Chapter 52: Horror Skewers (7)
You Jing came out of the story ‘Severed Finger’ with a sense of contentment hidden on the gentle and handsome face.
No matter how much his mother reminded him to show his demeanor, to be a superior person and to not fight against those who were only a flash in the pan, he was only a young man in his early 20s after all. He liked victory and the applause that came with it.
His mother hadn’t wanted him to participate in Horror Skewers because for him, it wasn’t very cost-effective to participate in the show. His mother could take him to make movies and he would earn more points than this. In addition, he might get new items. He understood this truth but he wanted more fans and to be worshipped by people. Horror Skewers was an excellent opportunity.
You Jing once again returned to the room of items to be chosen and the complacent smile on his face suddenly froze.
In this dimly lit room, a piano key hung in the air. It spun slowly, emitting a dazzling fluorescence.
You Jing’s face was filled with disbelief and he quickly scanned the room. The severed finger from before had completely dimmed and was now inconspicuous among the pile of items. It seemed to have been cleared.
Someone else was first?!
You Jing realized something and lowered his head to look at his phone. At this time, there was an interface on the app. On the interface, below the column of the story ‘Severed Finger’, there was already a new column called ‘Female Ghost’s Dance.’
[The second level ‘Female Ghost’s Dance’ has been opened. Will the actor enter the scene immediately?]
The moment this popped out, You Jing’s blood became cold. Someone was faster than him?
Was it Ren Ze? How was that possible? This guy might have some special tricks but his strength was low and he wouldn’t be so fast.
Then was it… Xie Chi?
An equally gentle face abruptly appeared in You Jing’s mind.
You Jing was short of breath and couldn’t help thinking about before he bound to the app. It was a major test in high school. He was always first in his grade and his mother was very satisfied. Then in this test, he failed to perform well due to physical reasons and got second in the grade. After he returned home that night, his mother beat him and scolded him. She didn’t let him have dinner and punished him to stand at the door of the house all night.
No, he couldn’t be second!
Fear passed through You Jing’s eyes.
That person must’ve sacrificed the character set up to gain time. You Jing forced himself to be calm. In Horror Skewers, a higher score depended on the specific operation and performance, not speed.
You Jing sneered, completely relieved. Right now, he had adapted to the rules and the man who cleared the first level was only a bit faster than him. What did this show? There were still many levels afterward.
You Jing no longer hesitated and challenged the second level.
[To be honest, God Jing disappointed me a bit. He passed the level but he was… mediocre, panicked, not worthy of the word ‘god.’]
[It is a competitive variety show and second place is nothing.]
[This is just the beginning. Don’t be so arbitrary. Aren’t you afraid of being hit in the face later on?]
[G-God Jing? He is an items man. The moment he left his mother, his strength instantly fell.]
***
Xie Chi opened his eyes again and found himself lying on a bed that was close to the ceiling.
Xie Chi sat up.
There was a click and a table lit turned on in the darkened room. Xie Chi realized that he should be in a school dormitory with bunk beds. The desk lamp illuminated the scene in the room. This was a four person dormitory with four boys. In addition to him, there were three boys in the room. The faces of the three boys were dark under the dim light of the lamp.
Xie Chi looked down at his body. He might be lying in bed but he was still well-dressed. He was wearing a blue and white short-sleeved shirt and blue pants.
It looked like a school uniform. This time, his role was a student. Xie Chi touched the phone, turned on the screen and took a photo of his chest using the light of the phone screen. There was a school logo with the words ‘Beilu High School’ written under the logo.
He was a high school student. There was also a label on the bed: Xie Chi, class six, year two.
A second year.
Xie Chi was thinking when he was hit by an orange.
“Chi, come down quickly. The old witch has left and won’t come back to check the bed. Let’s continue to tell ghost stories!” The boy who threw up the orange urged in a low voice. His excited eyes were particularly bright in the night.
Xie Chi held the orange and got out of the quilt. He held the climbing ladder and leaped gently, landing on the ground. He pulled a chair with a backrest from one side, sat on it with his legs crossed and rested his chin on the backrest, waiting to hear the ghost story.
The other two boys in the dormitory also rushed over, sneaky excitement on their faces. All of them had very young faces.
“They are so soft.” Xie Chi sighed while waiting. “I think I was much softer than them when I was a freshman.”
“……” Xie Xinglan spoke calmly. “Someone was only 12 years old and was soft with young teeth. He was less than 1.5 meters. There is still a scale on the wall at home to measure someone’s height.”
Xie Chi choked and hurriedly changed the subject. “…The conditions of this school are pretty good. There are four people sleeping, no one is in the lower bunk and there is air conditioning.”
Xie Xinglan laughed.
Xie Chi heard the mockery in it and snorted. “It is amazing to watch me grow up. Shall I tell you the dark history of the Night Emperor, eh?”
This time, Xie Xinglan coughed violently.
“Isn’t it fun to develop a game?” Xie Chi raised his eyebrow slightly. “Your brother Xiao Chi is now handsome and has long legs. He is the dream of 900 million girls.”
Xie Xinglan spoke lazily, “900 million girls will find that their dream lover was bullied by me in bed.”
“……” Xie Chi shut up and pretended to be dead.
The boy who threw the orange saw that everyone had come together and coughed twice to attract their attention. “I’m going to start talking so don’t interrupt me. Otherwise, a female ghost will pester you, hehehe.”
The boy laughed cheaply and the others immediately laughed and scolded him. Then Xie Chi’s phone rang.
[Please follow the app instructions for this story.]
[You are a second year student at Beilu High School.]
[In this story, the setting of the character isn’t important. Please act freely. The only thing to pay attention to and insist on is: you are deeply in love with a girl.]
[This story requires: Live.]
(Act 1: The origin of the female ghost. Asking the actor to listen quietly to your roommate’s narration before moving on to the next scene.]
[The first act has officially opened.]
The boy lowered his voice. “Aren’t you curious about why the grand theater on our old campus is locked? I happen to know a senior who just graduated and she told me about something that happened in her first year.”
The boy’s face was mysterious under the lamp. “Students are forbidden to talk about it in school. The school leaders will punish you if they hear it. Therefore, you should thank me for allowing you to know the truth.”
The three people who listened to him had impatience on their face.
The boy had sold the story enough and laughed. Finally, he cut to the point. “This matter starts with the graduation dance party two years ago.”
Beilu High School was a key high but it didn’t use the force feeding information teaching method. It focused on the overall development of students and natural liberation. Therefore, Beilu High School always had various activities. Its annual graduation dance party was notoriously grand and made countless students in the lower grades yearn for it. They were eager to jump through the long and boring high school life to attend the dream dance party before entering the next stage of life.
The protagonist of the story was called Jiang Wei. She was the prettiest girl in the school and the top student. She had excellent grades, a pure appearance, a wealthy family and was versatile. It could be said that she was almost perfect. She had the conditions to be a little princess but she wasn’t arrogant, making her popular.
Jiang Wei was the best at dancing and her dream was to become a dancer.
Jiang Wei had a boyfriend who was the most handsome boy in the school and a person of outstanding talent like her. He could play the piano and Jiang Wei could dance. When the sun went down, students could always hear the sweet and affectionate piano sound from the dance studio or piano room and see Jiang Wei dancing gracefully.
Their relationship was the envy of all the students. From any point of view, Jiang Wei was a winner in life. At least, until there was a fire…
Due to the negligence of the housekeeper, there was a big fire at home. At that time, only Jiang We was home. Jiang Wei was lucky enough to escape from the fire but her face was completely ruined. The current medical technology couldn’t restore Jiang Wei, who had suffered such severe burns. It didn’t matter how much money she had. Jiang Wei was destined to live with a terrifying face from now on.
During the day when she was being saved in hospital, her boyfriend came only once. He entered with flowers in his arms but was stunned the moment he saw Jiang Wei’s burned face. He came in standing but was carried out lying down.
Her boyfriend never came ever since. Jiang Wei eagerly wanted to go back to school to see him and pour out her inner suffering to him. At this time, only her lover’s affectionate eyes and touching words could comfort her, who was on the verge of a broken heart.
She struggled on the brink of death several times before finally escaping from death. She healed quickly but the wounds on her face and heart were hard to heal.
She always wore a black veil as she stood in front of the French windows of the hospital, looking down with eyes of sorrow under the lace veil. She stood like this all afternoon, watching the bright sun turn to twilight in a motionless manner.
Her parents knew she was waiting for her boyfriend to show up. They were clearly about to graduate and had agreed to study abroad together. They had been full of longing for the future. Jiang Wei always obsessively asked why he didn’t come to see her.
Her parents knew their daughter was a delicate flower in the greenhouse, a crystal in the ivory tower. She was fragile and beautiful. At this time, she wouldn’t be able to withstand any blows. They could only choose to lie again and again, saying that the boy was very busy since the university entrance examination was coming soon and he had no time to see her.
The day Jiang Wei returned to school was just a few days before the graduation dance. The school was very considerate. They took into account Jiang Wei’s situation and changed the graduation dance to a masquerade. All the graduates would wear masks and only show their eyes.
This was the kindness of the school and Jiang Wei was very grateful. She had never been in society and hadn’t experienced a person’s sinister heart. She believed that everyone was kind and honest.
It wasn’t until she met her classmates after a few months and found that they had changed. Their gossipy words and scornful eyes almost crushed her. The thick black veil couldn’t resist their viciousness.
Jiang Wei cried to her parents countless times. She had never hurt these people and many of them had even received her favour. Yet in the end, they mercilessly hurt her and dug at her most painful place.
Her parents felt the helplessness of life and could only hold Jiang Wei, comforting her over and over again. However, they cried silently. They grew older overnight and white hairs appeared in their hair.
Jiang Wei cried bitterly and kept asking why. Her parents could only tearfully tell her that being excellent was wrong, being different was wrong. The root of the injury was jealousy. Jiang Wei hadn’t understood it until she found her school boyfriend.
She had lost her face, the envy of her classmates and the dream of being a dancer. Jiang Wei regarded her boyfriend as the last straw who could prove that the world was still worthwhile. However, she saw the boy who always shrugged her off and said he was busy. He was in the piano room where they used to talk affectionately, kissing another girl.
Jiang Wei froze and all the blood in her body became cold. She seemed to have fallen into a bottomless ice cellar that she could never climb up from. During the countless nights of fighting with death, she had looked forward to the day when she saw her boyfriend again. She survived for this but happened to see such an ironic scene.
She used to think this love was unique and she was the only one. She only realized at this moment that once she lost her original characteristics, she would be abandoned. It was because her boyfriend liked the ‘beautiful, rich, intelligent and versatile Jiang Wei’, not just ‘Jiang Wei.’
This girl was poor, stupid and had nothing special. Only her face was as beautiful as a flower. This was enough to make Jiang Wei’s boyfriend fall in love again, hypocritically and affectionately telling the girl all the words of love he once said to Jiang Wei.
His love was so cheap but Jiang Wei once regarded it as a treasure. She was like a funny clown witnessing the affection of others. She finally understood what her parents had said about jealousy. It turned out that those people were jealous of her in this way.
The feeling of jealousy was so sour and bitter. It swept through her and made her crazy, especially when the bad girl gave her a provocative glance. How dare she? How could she compare to Jiang Wei?
No. The despairing Jiang Wei remembered that she had lost her beautiful face forever. She was indeed inferior to this charming girl and her pride was trampled on. Why was she going through this? She had done nothing wrong. Why should she be punished? Jiang Wei had countless ‘whys’ in her heart.
She went crazy and rushed forward to question him. The disgust in her boyfriend’s eyes and the way he didn’t hesitate to favour and protect the other girl completely annihilated her kindness and hope.
It was the last straw that crushed her. Jiang Wei’s smile gradually distorted. She wasn’t good and no one thought about her. Why was kindness exchanged for disfigurement and betrayal while the malicious ones survived forward? She had enough. She suddenly believed that human nature was evil.
Her parents found that Jiang Wei had completely changed after returning from school. She stopped crying and complaining. Her eyes were full of coldness and gloom. She seemed to be planning something. She refused to speak like it would break her world. She even expressed great hostility to her parents a few times.
Her parents’ panic didn’t last long. On a bright morning, Jiang Wei went to the graduation dance and never came back.
On that day, she wore a black dress and black veil. She was like a black widow, paying homage to her dead future and unrecoverable love. There was an ominous and strange holiness. It was inevitable that people would find her and they were full of scorn and mockery.
In the middle of the dance floor, her boyfriend and that girl were dancing gracefully. It was enviable. Jiang Wei stood by the door with lifeless eyes and a cold and evil smile gradually spread on her face. She looked like a ghost from hell.
They should pay the price for the pain they caused to others. There were so many sins in the world and those who committed crimes weren’t punished. However, they deserved to be punished.
They killed Jiang Wei, not the fire. Jiang Wei died due to their betrayal and mockery. Therefore, she could only take revenge on those who hurt her.
She went out, carrying a few canisters of gasoline that had already been prepared. She set fire to the grand theatre where the dance was being held. She set herself on fire and let the fire and death that followed swallow up everything in the past.
This world wasn’t worth it.
The author has something to say:
Xinglan: What do you think after hearing this story?
Xie Chi: This is one of the benefits of falling in love with a sub personality. You don’t think I’m ugly and I don’t think you are disfigured.