“Hello, Director Liang,” Xu Xiye’s voice was a bit lazy. “It’s me, Little Ye.”
“Mm, why are you calling me now? Not out having fun?”
“I was. It gets dark very early at the new job. I played for a long time, and there was a heavy rainstorm.” His tone still carried a hint of excitement as he mentioned this.
“A new job? I heard your former boss called the hospital. It’s a pity we couldn’t take anyone in.”
“Yes, something unexpected happened. I’m sorry, Director, I couldn’t bring a single patient over.” Xu Xiye had been working this side gig for a long time. He had promised to send patients to the Director, but he hadn’t managed a single one.
Low laughter came from the man on the other end of the line. “It doesn’t matter. Some severely ill patients are very difficult to bring in, so don’t worry about it. Besides, our hospital is a bit tight on beds right now.”
“Ah? Then is the hospital still taking…”
“Of course, we are. Next time, call me directly. I’ll come pick them up personally.”
“Mm, mm.”
“How’s the current job going?”
“It’s alright. I’m working as an Extra. Apart from having to stay in the work area, there’s not much to do.”
“That’s good. Don’t overwork yourself.”
“Mm, mm, mm.” Xu Xiye nodded randomly. Only now did he remember the real reason he’d called. “Director Liang, do you know about the energy in the air? I can eat it.”
Director Liang was silent for a moment. “You ate it directly? How?”
Xu Xiye explained his method.
Director Liang asked again, “Why did you want to eat it?”
Xu Xiye: “Because I want to grow up.”
Director Liang laughed lowly again, his voice full of fondness. “Gobbling things down randomly will only make you fat. Getting fat isn’t truly growing up.”
Ah?
Xu Xiye was shocked. Subconsciously, he shrank himself a little. Although he could be very vast, he was definitely not a fatso.
“I only ate one mouthful,” Xu Xiye said, still shaken. “But I feel a bit stuffed.”
Director Liang consoled him, “Rest a bit and you’ll digest it. You won’t get fat. As for that energy, you don’t need to deliberately consume it. If you absolutely must eat it, then do it when you’re hungry.”
Xu Xiye sighed. “Then how can I grow up quickly?”
Director Liang: “I don’t know about that. It might take time or the right trigger. Don’t worry too much. I’ll handle it.”
“Alright, thank you, Director.”
His voice sounded a little listless. Director Liang asked him, “Is something bothering you?”
Xu Xiye: “There’s something I want to do, but I can’t.”
“Like what?”
“Like, I want to borrow other people’s eyes to see the world from their perspective. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
“I see. Then be more forceful. Don’t retreat just because you’re rejected. No one can refuse you. Hmm, don’t limit yourself. Try more.”
Don’t limit yourself.
No one can refuse you.
But Blue Eyes had refused.
After hanging up the phone, Xu Xiye mulled over Director Liang’s words. Was it that he wasn’t overbearing enough?
The night passed. Outside, the rain continued to pour down noisily. Daytime looked much the same as night. This kind of weather could very well persist until they left, or were completely wiped out.
Zhou Cao came downstairs and immediately glued himself to Xie Lincheng’s side. His face was pale, looking more haggard than yesterday. The way he looked at anyone getting close to Xie Lincheng was strange.
It was gloomy, full of jealousy.
Sometimes, he also looked at Bai Luwei with that same expression.
Su Qing’s complexion was equally poor. As she left her room, preparing to head downstairs, a pair of ice-cold hands clamped around her neck from behind once more, followed by a stiff body pressing against her back.
“Qingqing,” Bai Luwei called her that way again, in that same posture. “Let’s go down together.”
Refusal was useless. They descended the stairs in that posture. Su Qing felt as if she were carrying a corpse on her back down the stairs.
Cold, heavy, rigid.
Su Qing thought of last night. Half-asleep in bed, she had suddenly felt a chill seep through her body and found it hard to breathe.
She had struggled awake, pried the hands from around her neck, and with great difficulty turned over to see a face of mangled flesh and blood.
Su Qing screamed in terror. The person on the bed was kicked to the floor in her panic. The candle had gone out. Lightning flashed, dyeing the room a ghastly white.
Su Qing clearly saw the figure lying on the floor.
She should say, it wasn’t a person. It was a corpse.
The corpse was completely naked, its face destroyed. The skin from its chest to its thighs had been peeled off. Its groin area, like its face, had been smashed into a bloody pulp by something.
Just as Su Qing was frozen in horror, unable to move, the corpse’s eyes shifted and stared directly at her.
In that moment, the hair on Su Qing’s body stood on end. Her mind went blank.
When she came back to her senses, she was already off the bed, standing before the corpse. She was bending down, as if about to reach out and touch it.
A corpse. A corpse that belongs to me.
Terror and ecstasy flooded her mind. Su Qing was almost completely submerged in this emotion when the corpse vanished.
She felt relief, but also disappointment.
【You are Su Qing, a painter. Life and death are the themes of your art. Yet, what could express death better than a corpse?】
【Looking at the corpse that appeared in the room, you suddenly recalled that you once owned such a perfect corpse. You carried it home. It became your most perfect masterpiece.】
【However, one day, the corpse disappeared.】
Su Qing kept retching, nausea overwhelming her. She constantly reminded herself that this was the persona forced onto her by the script, not her true self. She hadn’t slept again. She endured until morning to go out and see the others. Who would have thought she’d run into Bai Luwei right away?
Bai Luwei was that corpse.
When the corpse disappeared, she had felt disappointment. If this continued, would she turn Bai Luwei into a corpse?
She absolutely couldn’t do that. She couldn’t even mention anything related to it. These were the secrets they couldn’t reveal under the camera’s gaze.
Bai Luwei was slumped on Su Qing’s back. If she walked on her own, they might have looked like close friends linking arms. But her feet dragged on the ground, completely still, making the sight quite grotesque.
Su Qing dragged Bai Luwei downstairs in this bizarre posture.
This was too strange.
She should push the person away. She could shove her to the floor, just like kicking that corpse off the bed.
But she just accepted this position. Oh, right, it was because she was on camera. She couldn’t do something so violent.
Su Qing was the first one downstairs. Next came the female Forensic Doctor, Li Sha. She looked no different from yesterday, with her soft, ear-length bob and a cold, placid gaze.
Su Qing nodded in greeting. Bai Luwei, however, let go of her and enthusiastically approached Li Sha. “Li Sha, good morning. Your skin looks so wonderful.”
She uttered this in an envious, eerie tone, one hand reaching toward Li Sha’s face.
Hearing the word “skin,” Su Qing and Li Sha’s expressions subtly changed.
They all knew the script was made of human skin. They had also heard the story about the villa. And Su Qing had even seen the corpse from that story with her own eyes last night.
They were all perpetrators of evil. If she was the corpse thief, then Li Sha was either the skin peeler or the one who destroyed the face.
Li Sha coldly avoided the hand. “Good morning,” she said, taking a seat.
Bai Luwei looked at her with a strange smile.
In that instant, a chilling thought flashed through Su Qing’s mind. At the same time, her script updated.
【However, one day, the corpse disappeared.】
【But it doesn’t matter, because now you’ve encountered it again. You want to take it back. You will take it back.】
【But why does it still smile?】
【When exactly will she turn into a corpse?】
【You’re already growing impatient.】
Su Qing’s breathing became heavier. She was by no means a timid or reckless person. She had also remembered the three Security Administration Bureau members’ words to stay calm. But she was still becoming like this.
The third person down was Zhuo Heng. His light brown hair was a bit messy. His face was pale, but his round eyes were still bright and alert.
What evil would he commit?
Then came Zhou Cao, following Xie Lincheng down.
Xie Lincheng was still his gracefully charming, eye-catching self, like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower.
Whenever their gazes fell on him, Zhou Cao would look back at them with gloomy eyes.
After them was Lou Hao. The last person to come down was Wen Danning.
Lou Hao’s posture was a little strange.
The group sat together. They had many questions to discuss, but with Bai Luwei present, not everything could be spoken aloud.
The Landlady brought them breakfast. Lou Hao’s gaze swept the villa’s main hall. Seeing the filming equipment set up not far away, he gave a disdainful snort. The Director was just a front. As long as the overt and covert cameras were set up, having a Director or not made no difference.
Xie Lincheng and Wen Danning observed Lou Hao. Twice they seemed about to speak, but then closed their mouths.
They couldn’t discuss the Pollution Source.
But they could talk about ghosts.
Xie Lincheng asked Bai Luwei, “You said this villa is full of ghosts. Did you encounter anything strange last night?”
“I didn’t,” Bai Luwei said. “That was probably just a story. I was overthinking. Besides, I’ve figured it out. If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t fear ghosts knocking at your door. So there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Xie Lincheng: “Really? Wasn’t it said there’s a Skinning Ghost here? You have a fine skin. How can you be sure that ghost will spare you?”
Bai Luwei’s eyes suddenly turned terrifying. She leaned closer to the table, craning her neck to stare at Xie Lincheng. “I said, that was just a story. Or did you encounter a ghost? Could it be someone did something guilty and got targeted? Then you better be careful. Hehe.”
She seemed extremely angered by the phrase “fine skin.” After finishing those words, she went upstairs.
Xie Lincheng leaned back in his chair, relaxed. “Alright, now we can speak freely.”
He looked at Lou Hao. “What’s your situation?”
Lou Hao: “Right, I went looking for the Pollution Source last night. Didn’t see her directly, but I made contact with her past.”
Xie Lincheng: “Oh? You seem in decent spirits. How much did you see?”
Lou Hao’s momentum faltered. “I didn’t see much. What’s with that look? I had to bypass the script first before I could barely touch its reality. You have no idea what I went through for that!”
Wen Danning asked in detail, “You didn’t see much—does that mean you saw nothing at all?”
Lou Hao: “Of course not. There was only one scene. Inside and out, I was completely surrounded by all kinds of people. Their mouths were constantly moving, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying, nor could I see their faces clearly.”
Lou Hao: “What I have to warn you is, this Contaminated Zone is special. You can’t just barge through on Spiritual Power alone.”
“What do you mean?” Coming from Lou Hao’s mouth, Xie Lincheng was quite surprised. After all, relying on high Spiritual Power and Special Abilities, Lou Hao had been the first to charge in headfirst.
Lou Hao: “While I was completely lucid, something in the Anomalous Phenomenon was able to directly harm me.”
Wen Danning cautioned, “Pollution doesn’t only proceed step by step. It can be instantaneous. Are you sure you were fully lucid at the time?”
Anomalous Phenomenon was the method by which a Pollution Source spread Pollution. The degree gradually deepened. The contaminated person could progress from seeing illusions to physically touching entities.
If you could touch entities, you could naturally be harmed by them.
Lou Hao might have thought he was lucid one second, and become disoriented the next without realizing it. This situation was a jump-like, instantaneous Pollution.
Lou Hao’s eyes sharpened. “Impossible!”
Then, remembering something, he added, “It was because my secret was exposed on camera.”
If that was the case, they were even less able to openly discuss their scripts.
Wen Danning asked, “Wasn’t there a single Anomaly from this place among the Phenomenon you saw?”
Lou Hao was very certain. “No.”
Xie Lincheng was highly skeptical. “The BOSS can’t not have its own NPCs. Either you didn’t see enough, or someone else is hiding in the villa.”
He continued pointedly, “Those from the Production Team aren’t them. The Director’s true form looks like a person growing out of a pelt. The Assistant Director resembles some deep-sea creature. The others all have their own unique traits. They’re definitely not in the same system as the corpse or the Skinning Ghost. As for the other few…” his gaze drifted meaningfully.
Lou Hao looked over, annoyed. “Teacher Lu Ren definitely isn’t one. I won’t hide it from you: I only escaped the Anomalous Phenomenon because of Teacher Lu Ren. You should know, even if a Symbiotic Anomaly has no malice, it won’t help us.”
“…” Teacher Lu Ren? Well, whatever. Everyone called everyone “teacher” these days anyway.
Xie Lincheng smiled. “Is that so? As expected of someone I’ve got my eye on.”
The moment he said this, the expression of Zhou Cao beside him changed.
Lou Hao’s glare was fierce as he warned, “Proposal Maniac, control your man! Watch your gaze!”
Xie Lincheng got a headache at this. It wasn’t that he hadn’t warned Zhou Cao. But, it was useless.
Zhou Cao hung his head low, silent. His fingers, placed below the table, were clenched tight.
Lou Hao ignored him and continued, “As for the rest, rather than fixating on the obvious ones, it’s better to search for the ones lurking in the shadows.”
Wen Danning said nothing, seeming to have her own plans.
Xie Lincheng’s fingertips tapped lightly on the table surface, also looking thoughtful.
“Don’t let the plot push you along,” Lou Hao warned again. “Oh, right. Buzz buzz buzz~ What’s that sound?”
Zhuo Heng, sitting on Xie Lincheng’s other side, felt he finally had a chance to speak up. Immediately, he said, “Buzz buzz~ Little bees.”
Idiot. It’s flies.
Passing by, Xu Xiye refuted this internally.
But he wasn’t going to tell them. This was the behind-the-scenes Big BOSS (he guessed). It was a detail that needed keen eyes to discover. Such things, of course, required the main leads to find out for themselves. A passerby like him wouldn’t know.
Xu Xiye fetched his breakfast and sat down by the window to eat. Then, someone sat down opposite him.
It was Lou Hao, the Outsider who could crawl and wriggle. Xu Xiye nodded at him amiably.
Lou Hao sat upright across from him. Seeing his lifesaver appear, he naturally couldn’t ignore him.
“Teacher Lu Ren, you seem… to be in a good mood today?”
Xu Xiye hummed lightly, unable to resist sharing. “That’s right. Because I got paid.”
Salary? Money? Lou Hao’s expression turned serious. Although he was a rich man, here, he truly had no money.
Xu Xiye asked him quietly, “Did you guys get paid yet? How much?”
Lou Hao’s expression grew even more serious. “Not yet. Hard to say.” Because they simply didn’t get salaries.
Xu Xiye nodded understandingly. Sure enough, salaries were confidential no matter where you were.
Lou Hao lightly smacked the table and stood up. No, he had to find the Director to discuss this salary issue.
“I, Lou Hao, always repay kindness and always avenge grudges. Just wait, Teacher Lu Ren.”
Xu Xiye watched his departing back, bewildered. Was he going to repay kindness or avenge a grudge?
So fierce. Could this be the legendary Overbearing?
