Chapter 33: Human Skin Script (11): Staring at Each Other

In the eerie, pitch-black corridor, Zhou Cao’s face was twisted with malice. In one hand he held a knife, and with the other he was slamming a stone ashtray against the lock of the neighboring door, cursing under his breath all the while.

“Lou Hao! Murderer! Murderer! I’ll make everyone see your true face! I’ll strip you clean! Tear off your skin! Rip away your disguise! Murderer! Murderer!”

As he did this, the Fly Person hiding in his hair flew out and buzzed over to Xu Xiye. A moment later, the two Fly People began chattering together.

“God, are my eyes blind? This is horrifying!”

“This is Zhou Cao? I knew it—those personas are just staged for the fans. Anyone who believes them is a damn fool!”

“So disgusting. He calls other people murderers, but does he even see what he looks like right now?”

“I can’t take it. Does he really treat us fans like leeks to be harvested? Acting like this on camera—who knows what he’s like behind the scenes.”

“Expose him! Expose him! Drag his true face into the light!”

“Strip him clean! He must be stripped! Tear off his skin!”

The two Fly People seemed to be putting on a grand performance with an audience of thousands. They buzzed for a while, then together flew straight at Zhou Cao.

On the way, they paused to look at Xu Xiye, as if hesitating, unwilling to leave him. But Xu Xiye paid them little attention. In the end, driven by instinct, one burrowed into Zhou Cao’s hair, and the other landed on the skin at the back of his neck.

Zhou Cao still didn’t notice a thing. The door lock was already broken from the relentless battering. With one kick, the door flew open.

He took a few steps inside but didn’t rush to find that so-called murderer Lou Hao. He felt something growing and spreading on his skin. At the same moment, his script updated.

[I plan to make my move tonight. I’ll take a knife and knock on the door to catch him off guard.]

[Knock knock knock, knock knock knock. I knocked again and again, but there was no response from inside. Scared, are we? But I won’t stop.

[After learning those vile secrets hidden beneath the surface, anyone should do what I’m doing—strip off the other’s skin to stop others from being deceived.]

[Knock knock knock! Knock knock knock! I found something to smash his door with—an ashtray, large, heavy, made of stone. I slammed it down hard. Wood splinters flew into my face. In that moment, for some reason, I felt hatred toward the door lock itself.]

[Jealous hatred.]

[The splinters seemed to turn into liquid—blood. Whose blood?]

[The lock was broken off. I walked woodenly into the man’s room. But by then, my mind was no longer thinking about how to strip his skin. My memories drifted back several years.]

[Three years? Or five? I’m not sure. My memory tells me I don’t want to remember this.]

Zhou Cao seemed to have merged into a single entity with the script. As it updated, his thoughts turned in sync.

What had he forgotten?

In a trance, he was no longer inside the villa room but sitting in a car on a wilderness road.

He recognized this road. Before arriving at the villa, he and his boyfriend had raced along it in the car. Then came the downpour, the argument, and his boyfriend getting out and leaving, getting into the car of another woman.

Zhou Cao sat in the driver’s seat and looked beside him. He was alone in the car. Xie Lincheng wasn’t there.

How had he suddenly appeared here?

Zhou Cao couldn’t quite grasp what was happening, but he clearly felt the pain and jealous hatred inside him soaring rapidly.

That slut!

The slut who seduced him!

He would destroy her! Destroy her face! Destroy her body!

His phone screen was lit, displaying a map. A set of coordinates was moving.

That was Xie Lincheng’s location.

An earpiece was in his ear. He was using it to monitor Xie Lincheng. He had to know everything about him; he attracted too much attention, so he had to take precautions.

Zhou Cao had already forgotten Lou Hao and his plan to skin him. He drove the car forward and stopped when he saw a woman collapsed by the roadside.

The woman wore a white dress and lay in a pool of blood. Looking closely, her body bore other unspeakable marks in addition to injuries from a car accident.

Zhou Cao stood before the woman and looked down at her from a great height. She was already dead, but the emotions filling his chest didn’t subside one bit. Jaw clenched, he glared at her with malice.

The jealousy couldn’t be quelled!

The rage couldn’t be quelled!

He had to do something!

He kicked the woman, then found a rock by the roadside and brought it smashing down onto her face. Once, twice—just like smashing that lock. Blood splattered. Her face became a bloody pulp.

Not enough. Still not enough. He tore off her clothes and smashed her lower body.

Panting, he dropped the rock and straightened up. In that instant when he looked down, he met the gaze of the woman’s open eyes.

In that split second, an icy, bone-chilling cold washed over Zhou Cao.

He had seen a similar scene before—just last night.

A woman in a white dress had been lying beside him. From that bloody, mangled face, a pair of dark, sinister eyes had stared fixedly at him.

So it was he who had smashed her face in.

Zhou Cao’s heart began pounding wildly. No one could find out. This was his secret. If anyone discovered it, he was finished.

But it was too late. He heard those voices echoing in his ears again, and this time they weren’t talking about Lou Hao. They were talking about him.

[Did you record it?]

[I did. I recorded everything. Let’s see how he tries to whitewash this!]

[So disgusting. Everyone has to know his true colors!]

[Expose him. Drag his secret into the open. Strip off his skin!]

Clatter.

The ashtray and knife hit the floor, and Zhou Cao collapsed helplessly.

It was over. Everything was over. His crimes had been discovered.

Zhou Cao saw several Black Shadows walking toward him. He felt someone kicking him. A familiar voice faintly called his name through his ears.

“Zhou Cao! For fuck’s sake, snap out of it! You’re Zhou Cao, Zhou Cao from S City! Not that bullshit Zhou Cao in the script!”

He was Zhou Cao, yes. But what was S City? What script? Zhou Cao couldn’t tell anything apart anymore.

The moment things had gone quiet in the neighboring room, Lou Hao had stepped out of Xu Xiye’s room. Seeing Zhou Cao standing frozen in place, he could basically determine that Zhou Cao had fallen into an Anomalous Phenomenon.

He didn’t know what was happening with Xie Lincheng and Wen Danning. Xie Lincheng’s figure was nowhere to be seen; only Wen Danning stood in the corridor. After hearing the excessive commotion over here, Wen Danning hesitated and then walked over.

They didn’t know whether Zhou Cao in this state could still be saved. But pain could restore a certain degree of clarity.

Wen Danning still intended to take action. Lou Hao stopped her. Anyway, his own ugly side was already exposed; adding a charge of beating someone didn’t change much.

They couldn’t afford to lose another person’s limbs.

He was confident he could stay lucid and not fall into an Anomalous Phenomenon. As long as he didn’t fall into one, those things couldn’t make a move on him.

He was more worried about Su Qing rushing out to skin him.

As for last night’s brush with danger?

That was because he had entered the Pollution Source’s nest. As long as he didn’t make contact with the Source, he was the most suitable one to act.

Lou Hao’s guess was correct. Su Qing indeed had the impulse to go out and skin him. She was sitting alone on her bed, hugging her knees. The candle on the table could only illuminate a small patch around her.

She could faintly hear voices—Lou Hao’s name, Zhou Cao’s name. Su Qing tried her best to ignore them. Steeling herself, she bit down hard on her own arm.

Pain could maintain a measure of clarity. For Su Qing it worked; for Zhou Cao it was already next to useless.

At first, Lou Hao gave a couple of kicks. His limbs had already lost so much strength, so he got down on the ground and used his teeth.

However—

There was no sign of Zhou Cao snapping out of it.

Rip.

The clothes on Zhou Cao’s back were sliced open.

Shrrriiip.

The skin on Zhou Cao’s back was peeled off.

Aaaaaah—

A scream rang out. Zhou Cao instinctively tried to flee.

But with his limbs stripped of sensation, lying on the ground, able only to wriggle like a worm—how far could he run?

Blood splashed onto Lou Hao’s face from beside him. When a flash of lightning lit up the room, he saw that the piece of discarded skin on the floor was covered in densely packed text.

The script.

That was their script. And also their assigned roles.

When a person merged completely with the script, that person became nothing more than a character in the script.

Lou Hao instinctively searched for his own script. He couldn’t find it. During this whole time, they had been discussing the script while all forgetting about it. The script had surely fused into each of their skins—the only question was to what degree.

Lou Hao struggled to his feet. A flash of defiance glinted in his narrow, icy eyes. But no matter how defiant, all he could do now was watch Zhou Cao die.

The skin on his back was only the beginning. Next they would strip more of him, and then he would die in agony.

Wen Danning stood silently to one side, saying nothing.

Just when they all assumed Zhou Cao was doomed, he disappeared. Darkness enveloped him, knocked him unconscious, and dragged him into its own room.

Watching the door suddenly open and shut, Lou Hao abruptly realized something. “Teacher Lu Ren?”

Wen Danning came to his side. “What do you mean?”

Lou Hao said, “I don’t know. It must have been Lu Ren who took him away.”

Wen Danning said, “But why would he?”

Lou Hao shook his head. He tried calling out Xu Xiye’s name a few times but received no response. “Where’s Xie Lincheng? Zhou Cao’s outcome could hardly be worse than death. Don’t worry about him.”

Moreover, Lou Hao always had a feeling that Lu Ren was different.

He bore no malice.

Wen Danning agreed with this and said, “Bai Luwei entered Zhuo Heng’s room. Xie Lincheng barged in after her and told me to wait outside. I don’t know what’s happening in there right now, but you’d better not go near.”

“I know. I won’t go near. If he doesn’t come out, what’s the plan?”

“He told me to give him thirty minutes. If he’s not out by then, I’m supposed to stab him.” As she spoke, she revealed a knife in her hand and made a throwing gesture.

Lou Hao said coldly, “And then what? We all become slug people.”

“No choice,” Wen Danning sighed. “That would be the worst-case scenario.”

Xu Xiye was spread throughout the air. He stood at his own door watching that drama with Zhou Cao, and at the same time, in another room, he watched yet another drama.

He could be anywhere. With absolute focus, he was looking down at everything happening below.

Hearing the Fly People’s words, Xu Xiye increasingly felt this was not a film shoot but a variety show with a script, and the Fly People were observers.

Of course, whether it was filming or a variety show made no difference to Xu Xiye. He was background scenery either way.

Xu Xiye was watching the scene with relish. When Zhou Cao smashed the door and walked in, he suddenly sensed certain changes.

He already knew about the energy suffusing the air. Once he became aware of its existence, he could no longer completely ignore it like before. As a result, as long as he wanted to and focused enough, he could perceive shifts in that energy.

To Xu Xiye, energy came in two types: one pure and transparent, the other black. Right now, the Black Energy was increasing.

It was a very subtle change. If Xu Xiye hadn’t been paying close attention to this location, he wouldn’t have noticed. Around the same time, the same change was happening in another room where the Outsiders had gathered.

Why was it increasing? Were the Outsiders producing this energy?

Shrrriiip—

As Xu Xiye was pondering, he suddenly saw a piece of Zhou Cao’s skin torn off. He had been shouting about stripping others’ skin, and now his own skin was being stripped.

Who was stripping it? Himself?

Aaaaaah—

His screams sounded so agonizing. Was it real pain or performed pain?

Xu Xiye experimentally tried peeling off a layer of his own skin and easily peeled off a layer of black. Oh, right. He didn’t have skin at the moment.

Then came Lou Hao kicking, biting, shouting something about snapping out of it, about not being the Zhou Cao in the script. In that instant, it hit Xu Xiye like a thunderbolt—telling him to snap out of it meant his mind was already clouded, that he could no longer tell the script from reality.

In other words, he had gone mad.

Xu Xiye suddenly dispersed. That black, unknown substance roiled in the air. Invisible Psychic Threads shot through Zhou Cao, through Xie Lincheng, through Zhuo Heng the puppy and Li Sha.

Perhaps because of Xu Xiye’s agitation and sheer power, this time, no one could resist him.

When the threads passed through Xie Lincheng, he sensed something and touched his eye but felt nothing unusual. In the end, he had to let it go.

Xu Xiye paid no heed. If his eyes were exposed to everyone, they would appear as pure black, glass-bead-like, inorganic orbs.

He was looking into the worlds seen through other people’s eyes, and also feeling the changes in energy.

A hypothesis had already formed: wherever the Black Energy increased, there was one more person going mad.

The Outsiders said there was a Pollution Source here. Xu Xiye had planned to look for it after the shoot was over. After all, even if people went mad, it hadn’t yet reached the point of affecting the job.

But this Zhou Cao was different. He could no longer tell who he was, and he had even let them injure him. This was already a severe stage.

Just like Little Li at his previous company—knowing full well his neck couldn’t handle hanging, yet he still put the noose around it.

Xu Xiye stared at the Black Shadows gathered around Zhou Cao. They looked like oversized Fly People, their mouthparts like two sharp blades. One swipe of those blades across the skin, and a chunk of flesh could be easily torn off.

If the peeling continued, this fragile Outsider would definitely die. Dead, he’d be useless to send to the Psychiatric Hospital.

The instant the thought crystallized, Xu Xiye’s dense, thick blackness swept toward Zhou Cao. The Black Shadow’s second cut struck empty air. Xu Xiye dragged the man into his own room and isolated him in a special space.

A realm of pure black. Anything placed inside would remain fixed in the exact state it was in at the second of entry.

Xu Xiye could create all sorts of spaces; they were his pockets.

Zhou Cao’s condition definitely made him unable to continue filming—unless the subject was the daily life of a psychiatric patient.

Could the Director actually be thinking that?

Probably not. Working with a mental patient posed potential risks. If that was the plan, the Director should have informed them in advance. Not saying so meant he didn’t know.

Hm. In that case, he could take this person away.

Xu Xiye heard Lou Hao calling him. He still paid no attention.

He was busy. He needed to focus. While dealing with Zhou Cao here, he was also looking down from above at the three people in the other room.

Three pairs of eyes, three different worlds. He felt like he was watching four TV dramas simultaneously—not with his eyes, but with his consciousness.

Why four, you ask? Because “Love You Till My Heart Explodes” hadn’t ended yet.

Precisely because of this, he couldn’t be disturbed.

Zhuo Heng and Li Sha. These two were no different from all the other people whose eyes he had borrowed before. He was peering into their worlds, and they had no awareness whatsoever. But Xie Lincheng seemed different.

Xu Xiye stared at him. For a long, long time. At a certain moment, he vaguely sensed Xie Lincheng meeting his gaze.

Not the kind of eye contact when awake and outside, but an internal collision of consciousness.

He opened his mouth and spoke two words.