Ch98 – The Cycle of Karma, What Goes Around Comes Around
The most bizarre thing was, when Chi Xiaochi used Song Chunyang’s eyes to look her over, that face remained Guan Qiaoqiao’s face.
However, the eerie, ghostly air that made one’s scalp tingle surrounding her was exactly the same as the one from the photograph.
Within a few moments, a general conjecture formed in his mind.
“Guan Qiaoqiao”, a smile on her face, reached out to him.
Looking at that hand, Chi Xiaochi froze for a moment, then quickly stretched out his hand, feeling around, but didn’t grasp hers, leaving it hanging in the air, just like a blind person would. He said intimately, “We’ve been waiting for you for a long time already, why haven’t you come down for breakfast?”
“Guan Qiaoqiao” grabbed his hand, then carefully wrapped her arm around his. Her cheeks were flushed, like a girl in love, her smile was as bright as a rose. “Isn’t this me coming?”
Her response helped solidify Chi Xiaochi’s conjecture.
Chi Xiaochi tried very hard to not think about why her hands were so cold. If he thought about that, it would be very easy for his heartbeat to go over 180 beats per minute, which wouldn’t be good for his health.
Besides, right now, there was someone who was even more pained and even more troubled than Chi Xiaochi.
The woman who had suddenly appeared before him had almost made Yuan Benshan’s heart stop beating.
“She” couldn’t be Guan Qiaoqiao!
“Her” complexion looked very good, the yellow gunk and veins in her eyes had completely faded. How could she still be that hysterical madman from yesterday?
What was even more important was that now, “she” was completely ignoring those photos which had originally almost driven her to madness, as well as him, the murderer who had sent Guan Qiaoqiao to her death.
Staring at the greenish purple bruise marks still remaining from when she had been bound on her wrists, Yuan Benshan didn’t dare think too deeply about the true ident.i.ty of this woman. Hot sweat ran in rivulets down his back, and it felt as if there was a colony of ants in his joints moving about, but his bones ran cold, all the way to his heart.
Who was “she”? Was “she” the “Night Returnee” from that photograph?
What had “she” borrowed Guan Qiaoqiao’s body to do?
If “she” really was the person in the photograph, “she” should have “seen” his and Guan Qiaoqiao’s dispute.
Then, was he the next target?
Thinking of this, Yuan Benshan’s forehead was coated in cold sweat. He felt immense regret.
After all, Guan Qiaoqiao would have been killed by the ghost in the photo sooner or later, so why did he just have to go see her last night, have a falling out with her, and make trouble for himself?
Gan Yu sensed the unnaturalness on the faces of these two people. He exchanged glances with Gan Tang. They didn’t bring up the matter of the alliance again, simply following them downstairs.
As he went down the stairs, Chi Xiaochi made sure to observe the photographs on the wall.
Sure enough, that faint sense of strangeness about them had already completely disappeared. They’d turned back into ordinary photos.
Chi Xiaochi lowered his head. He did a simple comb-through of everything that had happened since they had entered the ancient castle, and came up with a basic conclusion.
From beginning to end, there had only been one ghost in the ancient castle.
In the beginning, she had climbed out of the photograph in his room. Borrowing the balloon lady’s body, she walked around for a while, then locked onto Guan Qiaoqiao as her target.
Going by the information in Song Chunyang’s memories, it hadn’t killed Guan Qiaoqiao, rather, it had stolen her body.
There were many methods for a ghost to steal another person’s body, and the one the female ghosts had used, could be said to be the most meticulous of meticulous tasks.
——Spiritual contamination.
That photograph,《Person Returning on a Snowy Night》, was the channel.
Sadako crawling out of the television, was just a matter of poking out her head, why would anyone be like her, whose crawling out of the photograph took a full three days?
Because according to the records, this method was best able to guarantee the integrity of the body you wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h.
In actuality, her body would never have crawled out of the frame.
In the past few days, the kind of maddening panic of being started at all the time, was her true weapon.
……Silently, unnoticed, she used her gaze to dig out a channel, crept into Guan Qiaoqiao’s head, and took over her body.
And as for why she wanted to maintain the integrity of Guan Qiaoqiao’s body as much as possible, the reason wasn’t hard to guess when you took into account the requirement of “not going out of character” in this task.
Gan Tang had previously checked the cameras on set. When the female ghost had been floating around in the shape of a human head balloon and talking to the task-takers, the her who should have been talking to Pigtail guy hadn’t shown up in the camera.
That was to say, while in the form of a ghost, she had no way of being captured on film.
She had stolen Guan Qiaoqiao’s body with all her effort. Next, he feared that she would be playing Guan Qiaoqiao’s role.
Guan Qiaoqiao was no longer the Guan Qiaoqiao of the past. Now, standing before them, was the “Guan Qiaoqiao” in the script, his, “Song Chunyang”‘s girlfriend.
The moment he figured this out, the singing in the middle of the night last night and the person peeping into the window had an explanation.
……Because all this had happened in the script.
According to the original script, whether they were playing the “immortal flying in the sky” or the “midnight singer”, all these supernatural phenomena were farces done in cosplay by “Song Chunyang”, the boyfriend, as revenge on behalf of his girlfriend.
Now, benzun had personally acted, and not only that, not shying away from hardships, she had cautiously and conscientiously held a dress rehearsal in the middle of the night. With her degree of devotion to her work, she probably didn’t need him to go beyond the sacrificial altar and take over the kitchen.
Chi Xiaochi felt utterly calm.
……It was just that his hands and heart were trembling.
After all, this Miss Ghost who deeply loved acting was currently at point blank range and in direct contact with him.
In this short journey of just a few steps down the stairs, halfway through, Chi Xiaochi’s legs already felt a little weak. He didn’t even have the courage to throw up,
Xi Lou, after hearing all of Chi Xiaochi’s reasoning, rather admired Chi Xiaochi’s ability to absorb, sort and a.n.a.lyse information. His opinion of this person who hadn’t seemed to know anything had changed slightly.
Knowing that he was afraid of ghosts, Xi Lou’s heart softened slightly. For the very first time, he attempted to comfort him, “If you’re truly scared, you can talk to me a little.”
Chi Xiaochi said, aggrieved, “Tongtong, can I sing to bolster my courage?”
Xi Lou felt visceral discomfort upon hearing that nickname,
But out of his tolerant and benevolent heart, he agreed.
Chi Xiaochi said, “Have you heard《Onion》before?”
Given that they were from different worlds, Xi Lou hadn’t actually heard it before.
He simply said, “If you’re scared, just sing then.”
On the side, Gan Yu and Gan Tang’s expressions instantly became extremely complex.
The moment Chi Xiaochi started singing, Xi Lou was shaken. All the way until the chorus, he remained stuck in his shock for a long time, unable to pull himself out.
……You can sing this badly even in your own head?
When Chi Xiaochi started singing “If you were willing to peel open layer after layer after layer of my heart”, Xi Lou felt like what was being peeled away wasn’t an onion, it was his consciousness.
By the time the first chorus ended, the forever cold and poison-tongued Xi Lou was actually at a loss for words. The only thought left in his mind was, f.u.c.k your mother.
He vowed that if, after today, he ever felt any lenience towards Chi Xiaochi ever again, he would be a wooden club.
Just like that, the group of people descended the stairs in utter torment. Only “Guan Qiaoqiao”‘s expression was relaxed, as she held Chi Xiaochi’s arm all the way to the dining hall.
When the task-takers saw her appear, they all had strange expressions on their faces.
In the eyes of everyone, Guan Qiaoqiao had been done for, the only question was how she was going to die.
While her gentle and quiet appearance, utterly unlike her madness of the past few days, didn’t seem to have anything wrong with it at first glance, but once they started speculating, it was simply enough to make one’s scalp tingle.
Their intuitions told them, certain bad things had probably already happened.
Pigtail guy opened his mouth, saying half-testingly, “Oh my, she’s come out.”
“Guan Qiaoqiao” nodded, her manner meek and amiable.
She said, “I’m sorry, I’ve delayed filming.”
Her att.i.tude was truly too good, making Pigtail guy not know where to start.
Ponytail lady asked cautiously, “……Are you okay?”
“Guan Qiaoqiao” smiled gently. “Thank you, I’m a lot better now.”
Her current calm was even more terrifying. Everyone simply stayed silent. As each of them pondered over the causes and consequences of this, the atmosphere became more and more stifling.
“Guan Qiaoqiao” sat down like usual, getting herself some of the breakfast provided for the cast, looking utterly harmless.
After the meal, everyone silently scattered, going off to prepare for today’s shooting.
“Guan Qiaoqiao” had eaten very little, only taking two to three bites of each dish before putting down her chopsticks, very much having the self-cultivation of a female actress.
Chi Xiaochi also needed to go off to prepare for filming. Who knew that the moment he got up, “Guan Qiaoqiao”‘s eyes would turn to him. The black and white of her eyes were distinct, crystal clear. “Why are you leaving?”
“Mister Song hasn’t put on his makeup,” Gan Yu calmly spoke before Chi Xiaochi could.
Gan Tang, off to the side, pointed at her own lips, using a pleasant sounding Wu dialect to change the topic of the conversation with a few words, “Miss Guan, let me fix up your lipstick.”
Guan Qiaoqiao pulled out her little mirror compact, and found that her lipstick really had faded. She “oh”-ed, and even gratefully said to Gan Tang, “Thanks.”
……It was still pretty good, she wasn’t a stuck-up ghost.
Yuan Benshan, as if fleeing, left the dining hall along with Chi Xiaochi.
He asked impatiently, “Chunyang, is she…… still Guan Qiaoqiao?”
Chi Xiaochi instantly got into character, letting a pair of reddened eyes serve as his reply.
Yuan Benshan had clearly also guessed this ghost’s plans. “She’s using Guan Qiaoqiao’s body, and wants us to…… to finish acting out this movie with her? That’s the meaning of ‘not going out of character’?”
Chi Xiaochi nodded, still immersed in sadness, unable to extricate himself. “Why did it have to be Qiaoqiao.”
How could Yuan Benshan still find the time to care about why it was Guan Qiaoqiao.
The moment one had a guilty conscience, no matter what they saw, they would always feel like the other was scheming against them. To say nothing of a ghost, it was a ghost that had been witness to the process of him talking Guan Qiaoqiao to breaking.
Even just thinking about it made Yuan Benshan panic.
It was just that he couldn’t explain this worry to other people, he could only swallow it down and put on a straight face, while really he was choking in panic.
In contrast to him, after getting a general idea of the task, Chi Xiaochi himself actually started gradually calming down.
Now, the fake ghost in the script had become a real one. Only the heavens knew whether the fake deaths would become real as well.
According to the script, most of this group of high-school students had been involved in “Guan Qiaoqiao”‘s death. The only ones without a direct link were the roles Yuan Benshan and Chi Xiaochi were playing.
However, the role Chi Xiaochi was playing was “Guan Qiaoqiao”‘s boyfriend. Who knew if the lady would take Chi Xiaochi away out of love.
As for Yuan Benshan, according to the script, he was a righteous man, but in reality, he was incredibly vile. Other people might not know about how nauseating he was, but this ghost had seen it for herself through the photographs.
Since everyone had an equal chance of dying, then, it was better to focus on the task itself than think about what others had but you didn’t. As long as they acted well, didn’t go out of character, didn’t NG, and got past this half a month, the task could be considered to have come to its successful conclusion.
Being an actor was a job he had been doing for a long time. If it was just acting, Chi Xiaochi wasn’t worried.
However, acting with a ghost, would still be a lifetime first for Chi Xiaochi.
Gan Yu also had a good idea of what was going on. As he held up Chi Xiaochi’s face, helping him do his eyebrows, he asked, “Are you afraid?”
Chi Xiaochi replied seriously, “This ident.i.ty of ‘Guan Qiaoqiao’ is just her surface cover. In actuality, right now, she’s my father.”
Everything would have to follow her intentions, that was true.
Gan Yu smiled. “It’s good for you to have this kind of att.i.tude.”
On the side, helping Chi Xiaochi pick out his clothes, Gan Tang joined in, saying, “There’s no need to make things too complicated. Since the task only said to ‘not go out of character’, then you just need to go along with that and not do anything unnecessary.”
Chi Xiaochi also thought so.
This ghost had used three days to infect Guan Qiaoqiao’s spirit, giving the temporary actors who had never filmed anything before sufficient time to get familiar with the lens, understand the shooting process, and even rehea.r.s.e in advance……
To say something a little funny, in Chi Xiaochi’s point of view, as an actor, she was really very dedicated to her job.