Chapter 52: Selection
Before the clown turned the wooden wall around, the audience was angry.
Although not all the words written on it could be seen clearly, they could see some of them and could guess from that what the rest of them could be.
If they knew about this, they would have volunteered to go up themselves. How could they have let Luo Zhanshen have a chance?
“Why didn’t he hit that Yellow Hair?”
“This.....maybe his luck is good. I hope he doesn’t fall to his death when he gets off the stage.”
“Why didn’t I get picked? After throwing all those darts, he only got two of them. To think that such a poor skill would still earn him those rewards!”
Some thought maliciously: “With him getting so lucky, the clown probably would just kill him off instead of honouring the rewards.”
In any case, he was destined to die here.
Human malice was infinite. The clown enjoyed seeing the ugly expressions in the audience below.
Having been oppressed by the incidences at the hotel and the first two magic performances, their thoughts gradually became twisted.
Over time, human life became something cheap.
Su Min saw through this. He turned his head and asked: “Do you ghosts like to watch humans become like this?”
Chen Su said: “I don’t like to watch.”
Su Min thought: if Chen Su was the same as the clown, he should think of a way to destroy him.
Though he didn’t know how to kill ghosts.
Chen Su laughed again and pecked him near his lips. He quietly added: “I like watching you.”
Su Min: “.........Oh.”
He turned his head over mechanically and proceeded to concentrate on watching the magic show. Chen Su who had secretly kissed him was aggrieved.
After the wooden wall was turned around, the expressions of the insiders turned very strange.
Tied to the back of it was Luo Zhanshen’s wife.
After staying in the hotel and bus for so long, they had all seen Luo Zhanshen and they all know about him always being together with his wife.
After Luo Zhanshen came on stage, no one paid attention to his wife and no one knew when she was tied to the back of the board by the clown.
The most dramatic part of this was that Luo Zhanshen’s wife had died.
Luo Zhanshen stood closest to her. He saw his bloodied wife with her head hanging down. She had already stopped breathing.
Her mouth was taped shut and she couldn’t make any sounds let alone cry for help.
Her body was covered in eight wounds from the darts. It came from the other side and penetrated through her body.
Luo Zhanshen now understood why the darts were so long.
Turns out, that clown had set everything up. That flaw with the blindfold was also something that he had done deliberately so that he could see this aftermath.
Luo Zhanshen looked up and saw the clown smiling at him. It was the same smile he gave him when he invited him to the stage initially.
His legs softened and he fell to the ground.
Su Min didn’t react at first but when he saw Luo Zhanshen’s expression, he could guess what had happened.
Li Chi Yu was shocked by this scene.
It was completely different seeing a live person die in front of you compared to the previous deaths and the body was still there. He was so scared, his mind went blank.
It wasn’t until Le Ling touched his arm that he returned to his senses.
The audience started to chatter: “He killed his wife hahaha. He deserved it. This is why he should have thrown it at Yellow Hair.”
No one reb.u.t.ted those inhumane words.
Li Chi Yu’s face was completely pale, “This magic trick is too terrible....”
It played with the human heart. Luo Zhanshen wanted freedom and money, but he didn’t expect it to hit his wife.
Su Min couldn’t help but ask: “What does the clown want to do?”
Since the first magic trick, he didn’t’ seem to take human life seriously and was just killing for his own pleasure.
Was the director intending on exposing humanity’s dark side?
This approach was indeed novel. At the very least, he had not seen a magic trick like this. But with this alone, it wasn’t enough to confirm his suspicions.
The name “Death Show” had always been hidden under a veil of mystery and today, the truth will be revealed.
There was only a thin layer of veil left and you can only see a part of the truth. If you wanted to know the answer, you will need to watch it until the end.
Su Min was already finding it difficult.
No matter how brave Jiang Taozhi was, she was still a girl. The first two were okay but after this one, she had fainted from fear.
Li Chi Yu’s face was completely pale and Le Ling was a little better than him.
On the stage, Luo Zhanshen knelt there in daze. He couldn’t accept this reality and his chest was filled with remorse.
The clown however was very happy. He jumped up a few times.
The tightly closed curtains were once again opened and the wooden wall was dragged back into the darkness. It disappeared from everyone’s sight.
Luo Zhanshen was then pushed off the stage by the clown.
He fell diagonally opposite the first row. Su Min could see his muddled expression and felt a little sympathetic.
But he didn’t expect the next development.
Luo Zhanshen suddenly looked up at the clown and said: “She’s already dead so can I still get those things?”
Everyone present was shocked.
Su Min pursed his lips. He didn’t know what he was feeling inside. It was just a little cold.
He gave himself an excuse: It was probably because the air conditioner here is too low. Ghosts are too unprofessional.
Luo Zhanshen looked at the clown with antic.i.p.ation.
The clown looked at him and then extended the index finger of his right hand. He swung it back and forth to indicate to him that it was impossible.
It was a trap all along.
The clown no longer cared about Luo Zhanshen who had lost all the blood on his face. He just took off his hat, threw it in the air and caught it before making another gentlemanly bow.
Su Min didn’t like him at all.
As the clown moved, Luo Zhanshen who was on the ground also started moving but no one noticed him.
Only the ghost Chen Su said: “I told you he would regret it later.”
Su Min said coldly: “You can move away when you speak.”
Chen Su laughed and raised the corners of his lips: “I’m just worried that you can’t hear me.”
Hearing this, Su Min was a little speechless. His eyes were once again drawn over to the clown on the stage.
The curtain was pulled back and the next magic performance was about to begin.
Everyone in the audience held their breath. While they waited for the next performance, they prayed not to be selected.
A row of things appeared on the stage.
Someone in the audience whispered: “What magic is this? Do you know? Is there any way to avoid it?”
There were many questions, but no one answered.
Suddenly a man’s screams were heard. Su Min looked over at the source and saw that it was a member of the audience trying to sneak out.
He had wanted to escape but he was caught and died on the spot. All that was left were his bones.
Those who had considered the thought of escaping quickly threw away that thought and remained sitting in their seats in silence.
Li Chi Yu had difficulty breathing: “I think we have to stay here until the end of his show, or we’ll die.”
Su Min could sense the panic that he tried to hide.
But this kind of thing was useless. It could only allow people to just live a little longer. The male and female protagonists had not yet reached the highlight of the show.
He changed the topic and said: “Look at the stage.”
Li Chi Yu looked at the stage. He stared with wide eyes and asked: “Is that a vase behind the clown?”
The lights were too dark. Su Min looked carefully for a while and could finally make out that there was indeed vases there.
Every one of the vases looked different. The patterns were carved from the bottom to the top and it looked quite similar to the one in the hotel.
It’s just that the vases here were not as big.
Jiang Taozhi woke up and saw the many vases. She panicked: “Don’t tell me they’re going to put us in the vase and suffocate us to death?”
Last time, there was a dead body inside the vase in the hotel.
Su Min shook his head: “Probably not.”
Li Chi Yu didn’t understand, “I have never seen such a magic. I don’t know if it’s because I’m just too ignorant.”
There are magic tricks that involved the use of flower vases, but it was his first time seeing a dozen or so of them being used. It seems the scale was quite big.
The audience had already grown numb to it.
After experiencing the last magic trick, everyone came to an understanding that struggling was futile. All they can do now was to watch the performances.
Once selected by the clown, they could only wait for their death.
The clown magician pulled out a whistle from nowhere and stood at the centre of the stage. He then blew it loudly.
The sound was sharp. It was even more p.r.o.nounced in this quiet s.p.a.ce.
Su Min internally thought that it was good that he wasn’t blowing something strange. If it attracted something strange, things would be terrible.
But he was too naïve.
The whistle stopped after one blow. The clown appeared to have realised something and ran off the stage excitedly.
After leaving the centre of the stage, sudden movements were heard from the case.
The movements weren’t big and the sound it made wasn’t loud but the audiences who had always been alert noticed it immediately. Fear rose within them.
Everyone understood that this magic trick wasn’t simple.
With so many vases this time, unlike the previous ones that only involved one, the scariest possibility was that the number of deaths may equal the number of vases.
If that was the case, more than half of them would be gone.
Su Min whispered to Chen Su: “Do you know what’s in there?”
Li Chi Yu who sat beside him had his attention drawn to the stage and he didn’t hear their conversation. Chen Suu answered: “Some have something. Some have nothing.”
Su Min asked: “Something? It isn’t human?”
Chen Su’s tone was strange and indifferent: “If you still think so after seeing it, then consider me wrong.”
Su Min didn’t continue asking.
Chen Su again whispered: “I won’t let you go over.”
Su Min felt that if he did that, it would basically mean that he gave up watching this movie. He wouldn’t let Chen Su do that.
The clown walked to the vases and circled them a few times. He then reached in a few of them and blew the whistle again.
There was silence amongst the audience.
As they watched, something came out from the case. There was something in every vase.
Su Min squinted and stared at the slimy black thing.
Once the black things appeared, it also brought along something white. When he saw this, he came to understand Chen Su’s words.
Because what was exposed were human heads.
It was like that moment when he stood on the chair and looked down the vase in the hotel. The body inside was also the same but this time they were slowly coming out.
The audience were frightened speechless.
Those human heads faced the audience. Their faces were soaked in unknown liquid for a long time, so it was difficult making out their features.
Several of them still looked normal. Su Min recognised them in one glance because they were originally members of the audience sitting here watching the show.
In other words, the dead were already preselected this time.
Su Min pulled out the crumpled show ticket from his pocket and compared it with the stage under the dim lighting. He could tell that the blurry baskets looked exactly the same as the vases on the stage.
The neck was narrow, the opening was large, and the body of the vase was wide.
Su Min now realised that these were made for humans.