely covered the electricity and water expenses.