Translator: Pal.vi
Chapter 36: Hexie Cinema (9)
Guo Yang glanced around the island, shivering with a cold that seemed out of place.
The sun above was scorching, the cries of seagulls loud and clear. Half of the forest was scorched, while the other half thrived. The beach gleamed brightly under the sun, with coconut trees lining the shore.
Yet, he felt an inexplicable sense of panic, a surreal kind of fear.
“W-What’s going on here?”
Ma Tongfeng was equally perplexed and had no answers for him.
Xia Bai appeared deep in thought, lost in his own world, his vacant expression suggesting his soul had momentarily left his body. He didn’t seem to hear Guo Yang’s question.
Ling Changye, too, remained silent, instead pushing forward with the movie’s plot. “After the islanders learned about the deaths of these two people, they sought revenge and killed two students from the expedition team. Let’s go and dig further.”
Guo Yang’s brain had stopped functioning properly, and he could only obey Ling Changye’s commands. “Oh, okay, I’ll take you there.”
The place where the students were buried was on the other side of the island, a part of the forest untouched by the previous fire.
As they cautiously made their way in that direction, they passed the spot where the ghostly school beauty had appeared earlier, only to find that both she and Gu Quankun, who had been trapped beneath her, were no longer there.
Guo Yang was surprised. “Could Gu Quankun be dead? Doesn’t his worm arm have some regenerative ability?”
After all, he had been on the leaderboard, and his sudden death was rather unexpected.
Upon hearing the mention of regeneration, Xia Bai instinctively looked at Ling Changye.
He thought of Ling Changye’s own regenerative abilities.
This time, his gaze fell on Ling Changye’s right side, where his waist was stained with blood.
Worms indeed had regenerative capabilities. After Gu Quankun’s arm had evolved into a worm-like appendage, both his arm and hand could regenerate to a certain extent.
Xia Bai recalled that in the screening room, when Gu Quankun’s worm arm had been partially severed by the ghostly hand, several of his fingers had also been cut off, blood dripping everywhere. Later, when they returned to the movie world, the fingers had already regrown.
Ling Changye’s worm arm had separated him from the ghostly school beauty, and being so close, it was possible that the ghostly hand had torn through his worm arm as well.
Wearing a cloak, Ling Changye’s arms weren’t in the sleeves, making it difficult to tell what condition they were in or when the blood had stained his waist.
Ling Changye turned slightly and continued walking forward, nonchalantly saying, “Don’t worry about him.”
So, the group continued following him. Er Wa carried the hoe on his shoulder like a seesaw, walking a few steps before suddenly turning to look at the bushes nearby, making faint baby-like sounds.
When he looked up again and saw that Xia Bai and Ling Changye were already several steps ahead, he hurried to catch up in a fluster.
After the group entered the forest, a head emerged from the bushes. The pale-faced waitress stared at their retreating figures. Only after their green cloaks disappeared from sight did she resume dragging the bloody thing she had been carrying.
Gu Quankun wasn’t actually dead.
Being a seasoned veteran, he had saved a life-saving item for himself—a potion he had obtained from a hospital-themed game. The potion’s effect was to fake death, during which he would exhibit no signs of life for 10 minutes. The ghostly school beauty had assumed he was dead and left him alone.
Though he hadn’t died, he had suffered critical injuries. If the ghostly school beauty had stayed around for much longer, he would have been in real danger. Fortunately, she had chased after the corpse into the islanders’ settlement.
Ten minutes later, Gu Quankun opened his eyes. Before he had time to feel relieved, a thick vine covered in sharp thorns suddenly tightened around his neck.
As he began to suffocate, he instinctively reached to pull the thing off his neck, but as soon as he raised his arm, an axe came down and severed it. He let out a scream, but it was muffled by a hand covering his mouth.
Strangled, disarmed, and silenced.
The person behind him moved with precision and ruthlessness, anticipating all of his actions without a moment’s hesitation.
Gu Quankun trembled in pain, struggling to lift his head and catch a glimpse of the waitress’s face. “L-Let go…”
Just before he blacked out, the waitress loosened her grip. But Gu Quankun didn’t feel any relief. He caught a glimpse of her eyes—cold and devoid of any emotion.
He suddenly remembered how, in screening room 3, she had also pretended to be dead to escape. But she was just an ordinary person who had never entered the game world. She had no potions to numb the pain or simulate death. She had endured it all on her own.
What kind of person could remain expressionless and silent through such excruciating pain?
Sweat beaded on Gu Quankun’s forehead.
He had been puzzled when he saw the waitress crawl away in the screening room. But when he was impaled by the ghostly school beauty’s hand, he understood the unimaginable terror and pain that came with it. His nerves were screaming, pulsing as if trying to break free from his body, and the sheer agony alone was enough to distort his face—just as it was now.
Sweat trickled down his forehead, following the veins that bulged there. His face twisted in pain as he begged, “S-Save me. I’ll take you with me next time, you won’t have to worry anymore.”
After experiencing the horrors of the game, having an experienced veteran guide was an enticing offer—one that had made Xu Yue ecstatic. How could a powerless woman resist?
But the waitress’s eyes remained unchanged. Gu Quankun felt like a clown.
He wasn’t stupid. He realized that the waitress had no intention of sparing him. To die at the hands of a woman? The thought filled him with rage, unable to accept his fate, let alone such a humiliating death. “You b*tch! You’re just an ordinary woman, a lowly waitress!”
A flicker passed through her eyes, but before Gu Quankun could fully grasp it, he was bound tightly with vines.
As she bent down, Gu Quankun noticed the bandage on her waist—the very bandage he had fought so hard for. His anger flared. Knowing he wouldn’t survive, he used the last of his strength to curse her. Though there wasn’t much left, he spat out, “Xia Bai, Xia is a b*tch, and so are you! You’re all the same, all of you!”
The waitress stopped what she was doing.
Before Gu Quankun could see her face clearly, a stone smashed into his head.
He fell silent.
With one hand carrying his severed arm and the other pulling the vines, the waitress continued to drag him up the slope without a word.
When Gu Quankun woke again, he was tied to a giant rock at the highest point of the island, numb from the pain.
Unlike the rest of the island, this place was barren, with no trees in sight. The sun, unblocked, baked his skin raw.
Blood had poured from the stone’s blow, blurring one of his eyes. His vision was hazy, and he couldn’t see the waitress’s figure.
Feeling dizzy and licking his dry lips, he relaxed slightly, only to hear approaching footsteps.
The cinema’s uniform consisted of a white shirt, black jacket, and either black pants or a knee-length skirt. On the skirt was a less-than-impressive jasmine flower.
That jasmine flower had turned red with blood.
She walked slowly towards him, a green snake tail swaying near the blood-stained flower.
Through his blurry vision, Gu Quankun strained to focus. Only when he closed and reopened his eyes did he see clearly—it was a snake’s tail.
The waitress held two or three brightly colored, writhing snakes in each hand, her emotionless eyes fixed on him like he was already a dead man.
The snakes twisted and hissed, flicking their blood-red tongues, and their cold, slitted pupils stared back at him.
Gu Quankun’s pupils trembled, and his entire body broke out in goosebumps. He hadn’t even been this terrified when facing the ghostly school beauty. “P-Please, p-please! Don’t!”
The online course from the Bureau of Supernatural Control mentioned that soul-based skills could affect their users, warning players against overuse due to potential side effects.
In fact, certain physical abilities also had an impact on their users. Gu Quankun’s ability, for instance, was worm-like arms, and snakes preyed on worms. They were their natural predators. He had grown more afraid of snakes, especially these vividly colored ones.
“P-Please…” His voice trembled weakly, barely audible, his previous arrogance and pride completely gone. “Xia Bai, I’ll give you my corpse. Just take me away…”
The waitress calmly tossed the five snakes onto his body. Two of them landed squarely on his severed arm.
Without watching what happened next, she found another rock to sit on, listening to Gu Quankun’s screams. She picked up his severed arm, compared it to her own, then tossed it aside.
When the island was finally silent, she pulled a pear out of her pocket, wiped it carelessly, and began eating it. Quietly, she gazed down the slope.
The ghostly school girls and two other female ghosts were searching for people in the islanders’ residential area, growing increasingly agitated. One by one, they knocked over grass huts and eventually ran to the lake on the island, seemingly trying to grab something from the water.
In the game, they were the most terrifying ghosts. At this moment, their long hair was disheveled, and they were covered in blood. Yet, due to their hysteria, they looked like countless girls struggling in the midst of suffering.
Shifting their gaze, on the other side of the lake, several people discovered two graves that were so crude they didn’t even have proper mounds.
To avoid being discovered by the cannibalistic islanders, the expedition team had only dug a simple pit to bury their two companions who had been killed by the islanders.
This time, without needing Ling Changye’s orders, the group of three adults and one child quickly began digging.
When the islanders sought revenge, they had actually killed three people: a male and a female student, as well as He Jiaxiu. He Jiaxiu’s body had already been buried by Ma Tongfeng, but they were curious whether the bodies of the other two were still there.
Those who had paid close attention to the film knew that the bodies of the two students were incomplete. Especially the female student, most of her body had been taken by the islanders to eat, and her companions had only managed to recover one hand, which they buried as her remains.
It didn’t take long before they dug up the hand, covered in wet mud.
Then, they uncovered parts of the male student’s body.
“This…” Even Ma Tongfeng couldn’t help but express his curiosity. “What’s really going on?”
Ling Changye replied, “They’re truly dead.”
Ma Tongfeng asked, “If the bodies disappeared, they aren’t dead? But if the bodies remain, they’re really dead?”
Ling Changye gave a soft “Mm.”
Ma Tongfeng continued, “Then what about the ones who aren’t dead?”
Ling Changye raised his eyes. His gaze was pitch black, seemingly tinged with an almost imperceptible dark blue glow, looking deep and unfathomable. “They’re probably still alive somewhere.”
Still alive? Where?
Ma Tongfeng glanced around. The surrounding vegetation was dense, shadows of trees swaying. It seemed as though pairs of eyes were watching them. In broad daylight, goosebumps crept over his skin.
Guo Yang asked, “So all the truly dead are students, and none of the islanders died? Is their survival related to the evil god they worship? Where are they now?”
Like Ma Tongfeng, Guo Yang looked around nervously, asking one question after another in a panic.
Ling Changye glanced at Xia Bai, the only one remaining calm, and said, “Keep digging.”
Guo Yang asked, “Dig more? Where?”
Ling Changye replied, “There are still two more buried students. The two who entered the cave on the first night.”
That night, the school girls was dragged into the cave by two islanders, and two male students noticed. Not only did they not save her, but they also joined in. After the school girls died and became a ghost, she didn’t let them off either. In fact, they were the first to be buried, though at that time, the other students didn’t yet know what they had done.
Guo Yang said, “Those two are buried nearby; they should be easy to find.”
In the forest, Ma Tongfeng had a good sense of location. He pointed to a spot. “They should be over there.”
The three of them started digging up the other two graves. That day was spent mostly digging graves. It was Guo Yang and Ma Tongfeng’s first time realizing how exhausting grave digging could be. They were drenched in sweat, exhausted, and parched.
Erwa took a pear out of his pocket, wiped it with his sleeve, and took a step toward Xia Bai. When he saw Xia Bai raise his hoe, he immediately turned away.
Ling Changye happened to see Erwa holding the pear, seemingly about to offer it to someone. Despite having been in the film world for so long, he hadn’t had a sip of water. He looked at Erwa, but before he could say anything, Erwa quickly stowed the pear back in his pocket and squatted down to keep digging.
Ling Changye: “…”
Guo Yang shoved his shovel into the dirt and scooped out a chunk of soil. “How deep are they buried? Why aren’t they coming out yet?”
Ling Changye: “You assumed there were corpses inside?”
Guo Yang froze for a moment. “Isn’t there?”
He had indeed assumed there would be corpses inside. In the four graves they dug earlier, all the islanders’ bodies were gone, while the students’ bodies remained. According to his speculation, the islanders were somehow still alive, while the students who came to the island to explore had truly died here.
But the result was that these two graves had no corpses.
The two deep pits were empty, with nothing inside.
Guo Yang was completely dumbfounded. “What’s going on here?”
Xia Bai stared blankly at the empty pit. “The ones who harmed the ghost school beauty didn’t really die. They’re fake.”
“What?” Guo Yang looked at him. “Xia Bai, did you discover something?”
Ling Changye also looked at Xia Bai, waiting for him to speak about his findings.
Xia Bai noticed his gaze and didn’t hold back, sharing all his previous doubts and current thoughts.
“When we were looking for clues earlier, I wiped the faces of some of the dead islanders and found that they were truly dark-skinned.”
“You mentioned that to me at the time.” Guo Yang was puzzled. “But being dark is normal. They’ve lived on the island for years and got tanned.”
Xia Bai pursed his lips. “Did you see the school beauty’s hands?”
Guo Yang answered honestly, “The ghost hand was so terrifying that I ran away. I didn’t have time to look closely.”
“Didn’t you pay attention before she became a ghost, at the start of the movie?” Xia Bai glanced at Guo Yang. Despite his blank expression, Guo Yang could sense the reproach from a good student toward a bad student — or maybe that was just his guilty conscience acting up.
“Didn’t the game system prompt us to watch the movie carefully?”
Guo Yang: “…”
Fine, he admitted his mistake.
Xia Bai didn’t waste time and said directly, “The school beauty’s hands were a bit rough and dark. If it’s right for the islanders’ skin to be dark and real, why were the school beauty’s hands rough?”
Guo Yang was taken aback. According to his “reality” setting, the school beauty’s hands shouldn’t be rough. The movie had hinted in multiple details that the group of students who came to explore had good family backgrounds and had just graduated from high school, so their hands shouldn’t be rough.
Seeing that Guo Yang hadn’t fully grasped it yet, Xia Bai added more details. “The school beauty’s hands were white at first but seemed to gradually darken. The skin under the islanders’ clothes was white. When I wiped their dark faces, nothing came off.”
Guo Yang’s slow-moving brain finally began to process this, thinking in terms of the actors.
The school beauty was set as a rich young lady, so her hands should have been soft and fair. Perhaps the actress playing her had rough hands. At first, makeup could make them appear whiter, but after some time, the makeup wore off, revealing their rough, darker state.
— If this assumption is true.
Then, the islanders, who were supposed to be dark-skinned from constant exposure to the sun, should have been played by actors with makeup on. If Xia Bai wiped their faces and nothing came off, that’s a problem.
It couldn’t be that the actors were naturally dark-skinned and didn’t need makeup. The skin under their clothes was white, and the exposed parts were uniformly dark. If these actors were all like this, needing no makeup and having uniformly dark skin while being white underneath, it would be an unbelievable coincidence.
Guo Yang felt a chill run down his spine, and a strange fear of this world crept into his heart.
These small details, which on the surface seemed unrelated to the movie’s story logic, were shaking the entire foundation of the movie world.
Guo Yang: “Isn’t this the movie world? Isn’t everyone here fake?”
Xia Bai shook his head. “There are relatively real things inside.”
The school beauty didn’t appear for long when she was alive. Her hands were white when she first appeared, and even if they were rough, it wasn’t obvious through the movie’s filter. The initial impression she gave was a normal, rich, and beautiful school beauty, so it was understandable that Guo Yang hadn’t noticed anything strange.
Once the first impression formed, it wasn’t easy to spot any inconsistencies later.
When the school beauty reappeared at night and was dragged into the cave, Xia Bai noticed that her hands seemed darker. On closer inspection, her hands were rough, with calluses on her palms and swollen knuckles, as if they had been frostbitten during the winter.
Even a rich girl might have rough hands, but the gradual darkening of her skin was suspicious. It could’ve been a lighting issue since it was nighttime, and too dark. Xia Bai had also considered the possibility that the makeup had worn off, which seemed plausible.
At the time, it was just a small doubt in Xia Bai’s mind. Even after wiping the islanders’ skin, it only deepened his doubts, but without solid evidence, he couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t until he saw the islanders’ bodies disappear while the two students’ remained that the idea of real and fake became more certain.
Guo Yang: “How do we define what’s real and what’s fake?”
Was the islanders’ skin color real in the context of the movie, and the roughness of the school beauty’s hands a detail oversight?
Or were the school beauty’s hands the real thing, and the islanders’ skin color fake, as they were mere fictional characters in the movie?
Xia Bai: “It depends on the perspective. From the actors’ perspective, the school beauty’s hands are real, and the islanders’ skin not rubbing off is a problem. In the movie world, the roughness of the school beauty’s hands is a mistake, and the islanders’ dark skin is consistent with the movie’s reality.”
Guo Yang: “Are two dimensions overlapping?”
In the place where they currently stood, two dimensions seemed to coexist, intersecting with each other. This meant that if they were only looking at the movie world, they were only seeing part of it, perhaps even just a distorted version.
Guo Yang grabbed his hair with both hands and squatted down in frustration. “What? No! How could it be like this?”
Ling Changye said, “Don’t act like you’re dying. Have you forgotten this person’s theory about the rules of the corpses?”
He was clearly referring to Xia Bai.
Ling Changye crossed his arms, his arms seemingly healed. Even the crack in his chest seemed to have mended. Through the tear in his shirt, Xia Bai could see a thin layer of muscle under the dried blood.
“Huh? The ones who harmed the ghost school beauty didn’t actually die?” Guo Yang suddenly realized. “The ghost school beauty is the key boss throughout the movie. The truth of the movie should be connected to her, so she’s real?”
A gust of sea breeze blew past, carrying with it the smell of the ocean, along with faint sounds of crying and wailing.
They were on the edge of the forest, on the higher ground across from the lake. Through the gaps between the trees, they could see three female ghosts struggling and screaming by the lakeshore, with waves lapping against the shore.
Before, they had only felt terror at the ghosts’ bloody power, but now, their cries were filled with despair and sorrow.
If the ghost school beauty was real, then the two islanders whose bodies had disappeared, and perhaps many of the islanders, might be fake.
She had killed them, but they were fake.
Her revenge had taken place in a fake world.
At some point, she had realized this herself, realizing that she hadn’t killed those monsters after all. She wandered the island, endlessly searching and killing, but she never found her real targets.
She could never avenge herself, forever trapped in this fake world.
Who knows how many years, how many times the movie had repeated.
Ma Tongfeng struggled and said, “If the ghost school beauty is real, then the two female ghosts with her should be real too, just like her. But the bodies of those islanders who harmed them are still in the residential area. They haven’t disappeared.”
Before Xia Bai could respond, Guo Yang answered his own doubt. “Maybe their bodies haven’t disappeared because it’s not yet time for them to refresh. They only died last night, while the ones that disappeared have been dead for two or three days.”
He then smiled bitterly. “And if they all disappeared, the clue would be too obvious.”
For some reason, the color drained from Ma Tongfeng’s face, and he seemed to lose all hope, staring at the three female ghosts who would never truly get their revenge.
“When we first entered the movie, I reminded you all that this was just a fictional movie world. I was wrong,” Xia Bai said.
When they had first entered, Xia Bai had treated this as just a movie world. He thought they were simply watching the movie in a more immersive way and had reminded everyone not to interfere with key plot points.
So, when he saw the two girls being sacrificed on the altar, he didn’t act. He knew that Ma Tongfeng couldn’t stand it because it felt too real.
It was indeed too real, as if it truly existed and was happening somewhere in the world. The pain, the struggle, the screams, the hatred and unwillingness at the moment of death — it was all too real to be just acting.
In that moment, Xia Bai pondered why this movie felt so real, to what extent it was real, or what dimension it reached.
After the movie ended, while searching for clues in the islanders’ area, Xia Bai recalled this question as he wiped the black faces of the corpses, leading to an uncertain speculation.
Seeing the bodies that had disappeared and those that remained, he realized he had been mistaken earlier; this was a movie world. Within it, there were many “movie characters,” but there were also real people.
“The game’s mission is to [clarify the story logic of the movie]. What the game refers to is not just [clarifying the story logic of the movie]. I previously speculated it was hinting at us watching the story in the movie,” Xia Bai said. “Now it seems my understanding of this [dimension] was still superficial.”
Ling Changye tugged at his windbreaker, sliding both arms into the sleeves. “Let’s pause that for now; the challenge we need to face is about to arrive.”
As they looked ahead, three female ghosts were approaching them.
The islanders on the island had already been swept away and killed by them; now it was their turn. They were here to “take revenge.”
Ling Changye said, “I’m not confident I can handle them now; what about you?”
Guo Yang was as honest as ever in front of his idol. “Of course not!”
Ling Changye replied, “Then we can only think of another way.”
Xia Bai suggested, “Let’s go to another higher-dimensional world to find the truth.”
Guo Yang asked, “Where is it? How do we get there?”
After saying this, he seemed to know the answer. If there was a place on the island that connected to another dimension, it was most likely that lake.
The four of them had been pulled over from there by the ghost school beauty, and it was also the place she frequented, often wandering by the lakeshore.
Xia Bai said, “The ghost school beauty must have been trapped here for a long time. She has grown stronger here and should have gradually realized that her real enemies are in another space, connected through the lake. The ghost hand that appeared in our screening room was her attempt to grab her enemies in another space.”
The ghostly head with black hair that Xia Bai had seen for the first time between the gaps in the seats, looking like black water, should also be the face of one of them looking down into the lake. At that time, the screening room had been too dark, and there had been too much hair; Xia Bai couldn’t clearly see whose face it was, only recognizing that the ghost hand belonged to the school beauty.
The agreement was uniform — it was that lake.
The three female ghosts were right in front of them.
Ling Changye’s right hand softened, and from it grew a giant reddish-brown earthworm that became longer and longer, wrapping around the four of them, quickly stretching forward and throwing them into the lake just before the female ghosts could leap onto them.
The twin female ghosts jumped onto the earthworm’s arm, and immediately, it was corroded and severed by their blood, the corrosion rapidly spreading toward Ling Changye.
The earthworm’s arm changed direction, struggling to grow another point, wrapping around a thick tree trunk. Ling Changye used the momentum to leap, transforming his hand into a long knife, severing the earthworm’s arm before diving into the lake.
T/N: I had some issues in real life and was really depressed these past few days therefore I couldn’t upload chapters but I will try to update you guys daily since I have more than enough chapters stockpiled. (•‿•)
