Thriller Paradise

Kuang kuang kuang—kuang kuang kuang— Kuang kuang kuang—

The sound came from the room with the number 109 that was on the right a few metres in front of him. It sounded... like someone was making something metallic, the sound you would hear at the blacksmith.

“Another jumpscare?” Feng Bujue thought to himself. “Or... is it an event that I have to trigger...”

Kuang kuang kuang kuang kuang...

As Feng Bujue approached, the sound became more rapid. When he was standing before the door, the sound was basically ringing non stop.

“Hmmm.... It feels like I might die once I open the door...” Brother Jue stood before Room 109 and said calmly.

It was a door that was not locked, the kind that could be opened with a push. That definitely raised some red flags for Brother Jue. Normally, in a puzzle horror game, it was best to avoid going into such room that was obviously a trap. One should instead find related clues or objects nearby before entering it. That would prevent an insta death. But Thriller Paradise was a different kind of game... the system was strangely reasonable at certain stages but weirdly illogical at others.

The door before him could be a typical insta death scare. Brother Jue opened the door and could die immediately but if he turned around and walked away, death could be waiting for him too...

“There is no hint and no clues...” Feng Bujue mumbled to himself. “So a pure gamble...” He thought for a second. “No, this is a test of the player’s courage.” With that in mind, he took one step forward and pushed the door open.

...

“Ah!” A scream. A very pale and scary ghost face flew at him. This was the simplest and oldest trick in the book, but it seemed to work on most players. But Feng Bujue was not most players...

“I knew it...” Feng Bujue was calm, if anything he looked rather disappointed. After the scream and the projection disappeared, the metallic banging stopped and silence returned. Brother jue walked into the room and started to study it.

This Room 109 was relatively small, it was less than 10 cubic metres. Many trash filled up the room and most of them were useless decoration that could not be moved or picked up. But... at the corner of the room, on top of a shelf sat a very obvious and conspicuous object—a treasure chest.

Brother Jue basically leaped over to his discovery. Then the window for ‘unlocking’ appeared.

“Please key in the 6 digits passwords.”

“The password, now what could it be...” Feng Bujue mumbled to himself as he keyed in some random sequence. “4 9 9 9 9 9...”

“That does not appear to be correct,” The notification window jumped out to say.

“Alright, fine...” Feng Bujue then turned around to start to carefully inspect the room. Obviously, the treasure box before him was not the kind of puzzle that he could solve instantly, but it required him to go to other places to find the clues first.

“Even though I am not technically at the corridor, but to stand here and try to key in more than a million possible combinations of numbers... that does not seem realistic either.” Feng Bujue said as he continued his search. “Currently I still have no idea what kind of nightmare I will trigger after I stay inside a room for too long and this room is so small, if something dangerous really happens and a monster jumps out to attack me... I would not have much space to navigate myself.”

Two to three minutes later, Feng Bujue had basically confirmed the situation inside Room 109. Other than the ‘surprise’ when you opened the door and this treasure box that needed a password, there was nothing valuable inside the room.

“Then there is nothing to be done...” Feng Bujue said rather helplessly before he left the room. When he returned to the corridor, he continued heading down the direction that he was using earlier. He soon reached another junction. At that place, Brother Jue spotted another map, “Xue Song Jun Public Hospital 1F Schematic Plan”. Similar to the map on the second floor, it looked incredibly messy and chaotic. But Feng Bujue’s brain appeared to be able to process it now. “Hmm... I was not wrong, most of the parts can be overlapped...” This time with the previous experience, to avoid the attention of Chad, he used a very short amount of time to memorize the general layout of the map before he turned swiftly away.

“Based on the map...” As Feng Bujue hurried away, he was already forming a plan in his mind, “This corridor should lead to the cafeteria and along the way, I will pass the pediatric clinic... and the blood bank will be at a lower floor... then...”

He soon reached the corridor that would lead him to the pediatric clinic, the obstetrics and gynecology department was next to him and further down was a junction. Turning at that corner would lead him to the pediatric clinic. Just as Feng Bujue was about to move down the corridor, suddenly a tingly laughter that chimed like bell rang beside his ears.

“Hey hey... just many side quests do this one scenario have...” Feng Bujue could not help but mutter under his breath. At the same time, he turned his head to the voice. The laughter came from the split on his right. The lights of that corridor appeared to be broken. Other than the few metres that was closest to the main corridor, the rest was shrouded in darkness. About 6 to 7 metres away, where the light met the darkness, a child’s shadow stood there. She was in a red dress and she looked about 8 or 9. Her long hair covered her face and draped down to her chest.

“He...” The airy laughter send chills down people’s spine.

“Hmm... So this one likes to stand in the shadow...” Feng Bujue said, “Then it is hard to confirm whether she is a monster or a ghost but from her appearance and action so far, it is more likely that she is a ghost...”

“Uncle.” The girl suddenly spoke. “Do you like sweets?”

[Hmm... something does not sound, right about this...] Feng Bujue thought to himself. [Shouldn’t it be strange uncle who ask little girl questions like that and not the other way round?]

“Maybe...” Feng Bujue looked at the girl and answered. His answer was as ambiguous as it could be.

“I have sweets with me, do you want some?” The girl continued to ask.

“What flavour are they?” Feng Bujue tossed back a question.

The girl ignored his question and continued with, “If you help me comb my hair, I will share them with you.”

It suddenly dawned on Brother Jue and his right hand instinctually reached for the small comb in his pocket. “Oh... okay...” When he answered, he was still hesitating, he could not help but feel that something was not right about this whole situation.

“Then when you are free, come to my sickroom to find me, there is a mirror there.” The girl said and then turned to walk away. The red shadow moved further and further into the darkness but Feng Bujue could not help the sound of any footsteps at all. When the girl had completely disappeared from his sight, Feng Bujue stood at the spot for a few seconds before he said, “There is no mission hint...” he scratched his chin and said contemplatively. “Is this a trap... or part of another quest?”

After giving it half a minute of consideration, he decided to put this aside for now. Since the girl already said, ‘when he was free’, then it meant that he did not need to follow her immediately. With the decision made, he started to move again to head towards the paediatric clinic that was about 10 metres away.

[The quest would not be that simple right...] When Feng Bujue reached the door, this thought bubbled up in his mind. He reached his hand forward to grab at the doorknob and as he expected, the system announced, “The door is locked.”

“Hmm, so the door is ‘locked’ and not ‘cannot be opened’...” Feng Bujue thought to himself. [In other words... to get a key inside this room, I will go and find another key to open this door?] He sighed. “Fine, fine...”

This was a common trope in puzzle game so there was nothing he could really say about the setting. Feng Bujue turned to walk away and planned to first deal with the hair-combing to trade for candy event first. However, to his surprise, when he planned to move further into the split, he heard the following announcement from the system. “The way ahead is covered in a dangerous fog of darkness, do you really want to enter it?”

“Wait, this is such an obvious death flag...” Feng Bujue understood the meaning of the warning immediately so he quickly retreated back to the mouth of the corridor. “No wonder the girl said earlier that I could come ‘when I am free’, so if I have followed her, something bad would have happened to me...” He scratched his head. “Then... should I go and find something like a flashlight first?” With that sentence out of his lips, the inspiration hit him. “Right... something like that should be able to be found at the security room.” With that in mind, Feng Bujue instantly started to refresh the memory of the first floor map in his mind and soon recovered the location of the security room.

“Then I guess I will have to take a detour to the security room now.” Brother Jue now had so many responsibilities on his shoulders. Since he had triggered so many different events, it really did not matter where he was heading towards. Soon, he arrived at the junction that he had passed earlier. When he was there, he stopped to scan the map one more time to increase the impression in his mind. Then he headed towards the hospital lobby. After walking through two different corridors, ignoring some strange corners and stairs at impossible angle, he soon arrived successfully at the lobby.

When he arrived, Feng Bujue discovered with a shock that... the door of the hospital was left open. Honestly, this would not have been that surprising in real life, a normal hospital would have an emergency entrance that was open 24 hours so it would not be strange to find the doors open at night. But in a typical horror game... be it a mansion, a lab, a hospital, a ruin... normally, they would be sealed up and rather would there be an option for the players to leave the scenario.

“Hmph... An open door? Do you think I will fall for a simple trick like this?” Feng Bujue stood at the hospital entrance and looked at the cars parked at the parking lot. He said in a calm tone. “The main quest already stated that I have to ‘stay at my work post’, if I even step out, it is definite death for me.”

“Ah...” Suddenly, a long and heavy groan came from behind Brother Jue.

“Ah...” Then it was followed by another. In the two seconds that Feng Bujue took to turn his body around, the waves of groans filled up the entire hospital lobby. But when he turned around to face the lobby, he could not see anything.

“More of this nonsense?” Feng Bujue said as he put on the sunglasses. “Huo~” he yelled loudly. Looking through the sunglasses, he could see a crowd of ghost. The group of ghosts were gathered around the receptionist counter and the pharmacy, and they were... lining up.

“Amitabha....” Feng Bujue pulled off the sunglasses and then placed his hands together to give this Buddhist prayer, signifying that there was nothing he could do to help these poor souls.

He then ignored the scary groaning and continued on his way to the security room. Thankfully, the security room was not locked, he entered it directly. The security room was split into two smaller rooms. The one on the outside was dominated by a big surveillance equipment. There were two office chairs that could swivel around placed before the control panel and the remaining space was just big enough for people to walk through. Behind that was a smaller room, it was probably the changing room.

When Feng Bujue saw the surveillance equipment, his interest was piqued. He leaped towards the cameras and plumped himself on one of the seats. After he familiarized himself with the control, he started to navigate the camera angles to observe the various happenings around the hospital. Unfortunately, of the more than 10 cameras, half of them were filled with static and he could not see anything through them. The other cameras had fixed angle and they could not be adjusted. And their images showed empty corridors. There was nothing interesting about them.

Feng Bujue’s next idea was to check the recording inside the computer but opening any files required the admin’s password. That stumped him so he clicked on the menu. He opened the few games that were inside the system and used the name “hey hey hey” to renew the best record for minesweeper and solitaire. For some reason, that made him feel better. Then he abandoned the equipment and walked towards the changing room.

The door to the changing room could not be locked. Feng Bujue turned the doorknob and it opened easily. After he entered the room, he found the light switch and flipped it on. The room was only big enough to fit a row of lockers and a few metres where an adult could fit. The place was as simplest as it could be.

“The working environment at this hospital sure is something else...” Feng Bujue took in the mottled wall, the cement floor, the rusted lockers and he resisted the urge to go on a rent. “Even though male workers did not need to have a lock when they are changing but to not even have a bench to sit on... do you really need to save that much space?” There were 8 lockers in total in the room and they lined up a row against the wall. Feng Bujue walked forward and tried them out one by one and only one was open.

Once he opened the locker, a mouldy and dust smell drifted out from inside. There was a metal rod on the top part of the locker and on the rod hung two plastic hangers; behind the locker door was pasted with the poster of a model in swimsuit, it looked like... a creature that was half beaver and half human. From the type of swimsuit it was modelling and Leicester’s sexual orientation, this thing should be female...

At the bottom of the locker was, a flashlight, a key, a seriously moldy sandwich (that was ironically kept inside a ziplock bag), a copy of newspaper and a small mirror. Among them, the flashlight and the small mirror were deemed as ‘tool’; the newspaper had no item description; and the other two were plot items.

Name: Key

Item Type: Plot Item

Quality: Normal

Function: Can open a door somewhere

Whether it be taken out of the scenario: No

Remark: A spare copy of a key that Leicester made without telling anyone, it can be used to open a certain door.

“What kind of door could it be...” Feng Bujue guessed the use of this thing once he saw the remark, “But the storage room on the third floor?”

Name: Moldy sandwich

Item Type: Plot Item

Quality: Trash

Function: Edible?

Whether it can be taken out of the scenario: No

Remark: Normally only those with serious hoarding habits will keep something like this for so long

“Even a trash like this cannot be taken out from the scenario?” Feng Bujue mumbled to himself as he studied the item description. “Where would this come into use... Is there a patient somewhere in this hospital that has a craving for rotten food?”

He picked up the copy of newspaper and held it in his hands while placing the other objects one by one into his pocket before he left the changing room. When he returned to the more spacious surveillance room, he sat on the office chair and picked up the paper to read. Based on his reading habit, naturally he planned to finish this paper from the beginning until the end but unfortunately, the system had stopped him from doing so.

The copy of the newspaper had 90 percent of its content blurred out (The Monster Kingdom’s official language appeared to be English. So far, everywhere Feng Bujue had been, he had seen rooms, maps and flyers marked in English but the system’s embedded translation device was able to translate all of them into Chinese for him) and only a small of the news was readable.

“A nightmare! Tragedy at Xue Song Jun Public Hospital!” said the title of the news article. Just from the title, Feng Bujue had a very bad feeling about this... The date of the article was from 5th December.

“According to the reporter from our news office (Shrek), until 16:00 on the 5th, it had been 17 hours since the avalanche that happened at the northern side of the kingdom, Xue Song Jun’s White Ball District, due to the increasing intensity of the blizzard, the rescue mission is going haltingly. The bigger vehicles are unable to get to close the site. The digging work are difficult in the endless snow and small scale avalanche. According to the experts, if we are unable to create a rescue channel within the next 24 hours, the chance of any survivors will be close to zero.”

“What?” When Feng Bujue finished the article, he read it again for several times. “What is happening?” he folded the newspaper nicely, placed it into his pocket and hurried out from the security room. When he returned to the hospital lobby, the earlier groaning had already disappeared and even through the sunglasses, Feng Bujue could not see any ghosts.

Brother Jue planted his hands on his hips and stood before the hospital entrance. Looking at the peaceful parking lot, the snow mountains in the distance, the lights from the city, he felt the world was becoming quite blurry. “If this place is already buried... then am I inside a dream at the moment?” He started to fill in the blank. “Or perhaps... Leicester himself is a ghost? No... that won’t be right. If that is the case, why would I need the sunglasses to see the other ghosts?” his eyes narrowed. “or... this is a newspaper from the future?”

“Wait a minute... the time shown on the computer earlier was...” Feng Bujue still remembered when he was playing the games earlier, the date shown on the computer was already 2 am in the morning of 6th December. With that thought in mind, he turned back to the security room to wish to reconfirm.

But... when he opened the security room door this time, all the screens on the control panel showed nothing but static. As Feng Bujue’s eyes moved down then, the images flickered strangely, then... the strange, gory images that he was greeted with at the start of the scenario reappeared... but this time they were shown on more than 10 screens at the same time.

Feng Bujue stood at the door and hesitated. In these short few seconds... the lights in the security room turned dark red. The room started to change. Strange creaking sound came from who knew where. On the wall opposite from the control panel slowly surfaced three black stains and they were slowly expanding to form a scary human face...

“Qie...” Feng Bujue knew that he should not stay there for long. So he took two quick steps backwards and slammed the door close.

“It looks like I cannot return to the security room anymore and the electronic calendar and clock in the hospital are shut down... in other words, after I have read the newspaper, there is no way for me to confirm the date and time anymore...” Feng Bujue said darkly. “Never mind, at least I got the flashlight, I better go and check out the pediatric clinic for now.”

He did not get fixated on this issue. In contrast, Brother Jue was getting more and more excited. Without even realizing it, he had started to submerge himself into the joy of puzzle-solving... Main quest, side quests, they were just the cherry on top. His final goal, or rather the purpose that he had all along... was to ‘unravel the secret of this scenario’.

...

An ellipsis later, Brother Jue had returned to the split that would otherwise lead him to the pediatric clinic (Before coming here, he did go to the door of the pediatric clinic to try the key and naturally the result was a bust).

He took out the flashlight from his pocket and switched it on. He aimed the light forward. The dark alley was like a gaping maw of a giant. It was silent and suffocating... the light from the flashlight could not reach far, only a small area ahead.

This kind of ‘scary’ atmosphere was enough to give most second thoughts but it did not faze our Brother Jue at all. Humming a song on his lips, swinging the flashlight in his arms, he sauntered down the corridor.

“Shao Lin Kung Fu Xing~ Hao Hao Ye~ Shao Lin Kung Fu Ying~ Hai Hou ‘Geng’! Wo Hai Tit Tou Gong! Mou Diek Tit Tou Gong~ Li Hai Gam Gong Tui... Gam Gong Tui!” It was unknown why he would choose to sing this song. Technically, this was a duet and he was not that familiar with Cantonese. But in any case, since the rhythm flowed through his mind, he decided to sing it out loud.

Normally a person could be found singing in this situation too but mainly the purpose was to relax the emotion of fear and nerves. But for Feng Bujue... it was like he was humming a tune while taking a relaxing stroll through the neighbourhood.

At this moment, he walked down the corridor with the flashlight and the system did not warn him this time. Looks like the death flag had been neutralized and he could proceed normally from now on.

“Wu ah... wu ah...”

Brother Jue had not headed too far into the corridor when another voice came and this time it was the crying of babies.

“Jesus... just how many side quests are there anyway...” Feng Bujue groused. “Even the nursery is haunted is it? Fine, fine...” he determined the direction of the crying and made a beeline towards it.