Rebirth: A Cinderella's Counterattack

Chapter 218: Chapter 203: This Birthday is Quite Thrilling (Haunted House - Part Two)

Qiao Xiyang took out a piece of paper inside and furrowed his brows as he passed it to Luo Qianqian, ”It seems to be a maze.”

Luo Qianqian nodded as she looked at the diagram in her hands, it was indeed a maze, but wasn’t the shape at the very center of the maze the shape of a key?

”It looks like there’s nothing else, let’s go, this must be where the key is hidden,” said Gu Yanzhi, who took the lead in exiting through the doorway with Luo Qianqian.

Pei Yuhao and Pei Yutian gestured a take care signal to Qiao Xiyang behind them and then closed the door. Qiao Xiyang locked the door from the inside, cooperating with a scream: ”Ah!!!”

Luo Qianqian turned around, looked at the Pei brothers behind her with a tense face, and asked, ”What about Qiao Xiyang? What just happened?”

”Right after you guys came out, the door started to move on its own, and after Qiao Xiyang pushed us out, the door wouldn’t open,” Pei Yutian said, looking anxiously as Pei Yuhao frantically pounded and rammed the door.

Luo Qianqian skeptically pushed at the door but found it truly wouldn’t budge. She also became anxious, ”Qiao Xiyang, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

”Ah Yang.” Gu Yanzhi also looked worried.

”Qianqian, look here,” Pei Yutian pointed to a line of small characters on the door, which were carved into it: To obtain the map, offer thy life.

”No way... Isn’t this just a game? This is murder, what do we do if we break down the door and something happens to Qiao Xiyang?” Luo Qianqian panicked and tears welled up. What’s all this? A game could cost someone their life?

”Qianqian, I don’t think it’s like that, it should be that as long as you get out, Ah Yang will be safe. Otherwise, at most he would just be trapped without food or drink. This is a Haunted House, not some ghost-killing game,” Gu Yanzhi patted Luo Qianqian’s shoulder.

Inside, Qiao Xiyang, touched, smiled at his friend hiding behind the door and remained silent.

”...Knowing how twisted this game is and still playing, you guys are really accomplices.” Luo Qianqian thought for a moment and then sighed with relief.

Looking at the staircase on the other side of the corridor, ”Shall we go up?”

”How else are we going to get the key?” Pei Yuhao took the first step up the staircase with Pei Yutian’s flashlight for aid. This time, it wasn’t creaky wooden stairs but clanging metal stairs, which were even more inclined than the wooden ones.

Upon reaching the third floor, Luo Qianqian realized why the walls of the maze looked different, as the materials making up the maze varied. First were the mirrors forming the mirror maze, represented by straight lines. Different from the second floor, the third was very bright. Pei Yutian looked at the lines drawn with a blue fluorescent pen on the mirror, exhaled deeply, and handed the flashlight to Gu Yanzhi.

”No need for it on the third floor. Hold on to this; I’ll scout ahead,” he said as he ventured first into the mirror maze. Luo Qianqian, unable to decipher the map, honorably gave up on guiding with it and followed Pei Yutian. Suddenly, a dark figure flashed behind her. Luo Qianqian saw the shadow in the mirror, but not the person, and called out anxiously, ”Be careful, it seems like there’s someone on this floor.”

Pei Yutian was taken aback, turned to look, and Luo Qianqian was grabbed by a black hand that reached out from the side. The mirrors spun a few rotations and stopped; Pei Yutian too vanished, leaving only a lone blue bracelet on the ground.

Luo Qianqian was completely shocked, ”Did you see that? Someone just vanished...” Seeing Pei Yutian’s disappearance in the mirror reflection, Luo Qianqian was bewildered. She hurriedly walked a few steps, picked up the bracelet, and with curiosity, pushed the mirror in front of her. The mirror moved? It was actually a two-way mirror, a hidden door.

”We’re not going to end up all captured and starve for a day, are we?” Luo Qianqian pouted, looking at Pei Yuhao with a serious face and then at Gu Yanzhi who was deep in thought. She handed the map she couldn’t understand over to Gu Yanzhi, ”I can’t make it out.”

Gu Yanzhi almost laughed but maintained a serious facade as he checked the map, leading the way. Luo Qianqian clutched one hand on Gu Yanzhi’s hoodie strings and the other on Pei Yuhao’s sleeve. Now only three of them were left; if they lost one more, her chances of getting out seemed even slimmer.

After the mirror maze, they entered the vine maze, represented on the drawing by wavy lines, and then the tombstone maze, with its cold stone steles surrounding them. Luo Qianqian walked with a gloomy expression, coming out of the stone stele maze and seeing the small bamboo basket holding the key.

At Luo Qianqian’s insistence, all three took the key. Luo Qianqian finally breathed a sigh of relief, ”Let’s go, let’s go; we need to find the way out.”

After descending the stairs beside the key to the first floor, they realized it was not the entrance they originally came through. Luo Qianqian was somewhat stunned, ”So, which way do we go now?”

The stairs did not have a second-floor exit; they went straight from the third floor to the first.

”There’s light over there; that should be where we first came in,” Gu Yanzhi turned on the flashlight Pei Yutian gave him and shone it behind them—it was a dead end. ”The dead end of the corridor isn’t the exit; the exit must be somewhere else.”

”Could it be the key to the main entrance we first came through?” Luo Qianqian suddenly remembered, looking at the ancient-looking key in Pei Yuhao’s hand which seemed to match the door well.

”Let’s go try it.” Pei Yuhao and Gu Yanzhi had not come in through there, so they were unclear.

”It’s not it.” Walking down the dark corridor, Gu Yanzhi hadn’t even tried the key when he responded because it was clear that it didn’t fit; this key was too small.

Luo Qianqian took out her phone and looked at the things she had recorded, beginning with the colors of the clothes in the closet: white, red, blue, green, aqua, pink. Apart from white, these were the colors of their bracelets, and the first to exit the game, Qiao Xiyang, had red, which was correct; the second, Pei Yutian, had blue, also correct. Luo Qianqian squinted, pondering if the next one to exit would be Pei Yuhao with his green bracelet? What’s the meaning of the shapes? Triangles, rectangles, circles, arranged from top to bottom, it didn’t seem to make sense.

”Let’s go, I’m starving,” Pei Yuhao said.

”Yeah, I’m starving too,” Luo Qianqian let go of Pei Yuhao’s sleeve, which she had been holding on to since earlier, ”You lead the way; don’t lose it now.”

Gu Yanzhi looked at Luo Qianqian with a hint of surprise. While the attitude seemed tense, there wasn’t anything extra revealed in the eyes, no signs of nervousness.

Holding the flashlight, she shone it around. On the door of the middle room, there was a strip of inconspicuous green tape. Luo Qianqian, holding onto Gu Yanzhi, gestured to Pei Yuhao, ”I have a good feeling about this room. You go open the door; I’ll hold the flashlight for you.”

Gu Yanzhi looked up at the sky, deeply bored.

Pei Yuhao knew it was the exit by looking at the sticker on the door, and since Luo Qianqian hadn’t let go of Gu Yanzhi’s drawstring, it was unlikely that the two would continue to separate.

But no sooner had he entered than he fell into a large pit just inside the door, sliding down the chute inside, and ended his journey through the Haunted House with a befuddled face.

Luo Qianqian and Gu Yanzhi stared at the gaping hole in shock.

Gu Yanzhi’s mouth twitched into a smile, ”Do you want to slide down too?”

”If you want to go down, I’m not opposed. But who’s going to play next?” Luo Qianqian rolled her eyes, stepped over the large hole, and turned on the light.

Luo Qianqian, the real deal, jumped right into Gu Yanzhi’s arms, startled by the scene before her: an operation room.

There was a patient undergoing surgery on the operating table, and there were three doctors standing around. The green screen was full of fresh red blood, and with the flick of the light, it let out loud laughter, revealing a blood-splattered scene in the flashing light.

Gu Yanzhi’s face flushed as he patted Luo Qianqian on the back. The next second, Luo Qianqian jumped out of his embrace, looking disgusted, ”You scared me. The emergency exit should just be an exit. Let’s go.” With that said, she tugged on the drawstring, then thought better of it and let go, without a hint of embarrassment, ”Or do you also need to disappear for a bit?”

Gu Yanzhi’s mouth twitched. She’d discovered it after all. Not very professional.

”Okay, come on out. You’ve been spotted,” Gu Yanzhi said, knowing the figures behind the screen.

The movement behind the screen stopped.

Then Shen Yan came out holding a cake, with Li Qi and Chu Ci following behind, clapping and singing, ”Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you...”

”In this kind of environment, what’s with your taste?” Luo Qianqian breathed out helplessly at the candle on the cake Shen Yan was holding. Looking at the cake, she was speechless, ”Your tastes are too extreme.”

The cake was red with strawberries.

”How did you find out?” Li Qi asked excitedly.

”Didn’t you all give me hints?” Luo Qianqian said as she looked at the wristband in her hand with resignation, ”Three people would leave in the order red, blue, green. The white is because your wristbands are white, right?”

Chu Ci chuckled lightly, ”I knew you would figure it out.”

”So it was quite boring afterward, though the beginning was somewhat fun,” Gu Yanzhi added.

”You bribed the staff to ask, right? But where does that hole go?” Luo Qianqian pointed to the big hole on the ground, but where was there a hole on the ground at this time? There was nothing at all.

Li Qi smiled mysteriously, ”That’s a secret.”

When they opened the big door, Li Qi and the others realized a big mistake—it was bright and sunny outside.

Looking at the distant fireworks that were barely visible, Luo Qianqian said, ”Thank you guys, I’m very happy, it’s just a waste of fireworks during the day.”

”Idiots, what were you thinking?” Shen Yan took out her phone directly.

The others were baffled; they had not anticipated this effect at all—it was just a sound now.

”Happy Birthday,” the staff of the Haunted House still dutifully presented flowers. Seeing the various bizarre costumes, including the Lantern-carrying Monk and the Kappa, Luo Qianqian thought to herself, these must be the characters from inside the graveyard maze, right? Not used to scare her?

”Thank you all.” Luo Qianqian took the prayer cake from Shen Yan’s hand and handed it over to the ’ghosts’, ”Have some, we’re currently allergic to red.”

”So, what exactly was that big hole all about?” Gu Yanzhi looked at the semi-open wooden door beneath the stone steps.

”It was originally for climbing up to scare people, but we ran out of time and just had Yuhao come out this way,” Shen Yan said with a smile, ”It was designed by my grandfather’s apprentice. Not bad, right?”

”Actually, you should have added a few locks, made more keys, and increased the difficulty,” Luo Qianqian pursed her lips, thinking this single ticket was quite a loss.