The middle-aged man’s cries were filled with sorrow, “Jia Xiu! Jia Xiu!!!”
Guo Yang, sitting behind him, tried to calm him down, “Stay calm. Were you holding her hand the whole time? Did you just realize she’s gone?”
Words could not get through to the man. “Let me go, I have to find Jia Xiu!”
“Calm down!” Guo Yang slapped him firmly, “She’s already dead. If you don’t want to die too, think about what happened!” The slap was loud, whipping the man’s face to the side.
The sharp pain brought a moment of clarity to the middle-aged man. Sobbing, he bent down, trembling as he groped on the floor, picked up what he had thrown, and pressed it to his face, crying softly. His sobs were low and intermittent, choked with despair.
Xia Bai hadn’t been mistaken; it was indeed a severed hand.
In the movie, the corpse of the middle-aged woman was missing a hand, blood gushing from the neat cut, seemingly connecting to the screen. Below the screen, the blood dripped down, mingling with the blood of the muscular man, flowing towards their seats.
Guo Yang’s questioning didn’t cease with the man’s grief. They all understood that the only one who might have a clue was this middle-aged man.
The muscular man had come to the movie alone, sitting by himself. At that time, no one knew people could die in the movie, so nobody noticed how he disappeared.
The middle-aged man and woman sat together, and given the hand, it was likely they had been holding hands since witnessing the muscular man’s death in the movie. More importantly, they seemed to be a couple, familiar with each other, which might help reveal hidden rules.
Deaths were happening too quickly. Not even twenty minutes had passed since the muscular man’s death in the movie, and now another person was dead. They needed to understand the rules of death quickly to avoid a total catastrophe.
Guo Yang pressed on, “Uncle, listen to me. There must be a trigger for death in the game. Think carefully about what happened.”
“I don’t know,” the middle-aged man kept shaking his head, his denial becoming a subconscious defense against everything, “I didn’t notice…”
Guo Yang persisted, “Talk me through everything, from the moment the man in seat number five died to when you realized she was gone.”
Seeing no response, Guo Yang shook him, “Hurry up and talk!”
“He died, and I just held her hand the whole time, watching the movie intently. Th-There was sweat, I don’t know whose it was. Suddenly, I felt… I felt like Jia Xiu’s hand was very cold. When I turned to look, I saw only a hand…”
Guo Yang, refusing to give up, asked again, “Nothing unusual throughout? She didn’t say or do anything?”
The middle-aged man shook his head again, “You told us to watch the movie carefully, so we did just that, focusing solely on the screen.”
Guo Yang, disheartened, sat back down.
“Was there anything in the movie, any scene or detail, that strongly related to her?” A hoarse, deep voice came from Xia Bai’s right front, from the man in seat number eight.
Xia Bai’s mind, as if jolted, beginning to spin sluggishly as he analyzed the movie’s scenes before and after their deaths.
The middle-aged man paused, tears still streaming, and shook his head, “No, nothing relating to her, nothing.”
Guo Yang, as if suddenly grasping at straws, demanded, “Are you sure? This information is linked to all of our lives. We can only figure out how to clear the game if you tell us the truth.”
“There’s nothing! I’ve already told you, there’s nothing!” The middle-aged man became increasingly distressed, swatting Guo Yang’s hand away, “Do you want me to make something up?”
His actions were vehement, causing the popcorn on the armrest to scatter all over.
Xia Bai had already noticed their popcorn.
Only the ponytailed girl and the middle-aged couple had brought popcorn to Hall 5, but theirs were different.
The girl’s popcorn was bought at the cinema, the typical combo with cola.
The couple’s popcorn was served in disposable paper cups, stored in the woman’s bag, and divided into two cups after they sat down.
After sensing that something was off, the ponytailed girl’s popcorn had disappeared, while theirs remained until the man’s abrupt movements sent it flying, the yellow kernels scattering across the floor.
Seeing the popcorn rolling to his feet, he hurriedly reached to pick them up. Already struggling with mobility, he stumbled over the seats in his rush, grabbing at the popcorn scattered around. The few he picked up were all blood-stained. Looking at them, he broke down crying again.
On the screen, the woman’s death was replayed, her cries and pleas for help filling the hall. The middle-aged man, leaning on the back of a seat, limped towards the screen, continuously muttering the woman’s name.
“Jia Xiu, Jia Xiu…”
The area of the screen stained with blood expanded, blurring the viewers’ sight as the woman’s blood flowed down through the screen. There exists a form of torture that uses fear to break down a person’s inner defenses—blindfolding them to listen to the sound of their own blood dripping. For the middle-aged man, the continuous dripping wasn’t his own blood, but it was excruciating torture nonetheless.
Wearing a shirt faded from countless washes, he cried out the woman’s name in sorrow, staggering towards her. Just as he nearly touched the screen, he suddenly groaned in pain and fell to the ground.
Seeing the throwing knife in his back, Guo Yang immediately turned to look towards the two men sitting at the edge of the sixth row, “Who did this? What are you doing?!”
Xia Bai noticed one of the two men glance their way before speaking, “You won’t get anything by talking to him nicely like that.”
“Don’t worry, he won’t die.” His voice was raspy and carried a malicious chuckle, “Ah, even if he dies, it’s for the best. Such fools are bound to be killed in the movie. If he dies, his blood will stain the screen and hinder our viewing. Better dead outside the movie.”
He slowly stood up, his gaze coldly sweeping over everyone present as if he considered eliminating them to prevent their deaths in the movie from obscuring the screen.
“The solution to the game has already been made rather clear,” he laughed, looking at Guo Yang who had been actively organizing the group. Though his face wasn’t visible, the mockery in his laughter seemed to ridicule Guo Yang’s leadership and lack of results.
“The truth isn’t that complex. Obviously, you just need to watch the movie and understand the truth. The difficulty of the game lies in the challenge of finishing the movie. On one hand, people die in the movie, and on the other, the blood from those who die stains the screen red, obscuring the film and causing others to miss the truth.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Moreover, unlike other newcomers, he showed no reverence for Guo Yang and even displayed disdain.
“You want to understand why they die in the game, to find the death rules, which is important, but you forgot the most crucial part: watching the movie.”
He pointed at the screen, “Look, if we keep letting these fools die in the movie, will we even be able to finish it?”
“It’s obvious that to clear this game, we need to do an internal sweep first.”
Guo Yang stood still, stunned, “You… you’re with the Divine Game Guild?”
Newcomers might not be familiar with what the Divine Game Guild is, but Xia Bai had heard about it from Hua Haoming. The Divine Game Guild believes that games assist in human evolution, advocating for games to spread freely, even aiding in “human selection” by eliminating inferior human genes.
Xia Bai turned to look at the member of the Divine Game Guild, the red light from the screen casting a hint of madness in his eyes. He then looked at Guo Yang and suddenly felt that even Guo Yang hadn’t remained as calm as before the movie started.
Even Xia Bai himself seemed a bit too engrossed in the film.
“Divine Game Guild, Gu Quankun,” the man from seat number six revealed, not hiding his affiliation.
Guo Yang stared at him, his beautiful eyes trembling slightly in the dark, revealing a hint of fear.
Gu Quankun initially smiled thinly, arrogantly, thinking that Guo Yang was afraid of him. Yet, soon, he realized Guo Yang wasn’t afraid of him, nor was he even looking at him; his gaze was fixed on something beside him.
Swallowing nervously, a drop of sweat trickled down Gu Quankun’s forehead.
Without needing to look, the movie on the screen had already conveyed the situation.
After the island’s barbarians had exacted their revenge, they dragged the bodies back to their dwelling. Given their cannibalistic nature, the fate of these people was apparent.
As if to confirm this, the movie’s camera returned to the dining area, where a person with a torn abdomen was tied to a roasting spit.
It was Gu Quankun’s companion, the slightly overweight man from seat number seven.
With three people already mysteriously dead in Hall 5, nobody could utter a word.
They felt as if they could smell the terrible scent of burning flesh from the movie, emanating from the person tied up like a pig on the spit.
The small screening room, with only ten rows of seats, was filled with an even stronger scent of blood, so intense it was suffocating.
Blood might have already reached their feet.
“Ahh! Ahhhh!” After witnessing three people near her die gruesomely on the screen, the ponytailed girl finally broke down when she stepped on a puddle of fresh blood. She ran to the door, pounding on it, wailing, “Let me out! Please, let me out!”
The rest of the audience in the screening hall didn’t react, knowing it was futile, or perhaps they had grown accustomed to such situations.
Their gaze remained fixed on the blood-stained screen, which started replaying the death of Gu Quankun’s companion.
As the islanders chased him, his strength proved immense, managing to fend off several barbarians. Just when he thought he was safe, a ghostly figure emerged from the nearby lake.
It was the ghost of the campus belle, reaching out to grab his ankle.
Xu Yue, who was the seventh audience member, stared at the ghostly hand in horror, screaming in panic as he desperately kicked at it with his other foot. However, his efforts were futile, and he was dragged down into the depths of the lake by the female ghost.
The ripples on the lake’s surface slowly dissipated, leaving behind a patch of blood.
Blood on the screen became increasingly abundant, spreading faster across the fabric than after the first two deaths, potentially due to water mixing with the blood. Soon, over 60% of the screen was obscured.
With most of the movie’s visuals now unclear, they inferred from the scene of the man on the spit and the audio cues that another group of islanders had retrieved his body from the lake to roast as provisions.
Guo Yang remained seated, not turning back, “See? It’s not just ‘fools’ whose deaths pollute the screen; your companion did too. Do you feel the terror now? It’s unexpected and unavoidable. Do you still think understanding the death rules is unimportant?”
Gu Quankun stayed silent, remaining in his seat, his expression indiscernible to the others.
Seemingly hurt by the turn of events, Guo Yang ceased organizing the group, sitting with his arms crossed, exuding a sense of resignation.
Xia Bai had some thoughts but wasn’t sure about them. He rubbed his temples, trying to clear his head, and continued watching and guessing through the small clear portion of the screen.
The islanders were consuming not only Gu Quankun’s companion but also two other students killed during their vengeful attack.
The screen showed how they processed the “ingredients” for their meal, though the details were incomplete.
Suddenly, Xia Bai felt something wet and cool wrapping around his hand.
Was that entity back?
Looking down, Xia Bai realized that it was indeed hair that was tangled around his fingers, but it wasn’t that monster from before, but hair growing from his phone… from little Xuemu?
The hair wrapped around his hand and arm, slowly climbing up his neck and face, long black strands covering his eyes and then his ears.
Before his ears were completely covered, he heard the audio from the movie, “How could you eat people?! You all won’t even spare their corpses?”
Then Xia Bai was plunged into endless darkness and silence, unable to see or hear anything.
In such a setting, Xia Bai found himself more collected and focused, his blood no longer boiling, and his mind much clearer. Since the game required them to understand the movie’s story logic, it implied that the movie wasn’t entirely illogical, at least not in terms of player deaths. These were not random but followed some sort of logic.
The muscular man from seat number five was killed by the ghost of the campus belle during her revenge against the men who violated her, all of whom died.
—Could he have forced himself upon the campus belle as well?
The middle-aged woman from seat number one was killed by the islanders during their quest for vengeance for a deceased tribe member.
—Had she also killed an islander?
Gu Quankun’s companion, the man from seat number seven, was dragged into the lake by the ghost of the campus belle. It was uncertain if he died from this encounter, but later, he was cooked and eaten by the islanders.
—Had he managed to offend both the ghost of the campus belle and the islanders?
How could he have simultaneously made enemies of both parties?
Xia Bai carefully recalled the scenes before and after his death. When he saw the ghostly hand reaching for him from the lake, he didn’t immediately try to flee in terror but instead stared wide-eyed and then kicked frantically at the ghost hand.
If he was scared and wanted to kick away the ghostly hand, that would be understandable.
But could his shock and panic be attributed to other factors?
Besides being a ghost hand, what else about it could have shocked and frightened him?
Xia Bai revisited the movie scene in his mind, focusing on the details like a magnifying glass. He noticed something about the ghost hand—it was missing two fingers, a detail present from the beginning.
The muscular man had also been missing fingers when he emerged from the cave, likely inflicted by the ghost of the campus belle in her act of revenge. That night, her fingers were broken by someone.
Why did the sight of her hand, missing two fingers, drive the man from seat number seven into such a frenzy?
Rewinding further, before his death, the islanders sought revenge for their tribesman, yet he didn’t die alongside the woman from seat number one, suggesting his death was unrelated to hers.
The movie then showed the islanders eating, revealing their barbarism, violence, and cannibalism through their hunting and cooking.
That was where the scene ended.
Xia Bai felt he was on the verge of understanding the rules of death.
The rules weren’t difficult to discern for those who watched the movie attentively and reasoned carefully. A bit of deduction and mutual confirmation among them could clarify the situation substantially.
But they hadn’t thought of it before.
Why hadn’t they noticed the relatively simple death rules before?
Guo Yang’s irritability before the movie started.
Gu Quankun’s excitement and madness.
The ponytailed girl’s breakdown and screams.
The sobbing of the middle-aged man from seat number two.
The movie appeared to contain something akin to psychological contamination. Its compelling visual and atmospheric immersion gradually eroded their mental stability, making it difficult to remain calm and rational, thus obscuring the underlying rules.
Xia Bai suddenly remembered there were two others.
The man in seat number eight in front of him, who had been quiet throughout, only asking the man in seat number two a question, and even then, seemed preoccupied with his fingers.
His little neighbor, who had covered his eyes at the start of the movie and later crouched down, covering his ears.
While considering this, Xia Bai felt the familiar chill again.
He patted the hair covering his eyes, just as how he had patted little Xuemu to comfort her while they were in that cave, and the hair receded from his head like water, retreating back into the phone.
Reaching into his pocket for his corpse-suppressing talismans, the chilling presence seemed to halt its advance, the piercing coldness not intensifying further.
Looking down, Xia Bai saw a gray, skeletal hand stretching from under his seat, reaching towards his little neighbor’s back.
Even with the screen obscured by blood, the light leaking through made the hall brighter than before the movie started, allowing Xia Bai to see the hand more clearly.
The hand, with its arm elongated like a snake, had no discernible origin. Wrapped in thin, wrinkled skin over protruding bones, with spots of necrosis, it was clearly decaying.
Most importantly, the hand was missing two fingers.
Xia Bai knew where it originated from.
As it neared his little neighbor, the skin on the hand started to bleed like the screen, quickly becoming blood-soaked, with nails growing longer and sharper, menacingly blood-stained.
His little neighbor remained as before, crouched on the ground covering his ears, unmoving.
Xia Bai stared at his young neighbor without blinking.
The blood-red ghost hand gradually lifted from the ground, nearing the little neighbor who had his hands clamped over his ears. He seemed oblivious, though his slight, frail back showed a faint tremor.
The ghost hand could pierce through his spine the next second, yet he remained curled up, tightly covering his ears without moving.
The ghost hand paused for a second before swiftly lunging towards the boy with a chilly gust, bending the soft down on the back of the boy’s neck but stopping just as it touched his skin.
Chilly air brushed against the boy’s neck. The child stiffened for two seconds before turning his head in confusion, a yellow talisman with blood characters sliding into his field of vision.
Xia Bai knew from his understanding of corpse-suppressing talismans that they were supposed to be placed on the deceased’s head to be effective. He had already used one on a head, which didn’t fully restrain it, allowing it to escape. This time it was a ghost hand, and Xia Bai knew the effect might be even less significant.
While holding the talisman and grabbing the ghost hand with one hand, he swiftly pulled the child towards him with the other. Lin Xiang had mentioned Xia Bai was unusually strong for his size, capable of pulling the child into his embrace with one hand, though he stumbled forward slightly due to the pull of the ghost hand.
Eager to look cool in front of the child, he held the boy tightly, ensuring the child wasn’t hurt even as he himself hit the back of the seat.
The child in his arms looked up at him blankly, his clear eyes reflecting Xia Bai’s face clearly for the first time.
The child lacked an extensive vocabulary and didn’t know how to describe him, but felt that he resembled the Seventh Ancestral Goddess.
As Xia Bai also looked at the child, he almost let go in shock. He had felt the child’s face was familiar from the side, but now, seeing him face-to-face, Xia Bai realized where he had seen him before.
He had seen this child three times before.
The first at Heping Medical College, in a video from Qili Village’s elementary school shown by Hua Haoming. Among the students being pulled by their hair for a jumping exercise by a ghostly hand, one, because of his small stature, stood out.
It was the child in his embrace.
Stunned, Xia Bai’s collision with the chair made a noise that would normally draw attention in the screening hall, but it seemed no one looked his way, their focus drawn elsewhere.
Looking up, Xia Bai saw another death in the movie; judging by the clothes, it was the man from seat number eight in front of him. Seeing his lifeless face, Xia Bai fell into a daze again.
Wasn’t this the person who came back to life after he stitched him up at the orthopedic medical college?
Gu Quankun was even more shocked, lurching to his feet, shouting in disbelief, “Ling Changye? Ling Changye died?!”
At the orthopedic hospital in Quanguang City.
Hua Haoming got out of the car to see Yang Mei sitting at the entrance, looking forward as if waiting for someone, but Hua Haoming knew well it wasn’t him he was waiting for.
He asked, “Who are you waiting for?”
Yang Mei glanced at him and continued to stare at the road ahead, “I’m waiting for a student named Xia Bai.”
Hua Haoming: “?”
How did he know Xia Bai?
And what had Xia Bai done to pique his interest?
After listening to Hua Haoming’s voiced confusion, Yang Mei, without any thoughts of hiding it, praised, “He’s super cute. You wouldn’t believe how adorable and unique he is.”
Hua Haoming: “…”
Cute? Like cuddling-with-a-corpse cute?
Yang Mei said, “That night, after we exited the orthopedic hospital instance, his other classmates were cleaning up corpses, and there he was, like a little hamster, gathering and hiding the captain’s severed limbs, like a virtuous wife and good mother, stitching the captain back together with needle and thread.”
“Oh, right after he finished stitching, the captain was taken away.”
Hua Haoming: “…”
He didn’t know what to say. It felt fitting yet so sad.
Hua Haoming asked, “Where’s the captain?”
Yang Mei: “The captain is also a bit interested in him, but not too much. When he woke up, he immediately asked, ‘Where’s that grubby little guy?’ Unfortunately, we didn’t know his name at that time.”
“…” Grubby little guy? The hell?
Rubbing his temples, Hua Haoming said, “I’m not asking if the captain is interested in him, I’m asking where the captain is.”
Yang Mei: “It’s the captain’s turn to take care of the kid this week; he’s gone off somewhere with him.”
The author has something to say:
Hua Haoming: Where’s the captain?
Xia Bai: Well, he seems to have died in the movie.
The entire strike team applauded warmly.
im actually dead (like the captain) what the hell is going on LMAO
you did not just do him dirty like that- 😂👍😭💀
Hurry and figure things out Xia Bai, I’m still so confused! 😭😭😭
Lololol yang mei has such a unique way of describing xia bai. Cute? With my fear of corpses and the image of xia bai gathering corpse parts and stitching them together would be the last thing that would be cute to me. But thanks to mc filter and the the lack the imagery I can imagine that the behaviour cute if you pixilated the body parts lol.
Thanks for the chapter~~~
+1
Had the similar concer when the scene happened the first time.
Probably the captains team is desensitized to collecting captans parts so that the image is cute for them. Really interested in what his talent is!
🧡🧡🧡🧡
Xia bai will have a fun time collecting captains parts : part 2
Hahaha he’s already died again
Lmaoooo, all tension from the movie is gone.
Little wifey has just rescued their child and watching hubby die.Super Cute Xia Bai: …oi, they ruined my hard work!
Hahahahahha
oh my God Erwa <333 at first I thought he was a ghost or one of Xia Bai’s Xie Sheng, but no he’s the second baby of the Attack Team <3 god, he’s so cute- 🤧
Thank you for the chapter ❤❤❤
(btw if anyone is wondering the first baby is Yang Mei xD)
Please wtf is happening 😂😂😂 the tension is alla broken now 😂😂
The little kid in the theater is apparently a player who has been in many maps and is protected by the clearance team, who was getting watched by the caption (guy who got stitched together by MC last chapter or so) and clearly the caption dies a lot given the reactions, so I have a inclination to think his power may be related to undeath/undying.
Full death criteria are unclear, I lean towards it having something to do with the past being distorted from the victims memory… unsure tho.
This novel always goes in such odd directions
Thank you for the chapter! ❤
Omg, Xia Bai previously cutely gathered his ML’s parts and now he rescued their child!!!☺