Chapter 96.1
Chapter 96 part1
When Chi Xiaochi was shocked awake by Guan Qiaoqiao’s screaming, he unexpectedly found himself in his bedmate, Gan Yu’s embrace.
His arms were locked around his waist, his movements both natural and gentle.
……When had he started hugging him? How was it that he hadn’t felt it at all?
Gan Yu had also just been woken up by Guan Qiaoqiao. In his sleepy daze, he felt his way up with his hands, covering Chi Xiaochi’s ears in a practiced movement. With his voice still slightly gravelly from sleep, he said softly, “Don’t move.”
Half Chi Xiaochi’s face immediately started tingling.
He thought that he was dreaming. It was as though upon waking up, he’d returned to those dazed, drowsy early mornings, where, in his sleepy haze, someone would lean over him and ask if he wanted his eggs sunny-side up, over easy or used to coat mantou slices and deep-fried.
This illusion was too beautiful, to the point that he didn’t quite dare to turn around.
But he only gave himself three seconds to indulge.
After three seconds, he let out a sigh, and quietly pushed Gan Yu’s hands aside, wanting to get up. Faking an worried expression, he asked, “What’s going on?”
Who knew that Gan Yu would push down on his shoulders, and directly ask, “Are you really that worried.”
Chi Xiaochi, “……”
Don’t say it, Chi Xiaochi really wasn’t at all worried.
Gan Yu looked down at him. “If you’re not worried, just close your eyes, wake yourself up, and get up slowly. Abruptly getting up before eating breakfast makes it easier for you to get low blood sugar.”
Then, Gan Yu reached out a hand to grope around for his glasses which he had put by the side of the bed, raising an eyebrow at Gan Tang at the same time.
Gan Tang took the initiative to get up, pull open the door and look outside.
Chi Xiaochi actually obediently closed his eyes, absently rolling the corner of his quilt between his fingers.
After a few tests, Chi Xiaochi already had a clear suspicion about Gan Yu’s identity, but the other party wasn’t willing to confess.
Even though he wasn’t clear on the reason, Chi Xiaochi didn’t plan on continuing to ask. He simply took him as a temporary partner for now, he could slowly work out the full story after.
Just that, if 061 really was Gan Yu, if he really could form a physical body in every world, then the Dong Feihong whose food tasted exactly the same as Lou-ge’s……
Just as his thoughts were running wild, Chi Xiaochi suddenly quivered, jolting up from the bed. “……What’s that smell?”
Gan Yu and him met gazes. Sensing that the situation had changed, they both got off of the bed.
The source of that smoky smell was easy to spot.
Rolling clouds of smoke billowed out of Guan Qiaoqiao’s room. Three or four task-takers had already rushed over to the door, but none of them had dared to enter, only staring in from outside the door.
Chi Xiaochi, helped by Gan Yu, slowly came over, his expression deeply worried. Gan Yu quietly described what had happened inside the room, his expression gentle. It could be said that he really respected his blind act.
Chi Xiaochi could see everything clearly.
The photograph of《Person Returning on a Snowy Night》was currently burning along with Guan Qiaoqiao’s cotton quilt on her bed. The lighter that Guan Qiaoqiao had thrown in had also exploded from the high temperature, with its plastic casing and dark lighter fuel splattered everywhere.
Guan Qiaoqiao’s hands were clenched in a death grip around the back of her chair as she stared hatefully at the photograph, as if like that, she would be able to scare the ghost in the photograph into retreating.
However, her fingers had already gone stiff, making her utterly unable to relax her hands which were clenched around the chair. Yuan Benshan could only try to drag her along with the chair out with all his might. Gan Tang couldn’t quite bear to keep watching, also moving over to help.
The NPC crew members unexpectedly reacted normally, coming over when they heard the noise, and bringing the fire extinguisher they had prepared beforehand inside to put out the flames.
Guan Qiaoqiao nervously looked around at everyone, eager for a definite answer. “I’ve burnt it to death, haven’t I?”
No one could answer her.
Fortunately, before the fire had the chance to spread, it was put out after a few seconds of being sprayed with the foam fire extinguisher, leaving only a mess on the bed.
The crew member walked out of the room, the fire extinguisher in hand. “How were you so careless?”
Guan Qiaoqiao, thinking that the photograph had already been destroyed, had a well of relief rush up from the bottom of her heart. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, but after thinking for a while, she let out a slightly twisted smile, which could be considered her reply.
However, the crew member’s next words made her stiffen. “This castle is rented, thankfully you didn’t burn anything else.”
Guan Qiaoqiao was dazed for a few seconds, before lunging into the room.
……Where was the shadow of the photograph in the mess of a quilt on the bed?
In the next second, Guan Qiaoqiao froze in place.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an exquisite, perfectly intact photograph frame appear on the wall.
The returning person who was making their way forward against the wind and snow, had gotten closer again.
Next, Chi Xiaochi spent an hour testing the properties of the photographs in the castle.
It turned out that any attempt to destroy or move the photograph from its original position would be utterly futile.
All the other photographs in the castle had similar properties.
Even if they locked the photograph into a room, after a few seconds, it would automatically refresh and restore itself to its original position, and acts such as smashing and destroying the photograph were even more of a waste of time.
……Chi Xiaochi was convinced that Guan Qiaoqiao was doomed.
This female ghost stayed in the photographs in the ancient castle, and could freely appear in any place where there was a photograph hung, and there was no way of destroying the photographs. It was equal to an unsolvable problem.
But Guan Qiaoqiao still refused to just die.
She tried to move to an empty bedroom to rest, and moved the photograph in that room out, but within half an hour, she once more escaped out of there, shrieking.
——There originally had been a photograph of a children’s choir in the empty bedroom, but when she ran out in a panic, the contents of the photograph frame had already been infected, having gradually turned into the《Person Returning on a Snowy Night》.
And the originally palm-sized black figure had gradually formed defined limbs, and one could even make out its facial features.
She cried and screamed about wanting to leave the castle and sleep with the reserve crew outside, the further away from those damned photos the better, but was stopped by Chi Xiaochi.
Those crew members only looked normal.
They were neither human nor ghosts, what if they were on the same team as the ghost, wouldn’t Guan Qiaoqiao going there be like sending a lamb into a tiger’s den?
This wasn’t possible, that wasn’t possible, Guan Qiaoqiao curled up in a corner of her room, her lips white. She scratched harshly at her scalp with her nails so hard that her nails were filled with dark red scraps of skin from her scalp.
Everyone could understand Guan Qiaoqiao’s craziness.
If you kept feeling someone peering through the crack at the door, through the window, from under the bed, staring at you with the gaze of a predator looking at its next meal, watching you at all times, from all directions, and this person couldn’t be seen, be felt, be hit, and you had no idea when they would get closer, nor when they would leave, wouldn’t you go crazy?
However, no matter crazy Guan Qiaoqiao was becoming in her room, the movie still needed to be acted out, and there was no way others could give up their task to accompany and comfort her.
In the end, Chi Xiaochi came up with an idea.
He and Yuan Benshan took the shivering Guan Qiaoqiao back to the room with the《Person Returning on a Snowy Night》, then directed Yuan Benshan to take down the photograph from the wall, flip it, and hang it back up.
——The gaze came from the photograph, and there was no way to destroy the photograph itself nor move it from its original position, so maybe flipping it around would be able to stop this feeling of being watched.
This idea was extremely dumb, but Guan Qiaoqiao actually really didn’t feel that bone-penetrating gaze any longer.
She suggested flipping all the photographs in the castle, but some of the valuable big photographs were inlaid and fixed onto the wall, and would be hard to move without tools, and after testing, as long as you flipped more than five photos, it would be considered as “moving them from their original position” by the castle, and all of the photographs would be refreshed, returning to their normal state.
With no other way, Chi Xiaochi could only have Yuan Benshan flip the one《Person Returning on a Snowy Night》, then throw away Guan Qiaoqiao’s burnt bedding and replace it with a new one, so that the exhausted Guan Qiaoqiao could rest in the room.
Without that gaze, she was so tired that she actually went right to sleep, but her brows were still furrowed in her dreams, clearly, her sleep wasn’t easy.
After closing the door for her, Chi Xiaochi let out a sigh.
Yuan Benshan, “Will this work?”
Chi Xiaochi, “Do you think burying your head in the sand works?”
It didn’t even stop at burying her head in the sand, right now, Guan Qiaoqiao had essentially locked herself together with a ghost, but in order to reduce the torment on her mind, in order to gain the slightest sense of security, she could only empty her brain and force herself to not think too much.
Guan Qiaoqiao was currently the splitting image of an ostrich, violently forcing her head in the sand, and just like that, it was as if she’d found the safest place in the world, completely ignoring the glowing green eyes of the pack of wolves that had surrounded her from behind.
Guan Qiaoqiao’s solo scenes were supposed to have been filmed and finished in the first day, but because she “was sick” and “in a bad mental state”, the director made some simple adjustments to the filming schedule, instead deciding the film the things that had happened when the six main characters arrived at the castle on their first day.
Everyone had their own plans in their mind, and didn’t have any experience with filming a movie, so they made fools of themselves many times, being unable to find their positions, forgetting their lines, NG-ing nonstop, making one mistake after another, frustration filling each and every one of their hearts.
Who would have thought that the one who performed the best would actually be the most looked down upon “little blind guy”.
Before shooting, he was guided through the set by the makeup artist called Gan Yu several times, roughly remembering his route, and personally confirming the placement of various props many times.
Looking at how clumsy and foolish he looked, everyone thought that Song Chunyang was done for.
But in actual fact, his first scene was so successful that it made everyone shut up in awe.
In the setting, in high school, “Song Chunyang” was half blind, with a soft, fearful personality, someone who submitted weakly to humiliation and was constantly the subject of bullying. He could only depend on sticking to the male lead to avoid being bullied by everyone, but was the male lead and his group’s constant punching bag and lackey.
He didn’t use old, ugly glasses and wrinkled polo shirts to give off the ordinary “loser” air as dictated by the script. Rather, he wore an expensive coat, but he hadn’t been willing to cut off the price tag. Even when he was so hot that his forehead was covered in sweat, he didn’t dare to take it off, because the thin sweater under his coat was of the extremely cheap variety, 30 yuan a piece Taobao goods.
When everyone entered the castle, some stammeringly, some overly forcefully reciting their lines, walking all over the place, he was constantly shrinking away in a corner of the room, his mouth split open in a grin, smiling as he listened to everyone speak, making sure that everyone who looked at him would instantly be able to see his friendly smile.
However, if the camera were to zoom in on him, one would be able to sense that his forced smile that had lasted for dozens of seconds contained a malevolence that would make one’s scalp go numb.
As a background board, he was far too outstanding, making it so that even the director couldn’t help but give him more scenes.
Soon, it was his turn to speak.
In the first scene, he only had one line.
The male lead asked this former lackey to help them pack up their stuff.
Upon hearing the two words “Song Chunyang”, the him that had been leaning against the wall had his knees bend slightly out of habit, as if he was going to kneel, but then seemed to give himself a push, forcing himself to stand a little straighter.
Because he hadn’t spoken all this time, when he spoke the first two words, his voice was a little dry, but it was the perfect degree of dry, “It’s still…… me huh.”
His dumb appearance even amused the ponytail lady, who had been nervously acting all this time, making her unable to help entering the act along with him and saying, “If it’s not you, is it me?”
Chi Xiaochi immediately knew that he had done something stupid. He lifted his foot, preparing to go upstairs, but stumbled over a raised floorboard.
He himself also seemed to find himself laughable, taking the initiative to smile and explain to the crowd, “I wasn’t standing steady, wasn’t standing steady.”
After that, he then picked up two nearby boxes and walked over to the stairs, but when his hand touched the staircase railing, he turned back, looking at the picture on the wall.
This was one of the props that he had repeatedly confirmed the position of with Gan Yu before filming.
That picture was a group photo that the crew had brought. In it was seven people, with the seven actors’ in their highschool appearances, dressed in their school uniform.
He squinted slightly, wanting to get a clearer look, but his feet subconsciously hurried upwards, rushing to help the seven people pack away their luggage. However, his gaze kept following that photograph, his movements seeming both ill at ease and ridiculous, but were also filled with a tender nostalgia.