Part 2
“Did you run into anyone?”
“It’s the fact that I didn’t meet anyone that’s scary.” The girl sighed. “I walked for a long time, and let alone a person, I didn’t even see a ghost. I was about to go back, but then I was suddenly startled by a bat flying out, and I stepped into thin air and fell.”
Jiang Si looked her over and saw that she did indeed have a large patch of bruising on her arm, with traces of blood on her slender limb. “Can you still walk?”
“I think so.” The girl smoothed her hair helplessly, brushing it behind her shoulders. “I’m so unlucky. Not only did I not earn any money, but I also ran into this.”
“In this weather… aren’t you cold in a dress?” Jiang Si was puzzled. He had to wear a jacket to go out, yet she was out in just a qipao, her arms exposed, dressed as if it were midsummer.
“I had no choice. It was the boss’s requirement. He said I had to do a costume trial to see if my temperament was suitable. When I heard I had to wear someone else’s clothes, I figured it was better to wear my own; at least it’s cleaner that way.” The girl sighed and cursed.
“Pah! So unlucky. Met a damn liar.”
Jiang Si didn’t comment. Thinking he had seen enough, he decided to go down with her to avoid any other sudden incidents.
The girl didn’t entirely trust this young man who had suddenly appeared. Even if he had a face that made people let their guard down, she remained secretly vigilant.
While Jiang Si was walking down the stairs ahead of her, she quietly took out her phone and sent a message and her location to a friend, asking them to come and pick her up immediately.
Once they were out of the residential area, the girl made an excuse that her friend was arriving soon and told Jiang Si to go first while she waited there for a bit.
Jiang Si had already noticed her small movements. He didn’t mind and instead mentioned something else. “When you get back, you’d better gather evidence and report it to the police, just in case.”
The girl nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
At this point, Jiang Si said no more and drove away. By the time he drove back to the city center, it was already past noon. After reporting his safety to Hai Di, he made an appointment with Lin Nan and Luo Yan to go out for a meal.
Lin Nan arrived the earliest. As soon as he saw Jiang Si, he ran over, hounding him with questions about where he had been and what he had done.
Jiang Si got a headache from the questioning. He picked up his Coke and took a sip before saying, “I went to look for filming locations.”
“That’s it?” Lin Nan was suspicious.
Jiang Si: “That’s it. What good would lying to you do me?”
“Alright then.” Once Lin Nan learned the reason, his excitement grew even more. He said eagerly, “Brother Jiang, I want to go and help with the filming too. I can even just be an assistant! Free labor. At least let me see how movies are made.”
“No.” Jiang Si refused flatly. “You can’t go.”
With his bad luck, if he spent more time with those ghosts, he’d be completely soaked in yin energy. Lin Nan’s parents might as well start preparing his coffin.
“Why?”
“If I recall correctly, didn’t you volunteer to look after the shop for me?” Jiang Si gave him a half-smile. “If you run off, who’s going to watch the shop for me?”
“…” Lin Nan could only give up. He slumped on the table and sighed. “Well, if anything interesting happens, remember to tell me. It’s so boring in the shop.”
“How can it be boring?” Jiang Si said. “Aren’t there plenty of people there?”
“Where are the people? Not a single person even walked in to look all morning.”
“Are joss paper people not people?”
Lin Nan shivered. Recalling some bad memories, his face turned pale. “Stop talking. If I keep imagining it, I won’t even dare to go back this afternoon.”
Jiang Si sneered. “With your courage, you should walk in the sun more and rein in your curiosity.”
Luo Yan walked over with her bag at that moment. Hearing Jiang Si’s last sentence, she asked curiously, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing.” Jiang Si handed over his phone and told her to sit down and order. “My treat. What do you guys want to eat?”
“Oho, Boss Jiang has become so generous after a trip to Ning City?” Luo Yan laughed. “Then I won’t be polite.”
As she ordered on the screen, she asked, “Did you go look? How was the location? Is it suitable for your horror theme?”
Mentioning that abandoned residential area, Jiang Si was puzzled. “Everything else was fine, but is that place really completely abandoned?”
“Of course. You’ll know once you’ve seen it; it’s simply unlivable.” Luo Yan was very certain. “I just went there this year to check on things. Besides, we don’t have any homeless people around here. Who could live in there?”
“That’s strange then.” Jiang Si recounted the situations of the two girls he met that morning. “If it were just one person, you could say it was a malicious prank, but the second situation was exactly the same. If no one really lives there, could someone be using the excuse of online shop modeling jobs to do something bad?”
Luo Yan’s relaxed expression suddenly turned serious. She looked thoughtful. “You have a point. I’ll bring it up when I get back and ask the police station if they can patrol there often. We also need to install surveillance. If something really happens, it would be a major oversight.”
“I say,” Lin Nan interjected while biting his straw, “can we talk while we eat?”
“Use your chopsticks and eat first.” Jiang Si looked at him. “Or do you want me to feed you?”
Lin Nan’s face turned red, and he buried his head in his drink.
Luo Yan smiled. “Actually, I just remembered something. You’re already a bit famous online now, did you know?”
Jiang Si didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
“Someone took a photo of you a few days ago, and then someone recognized you as the director of the promotional video. You’ve become a bit of a sensation. Haven’t you noticed you already have over a hundred thousand followers?”
Jiang Si was shocked. He took out his phone and logged into the account he hadn’t used in a long time, only to find it was true.
He even saw the candid photo. It was just a side profile. Likely due to the lighting, it was a bit overexposed, and the image quality wasn’t very high.
“Just this photo?” He really didn’t understand. “It was actually reposted this much? What’s so good about it?”
“Doesn’t everyone love looking at faces these days?” Luo Yan said with a beaming smile. “I think you could even act in your own movies. Why be a director? Just change careers.”
Jiang Si had a very clear career path and refused firmly. “I want to earn my living with my skills.”
After eating, they chatted for a while longer before the three went their separate ways. Jiang Si went straight home to pack the filming equipment he would need in a couple of days and to explain the roles to Xiao Fengxian and Bai Qiniang.
Since the script was provided by Wang Zhao, Jiang Si found an opportunity to go over the plot one last time with him to finalize the script.
The moon was bright and the stars were few. On a tall building, a girl fled down a corridor in panic. She ran floor after floor, yet as if encountering a “ghost wall,” she kept repeating the same eighth floor.
The bright red number ‘8’ had a few drops of paint dripping like blood, which was chilling.
The girl was shaken, leaning against the wall and gasping for breath. Beneath her messy hair, her face was as white as a sheet of paper. She looked up at the number, her whole body trembling, her heart sinking to the bottom.
It seemed she was really going to die here today.
Footsteps sounded one by one, moving from far to near. A giant black shadow on the ground slowly materialized.
The girl’s heart hammered like a drum. she stared blankly as the shadow drew closer, until the entire figure appeared.
At that moment, she couldn’t help but scream—
“Ahhhhhhhhhh—”
At the same time, a booming male voice also screamed.
“Ah— Crap, what the hell is that!”
The girl was stunned, feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
Following that, a powerful flashlight was turned on in the stairwell, instantly illuminating the dim area as if it were broad daylight.
A man holding the flashlight asked vigilantly, “Who are you! It’s pitch black out here, what are you doing?”
“…”
The girl—Bai Qiniang—turned her head and shouted back, “Jiang Si, did you change the script? I don’t remember this line!”
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