Zhao Guogu's face flushed slightly. She stiffened, feeling that Si Suying, in her cat form, was very fond of her scent.
At that moment, Zhao Guogu suddenly understood: with her extraordinary luck, how could she have drawn a plant card from the start? Beyond the plant identity's excellent growth rate, the key was "catnip"—the key was to attract cats!
So this was the true essence of obtaining the catnip identity.
Mu Anqi glanced at the two nearby, who seemed a bit off, utterly speechless, and continued upstairs. "Act normal. The ghosts in this haunted house project will definitely target us, and that group of patients will catch up soon."
"How many bullets do you have left?"
"24 against ghosts. But I still have plenty of regular bullets." Mu Anqi took out her bullet card and glanced at the number. She really didn't want to waste bullets that cost 2 points each on the haunted house staff, but the staff were so ungrateful—coming in waves, they turned the haunted house adventure into a survival game.
They were just visitors—so why were both doctors and patients charging at them?!
At this moment, Mu Anqi greatly missed having Xia Fenghua and General Ji as her strong allies. She was clearly just a fragile support, so why had she become the main carry of this team?! Main carry was her, support was her, she could fight, control, and even spend money—Mu Anqi felt there was no other player in Nirvana Park as outstanding as her. As for Zhao Guogu? That girl's abilities were indeed domineering, but in the team, she acted like a mascot. And Si Suying? Probably an assassin. Well, she could also be a mascot, but she probably wouldn't be happy about it.
—"Such naughty guests… you really should be properly treated…"
A white-coated figure suddenly appeared at the sixth-floor staircase. He poked his head out from above, his neck twisted at an impossible angle, and gave Mu Anqi and the others a "friendly" terrifying smile.
"Bang—"
Startled, Mu Anqi instinctively raised her hand and fired a bullet, blasting the head that had popped out to scare them.
The doctor fell straight down, dissolving into black mist as he retreated. Among the fleeing shadows, he let out a sorrowful whimper: "This player doesn't follow the rules… whimper whimper…"
Commanding ghost: "..."
"Tired… time to destroy."
He suppressed the urge to beat up his underlings and, while coordinating with the medical team to evacuate the wounded, urgently warned the ghosts who hadn't yet gone to the lanes: "Don't show off! Don't deliver your lines! Whether your character stays intact doesn't matter anymore—just protect your heads from getting blasted! Focus fire to take out one player first, and squeeze out whatever emotions you can scare from them."
"What about the patients? Push them forward! The other ghosts take other routes—don't let them reach the principal's office! And those two teams of tourist ghosts, why haven't they come to eliminate the players yet!"
The commanding ghost was fuming here, watching Mu Anqi throw a smoke grenade to block the view of the pursuing ghosts downstairs, while the cat-eared player tossed two grenades into the smoke. Just as he was about to remind them, an explosion sounded; the patient ghosts charging forward wailed in agony, and another wave was taken out.
He propped his chin thoughtfully. When… did things get so weird? How did this haunted house turn into a "zombie siege" survival game? And they were still on the "zombie" side.
After a two-second pause, the commanding ghost identified the source of this chaos. He took a deep breath and dialed to contact the responsible ghost outside the arena.
"Hello? What's going on? How's the haunted house? The players' emotion values are fluctuating nicely, right? …Wait, did one player's emotion-testing machine break? I don't see much fluctuation for her." The responsible ghost answered the call cheerfully, chattering excitedly, only to hear the commanding ghost on the other end take a deep breath and then yell in rage: "I fu*king curse your entire family!"
Responsible ghost: "?"
He wondered if he'd misheard. He tried to ask or explain something, but a torrent of curses hit him, so dense he couldn't get a word in, as if the commanding ghost didn't need to breathe. Finally, after the tirade ended, when he tried to raise a question, the communication cut off.
The responsible ghost glanced at A and B, whose emotion values had already risen to 40–50, and reasonably suspected that the commanding ghost simply didn't want to spend 20% of his own emotion points, so he deliberately cursed him indiscriminately.
Hmph, such a type of ghost exists in the world… he'd report this as soon as the game ended!
Meanwhile, Mu Anqi and the others used a smoke-and-grenade combo to clear a batch of tails, but upon reaching the sixth floor, they found six white-coated figures raising surgical knives with smiles on their faces.
Mu Anqi thought, she couldn't go on like this—it was too much of a loss. She raised her hand, putting 50 guansi into a red envelope, and held it up: "Here are fifty guansi. How much do you earn as staff here for one day?"
The six ghost figures dressed as doctors, wary that Mu Anqi might pull a gun or speak, exchanged glances. "One hundred fifty per day, meals and lodging included!"
"I'll pay 200 guansi. Take me to the remaining two teams of ghost tourists!" Mu Anqi pulled out the token that Ji Huaichu had given her and smiled. "We're all on the same side. We can completely avoid unnecessary casualties."
The doctor ghosts hesitated. Although the Taiyin Realm was full of ghosts, they had never served under General Ji…
Commanding ghost: "Damn it, what is this?! This is inside the game! Inside the haunted house project in the game, how can she bribe my staff like this! …Wait, what is she holding? Damn it, is she trying to use General Ji to pressure us?"
"Hah, ridiculous! The amusement park isn't run by General Ji. Even if she were here, in my haunted house, I'm the one in charge!"
No sooner had he finished speaking than the back of the commanding ghost's head went cold, and he heard a chilling, "Hm?"
In the study, Ji Huaichu's fingertips touched the screen. The token in Mu Anqi's hand was linked to her real body, so when she took it out, Ji Huaichu could sense her exact location and instantly teleport there—of course, using it for teleportation would consume it.
But sending a little Yin energy over—how unreasonable is that?
Just giving a light tap to a blustering commanding ghost—how wrong is that?
Little Money Tree has been so hardworking; rewarding her a bit is only natural, isn't it? After becoming a ghost, Ji Huaichu cared far less about "order" than she did in life. She didn't see anything wrong with what she was doing. Mu Anqi wasn't like other players; she was recruited personally by her.
A simple "Hm?" nearly scared the commanding ghost out of his wits. He opened his mouth, but couldn't utter his scolding or orders to the staff. He just sat dumbfounded in the control room, watching the six "traitors" eagerly lead the three players up to the principal's office on the seventh floor, even trying to tell Mu Anqi a few jokes to earn more guansi rewards.
Commanding ghost: No need to think about it—I'm the biggest joke. (smile.jpg)
"The two teams of ghost tourists already know you're here, so they're guarding the principal's office on the seventh floor," a doctor ghost said excitedly after accepting Mu Anqi's 20 guansi tip.
"Or you could give us a bit more guansi, and we'll control them for you! After all, there are sixteen of them," another staff member in doctor disguise eagerly suggested.
Ah, this wasn't just money making ghosts work—it was money making ghosts scramble to work.
"I don't have much guansi either; I have to hand some over to General Ji after each game," Mu Anqi said bitterly. She looked at the six ghosts. "Thirty guansi per ghost. Any more and I really can't afford it."
"Fine, thirty it is."
The red envelope was activated, and Mu Anqi struck a deal with the six ghosts.
Zhao Guogu and Si Suying, watching, were already used to this kind of maneuver.
With the six doctor ghosts volunteering as vanguard, they charged directly into the seventh-floor principal's office. The ambushed ghost tourists inside immediately sprang up to scare them, causing the ghosts to clash with each other in a chaotic scene.
Soon, some ghost tourists realized they had targeted the wrong people. But by then, the six doctor ghosts had already started attacking indiscriminately, and the chaotic scene was impossible to calm… until the principal's office door was pushed open again. The ghost tourists heard clear, crisp voices articulating sincere words of blessing, one after another.
The three players divided the work fairly, starting with Si Suying, taking out the ghost heads in order.
On average, once the haunted house project was completed, each of them had eliminated seven ghosts. Of course, the exact number of tokens was uncertain.
After instantly eliminating the two teams of ghost tourists, Mu Anqi sat in the principal's office, looking at the six injured haunted house staff and couldn't help but ask, "Do you think any ghosts would still want to explore this haunted house?"
Plans always lag behind changes. Before Mu Anqi entered, she hadn't considered the ghosts inside the haunted house. But the ghosts here were even more diligent than the ghost tourists, while the ghost tourists… were actually lying in wait at the endpoint for their heads?
Mu Anqi thought about that huge batch of "patients." She didn't know why they hadn't come to block them yet. Maybe they were waiting to clash with the next wave of ghost tourists? After several rounds of projects, Mu Anqi had few unused blessing words left, and only twelve bullets against ghosts remained.
"Then let's just clear it and see how many tokens we've got," Zhao Guogu suggested. "I think we've already far exceeded the number of tokens a normal player would get here. A rank is guaranteed. Even S rank has a good chance."
"Is that your intuition? You think we have a good chance of S if we clear now?" Mu Anqi asked.
"Uh, yes, that's right."
Mu Anqi nodded and looked at Si Suying. "Do you think we should leave now or wait for another wave?"
"Let's leave. I've used up all my grenades too."
After reaching an agreement, they, following the doctor ghosts' reminder, moved the principal's desk photo albums. A massive bookshelf shifted, revealing a hidden chamber. Inside that chamber was a locked secret passage.
"This is it." Using the key, Mu Anqi opened the secret passage and slipped in. It was another independent room, containing an elevator that went straight to the first-floor exit.
And just like that, Mu Anqi and the others cleared safely.
The ghost tourists outside, who stubbornly refused to enter the haunted house: "Ah! They cleared it? Thank heaven!"