The first prop that Xie Wanxing and Fu Wenshan found was a white jade bracelet carved in the shape of apricot flowers, elegant and moist, with a subtle and elegant luster, obviously not a cheap prop.

Xie Wanxing suspected it was contributed by a female staff member of the program team.

It was found in a cabinet on the second-floor corridor, and when the cabinet was opened, there was a ghost hiding inside, roaring to pounce out and scare them at any moment.

But Fu Wenshan, who played by his own rules, quickly grabbed the box from the partition, pushed the “ghost” back in with one hand, and locked the cabinet.

The ghost school NPC was left bewildered, banging angrily on the door of the cabinet, louder and louder.

Fu Wenshan remained calm, sitting on the floor, studying how to open the box.

Xie Wanxing: “…”

Is it really okay for you to bully the staff like this?

But after considering for a second, he chose to go along with Fu Wenshan, ignoring the background noise, and squatting on the ground to study the prop with him.

Fu Wenshan had already opened the box, revealing a gray cloth bag and a card inside.

The cloth bag contained the white jade apricot flower bracelet.

Xie Wanxing took out the card next to it, and under the light of the flashlight, he read the elegant handwriting on it softly.

“I received the bracelet you gave me, which is in the shape of apricot flowers that I like very much. It’s beautiful. I had a very unhappy day today, but wearing the bracelet you gave me, even others’ mockery doesn’t matter anymore.”

Fu Wenshan frowned as he listened to this, not because he had a tender and sensitive heart, he only felt the words on the card were sour.

Xie Wanxing turned the card over, and on the front was a solo photo of a girl, probably taken in summer, she was wearing a blue dress, with a slim waist, a delicate face, and a gentle and shy smile.

The program team didn’t give them much hint. The task was to free the souls here, but they weren’t told any details about what happened twenty years ago, saying they would naturally discover it during exploration.

Han Jiujin, who was not righteous, pushed his glasses and said ruthlessly, “Of course, if you don’t piece together this story in the end, the task will be considered a failure.”

“Could this be the relic of one of the female students who died twenty years ago?” Xie Wanxing pondered as he looked at the card. “She must have had a lover, since this lover appears as a clue, there must be a use for it later.”

Fu Wenshan gave a perfunctory hum, his mind pondering whether the production team was playing tricks again. For people like them who advocate solving problems with violence, the only way to free the souls is to beat them until they agree to reincarnate.

Can people reason with spirits? No.

Xie Wanxing put the bracelet and the card into the bag, patted Fu Wenshan on the shoulder, “Let’s go, to the third floor. There’s another prop in the art room.”

Fu Wenshan naturally had no objection. He stood up and reached out to Xie Wanxing, “Let’s go then.”

Xie Wanxing hesitated for less than three seconds, then chose the latter between a handsome image and survival, reluctantly putting his hand on Fu Wenshan’s.

He dared not imagine what would become of his tough guy image after the show aired.

---

As they climbed to the third floor, they encountered Zhou Ying and Wu Ran, whose second prop was also in the art room.

When the four met in the corridor outside the art room, Wu Ran was calmly using a wire to pry open the lock on the art room door, his proficiency making people wonder if he had other side businesses besides being an idol.

Zhou Ying trembled as he crouched beside him like a vigilant little mouse, always keeping an eye on the surroundings. When he saw Xie Wanxing and Fu Wenshan approaching, he first picked up a stool from the ground, then relaxed when he recognized who they were and put the stool back down.

“Xie ge, Fu ge,” he greeted the two obediently and affectionately.

The whole set of movements was smooth and practiced.

Xie Wanxing didn’t want to inquire too much about what they had experienced.

“Do you also have props inside?” Xie Wanxing asked. He looked down at his map and saw that there were indeed two asterisks marked in the art room.

“Yeah, we just got one behind the first floor,” Zhou Ying handed the prop he found to Xie Wanxing, which was an old photo.

The photo was yellowed and worn, showing five girls dressed alike, rehearsing vocal music together.

Fu Wenshan leaned over to chat with Wu Ran.

Xie Wanxing put the two props together and found that the girl wearing the blue skirt on the card he had just obtained was one of the five girls rehearsing vocal music.

She stood closest to the left, somewhat distant from the other four, all of whom were smiling, but she wasn’t. There was a faint melancholy between her eyebrows.

But outside the music classroom window were blooming peach blossoms, tender and colorful. Standing next to these peach blossoms, even if she wasn’t smiling, her delicate face exuded a kind of beauty belonging to a girl.

“Wait a minute, twenty years ago, five people died, but there were only four female students, and one was a male teacher,” Xie Wanxing looked at the photo and then looked again, “But there are five girls here. Who is the extra one?”

Zhou Ying was covered in goosebumps by what he said. Just as he was about to say something, there was a click from Wu Ran’s side.

“The door’s open,” Wu Ran said.

Zhou Ying immediately lost interest in the photo, hurriedly ran over to Wu Ran’s side. Although he was very afraid of ghosts, he was also very curious and wanted to take a look inside the art room.

Wu Ran graciously made way, smiling as he let Zhou Ying approach the door.

Zhou Ying only glanced through the crack in the door before slamming it shut again, looking at Wu Ran with a face full of tears but no tears.

“The production team is crazy!” he exclaimed in despair. “Who would put a coffin in the art room!”

Xie Wanxing was piqued by his words. He also walked over and asked Fu Wenshan, “What’s inside?”

Fu Wenshan leaned against the door lazily, revealing a faint smile, “Do you want to see for yourself?”

“Take a look?”

Xie Wanxing thought for a moment, perhaps because there were more people, his courage came back a bit.

“Sure, let’s take a look.”

He leaned towards the door, opened a crack, and peeked inside stealthily.

As a result, he came face to face with a pair of eyes, staring straight at him.

In the direction of the door crack, there was a full-body plaster statue. The moment the door opened, the statue opened its eyes, staring straight at the approaching guests, revealing a stiff smile.

And the whole room was densely packed with such plaster statues.

It was impossible to distinguish which ones were staff pretending and which ones were real plaster.

In the middle of the room, there was a pitch-black coffin. It was roughly chained, emitting an ominous aura.

Xie Wanxing quickly closed the door.

Zhou Ying gave him a knowing look and patted his shoulder.

Ultimately, it was Wu Ran and Fu Wenshan who went in to get the props.

Two props, one hidden in the coffin and the other on the bookshelf.

Zhou Ying and Xie Wanxing crouched outside, hesitant.

Zhou Ying said, “I bet there’s someone in the coffin.”

Xie Wanxing replied, “Funny, I was thinking the same.”

As they were talking, they heard Fu Wenshan’s voice from inside the art room, “Strange, there’s no one in the coffin. I thought the program team would definitely set a trap.”

Xie Wanxing and Zhou Ying looked at each other, feeling strange, then suddenly felt a shadow fall in front of them.

Both of them swallowed nervously.

In their peripheral vision, they saw a pair of feet, wearing strange black cloth shoes, and a bit higher up, a green robe.

Trembling, they raised their heads and saw a man in a green robe, with extremely pale skin, lips as red as blood, thick black eyebrows and hair, looking down at them expressionlessly.

---

Fu Wenshan and Wu Ran had already retrieved the two props. They closed the coffin again and were about to leave when they suddenly heard two screams from outside.

“Ah, Mom! Help!!” That was Zhou Ying.

“Waaahhh! Don’t come near me!! Get away! You bastards. Damn you program team Waaahhh!!” That was Xie Wanxing, who, despite being busy running, found time to curse the program team.

Fu Wenshan almost burst out laughing, but he hurriedly rushed out with Wu Ran.

They saw Zhou Ying and Xie Wanxing trembling and huddled together, squeezed against the wall, while opposite them stood a man dressed in ancient-style clothing, with a handsome face and a tall figure, calmly looking down at them.

But strangely, unlike other staff pretending to be ghosts, this person did not attack them, just stood quietly there.

Seeing Fu Wenshan and Wu Ran coming out, each holding a baseball bat, looking eager to fight, his expression visibly changed for a moment.

But in the end, he did nothing and silently left.

The four of them watched as the man in the green robe walked up the stairs and gradually disappeared around the corner.

Zhou Ying and Xie Wanxing still clung to each other, Zhou Ying’s face also pale with fear. Blinking his eyes, he asked Xie Wanxing, “Ge, was he really a staff member? What if he was a real ghost?”

Xie Wanxing replied weakly, “No, he had feet. Ghosts don’t have feet.”

It made perfect sense, logically.

Zhou Ying breathed a sigh of relief.

---

They didn’t rush upstairs but squatted together to study the third and fourth props they had just retrieved from the art room.

One was a newspaper from twenty years ago.

The other was a diary.

Before studying the props, Xie Wanxing strangely asked Fu Wenshan, “Where did you get the baseball bats?”

“We found them in the art room and took them.”

Xie Wanxing was silent for a moment, unable to help but remind, “Intimidating the staff will also be reported. Don’t swing the bats around randomly.”

Fu Wenshan suspiciously remained silent for a while before sighing helplessly, “Got it.”

Xie Wanxing couldn’t shake off the feeling of reluctance.

The group continued with their flashlights. Together, they studied the props.

On that old newspaper, it reported a suicide case from over twenty years ago. At Peiying High School, a girl named Luo Xiaoxing jumped from the fifth floor and died by suicide. She was 17 years old at the time, just a few days shy of her eighteenth birthday, and the college entrance exam was only a few days away.

The newspaper featured a photo of Luo Xiaoxing when she was alive, exactly the same girl in the blue dress on the card.

The newspaper mentioned that she had been mentally unstable, sometimes talking to herself, with severe depression, ultimately leading to her suicide.

“Poor girl,” Zhou Ying whispered, “Is she one of the female students who died twenty years ago?”

Xie Wanxing had originally thought the same, but now he felt something was off.

He remembered the words on the back of the card and the apricot blossom bracelet.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

Then, he went to look at the second diary.

As soon as he opened it, the owner of the diary wrote Luo Xiaoxing’s name.

Many pages of the diary had been torn out, and most of the handwriting was blurred. But the remaining pages conveyed the writer’s sadness and confusion.

“Got splashed with water again, so annoying. I only have this one school uniform. What should I do tomorrow?”

“Got slapped in a dark corner. It was obvious, the teacher saw it, but still said it was just classmates playing around.”

…

In just a few words, Luo Xiaoxing’s plight was revealed. Isolated, targeted, subjected to violence.

But there was no one to turn to for help.

The expressions of the people flipping through the diary with flashlights suddenly became heavy.

But on the last few pages of the diary, the tone suddenly changed.

“The weather was nice today, and I met a strange boy. I know he’s not human, but I’m a monster who can see ghosts anyway, so there’s nothing wrong with being with him.”

“Today is April 7th, I received a gift for the first time from him. It’s strange, where did he find human things? Isn’t he a ghost? But whether he’s human or a ghost, I like him very much.”

Zhou Ying exclaimed when he saw this, “This girl can also communicate with spirits, she’s like us, a medium!”

The others looked at him silently… this kid is really getting into character. He didn’t forget his identity as a medium even at this time.

But this was the last page of the diary, and there was nothing more after that, as if something had destroyed the rest.

Xie Wanxing closed the notebook, lost in thought. Although there were only four props, he had almost connected the story.

He looked at Fu Wenshan and said, “You probably guessed what the story is about, right? School violence, a girl jumping from the building, the apricot blossom bracelet, and the boy who isn’t human.”

Initially, he thought it was a story about the spirits of the five wrongfully dead, and the task set by the program team was to let the spirits rest. But now it seems that this might be a story of a victim of school violence seeking revenge.

Fu Wenshan leaned his baseball bat against the ground. He didn’t say anything, just nodded.

Wu Ran collected their two props and said, “Let’s go, we should go to the fifth floor to meet up. I wonder if Xiao Jia and Yuan Xier have arrived. Speaking of which, we haven’t encountered them all the way, and we haven’t heard any screams from girls.”

Zhou Ying was originally asking, “What did you find out? Why don’t I know anything?” Hearing this, he showed a horrified expression, “Right, shouldn’t they be screaming in fear? Even I and Xie ge, such towering figures of men, are scared like this. Maybe they were scared unconscious.”

Xie Wanxing silently covered his face, not quite daring to acknowledge the title of “towering figures of men”.

He could imagine how this segment would be mocked when it was released.

Four people moved together to the meeting room on the fifth floor.

Perhaps because there were more people now, although there were still many ghosts lurking on the way, Xie Wanxing was not as scared anymore.

Fu Wenshan and Wu Ran were like walking cheats, unstoppable against ghosts. The “ghosts” in this school were unlucky to encounter them.

One of the “ghosts” who didn’t retract in time was caught by them. After being tied up, Fu Wenshan calmly showed the props they found to this ghost with a fierce appearance.

He said very naturally, “My friend, you should know the stories behind these props, right? We’re not bad people. If you tell me the clues of this story, I’ll let you go.”

The “ghost” who was tied up: “…”

Wu Ran stood behind Fu Wenshan, said nothing, but gave a cold smile and twirled the baseball bat in his hand.

Ghost: “…” I really want to go home, Mom, I quit this damn job!

Xie Wanxing sat together with Zhou Ying on a small stool nearby, holding the string of apricot blossom bracelets in his hand, but couldn’t figure out anything.

But he believed that once they left this building, complaints from the staff would come like snowflakes.

Meanwhile, inside the filming center, the director’s team looked at the four people on the screen.

The chief director wiped his face tiredly, “This is the most difficult group I’ve ever seen.”

Where’s the peeing-in-pants terror you promised?

Who told them they could kidnap the staff?

This is simply unreasonable!

Han Jiujin also joined the director’s team, holding half of an organic cucumber, munching away while frantically trying to recall if he offended these big shots in the past few days.

Other staff members were whispering.

Staff A: “The haunted house production team should get a raise this time, it’s too difficult. It’s mental torture.”

Staff B: “We should check if the guests have martial arts skills next time. It’s too much. Three out of six people this time have martial arts skills, even that model has learned Sanda. How can someone so skinny be so good at fighting!”

Staff C just finished eating from a lunchbox and came over out of curiosity, “Are you talking about those two female guests? Shouldn’t they be screaming and crying in fear?”

Xiao Jia and Yuan Xier both looked soft and weak, the perfect targets for ghosts and monsters.

“Nonsense! See for yourself!” Staff A angrily moved aside, letting Staff C see for themselves, “That female model is even more extreme than those four guys!”

Staff C looked closely and saw that Yuan Xier and Xiao Jia’s group was actually ahead, already sitting at the door of the meeting room on the fifth floor.

And across from them, there was also a motionless ghost, looking up at the ceiling like a dead fish. And next to this ghost, there was a broken wooden cabinet. From the extent of the door’s destruction, it was not hard to guess what it endured during its lifetime.

That was the location of the last prop.

Yuan Xier and Xiao Jia ignored the eerie atmosphere around them, each found a chair, and were happily discussing skincare routines.

They completely disregarded the dignity of this ghost school!

All the staff: “…”

Why do these guests love to tie up ghosts so much… Can’t they show a little mercy?

Inside the filming center, there was silence, only the chirping of insects outside, soft and melodious, filled the summer air with tranquility and harmony.