Chapter 50: The Box Bride
Thinking about that day when he went for a walk in the mall with his friends… just as they reached the first floor, they suddenly heard a crowd scream. Then, a human body landed heavily right in front of him. The scene made Lin Nan feel dizzy and nauseous.
The Script Murder DM was a young guy, only two years older than Lin Nan.
After the game ended that day, Lin Nan had specifically added him on WeChat, agreeing that he should let him know immediately if there were any new scripts.
But the person who was vivid and alive just yesterday had now become a mangled corpse.
Lin Nan witnessed the entire process of the DM falling, including the moment of impact with the ground. The back of his head smashed open, and countless drops of blood splattered onto Lin Nan.
The DM lay on the ground, a pair of eyes staring straight at the ceiling. Blood overflowed from beneath his body, quickly forming a large pool.
His lips, stained crimson by blood, trembled rapidly. Finally, only a gray whimper came out before he lost his life.
Following his gaze, Lin Nan saw the sign of the Script Murder shop where the DM worked on the seventh floor.
On it was only the dark red name of the script.
The burning sensation on his face remained. Lin Nan couldn’t help but keep wiping his face; plenty of used tissues were thrown on the floor beside him. Looking at the call interface, he looked at it as if looking at his rebirth parents.
“Now, whenever I close my eyes, I see his corpse. I feel like he’s been clinging to me… Should I buy some things to burn for him?”
The red light turned green, and Hai Di started the car. Jiang Si continued to ask, “Are you sure the DM’s death is related to the script’s summoning ritual? What if it’s a coincidence?”
Lin Nan said with a mournful face, “Brother, do you remember I recommended this script to you a few days ago? At that time, I said the online reviews were super mysterious. After the accident yesterday, I checked online again. Guess what I found?”
“Damn it, it’s not just us. Anyone who has played this script is either dead or hospitalized with a serious illness. The ones who can review online are the only survivors left!”
For a moment, Jiang Si felt a sense of absurdity. He asked again, “You mean, anyone who played this script is either dead or maimed?”
“Yes, that’s right. I told the friends who played with me, but they didn’t believe it. They said it was psychological, but I really feel someone staring at me. Brother, am I really going to die! If I had known, I should have listened to you and not played with these things.”
It was too late to say this now.
Jiang Si rubbed his brow. “What’s the name of the script you played? I’ll check and confirm first. If you’re really scared at home, go set up chopsticks; it can ward off evil temporarily.”
“The script is called ‘Xi’ (Double Happiness), the ‘Xi’ with two ‘Joy’ characters.”
Lin Nan hurriedly rushed to the kitchen to grab a bowl and three chopsticks, listening to Jiang Si’s instructions over the phone.
“Find the southeast corner of your home. Place the bowl in the corner, pour in half a bowl of clear water, insert the chopsticks, and silently recite the names of people you know who have died. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the name; just state the relationship or recall their appearance. Try them one by one. Talk to me when the chopsticks can stand up in the water.”
Lin Nan kept moving his hands and asked, “What happens if they stand up?”
Jiang Si said lightly, “It means that’s the one haunting you.”
Lin Nan’s heart clenched tight. His fingers were extremely stiff as he carefully recited the DM’s name while releasing the hand holding the chopsticks.
As soon as he let go, they fell immediately. He rushed to catch them, sighing in relief.
Looks like it wasn’t the DM.
Recalling deceased relatives again, suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck.
His memory flashed back to a day ago when he was playing the script with his friends. The summoning ritual involved offering incense to a spirit tablet and calling the name on it.
To create a horror atmosphere, the room they were in was decorated entirely in a Chinese style. The doors were shut tight, with only two rows of white candles lit.
In the dim environment, candle flames danced with crackling sounds, casting very long shadows of everyone present.
After Lin Nan recited the name, he felt his nose itch a little.
He couldn’t help but lower his head to touch it. In that split second of turning his head, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a black shadow dragging several meters long on the empty floor beside him.
Lin Nan was startled. In his memory, he was standing at the very edge; there was clearly no one beside him. He immediately turned to look properly, but the floor had returned to normal, with nothing there.
Afterward, he just chalked it up to nerves and threw it to the back of his mind. Thinking about it now…
He replayed the scene in his mind and inserted the chopsticks again.
This time, after carefully releasing his hand, the chopsticks stood motionless in the center of the water.
Lin Nan’s pupils contracted, and he screamed, “Brother Jiang… they stood up!”
Jiang Si gave a “Mhm” and said, “Don’t panic. Do you have millet at home? Take a handful of millet and draw a circle around the bowl. If the chopsticks fall after you finish drawing, then you’re fine. If they don’t fall…”
He was silent for a moment. “Then pack your things and come to Ning City to find me. Remember, during this time, no one must touch this bowl of water and chopsticks, including the millet on the floor.”
On the phone, Lin Nan responded in a panic. The sounds of footsteps, clothes friction, and plastic bags flapping continued constantly. After a good while, Lin Nan wailed, “Brother Jiang… they didn’t fall!”
Lin Nan really wanted to kowtow twice to the chopsticks to send the entity away quickly.
Why haunt him? He hadn’t done anything!
“Mhm, then come to Ning City.” Jiang Si sighed.
He explained that he couldn’t return to Rong City for the time being. “I still have things to resolve here. You come over first; I need to see the situation with my own eyes.”
Hai Di listened quietly to his phone call the whole way. Seeing him put away the phone, he finally found a chance to interject. “Your friend ran into trouble?”
Jiang Si opened Baidu to search, answering without looking up, “Didn’t you hear? Played a script murder game and got haunted. This unlucky child. If it were just a day earlier, he could have caught Shen Hu while he was in Rong City. He wouldn’t have to run all the way here.”
Hai Di sympathized along with him, then asked, “The person calling is quite familiar with you. They even know you can see ghosts.”
“…”
Jiang Si paused, lifting his thin eyelids in Hai Di’s direction. Hai Di was driving, looking straight ahead, appearing as if he was just making casual conversation.
“Are you… curious or jealous?” he asked.
Hai Di was caught off guard by his directness. His fingers on the steering wheel tightened and relaxed; he was utterly helpless.
Maintaining his image on the surface, he defended himself, “I’m just asking casually. You don’t tell me anything, and you won’t let me ask?”
Glancing at him meaningfully, Jiang Si spoke slowly, “You can, ask whatever you want.”
“That’s a neighbor, just started college. Five or six years younger than me. But I have to say, he looks pretty decent—tall, thin, quite distinct features.”
Hai Di’s alarm bells rang. “Why are you mentioning that?”
Jiang Si said with a straight face, “Just saying casually.”
The webpage loaded, and he looked down at it. The more he looked, the more wrong it felt.
Under the script “Xi,” the top rows were uniformly positive reviews. The further down he scrolled, the more he discovered sporadic cursing comments.
A few filthy words mixed with a long string of garbled text; the reviewers seemed mentally unstable.
Scrolling further back, a comment caught Jiang Si’s attention.
It was densely written with hundreds of words saying “Don’t play, people will die,” without a single punctuation mark. It was laborious and eerie to read. As if afraid of not attracting enough attention, the reviewer even attached a very dim picture.
Clicking to enlarge it, he could barely make it out. It was an empty, dimly lit room. In the corner appeared a red-clothed figure with a bizarre posture. Inconspicuous—if Jiang Si hadn’t been looking carefully, he wouldn’t have noticed it at all.
The red-clothed figure’s posture was like it was hanging in the air. The head drooped to the chest, two arms twisted backward and raised high, encircling the neck in an extremely distorted pose. The legs were kneeling in the air, the whole body supported by only a faint rope.
But regardless of what supported it, there was no doubt that it was definitely not a living person.
“This script really has problems.” Jiang Si looked at it repeatedly for a long time. Finding no traces of Photoshop, he checked the author of the script, only to find the top answer stated the author had passed away early this year.
But this script was released in July.
“Is it the same as what he said?” Hai Di asked.
“Looks about the same right now.” Jiang Si said, “Looking at the comments just now, I roughly counted. At least fourteen accounts from four different regions played this script and had accidents. But this script requires at least three people to play. Counting the DM, that’s a total of at least four people. If we go by the probability of at least one person dying per game, over a dozen people have already died.”
“But if so many people died… why has no one noticed?”
Jiang Si was deeply puzzled. In modern times, one unnatural death was a big deal. Relatives and police would investigate the cause, and people around would talk.
“It is indeed very strange.” Hai Di understood what he meant. “There are also a few script murder shops in Ning City. Do you want to go take a look?”
“No.” Jiang Si pressed his fingers on his bracelet, rubbing it. He refused without thinking.
“I’m not a detective. Why take on extra work? Saving Lin Nan’s little life is enough.”
Saying this, he sent Lin Nan a hotel location before looking up at the outside.
He discovered Hai Di wasn’t driving in the direction to take him back. “Where are you going?”
Hai Di: “Home to eat.”
Jiang Si immediately sat up straight, facing a formidable enemy. He said incredulously, “I haven’t prepared yet! You’re acting first and reporting later—how can you do this?”
Seeing the car had already entered the villa area gate, Jiang Si felt his heart was being dangled off a cliff, swaying precariously in the fierce wind.
“I discussed it with you last night.”
“How come I don’t remember—”
Jiang Si recalled last night and instantly went silent. Supporting his forehead, he said helplessly, “I was so sleepy then, how could I process anything you said? You’re too scheming.”
Hai Di accepted this evaluation calmly, even adding, “No merchant is not cunning. We businessmen always have some tricks.”
Jiang Si: “…”
He gave up struggling and pondered the talking points for dealing with what was to come.
Hai Di drove straight into the basement garage. Just as he parked and turned his head, he saw Jiang Si leaning back against the seat, lost in thought, and couldn’t help laughing. He leaned over to unbuckle his seatbelt and comforted him, “I didn’t say we are together. Don’t be nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.” Jiang Si pursed the corners of his lips, still a bit uneasy, and confirmed again, “You really didn’t say?”
“No.”
The muscles on his face visibly relaxed, and Jiang Si secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Inside the villa, Qi Shanmu, who had been on a business trip abroad, had been called back by his wife and was currently sitting in the living room eating fruit.
Mrs. Hai had changed into a beige long dress, her long hair pinned up with a hairpin, and wore light makeup—a stark contrast to her usual thunder-and-lightning businesswoman appearance.
She walked down the stairs, spun a circle in front of Qi Shanmu, looked down to tug at her skirt, and asked, “How is this outfit? Is it still too serious?”
“Isn’t it just meeting our son’s friend? Why are you making it so formal?” Qi Shanmu didn’t understand, stuffing a grape into his mouth.
“This grape is quite sweet. Is it a new variety? I haven’t eaten one this juicy in a long time while abroad.”
Hearing this, Mrs. Hai glanced at the half-eaten grapes and said, “These grapes were air-freighted from Country R yesterday. Other food came with them, all specially arranged by your son. He went to a lot of trouble.”
“Our son has finally grown up. Knowing I’m returning to the country today, he actually prepared so thoroughly.” Qi Shanmu sighed with emotion. “It was worth all our years of nurturing him.”
Mrs. Hai said coldly, “What are you thinking? He doesn’t even know you’re home today.”
Qi Shanmu was shocked. “…These are prepared for his friend?”
“It’s just a friend, why mobilize so many troops?”
“That is your son’s savior.” Mrs. Hai looked at him as if iron failed to become steel. “All day long, aside from experimental data, can your brain hold anything else? I told you on the phone long ago! You don’t care about anything at home; go live with your experiments!”
“…” Qi Shanmu knew he was in the wrong and dared not retort, obediently listening to the scolding.
It wasn’t until the nanny came to remind them that Mrs. Hai put away her anger. Giving Qi Shanmu a ‘look out for yourself’ glance, she smoothed her skirt and turned to welcome the guest.
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