Chapter 38: Hexie Cinema (End)
Ma Tongfeng couldn’t listen anymore. He angrily stood up and shouted, “Are you still human?!”
During the exchange of information earlier, they had learned about the backgrounds and simple experiences of several actresses. Ma Tongfeng, who also came from a rural background, was the most furious. In his eyes, some of those girls had essentially sacrificed everything to become actresses. Some had given up on the national college entrance exams, and the girl who had given up was the only one from her village to attend high school. She could have become a university student.
They had given up everything, seeking only a chance to escape the mire.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at the hopeful eyes of those girls anymore. Such beautiful girls, so intelligent — how could they possibly know what they were about to go through?
It wasn’t the bright path paved with flowers that they had imagined.
Not at all.
Ma Tongfeng angrily grabbed the scriptwriter by the collar, his eyes bloodshot. “All of this, just to satisfy your perverted desires! To them, it’s nothing but a game!”
“It wasn’t me! It has nothing to do with me. I was just paid to write the script, I didn’t do anything!” The scriptwriter, terrified by Ma Tongfeng’s sudden transformation, hurriedly explained. He couldn’t understand why this man, who seemed like just a regular crew member, had suddenly become so frightening.
“You’re no better than the rest of them!” Ma Tongfeng desperately wanted to punch him in the heart to see if it would hurt, but he knew the scriptwritErwasn’t among those who had initiated all of this. He couldn’t seriously injure him, so he reluctantly let go.
He turned his head towards the film set, his face filled with helpless sorrow and exhaustion.
Xia Bai said nothing, quietly sitting on the side, eating a pear to replenish his energy.
Erwa squatted down close behind him, covering his ears with both hands.
As Ma Tongfeng gradually calmed down, he rubbed his eyes. “Do we have to stay here until they finish filming the movie in order to find the way out?”
Guo Yang replied evasively, “Old Ma, this is something that has already happened. We can’t stop it.”
Ma Tongfeng’s expression grew even more despondent, his vigor diminishing. “So, what do we do next?”
Ling Changye looked at the trembling scriptwriter. The man seemed to scare himself with whatever he had imagined, and tears rolled down his cheeks. “It really has nothing to do with me. I didn’t do anything! Please don’t kill me. I’ll never do it again!”
Ling Changye said, “It’s time to send him back.”
Upon hearing this, the scriptwriter looked at him with surprise.
Xia Bai asked, “Shall we have the corpses send him back?”
The scriptwriter started crying again.
Two corpses pulled him up, and he trembled with fear.
Guo Yang urged, “Go on, hurry up.”
The scriptwriter stammered, “N-no, I’m not leaving. I don’t have to go.”
Guo Yang kicked him hard in the rear. “Go back and just focus on writing your script. Don’t say a single unnecessary word, got it?”
“Yes, yes!” The scriptwriter nodded repeatedly, carefully running away. After a few steps, he straightened his clothes, but when he saw one of the corpses staring at him from the bushes, he froze for a few seconds before slowly walking back to his hut.
Guo Yang turned to the group. “What should we do now? Should we go back to the movie world to confirm with Ghost School beauty that she really died while filming, and that her soul was trapped in the movie by that Taoist?”
Xia Bai replied, “We have to go back. The waitress, You Yue, is still there.”
Ling Changye said, “Someone also needs to stay here and keep watch.”
Xia Bai and Guo Yang immediately said in unison, “You stay.”
Ling Changye slowly shifted his gaze toward them. “Why?”
Xia Bai answered, “Stop changing outfits already.”
Guo Yang added, “At least cut down on one or two.”
“…”
The three fierce ghosts in the movie world were not to be taken lightly. In the end, Xia Bai, Guo Yang, and Old Ma all went back, while Ling Changye stayed behind with Erwa.
Erwa took two small steps after them, but Ling Changye grabbed him back. “I’ve raised you for two years with care, and yet one day with them, and you already want to follow them?”
Erwa crouched down, covering his head, refusing to respond or face him.
“…”
Xia Bai, Guo Yang, and Old Ma jumped into the lake, following the path they had come from. They swam through the deep lake and emerged once again to see the burned island and the three eerie female ghosts staring at them from the lakeside.
This time, they weren’t as scared as before.
Before surfacing, Xia Bai had already handed the last few corpse control talismans to the corpse following him.
In theory, corpse-suppressing talismans and corpse-controlling talismans were effective against corpses, and they could work somewhat against ghosts with physical forms, like Ghost School beauty. However, the effect wouldn’t be as strong as it was on corpses. Xia Bai had confirmed this earlier when he stuck a corpse-suppressing talisman on the ghost hand.
This time, he used a corpse-controlling talisman, not expecting to fully control the ghosts, but only hoping to buy them some time.
Before they jumped into the lake, the three of them had anticipated the situation and discussed how to respond.
Guo Yang was the first to leap out. “Ladies, we’ve found it! We’ve found your—Ah, ouch, ouch, ouch!”
Before the actor could finish his sentence, he was grabbed by the ghost school beauty. Her sharp, chilling nails dug deep into his shoulder.
Xia Bai seized the opportunity to control the corpses, and a group of emotionless, sensationless dead bodies pounced on the ghost school beauty and the other two female ghosts. The corpse-controlling talisman stuck to their foreheads, temporarily immobilizing them. However, it was clear that they were struggling fiercely, the talismans barely holding.
The immobilized ghost school beauty became even more enraged and crazed, muttering incessantly, “Die, all of you die! Kill them, kill…”
Xia Bai asked, “Killing them—is that the obsession of Zhou Xin, the school beauty, or is it the demand of Xia Fei?”
The ghost school beauty’s rigid figure suddenly trembled, her hollow eyes wide open. There was a faint, weak gleam of clarity in her dead-fish-like eyes. “Xia Fei, Xia Fei, mother, I… am Xia Fei?”
Xia Bai said, “You are Xia Fei.”
It was Xia Fei who pulled them out of the lake, not some school beauty.
Xia Fei’s body began to shake violently. “Xia Fei, mother, Feifei, it’s Xia Fei…”
Yes, her name was Xia Fei.
She was born in a small village, and from birth to age 18, she had never left that place. The farthest she had ever seen was the distance she glimpsed while cutting grass for cattle on a hill.
The summer wind blew over one mountain after another. A rickety tricycle gradually carried her gaze farther and farther away along the rugged mountain path, toward a place she longed for but could never reach.
That tricycle was taking her cousin to the county’s high school.
She never had that chance. She was originally not even supposed to attend middle school. Her father had said that if the family had plenty of money, he would buy her brother an airplane, but there would be no money for her education. It was her mother who secretly saved up money for over ten years and secretly paid her school fees, enduring multiple beatings in exchange for the opportunity to attend middle school.
But that was the limit of what her mother could do.
Her mother, like her father, favored her brother.
When she threw a tantrum about wanting to go to high school, her mother said, “You think I don’t want to go to high school?”
Her mother hadn’t even finished elementary school.
She had dropped out of school early, worked to support the family, and finally married her father—a man who believed that beating women was only natural. She had become a woman who placed most of her hopes for the future in her son and silently accepted that her daughter would also drop out of school and follow her path.
That’s what she believed her whole life, until her cousin came home and said that a director had chosen her for a movie role, and that she was going to become a star known to everyone in the country.
The villagers looked at the director’s car as if they were witnessing a new world. They said the entire village working together for five years couldn’t afford such a car. Acting in movies, becoming a star—a car worth millions—these were things they couldn’t even imagine.
That woman only took one glance and left, who knows where she went.
That night, Xia Fei had trembled as she called her out, handed her a beautiful dress, and told her to put it on. She did her hair and applied hand cream to her cracked, rough hands. The fragrant, smooth lotion spread across three pairs of coarse hands, most of it absorbed by the youngest of them.
She took her to find the director. She gave the director a large sum of money, and she knelt down, begging the director to take her for the movie.
The next day, her father found out that all their cattle had been sold by her, and he beat her mercilessly, using sticks, knives, and iron rods. Blood filled the courtyard, and she thought she was really going to die.
When she was in the hospital, she could no longer speak and would likely never walk again, but when she was about to leave to film the movie, she smiled.
Her murky, yellowed eyes glowed with a brightness they had never shown before. She walked out the door, turned back, and saw her mother still smiling.
Her mother’s only movable right index finger kept drawing upwards. Others might not have understood, but Xia Fei did. It was the motion of flying.
Flying, Xia Fei, flying out.
That smile, on her bruised and swollen face, wasn’t pretty, but it stayed with Xia Fei the whole way.
The fresh June grass grew lush and dense, spreading across the mountains, confined to their shape, one after another, one patch after another.
She left there in a car. The mountain road was bumpy, but the seat was soft. Curled up in it, she swore she would act well, earn money, and save her mother, no matter how hard or exhausting it would be.
She wasn’t afraid of hardship or fatigue—the greatest suffering was not having a chance.
The bloodstains on the ghost school beauty’s face were tear streaks. She was crying. Blood tears flowed from her dry eye sockets. “Mother…”
She had worked so hard, for herself, for her mother who was still waiting in the hospital bed for her to return with money, and for countless other unspoken reasons. Every moment, she had given her best effort.
In the director’s scorn and the mockery of others, she struggled to play the role of a rich and beautiful woman, someone she had never even encountered before. She climbed mountains, waded through lakes, and dragged her bloodied hair through the scorching sun, running across the island.
She didn’t find it hard at all, because the island was so beautiful, the world here was so beautiful.
But she didn’t know that the future she longed for was just a filthy cave.
That night, two investors dragged her into that cave. She was in a spaghetti-strap nightgown, her skin raw and aching from being scraped across the ground, but she didn’t say a word, because the director had said they were making the most authentic film, no stand-ins allowed.
Of course, she wouldn’t have used a stand-in. She would have gladly been one.
At the time, the scene where her skin was scraped bloody must have looked very real.
When they first pinned her down, she didn’t understand how real the film would get. When she was slapped, she still didn’t know. By the time she realized, she had no strength left to resist.
When she cried for help from the director and others, was that filmed too, in all its raw authenticity?
What about her expression when she died?
Did the camera capture her hatred and resentment?
It must have. Otherwise, she wouldn’t still be here, experiencing death over and over again, seeking revenge, but never able to kill them.
“Kill them, kill them!”
The ghost school beauty’s emotions gradually unraveled, and the other two female ghosts grew restless, eerie ghostly energy swirling around them as they screeched horrifically.
A ghostly hand suddenly extended toward Xia Bai.
Lying on the ground, Guo Yang shouted, “Xia Bai!”
Xia Bai was about to react when Ma Tongfeng crashed into him.
A sharp ghostly hand pierced Ma Tongfeng’s neck, and blood gushed out immediately.
“Kill you all! You deserve to die! Everyone deserves to die! No one is innocent!” Ghost Xia Fei’s face twisted with fury, the ghostly gray-purple hand dripping blood, turning crimson.
Ma Tongfeng’s feet lifted off the ground, and just as she was about to raise him higher, a hand gripped her wrist.
Xia Bai grasped that sticky, terrifying ghost hand tightly. “I know you’ve suffered.”
“I know you’ve endured so much pain.”
These were the last words her mother had said to her, stroking her rough hand through layers of thin hand cream that night. That bottle of hand cream, which she had bought from a faraway place, had lasted until the day she died, its scent of gardenias lingering strongly.
The gardenias were as pure and white as the hands holding hers now.
“I’ll take you to kill them,” Xia Bai said.
He slowly shifted from gripping her hand to pulling it, just as he had held the hand of the joy god at his home. “Come with me.”
Xia Fei was an incredibly powerful ghost, and she could vaguely sense where her enemies were, but she couldn’t reach them.
In the real world, they saw a Taoist priest holding a compass and talismans.
There was also an investor who believed in an eerie Bodhisattva, someone clearly knowledgeable about ghosts and mysticism.
Xia Bai reasonably suspected that they entertained themselves with the deaths and struggles of the poor. But, fearing ghostly revenge, they had preemptively hired a Taoist priest to seal them at the moment of death, trapping them within the cameras that recorded everything, confined to the movie.
Since he knew the way, Xia Bai figured he could try leading them across.
He held the sharp ghost hand.
Ma Tongfeng fell to the ground, clutching his bleeding neck, coughing uncontrollably as he watched Xia Bai lead three ghosts toward the lake. He hastily wiped the blood from his neck with his sleeve and dove into the lake.
In the clear lake water, Xia Bai led the way, holding the ghost school beauty’s hand.
The ghost school beauty held the hand of one sacrificial girl, who in turn held the hand of another sacrificial girl.
The clear lake water dissolved the dirt and blood clots, and their long hair spread freely and softly in the water. Bubbles rose, capturing bits of light as they floated toward a brighter place.
Ma Tongfeng watched this scene, but his mind was elsewhere.
In that small rental room, the stove for cooking was right next to the bed, with pots and pans neatly arranged.
He was smiling happily, watching Jiaxu peeling the popcorn skin. The dim lamp cast a warm light on her face, and her smile deepened along the wrinkles.
The wind was howling outside, but he couldn’t hear it at all. In that shabby little room, his heart was filled with contentment, like the little pot on the stove beside him, bubbling with sweet and warm steam.
“Jiaxu, there’s a comedy showing tomorrow night, do you want to see it?”
“No, let’s just watch this ghost movie.”
“Jiaxu, why do you like watching ghost movies?”
She looked up at the lamp, her eyes filled with light. After a long pause, she smiled and said, “People are small and powerless. The idea that good is rewarded and evil is punished is false, but in ghost movies, there’s karmic retribution. Grudges can be avenged.”
Ma Tongfeng’s tears merged into the lake.
His body gradually lost strength, as if it was sinking to the bottom of the lake. Guo Yang, who had caught up from behind, supported him and swam forward.
As Ling Changye had guessed, the crew shot the scenes where the ghost schoolgirls had already become ghosts.
The crew had just started filming the revenge and murder of the ghost schoolgirls. This scene was the first islander being killed by the ghost schoolgirl.
It was obvious that the crew was well-funded; every detail was well done, and the makeup artist was incredibly skilled. Even the supporting actors performed excellently.
Ling Changye sat silently on a stone in the forest, a faint smile curling on his thin lips, while a barely perceptible blue light flickered in his dark eyes.
Erwa covered his eyes and crouched at Ling Changye’s legs, trembling whenever he heard a scream.
The screenwriter, watching from another side, was equally tense. For some reason, he felt as though countless dead eyes were staring at him, eager to devour his flesh.
The first two scenes were completed smoothly, and they moved near the lake. The ghost schoolgirl chased her victim here, where she would kill the islander.
This islander was played by the investor. Now it was time for him to be “killed” by the ghost schoolgirl. Several other investors were also eagerly watching, and the area was crowded with people, with many cameras pointed at them.
The director explained the scene to them and then moved behind the monitor.
The investor lay on the ground, staring at Xia Fei with a lewd look. He licked his lips and said, “Feifei, don’t worry, you can go hard on me later. Don’t hold back for my sake.”
“I’m sorry in advance, President Li,” Xia Fei, wearing her blood-stained dirty costume, repeatedly bowed.
“Don’t be so timid.” President Li’s gaze roved over her. “Be bold; I’m the one who ‘violates’ you, after all.”
The director shouted through the megaphone, “Attention, everyone, action!”
The ghost schoolgirl grabbed the islander’s leg. As the islander’s eyes filled with terror, the ghost hand was raised and coldly plunged into his chest, splashing blood onto her ashen face.
The islander’s scream was cut short, his eyes frozen on the ghost schoolgirl’s face, filled with terror and fear—perhaps even a hint of regret.
In the next moment, the islander suddenly jumped up.
“Ha ha ha, did I die?” President Li raised his arms, and the blood packet slid off his chest. He wore a grotesque, smug grin that looked hideous on his bleeding face, blooming grotesquely under the scorching sun. “I’m not dead, ha ha ha!”
The other investors laughed along with him. Only they understood the joke, but others followed suit with forced laughter.
A drop of blood splattered on their faces, freezing their smiles as if the pause button had been pressed.
The investor who had been shouting “I’m not dead” now had a gaping hole in his chest. The ghost hand, which had not pierced his skin earlier, now punctured his chest.
President Li’s veins bulged on his forehead. He stared in disbelief at the ghost hand as thick blood gushed from his mouth.
The screenwriter clutched his head in terror and screamed, “It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t my fault!”
As he opened his mouth, the crowd erupted in screams.
Ling Changye’s eyes flickered with dark light as he turned to the lake.
The director, standing by the lake, heard the commotion and looked toward the water as well.
Xia Bai emerged from the water, his wet hair clinging to his face. His water-soaked skin shimmered under the sunlight. He looked like an innocent little mermaid who had just swum ashore. Tilting his head slightly, he asked, “Director, do you want to shoot a real movie?”
The director stared blankly at the person standing in the sunlight. If it were any other scene, he would have pointed the camera at him, but with the screams in the background, he felt a chill down to his feet, as if the cold lake water was creeping up his legs.
Guo Yang also emerged from the water, clutching the wound on his shoulder, and shouted, “If you want realism, let’s go all the way! Why is it that only the actresses and a few poor guys die realistically, but they don’t need to keep it real? Double standards will ruin the quality of the film. How can that live up to the director’s grand vision?”
“The cameras are all set up.” Guo Yang glanced around and smiled. “Let’s help the director realize his dream.”
Two more wet ghostly women emerged behind them. Their movements were stiff, and with every step they took, blood dripped from their bodies. By the time they reached the shore, they were blood-soaked and unrecognizable.
“It hurts.”
“Give me back my blood.”
The director’s eyes widened in horror. His small belly quivered as he turned in place, too terrified to even lift his feet.
The cold sensation under his feet turned into tangible blood, which crawled up his legs, engulfing and corroding him in an instant.
The two female ghosts passed through him, rushing toward the crowd.
Ma Tongfeng was the last to emerge from the lake. He stared intently at the ghosts’ revenge, watching with unblinking eyes, taking in every detail with grim seriousness.
The rest of what was to come had already been witnessed before—ghosts seeking vengeance—but this time it was much more satisfying to watch.
They watched silently and intently, out of respect for this bloody spectacle that was unfolding like a film.
Screams echoed across the island, and behind them, the light from the lake shimmered, gradually forming a path.
Guo Yang said, “We can leave now.”
Xia Bai replied, “Let’s return to the movie world first. The waitress is still there, and she might not know to follow the path of light to get out.”
Ma Tongfeng agreed, “Let’s go back for a bit.”
Guo Yang glanced at Ling Changye and Erwa, who were standing in the distance, and said, “I’ll go with you.”
Before diving back into the lake, Xia Bai glanced back, noticing the three ghost women staring in their direction.
He said nothing and dived under the water.
As the icy water washed over his face, Xia Bai thought of Chu Xuelin.
He wondered if there was a girl named Xia Fei in the real world, or if there had ever been a group like theirs.
Each of them had struggled in the mire, and one day, a director descended like a god, reaching out to pull them from the mud, promising to make them film stars, to shine on the screen.
They gave up everything—sold their pots and pans, cut off all escape routes, and even lost the only love they had to come to this private island.
The director asked if they could endure hardship.
That was their specialty.
They bowed their heads, they bared their chests, and they ran across the island under the blazing sun, covered in blood and dirt, filled with hope.
They didn’t know that the brilliant and grand film in their hearts was merely a way for a few people to satisfy their twisted desires. Their dreams and lives were just a game to them. The land of dreams was a graveyard.
Their deaths were nothing more than a scene in a criticized, clichéd movie.
And it didn’t stop there. Even in death, they couldn’t escape, trapped in a fake film world, endlessly repeating the injuries, endlessly repeating the deaths, endlessly being watched. Even revenge became a joke, and they gradually went mad.
Xia Bai closed his eyes, struggling toward the light.
When they returned to the movie world, they didn’t find the waitress.
Guo Yang said, “She must have left the game. Even Erwa knew to follow the path of light, so she must have known too.”
There was also a path of light on the lake in the movie world.
Guo Yang urged, “We’d better hurry before the path disappears.”
They had spent some time looking for the waitress, and if they delayed any longer, they might miss their chance to leave.
Xia Bai nodded and started walking toward the path of light.
After a few steps, he noticed Ma Tongfeng still standing where he was, not intending to follow.
“Xia Bai,” Ma Tongfeng said with a relaxed smile, “You all go ahead. I’m not leaving. I want to stay in this world with Jiaxiu.”
“What nonsense are you spouting, Old Ma!” Guo Yang snapped coldly. “The outside world is our real world! Hurry, the path is about to disappear!”
Ma Tongfeng turned his head. “I don’t like that world out there.”
Xia Bai didn’t try to persuade him to return to the real world. After all, one man’s honey is another man’s poison. If he wanted to stay here, then let him stay.
Xia Bai had already noticed that Ma Tongfeng had no intention of returning alive.
But Guo Yang didn’t see it that way. He dashed toward Old Ma like the wind, picked him up, and ran towards the exit. “Xia Bai, hurry up and follow us!”
Xia Bai: “…”
He obediently followed and walked into the path of light.
【Congratulations, scavenger Xia Bai, for successfully unlocking the Hexie Cinema map.】
【Game calculation in progress, please wait.】
【Scavenger Xia Bai has received the following rewards and achievements for this map:】
【Game Item [Hexie Grabber]: A grabber that can tear through space regardless of the bloodshed. It allows you to retrieve objects (or people) across dimensions.】
【Game Points: 2,012,030】
【Skill Progress: Skill Level 23 (Note: +20 levels for scavenging a corpse with a skill, +10 levels for a corpse without a skill, +2 levels for each additional corpse reserved. Please refer to the skill book for more details.)】
Xia Bai: “…?”
How did his skill level become 23?
The initial level was 1. With the reserved corpse of You Yue, he should have gained 2 extra levels, making it 3, right?
Where did the additional 20 levels come from?
Xia Bai had a bad feeling. As soon as he emerged from the portal, he opened his phone and checked the skill book. When he saw that the corpse ledger—renamed as a family tree—had added the name Gu Quankun, Xia Bai’s vision went dark.
He had asked Gu Quankun if he wanted his corpse, but he hadn’t truly intended to sign him.
Xia Bai didn’t like Gu Quankun, nor did he like his skill.
It was ugly.
The first time Xia Bai saw Gu Quankun’s hand transform into a giant worm in Screening Room 5, he hadn’t thought it was impressive or cool at all. In fact, he had found it somewhat repulsive.
Another scene flashed in Xia Bai’s mind: a man in a black trench coat, with a giant worm flying out from his shoulder, coiling in mid-air like a soaring dragon.
Suddenly, he thought, maybe it wasn’t entirely unacceptable.
