Chapter 102
translator: baumkuchen editor: glitterypanda
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After filming started that morning, Chi Xiaochi subtly got his lines wrong twice, walked to the wrong position thrice, and broke into involuntary laughter once, all common causes of NGs .
Not only did “Guan Qiaoqiao” not become anxious, she even grabbed a bottle of spring water and placed it into Chi Xiaochi’s handhanded it to Chi Xiaochi . “Did you not get a good rest?”
At such close quarters, it could be seen that she was indeed quite different from the real Guan Qiaoqiao .
Guan Qiaoqiao’s smile had always been cheery and open, like a little sun, making it hard for others to see the scheming behind it . However, “Guan Qiaoqiao”’s personality was very gentle and quiet . She was of few words and when she smiled, it was dim . Her clear gaze revealed that she was truly worried about him .
Chi Xiaochi returned politeness for politeness, picking up a room temperature bottle from next to him, twisting it open, and handing it to her in return for hers .
She didn’t drink it, simply cradling the bottle in her arms .
She said, “You act really well . ”
“Guan Qiaoqiao” was overly quiet, to the point that she didn’t quite know how to talk to others . Even when she tried to find a conversation topic, it came off as rather stiff . She was the very picture of a wooden beauty, only able to come to life before the cameras .
Chi Xiaochi inclined his head slightly, accepting the compliment .
He said, “In the scene you did just now, your acting was too open . ”
The moment the topic turned to acting, “Guan Qiaoqiao” was no longer uncomfortable . Her entire body leaned closer, humbly asking for advice .
This scene was the last secret date the two went on before “Guan Qiaoqiao” committed suicide in the story .
Two highschool students, both yearning for love, yet becoming shy when the opportunity arose . Even when they kissed it was a mere touch of lips . As the little lackeys of the rich children, in their eyes, doing it was risking universal condemnation .
——Taking advantage of the others’ drunkenness after a night of revelry, they had snuck off to the little lake in the mountains to set off on a boat .
The boat belonged to those rich kids, but they boldly took it for their own use .
However, even as the boat floated out into the middle of the lake, they weren’t able to figure out what came next .
……As if this kind of stolen happiness was in itself already enough for them .
They held hands as they sat on the boat, looking out at the distant scenery, enjoying what was, unbeknownst to them, the last date of their lives .
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At this point, “Guan Qiaoqiao” had already been bullied to the point that she couldn’t hold her head up high, a desire for death already in her heart, just that she hid it too deeply, unwilling to let it be seen by the person closest to her .
On Chi Xiaochi’s end, he naturally had everything well in hand, while “Guan Qiaoqiao”, who originally should have occupied the position of the main mood setter of this scene, transitioned from serene to out-of-control, falling onto Chi Xiaochi’s lap and bursting into loud tears .
Chi Xiaochi acted out the scene he had conceived for her to see .
He just leaned back casually and his eyes filled with a dim sadness, exactly like the sadness of a young girl .
Disappointment, indignation, calm, all kinds of emotions flashed across his face one after another, the mere movements of his eyelashes enough to make one feel pity .
Finally, he turned and smiled brightly at Guan Qiaoqiao . His eyes were curved, the corners of his mouth were tilted upwards, but the look on his face made one suspect that tears would start falling in the next second .
His perfectly natural acting made others only feel comfortable and moved .
What was even more impressive was that after simply lifting his eyelids and brushing away a single tear, he returned to his usual leisurely and flippant appearance . He leaned back against his chair and raised an eyebrow with a smile .
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Chi Xiaochi of course agreed .
After “Guan Qiaoqiao” ran off to negotiate with the director and the film crew, Chi Xiaochi stood up, but his legs were weak, forcing him to sit back down .
Gan Yu, who saw every little movement of his, was both amused yet pained for him .
……So terrified, yet he was still so capable .
Chi Xiaochi insisted on taking a trip back to the castle from the filming location . He went into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face before summing up the results of this morning’s battle for the Gan siblings, who had followed him over .
“Reasonable NGs caused by mistakes during acting won’t result in death,” Chi Xiaochi said, “and I can even change her script to a certain extent . ”
Gan Yu looked at the dripping wet Chi Xiaochi in the mirror, the look in his eyes tender, using his gaze to lightly hug him, kiss him .
It really had been hard on him .
He’d had to go through a lot of scares just to obtain these two simple conclusions .
But he didn’t expect that other than those, Chi Xiaochi had made some other discoveries .
“She can tell that I’m just acting blind,” Chi Xiaochi said, “But she’s going along with it . ”
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She’d even specially placed the mineral spring water directly into his arms .
She didn’t act at all like a malicious ghost, both kind and polite, making it impossible for one to tell where the danger was hidden .
And that was the most dangerous part about her .
As Chi Xiaochi was thinking this, he suddenly heard the loud noise of objects smashing and someone cursing from the second floor corridor .
Chi Xiaochi and the Gan siblings exchanged glances . They rushed out .
……The one who had acted out was Pigtail guy, and it was against the photographs .
He managed to smash three to four frames before being held down by Yuan Benshan and the rest .
However, he didn’t calm down, pacing restlessly over the pile of broken glass, uncontrollably digging out the skin of his scalp with his fingernails as if he wanted nothing more than to be able to dig out his brain .
His eyes were bloodshot as he muttered crazily, “We need to kill her…… I have to kill her . ”
This scene was very familiar . It was exactly like Guan Qiaoqiao’s fits of madness before she’d died .
Chi Xiaochi wanted to figure out what was going on, yet was in a hurry to get back to the set, so he raised his hand and called Yuan Benshan, who was standing silently to the side, ober .
Chi Xiaochi’s attitude towards Yuan Benshan was the neverending cause of bewilderment for the 061 who had materialised as Gan Yu . It was as if he wasn’t in a hurry to deal with him, rather more like he was going to take him for himself, and was making nice with him .
In his current position, it wasn’t easy for him to ask about his plans .
But 061 understood Chi Xiaochi . As long as they provoked him, he could easily dig a comfortable pit for the other party .
Upon seeing Chi Xiaochi, Yuan Benshan’s face relaxed . He took the initiative to walk over .
This morning, Chunyang had gone out, the Gan siblings leaving along with him . Before he left, he’d had Yuan Benshan and the rest get familiar with the plot, not wanting them to go along with him . He’d even secretly pulled Yuan Benshan to the side and told him to try and probe at the nature of that group’s secret weapon through Freckles, and to advise them to not use it for the time being .
At least currently Yuan Benshan wasn’t in the female ghost’s kill list in the plot, so Yuan Benshan was naturally happy to try to probe for information .
But what he hadn’t expected was that before he was even able to say more than two sentences to Freckles, Pigtail guy would start acting up .
Originally, everyone had been in the living room reading the script, discussing what they thought . It had actually been a bit like they were studying the arts . However, Pigtail guy had been acting like he had lice, unable to sit still and soaked in cold sweat .
In the beginning, everyone thought that he was just fretful due to the scene he’d be acting that afternoon, but slowly, they all realised that there was something not quite right about him .
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After biting off the nails of his right index finger and thumb, he listed to the side, and quietly asked Ponytail lady next to him, “Are those people in the photographs…… watching me?”
After hearing Yuan Benshan’s report, Chi Xiaochi broke out into goosebumps in the heat of noon .
Chi Xiaochi asked, “Before he noticed he was being watched by the photographs, was he doing anything special?”
Yuan Benshan thought for a moment . “No . He was just in a daze, I don’t know what he was thinking about . Afterwards, he just……”
Chi Xiaochi then asked, “Were the photographs really looking at him?”
Yuan Benshan shook his head .
He couldn’t see it, but Pigtail guy was insistent, absolutely certain that the young lady in the picture of a noble girl in the Middle Ages hanging in the living room was staring at him coldly .
That photograph was called 《Young Maiden’s Prayers》 . It was an ancient photograph, which had been meticulously framed . It was apparently one of the most precious photos in the owner of this ancient castle’s collection .
But according to Pigtail guy, that young girl’s eyes were like black holes, undulating with circular ripples of darkness, wanting nothing more than to swallow him whole .
He’d rushed into the corridor . His three teammates had followed, spewing nice-sounding words and persuasions . They had clearly already managed to calm him down, but for some unknown reason, he had started to lose control again, smashing things like he’d gone insane, unable to be talked down .
“What’s the point of killing her?” Gan Yu said, “Won’t it just make her return to the photographs and pick another person to possess?”
Yuan Benshan said, “He said that they have a way to kill her . ”
……It was probably the secret weapon that they’d wanted to save until the tenth task that Freckles had spoken about .
After finding out what had happened, Chi Xiaochi returned to the filming location by the lake .
“Guan Qiaoqiao” had been waiting for him for a long time now, but upon seeing him return, she wasn’t in a hurry, simply giving him a warm smile and pulling him by the sleeve onto the boat .
Her face really could be said to look utterly harmless . However, when Chi Xiaochi saw her gentle and beautiful appearance once more, he only felt a chill run down his spine .
What exactly was the death mechanism in this task world?
Clearly, “Guan Qiaoqiao” hadn’t even properly acted alongside Pigtail guy up till now……
“Your mind is wandering . ”
Chi Xiaochi was jolted out of his thoughts by this clear and cold voice . He turned, his eyes just so happening to meet “Guan Qiaoqiao”’s .
Her cold gaze was like a knife, making Chi Xiaochi’s hair stand on end . “What are you thinking about . ”
There was limited space inside the boat, and he and “Guan Qiaoqiao” were currently very close together . “Guan Qiaoqiao” could easily snap his neck at any moment if she wanted to .
The surrounding cameramen were all NPCs, equivalent to a group of animated wooden puppets . Even if he was immediately about to die, they wouldn’t react in any way, only continuing to record the process of his death and turn it into a movie .
After a moment of thought, Chi Xiaochi replied honestly, “I was thinking about some rather nasty things . ”
He admitted that, in the moment before “Guan Qiaoqiao” had asked her question, he had been thinking about that way to kill ghosts they had spoken of .
“Guan Qiaoqiao” was a little surprised by his honesty, but she quickly replied, “Don’t think about that anymore . The director’s about to start the scene . ”
Chi Xiaochi really didn’t think about it anymore .
The things that had happened this morning, had allowed him to vaguely guess a possibility . Even though he had no way to prove it, it was worth testing .
……If his guess was true, then this world’s difficulty was indeed of a level worthy of the eighth task .
What was worth celebrating was that unlike what the weather report had predicted, the weather that afternoon was unbearably hot and humid, but the rain had yet to fall .
It looked like they could only use artificial rain .
The equipment needed to create artificial rain weren’t in place, so the modified filming schedule was changed back to the original .
Pigtail guy should have breathed a sigh of relief at this, but his condition actually became worse and worse .
He’d bitten at his fingers until they were covered in gouges, bleeding profusely . Even though he was trying his best to suppress it, everyone could tell that he was on the verge of breaking, just like Guan Qiaoqiao had been a few days ago . “Kill her”, was his last remaining thread of hope keeping him from losing his sanity .
There was no way for the people watching to not be worried by Pigtail guy’s changes . Hence, other than Chi Xiaochi, who could still be considered calm, everyone’s performance was utterly terrible, each of them horrible in their own way, making “Guan Qiaoqiao” frown just seeing it, and causing NG to be called over and over again .
Even though it didn’t seem like she was going to start attacking everyone, the group became more and more nervous . The film set was as silent as the dead, with an atmosphere so heavy that the air almost solidified .
……Everyone was worried about the scene that they would be filming that night .
The scenes for that afternoon could still be considered normal, it was of the few of them reminiscing about their old friends in the castle, but when it turned dark, they would have to play yet another round of the Four Corners game .
The difference was that this time, this Four Corners game was real .
According to the script Chi Xiaochi had extracted from “Guan Qiaoqiao”, this Four Corners game would happen at the reunion ten years later . The players would be Chi Xiaochi, Pigtail guy, Freckles and Ponytail lady .
Other than Chi Xiaochi, the other three had previously pranked Guan Qiaoqiao in the Four Corners game . They held guilt in their hearts . After drinking some alcohol, Ponytail lady brought up wanting to play another round of the absurd game they had played that year, wanting to summon her to apologise .
……Who would have thought that they would really succeed at summoning a “fifth person” .