Xu Qinglai: ……?
Why did he feel hot?
After a second of confusion, Xu Qinglai refused oddly.
“Thanks, but no need for now.”
“The temperature right now is just perfect.”
I see.
Bo Ting regretfully withdrew his gaze, disappointed that he couldn’t show Mr. Xu his air conditioning panel.
But since Mr. Xu wasn’t hot, he would just watch the movie.
His eyes turned back to the screen.
To Bo Ting’s surprise, however, the movie called The Bud wasn’t about forests or mountain roads.
Instead—it was a hospital?
A sign for “Anhua Road Private Hospital” flashed by.
Bo Ting vaguely remembered seeing it somewhere, but he couldn’t recall right now.
Still, he felt a spark of interest.
Hospitals…
They fit the horror movie trope perfectly.
As long as it wasn’t some niche horror flick. Bo Ting picked up his milk tea and watched intently.
The “gulp gulp” sounds of milk tea echoed in the dead-silent cinema.
The screen now showed the hospital’s daily bustle.
Watching the nurses and doctors come and go, Bo Ting felt a bit itchy with anticipation.
“Next up is a missing corpse, right?”
According to the tropes from horror movies before his time travel, this seemed like the most common plot.
After all, they had just shown a shot of the morgue.
Xu Qinglai paused, somewhat surprised. He hadn’t expected Bo Ting to know.
“Have you seen this movie before?”
Bo Ting shook his head.
“No.”
In front of his good brother, he subconsciously recalled the ghost stories the big shots on the forum used to tell, but kept a calm face.
“I’m guessing.”
“Isn’t that how it goes?”
He asked doubtfully in return.
Xu Qinglai chuckled lightly.
“You’ll see if you keep watching.”
Bo Ting nodded and looked back at the screen.
Sure enough, the plot he guessed continued.
The first corpse went missing.
It belonged to an old man on the fifth floor who died of a heart attack.
He had collapsed on the road from a sudden cardiac episode, been rushed to the hospital by passersby, and declared dead after failed resuscitation. The hospital hadn’t even contacted the family yet when the body in the morgue vanished.
One wave hadn’t settled before another rose.
The hospital grew even noisier.
Bo Ting was surprised by the documentary-like feel.
The dim tones, stuttering audio, and muffled dialogue all seemed to recreate the scene as authentically as possible.
They must have put thought into filming it.
Bo Ting looked at the next scene.
Oh, another one missing.
This was a hospital staff member.
He had fallen to his death from the top floor by accident, and his body was in the morgue.
The camera shook unsteadily.
Within a week, seven bodies disappeared one after another, thoroughly undermining the credibility and competence of Anhua Road Private Hospital.
Patients’ families brought media to expose and demand a full investigation.
The once-bustling hospital gradually declined amid the corpse disappearances.
Even the morgue on the basement level got locked up.
Bo Ting immersed himself seriously, pondered deeply, and analyzed the movie.
The movie was called The Bud, but what did that have to do with buds?
It was just everyday eerie events at the hospital.
So why that name?
Bo Ting watched for a while and felt baffled, but he didn’t want to ask Mr. Xu beside him.
What if the other thought he was illiterate?
His shy mentality kept his face calm, as if he felt nothing.
After “Anhua Road Private Hospital” appeared, the cinema plunged into murmurs and corrosion.
Foul mold grew thick outside the entire cinema, spreading layer by layer from the top down.
The Resurgence Management Office had been controlling Tianxin Cinema and halted admissions.
Caught off guard, they saw the changes outside.
“Damn.”
“What’s going on?”
Zhao Jiang, who had been guarding here, froze, unable to react. The cinema had been quiet just moments ago—how did it turn like this?
Si Ning frowned and glanced at the time.
“The Bud started playing.”
Zhao Jiang: “Didn’t we tell the theater chain to pause it?”
And they had people at every entrance—no reports of anyone entering.
Si Ning shook his head. “The cinema side said they don’t know either. It was paused, but then it… started on its own.”
The fear in the theater staff’s voice during the recent call was genuine; they were clearly spooked and clueless.
It looked like the influence of the Tree of Defiled Soil.
And the audience inside watching right now…
As he frowned in thought, Xue Hengfu finally came upstairs.
“Captain, the viewer who went in should be the one from Taiping Luxury Garden.”
The one from Taiping Luxury Garden?
Si Ning was puzzled.
Xue Hengfu remembered he hadn’t told the captain yet and quickly recounted the midday events, his voice tinged with helplessness.
“It said on the car ride that it wanted to watch a movie.”
“And had me drop it off at the Tianxin Cinema entrance.”
Though it vanished after getting out, it had definitely come here.
The rampant mold outside was proof.
“What the hell—why do all these ghost things pile up together?!”
Zhao Jiang couldn’t help cursing.
Looking at the cinema that had changed just from the outside, he felt his scalp tingle.
“What now?” He looked to the captain.
Si Ning turned to Xue Hengfu, knowing Captain Lu hadn’t sent him just to report—he must have ideas.
Xue Hengfu swallowed, his head aching at the thought of Captain Lu’s orders.
“Captain Lu said, if we’re sure there are no civilians in the mall right now…”
“Keep watch and observe.”
“Don’t alarm the inside.”
What else could they do?
Charge into the cinema?
The Tree of Defiled Soil and that eerie from Taiping Luxury Garden were unknowns.
Rushing in rashly might provoke the Taiping Luxury Garden one, making things worse.
“But the Tree of Defiled Soil is using the movie to spread its filthy resurgence,” Zhao Jiang reminded.
Xue Hengfu shook his head.
Si Ning stared at the mold on the glass, which vaguely evoked endless hunger. He forced himself to snap back and quickly decided.
“Observe for another twenty minutes.”
They were still watching Changling District—if the Tree of Defiled Soil showed real signs of successful reanimation, Captain He would notify him immediately.
Twenty minutes was enough to watch a bit longer… and decide.
Members of the Sixth Esper Squad dispersed.
After getting out of the car, Lu Jingshan frowned and circled the mall.
His mind replayed what he had just probed.
—That eerie ran to the milk tea shop across from the mall after getting out, and ordered a milk tea?
Such an absurd, bizarre thing happening right in front of him. If not for the store clerk swearing she saw a shark-headed handsome guy…
Lu Jingshan could hardly believe it.
“What do you think it’s thinking?”
He asked subconsciously.
Yin Liao was puzzled too.
“Its behavior and speech are very human-like.”
Human-like…
Unclear if that word was good or bad here.
Lu Jingshan exhaled.
“So it really went to watch a movie like it said, even bought milk tea?”
He shook his head slightly, unsure if his suggestion to Si Ning was right.
But if the Taiping Luxury Garden one truly had no intent to cause trouble, staying quiet was their best move now.
“Let’s see.”
“We’ll head up too.”
The group quickly entered the stairs.
Meanwhile, as the cinema turned into a slick, horrifying, moldy nest of filth…
Bo Ting chewed his pearls and quietly thought they tasted pretty good.
But this movie was so long—it made him hungry.
The milk tea he had on the way was digested quickly. Bo Ting subconsciously heard his stomach “gurgle.”
When the seven missing hospital corpses were arranged into upward-reaching branches on screen, Bo Ting finally couldn’t hold back his stomach rumbling. He clutched his stomach, mentally urging it to “quiet down.”
In an instant, the branches extending from the screen twisted for a moment.
When Bo Ting looked up again, it seemed like nothing had happened.
No, not quite nothing.
Bo Ting’s eyes widened as he looked closely—the mold had grown next to the cinema’s big screen?
“Hiss.”
“Looks like a high-end cinema, but the hygiene is this bad?”
Bo Ting frowned, suddenly suspecting mold under his seat too.
A neat freak straight guy’s face changed drastically.
As Xu Qinglai looked over puzzled, he decisively activated dehumidification mode!
First date—absolutely could not let these disgusting molds ruin it!
No way he could let Mr. Xu see this.
After controlling the air dehumidification, Bo Ting sidestepped to block Mr. Xu’s view.
“What’s wrong?”
He blinked innocently, as if clueless.
Xu Qinglai eyed the filthy fungi creeping up from the seats, his brow unchanging.
“Nothing. I thought you looked unwell just now?”
Had he sensed the Tree of Defiled Soil’s corrosion?
As he frowned in thought…
The mold by Bo Ting’s side shrank back instantly, as if sensing something terrifying, so fast it seemed like an illusion.
Bo Ting ramped up the intensity, frantically freshening the air.
For the first time, he thought being an air conditioner was pretty good—at least now he didn’t have to watch the filthy floor helplessly.
Under Mr. Xu’s concerned gaze, Bo Ting said righteously.
“I’ve been sitting too long; my butt hurts a bit.”
“But it’s fine. I’ll exercise tonight and it’ll be okay.”
Bo Ting was oblivious to how terrifying his straight-guy remark sounded.
When Bo Ting said his “butt” hurt, Xu Qinglai wondered if he’d misheard.
But… that was exactly what the other meant.
Their eyes met.
Bo Ting smiled puzzledly.
Xu Qinglai restrained himself from looking.
“Good to hear.”
He shifted his gaze slightly, pulling his thoughts back, and looked up at the screen.
The movie had changed completely.
The rapidly growing branches stuttered to a halt, like someone hit pause.
Outside the cinema:
Xue Hengfu, fretting over the mold-covered walls, suddenly froze. “Captain, the mold stopped growing?”
Everyone looked—the mold that had been spreading wildly ten minutes ago, enveloping the whole mall, had halted.
They exchanged glances, unable to resist speculating: What happened inside?
After dehumidifying for a good while, Bo Ting noticed the film had stuttered.
![My Husband is a Drama King [Book Transmigration]](https://i1.wp.com/dobynovels.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/transmi.jpeg?resize=151,215 "My Husband is a Drama King [Book Transmigration]")
