63 – Horror games and hidden dangers

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Qu Lang on horseback was wearing a knight costume.
The silver-white light armour and the snow-white horse formed a picturesque scene, and not only were the staff of Haiyin Fort dutifully taking pictures, but also many tourist onlookers were holding up their mobile phones.

After all, Captain Qu had a good figure and that kind of outfit made him seem particularly heroic.

Baiju and Xiao Yao walked around the periphery of the crowd.
Xiao Yao beckoned and Qu Lang captured their figures.
He nodded to them, said a few words to the staff next to him, and followed their instructions to take two more sets of photos, then turned over and dismounted, and gave the venue to other tourists waiting to take photos.

“You’ve also come to the stables?” He pulled Shao Simiao next to him, and Qu Lang squeezed out from the crowd of onlookers, and said to Xiao Yao and Baiju.

Xiao Yao nodded, “Bai’ge wanted to come and see the horses.”
After that, Xiao Yao raised his chin slightly again, “Speaking of which, why are you here? The horror game event shouldn’t be over yet, shouldn't you be streaming?”

Qu Lang showed a trace of embarrassment when he heard the words, and coughed lightly, “…ah, we were kicked out.”

Xiao Yao, “……”

Xiao Yao pressed his temples a little bit, and signaled Shao Simiao, “Tell me, what happened?”

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Shao Simiao sighed, “It's a long story.”

Baiju looked at the two who appeared reluctant to speak, and noticed a gathering of eyes around him.
He gently pulled Xiao Yao, “Let’s go, let's find somewhere private to talk.”

Xiao Yao also took a look, knowing that this was really not the place to talk, he followed Baiju's lead and they walked towards the garden.
Halfway there, there were no longer any tourists and Shao Simiao took a moment.
After rationalizing his thoughts, he explained what happened before with the two bigwigs.

As mentioned before, the horror games on Guihe Island were not very scary.
Their selling points were more on the set dressing and the “staff”.
The five game rooms that were open today had their respective events, including the witch’s house, the ouija board, the lost treasure chest, the death train, and the escape from the vampire castle.

Among them, the witch’s house was a recording game and was the least involved.
Tourists would be arranged to sit in a dark room, and then high-quality audio in the room would tell a story.
The witch could be heard crossing the damaged floor, the sound of walking, the hoarse and weird gasps, and sounds that seemed to be talking in your ear, and so on.
There were also lights that were triggered during the tale, for example, when the witch gave you a cup of tea, the table in front of the visitor would be illuminated, shining on the teacup with a strangely coloured drink in it, a thin hand hanging in the air would bring it to the mouth of tourists.

For games like this, the level of horror was greatly reduced when broadcast live.
Shao Simiao and Qu Lang participated without passion.
Of course, if Shao Simiao didn’t notice that the things that controlled the props weren’t machines, and the witch's robe was flying around, he would have been even less passionate.

When streaming horror games, it was naturally impossible for Shao Simiao to capture everything, especially in the witch’s house, which didn’t involve too many visuals.
Fortunately, the traditional haunted house, “Thriller Train” had a large number of sets involved.
The escape room game “Escape from the Vampire Castle” didn’t permit filming, therefore, following Shao Simiao's original plan, they just participated in the first three games and filmed them for his fans.

The Ouija board game had a relatively high level of scares.
It seemed that Haiyin Fort used holographic projection technology to create the illusion of ghosts and had made a haunted board game.
Visitors were asked to sit on the control chair, and a projection of themselves would be generated and would appear on the projection round table in mid-air and follow their instructions to allow them to participate in the board game.

At first Shao Simiao didn’t understand why they didn’t just participate in person, after all, in games like Werewolf, the players only had to close their eyes.
Then he knew what the punishment of the game was——it appeared when any player made a mistake or lost points, their projected self would have their arms or legs ripped off by the devil's claws that appeared in mid-air.
The projections were extremely realistic, and the audio equipment was exceptionally good.
Even after the devil’s sharp claws disappeared, there would be sporadic chewing sounds hidden in the dark.

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Each limb represented four chances.
When a fifth point was lost, the player would lose their head, dying, and the board game would end.

The most troublesome part of this game was that in order to end the game, one player must die, and there were more than a dozen tourists plus a few Heyin Fort staff.
As long as no one made intentional continuous errors, then the animation of a player losing a single limb would be played more than twenty times at least.
After each “punishment”, the chewing sound in the game room will be more obvious, almost straightforwardly showing where the mutilated limbs have gone.
The other thing was that even if everyone wanted to end the game early, no one wanted to see their own “self” being torn apart.

In the end, Shao Simiao still wanted to provide a show for the audience in his live stream.
So after thinking about it, he slightly censored the scene in front of him, and then placed the camera in front of a screen——yes, in addition to the projection, since some players couldn’t withstand the image of their bodies being torn apart, they also provided the option of viewing the game through a screen.
Players could choose to watch the projection directly, or to watch the projection that can be automatically viewed through the screen.

In this way, the game didn’t feel so excessive; but Qu Lang frowned.
It wasn’t that Qu Lang found such imagery uncomfortable, but he could feel the fluctuations of fear emanating from the players constantly.
There was a high probability that this fear would become a food source for the ghosts in Haiyin Fort.

Given that there were still a few large formations in Haiyin Fort, Qu Lang also wasn’t sure whether the fear radiating from the tourists had been swallowed by those great formations; if so, it might lead to even worse results.
After all, those who left the formations there were all Western demons from long ago.
Their ideas were different from that of even the modern Western demons.
Defending against their enemies was basically an instinct engraved in their bones, if these things were accidentally awakened it would be great fun.

So after the game was played for a while, Qu Lang saw that the expressions of the surrounding tourists were beginning to become unnatural, and he decisively started to make mistakes again and again, staring blankly at his projected self being “divided”, and quickly ending the game.
Of course, this action was distorted and ruined in the live broadcast of “Straight Male Anchor Char Siew Bao”, and turned into a heroic sacrifice because of heartfelt love.

If this was the only problem, the two of them wouldn’t have been driven out by the staff.
The other problem was that shortly after the third game started, the suspicious Captain Qu opened his yin yang eyes, and saw that they were surrounded by cold blooded beings and he saw a ray of fear and black qi converging on the “staff”.

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In the middle of the game, Captain Qu, who acted solely on an instinct to capture the black qi, drew the headless knight’s ghost sword and slashed through the air violently, slicing through the ray of black qi—and in the act, overturning the bald earl’s hat and destroying the lady ghost’s dress.

Shao Simiao, who witnessed Qu Lang grabbing the knight’s sword, and hooking up the lady’s skirt, then knocking off the earl’s hat, “…”
To be honest, he felt that he should scream as he saw it.

As for the ghosts who suffered from the unwarranted calamity, they were robbed of their only meal and rudely disrobed.
Except for the faint feeling that Qu Lang wasn’t hostile, they all felt personally affronted and drove Qu Lang out of the game room.
Although Shao Simiao, who had witnessed everything, didn’t need Qu Lang on camera, he also quickly quit because he was afraid of snakes and didn’t want to take out the treasure chest key under the reptile’s belly for the game.
According to his fans,he  escaped to find his lover for comfort.

Xiao Yao and Baiju, who now understood the whole process, “…”
Qu Lang had his own difficulties playing these unchallenging “horror games” with Shao Simiao.

Qu Lang lazily leaned on the pillar of the pavilion, facing his Xiao’ge’s “do you two have something going on” eyes, and his stance was very open, “I also took the opportunity to see if Haiyin Fort used the horror games to scheme something…it seems that there are some hidden dangers, but I’m not certain to what extent.”

Baiju was curious about these Western demons, so he asked, “What’s your judgment?”

Hearing this, Qu Lang retracted his stretched legs and propped his elbows on his knees, leaning forward slightly, “White King, you don’t even need to ask, I was going to talk to you about what I discovered this time after the event today.
“

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After clearing his throat, Qu Lang didn’t want to stir up anyone's emotions, so he rubbed Shao Simiao’s head, which was in the clouds, next to him, and said to them, “The ghosts in Haiyin Fort aren’t much of a problem.
The horror games here are mostly entertaining, and they’re hardly scary for people who often play horror games or run around in haunted houses.
Of course, I can’t say anything for the last two games which we didn't participate in.”

“In these games, tourists' overwhelmingly obvious fears are mostly not true reasons, but emotional hallucinations that are strengthened by ghosts.
At the current level, they won’t cause the tourists' consciousness to be damaged, at most, it might be a little taxing on their adrenal glands.
But it’s nothing more than burning a little energy and physical strength.
The fear that this releases then becomes the daily rations for the ghosts.”

“We don’t know how much of this power is absorbed by the ghosts, and how much is going to the formations setup by the ancient demons.
The only thing we can be sure of is that once part of the Haiyin Fort’s defenses are started, the power contained in it will be greater than before.
I estimate considerably stronger.
And by that reasoning, the person who went to Jing Xia might have a bigger appetite than we initially estimated.”

As Qu Lang spoke, he raised his hand and pinched the air, taking out the black qi he had caught before, and threw it to Xiao Yao, “The emotions are very thin, but who’s to say how much it might all add up to.”

Baiju approached Xiao Yao, stretched out his finger to touch the little snake-like thing, and pondered, “Then we'd better continue to investigate for the next two days…there will be some tourists staying here overnight, and we can guarantee that they will all be dismissed tomorrow morning.
If in doubt, we can check the situation tomorrow.”

Qu Lang retracted his hand and grabbed his hair, a little embarrassed, “But Haiyin Fort won’t be open tomorrow.
And if we use the power of the Special Service and the Demon Management Bureau to apply for investigation, I'm afraid those ghosts and vampires won’t cooperate.”

Baiju raised his eyebrows and reached out to touch Xiao Yao's trouser pocket, “It's okay, I drew the Haiyin Fort sleepover invitation card.”

Qu Lang, “…”
Qu Lang admired, “Nice.”

I like Qu Lang, he's also way more 'magical' than I thought he would be…but I guess it makes sense that he has yin yang eyes if he's on the supernatural police squad.