Chapter 0744 – The Steps

　　If you bloom, butterflies will come.

　　Chen Ge’s words hit Qu Changlin’s softest place inside, and a seed took root in his heart.

　　This stranger’s encouragement contrasted sharply with his own boss’s one text message, and the bitterness that had been deep within his heart for many years finally erupted, and a thought arose in Qu Changlin: “It’s time for a change.”

　　This idea spread uncontrollably in his mind as soon as it appeared, and he clenched his fists hard, but after a while, he slowly calmed down again.

　　Life wasn’t chicken soup, and the prerequisite for wanting to realize one’s dreams was to be able to survive in order to do so.

　　Qu Changlin belonged to the fringe employees in Nightmare Academy, and was placed in the toilet where the smell was the strongest and no one wanted to go, he couldn’t manage to get along with people, and he had very little confidence in himself.

　　Thinking of this, he sighed softly, “I also want to change, but change requires courage and strength, and I don’t have any of these ……”

　　”You are just too unconfident, in my opinion, you have countless flashes of light on your body, only that you haven’t met that person who can appreciate you. The scenes you’re responsible for are so scary, the dolls in the scenes are so scary, and you’re able to put up with the pungent odors and manipulate everything in the toilet hints, in my opinion you have all the excellent qualities of a haunted house employee.” Chen Ge slowed down his steps slightly, “I heard that there is a haunted house in the western suburb of Jiujiang that is doing particularly well and has the number one favorable online rating, so if you really want to change, you can try there. Since you decided to change, then fortunately go to the best one, no matter what the final result is, at least you went all out.”

　　Qu Changlin noted down Chen Ge’s words and slowly nodded his head, in fact, he had also developed a trace of doubt, but he was quickly relieved.

　　After all, visiting a haunted house and still being such an inspirational and positive visitor was the first time he had seen it, and it was inevitable that he would be uncomfortable.

　　At Qu Changlin’s prompting, Chen Ge carried him on his back to the door of the dean’s office, “The dean’s office is here, then what?”

　　”Just put me here.” Qu Changlin’s covered his cell phone, he looked at a text message sent by his boss on it, and in his heart, he felt a bit sorry for Chen Ge.

　　The other party had enlightened himself so much and helped him plan his life, but he was full of malice and wanted to scare him, it was really too much.

　　”Take care of yourself, right, leave a phone number, you can call me if you encounter any difficulties.” Chen Ge was very enthusiastic, his words made Qu Changlin feel even worse.

　　”Good.” Just outside the dean’s office, standing below the monitor, the two exchanged phone numbers.

　　”I’ve already taken care of the plot, I’m going to explore the other scenes next, I’ll see you later.” With a smile, Chen Ge took out that diary from his backpack towards the next scene.

　　Looking at Chen Ge’s back, Qu Changlin didn’t know what to say, he felt that there was a special power in that man that could bring people hope and make them always gentle towards warmth.

　　The cell phone in his palm kept on vibrating, Qu Changlin looked down, it was his boss calling.

　　The other party seemed to have seen Chen Ge leaving in the surveillance, which was why he dared to call directly.

　　Pressing the answer button, before Qu Changlin could speak, he heard his boss’s growling voice.

　　”What’s wrong with you! I emphasized again and again that you must scare him for me! Never make a mistake! How about you? Look at what you’ve done!”

　　Qu Changlin held his cell phone and leaned his back against the door of the room without making a sound.

　　”Speak! Where’s the promise you gave me? Didn’t you say that you would definitely make him walk in and crawl out? What happened as a result?” The boss was a bit grumpy, he was also pissed off, his own haunted house’s ace actors ran to visit other people’s haunted house, and all three of them were stunned; now people ran to their own haunted house, and four of their own haunted house’s actors were stunned again! Who can stand this?

　　”I said he must walk in, but I didn’t say he must be the one to crawl out. Now that he’s walking in and I’m crawling out, this can be considered keeping my promise, right?” Qu Changlin put his cell phone aside, he didn’t want to hear his boss’s voice right now, but hanging up on someone was a rude thing to do.

　　”You tell me again? Qu Changlin! You say it to me again!” On the other side of the cell phone, the boss’s voice was trembling with anger, and when he saw that Qu Changlin didn’t answer, he couldn’t even care about hanging up the phone, and directly took out his walkie-talkie and gave a death order to the haunted house actors of the other several scenes, “I don’t care what tactics you guys use today, you have to give me a scare of that tourist called Chen Ge! Nightmare Academy’s reputation must not be ruined at his hands!”

　　”Boss, he seems to have passed the first few scenes without any problems, I think it’s a bit too difficult to scare him.”

　　”I don’t want you to think, I want me to think! Gather all of you!”

　　The phone hung up, Qu Changlin couldn’t hear the voice from his boss’s side anymore, he leaned his back against the door of the room, a person didn’t know what he was thinking about.

　　……

　　”Classroom, miscellaneous storage, toilet …… Let me see where to go next now.” Chen Ge flipped open his diary and began to read the fourth diary entry.

　　This diary entry was related to the floor, and recorded a very classic weird story called the thirteenth step.

　　Each floor of the Nightmare Academy had twelve steps, but at some special moments, the thirteenth step would appear, and all those who stepped onto this step would see something strange.

　　”When I first entered the haunted house, the staff kept reminding visitors to pay attention to the stairs, there must be a lot of interesting organs set up inside, just enough to open my eyes, and maybe I can even find a good employee like Qu Changlin.”

　　The toilet was adjacent to the hallway, and Chen Ge returned the same way to the stairway.

　　There was no lighting installed in the hallway, and the faint light shone in from the floor, the further in you went, the more eerie it became, and the corner in the middle of the two floors was even darker, so you couldn’t see anything.

　　”The steps are poured cement, what do they have to do to get an extra level for no reason?” Chen Ge was also eager to master this “technology”, he stuffed the diary into his backpack and entered the hallway without looking back.

　　The background music changed and cool air came from all directions, Chen Ge walked upwards while silently counting the steps.

　　”One, two …… eleven, twelve, it’s normal, no problems.”

　　Chen Ge was slightly disappointed, he went up two floors in one breath, but the number of steps didn’t change: “Is my method of visiting wrong?”

　　He didn’t care about the gazes of the “people” on the side, and took out his diary to read directly in the hallway: “There are no hints, so how do I trigger this scene?”

　　While Chen Ge was pondering, footsteps suddenly came from downstairs, he looked downstairs along the gap in the middle of the stairs, and there was no one coming up the stairs.

　　”Is it background music?”

　　Chen Ge hadn’t yet found the location of the stereo when he suddenly heard another child’s voice, which drifted in and out and kept repeating two words-Daddy.

　　”Where is this voice coming from?” Chen Ge’s five senses were far superior to normal people, but he couldn’t tell the exact location of the voice, the other party seemed to be using several different speakers, playing in different locations, “Playing God, don’t hide, I see you!”

　　Chen Ge put a ballpoint pen in his jacket pocket and walked towards the downstairs with his backpack single-handedly.