Global Ghost Stories: I'm Investigating Ghosts in My Nightmare!

Chapter 89 The Never-Ending Entrance Ceremony
The light here is even brighter than outside. The light comes from countless bizarrely shaped giant lollipop-shaped streetlights. These streetlights emit an unsettling fluorescence, enveloping the entire park in a hazy, chemically-infused halo.

The ground was paved with black and white squares, but these squares were not perfect squares; instead, they radiated outwards, stretching from the entrance to the edge of one's vision. Just looking at the ground sent a strong wave of dizziness shooting from the tailbone to the top of the head, as if the whole world was spinning wildly around you.

The air was filled with a cloyingly sweet fragrance. The aroma was so strong that it almost completely numbed one's sense of smell.

If you look closely, you can detect a faint, metallic, rusty smell and a burnt smell, like the aftereffects of heavy machinery being overloaded, beneath the sweet and cloying appearance.

The most disturbing thing is the sound.

A simple carousel melody was playing monotonously on a loop from hidden speakers that seemed to be everywhere. The cheerful tune sounded incredibly jarring in this eerie environment, like a tireless madman chanting an endless, frenzied song in your ears.

"This... is Happy Paradise?" Lu Yueqi subconsciously moved closer to Bai Yu.

No one answered her.

Everyone was stunned by the terrifying, non-Euclidean scene before them.

The entire park was deserted.

All the amusement facilities were operating on their own.

Not far away, a giant carousel, bathed in colorful lights, slowly rose and fell to eerie music. Painted in various colors, the horses all bore the same enormous smiles as the clowns at the entrance, their glass eyes gleaming with a cold, numb light in the reflection of the lights.

Further away, the towering Ferris wheel turned silently. Every cabin was empty, like giant iron cages suspended in the night sky, slowly rising and falling with the rotation of the wheel, performing a solitary show without an audience.

A winding roller coaster track, like the skeleton of a giant beast, sits in the center of the park. An empty roller coaster roars along the twisted track at extremely high speed, emitting a series of ear-piercing metallic scraping sounds, which are very much like the painful and desperate death cry.

"Everyone stay alert." An Mu's voice was deep and powerful, instantly pulling everyone back from the shock brought on by the bizarre scene. "Lan Ce, immediately analyze the surrounding environmental energy. Mo Fei, you are in charge of the left flank. Bai Yu, you and Lu Yueqi are in the center, paying attention to the surrounding mental fluctuations. We will proceed along the main road, looking for any possible clues."

"Yes!"

The group immediately went into battle mode, forming a standard diamond-shaped defensive formation, and began to slowly advance into the depths of the park along the main road paved with twisted black and white squares.

Their feet pounded on the ground with a dull thud. A thin layer of colored confetti covered the ground; the colors were so saturated they were almost blinding, and each step on it produced a soft, rustling sound.

Just as they had walked less than a hundred meters, the park's public address system suddenly emitted a hissing sound filled with electrical interference. Immediately afterward, a specially processed sound exploded like thunder above everyone's heads.

"Hehehe... Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to our joyful paradise filled with laughter and laughter, distinguished guests from afar!"

The sound was so sharp and penetrating, it seemed to pierce one's eardrums.

"To celebrate your arrival, our grand entrance ceremony shall now officially begin!"

As the broadcast ended, the giant lollipop-shaped streetlights used to guide traffic on both sides of the road suddenly started spinning in unison!

Their enormous spiral-shaped candy lamp heads, like countless giant eyes, precisely focused their unsettling fluorescence onto the five people!

"Now, please allow me to announce the first and only rule of our 'opening ceremony'!"

The voices on the radio grew increasingly excited and frenzied.

"Welcome to Happy Paradise! Here, our only pass is—'smile'! All esteemed guests, please be sure to maintain your brightest, most sincere, and most heartfelt smile throughout your journey! Because our omnipresent 'Smile Inspectorate' will be checking your 'happiness index' at all times!"

"As for those... unhappy children..."

The voice on the radio suddenly lowered, taking on a mocking tone filled with malice and threat.

"...But you'll have to accept a little 'punishment'! Hehehehe..."

The moment the words left their mouths, a building not far in front of them, which had been hidden in the shadows, suddenly lit up with dazzling neon lights.

It was an ordinary-looking "funhouse mirror maze".

The entrance to the maze was also designed as a clown's smiling face, but this smiling face was more distorted and more full of malice than the one at the main entrance.

The main road leading to the depths of the park passes right through the interior of this labyrinth.

"Damn it! They're forcing us in!" Mo Fei's brows furrowed tightly. He could clearly feel an extremely uncomfortable mental pollution emanating from that funhouse mirror maze.

“Typical rule setup.” Lance pushed up his black-rimmed glasses, his eyes behind the lenses flashing with a calm light. “It sets us a seemingly simple but trap-filled goal—'smile'—and then uses a 'checkpoint' that we have to pass as the mechanism for enforcing the rules. If we don’t follow the rules, or if our 'smile' fails to satisfy it, then we may encounter extremely dangerous situations in that maze.”

“It’s absorbing ‘emotions’,” Bai Yu’s voice was icy. “More precisely, it’s absorbing ‘forced happiness,’ a special emotion that’s full of negative energy. The more fake and painful our laughter is, the stronger its power becomes.”

"Then what do we do? Are we really going to just stand there grinning like idiots in front of those ghost mirrors?" Mo Fei's face showed a look of disgust. For someone as straightforward as him, forcing himself to make such a fake expression was even more painful than having to fight an A-level nightmare hand-to-hand.

“We have no other choice.” An Mu’s voice was calm and powerful. “Until we find the true core of this area, we must temporarily abide by its rules. Everyone, adjust your mindset. Remember, from now on, no matter what happens, don’t let the smiles disappear from your faces.”

An Mu took the lead. On his usually resolute face, a slightly stiff but dignified smile slowly appeared. Mo Fei took a deep breath and imitated An Mu, forcing his mouth wide open to reveal a hideous "smile" that was even uglier than crying.

Lance simply pushed up his glasses, and the corners of his mouth turned up in an extremely slight arc, forming a polite smile full of "science" and "rigor".

Looking at the awkward smiles on everyone's faces, Lu Yueqi tried hard to smile too, but due to excessive tension, her facial muscles simply wouldn't obey her, and she could only make a strange expression with a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Bai Yu looked at her face, which was filled with tension and helplessness. He didn't say anything, but simply reached out and gently touched her forehead with his cold fingertips.

A cool and soothing spiritual energy flowed silently from his fingertips into Lu Yueqi's mind, forcefully calming her nerves that were taut with fear.

Lu Yueqi's body trembled slightly, and her heart, which had been pounding like a drum, miraculously calmed down at that moment. Looking into Bai Yu's calm eyes, she finally managed to squeeze out a smile that, though slightly shy, was incredibly sincere.

Bai Yu himself simply raised the corners of his mouth slightly. His smile was faint, almost invisible, but it was like a sharp ice blade, isolating the surrounding atmosphere of madness and distortion from his own world.

With their own unique "smiles" on their faces, the five of them walked steadily towards the unknown maze of funhouse mirrors.

Inside the maze is a long, narrow corridor made up of countless strangely shaped funhouse mirrors.

The mirrors elongated, flattened, and distorted their figures into all sorts of absurd and comical shapes.

They could clearly see that the distorted versions of themselves in the mirror wore the same smiles as them. But those smiles, under the malicious distortion of the mirror, appeared incredibly eerie and full of mockery.

It's as if the "reflections" in the mirror are the true masters of this world, while these intruders from the real world are nothing more than a group of comical clowns for their amusement.

"Don't look at your reflection in the mirror!" An Mu's voice was deep. "Concentrate, watch your step! We need to get through here as fast as we can!"

No one dared to slack off in the slightest and immediately quickened their pace.

However, just as they reached the middle of the corridor, something strange happened without warning.

Above the maze's ceiling, the light bulbs that were supposed to provide illumination suddenly went out all at once. Immediately afterward, countless vents hidden in the ceiling's secret compartments opened, and a colorful, pollen-like fine powder, like snowflakes, fell silently from the sky, covering the entire corridor.

The powder carried a strange, exotic aroma, completely different from the sweet scent in the air.

"Hold your breath! It's a hallucinogen!" Lance reacted the fastest. He immediately took out several miniature air filters from his tactical backpack and distributed them to everyone.

But, it's too late.

The powder's penetrability far exceeded their expectations; just a wisp of it sent an irresistible wave of intense dizziness through everyone's brains!
Immediately afterwards, an even more terrifying physiological reaction occurred.

"Ho... ho ho..."

A strange laugh, like that of a broken bellows, uncontrollably escaped Mo Fei's throat. He wanted to stop, but his vocal cords and lungs seemed to be completely controlled by an invisible hand, forcing him to emit that laugh filled with pain and madness.

"Ha...haha...hahahaha..."

Not only Mo Fei, but also Lan Ce, Lu Yueqi, and even An Mu, who had the strongest willpower, were not spared.

Uncontrollable bursts of laughter, filled with pain and distortion, echoed throughout the narrow corridor!

Their bodies convulsed painfully from the violent laughter, and physiological tears uncontrollably streamed from the corners of their eyes. Their minds were perfectly clear, able to distinctly sense how illusory and painful this "happiness" was, yet their bodies were forced into a frenzied "carnival."

This forced, physiological laughter, in stark contrast to the "genuine smile" required by the rules, creates a malicious paradox that has had an unprecedented and profound impact on their mental well-being!
The only language that remained unaffected was the Bai language.

His unique soul, which coexists with dark words, gives him an almost immune resistance to this kind of spiritual pollution.

Looking at his companions who were nearly collapsing from their painful laughter, a genuine rage ignited in his deep eyes for the first time.

He abruptly raised his head, casting his icy, razor-sharp gaze into the deep darkness at the end of the corridor.

Just then, a series of synchronized, mechanical footsteps slowly emerged from the darkness.

Immediately afterwards, a group of more than a dozen "dolls" dressed in brightly colored clown costumes and with eternally identical eerie smiles on their faces, walked slowly out of the darkness with stiff, puppet-like steps.

In their hands, some held colorful balloons, some held giant lollipops, and some were playing out-of-tune instruments.

They formed a parade full of deformities and grotesqueness, silently and completely blocking the exit of the corridor.

The voice, filled with manic laughter, rang out on the radio once again.

"Oh, look! Our most popular 'Smile Parade' is starting!"

"Dear distinguished visitors, please stop and admire this, and... offer your warmest and most sincere smiles!"

(End of this chapter)