Chapter 56: Easter Egg
Before leaving the movie, Su Min finally remembered the movie critics and media that were in the same movie theatre. He felt that he probably won’t be the only one in the room when he opened his eyes.
And he indeed wasn’t alone.
The moment he opened his eyes, he saw a group of people sitting in front of him. They stared at him like they were observing an orangutan in a zoo.
The man right in front of him said: “He’s awake. Looking at the time, it seems to be similar to the length of the original movie. He probably lived until the end.”
The person on the left said: “Excuse me, may I ask this gentleman how you managed to live until the end? Can you reveal some details?”
Gooseb.u.mps formed all across Su Min’s arms.
These movie critics were actually waiting for him for come out to ask him a few questions, but he took too long and they got very sleepy.
He quickly removed his helmet and got up from his seat.
“Is this gentleman leaving? Can you tell us how you managed to live until the end? We can discuss........”
The lights in the theatre turned on and the ending credits started to play on the big screen.
Su Min wasn’t in the mood to watch. He quickly shuffled out and ignored the people chasing after him.
A staff just happened to walk over. He exclaimed excitedly: “Mr. Su you managed to live until the end again! You have won every battle!”
Only one person managed to succeed in this entire theatre. You didn’t need to think to know that they must be very amazing.
Su Min felt that he had heard this line before.
But when he saw the staffs excited look, he couldn’t bear tearing it down. He mulled over it and thought that it probably might have been from a congratulatory message from the cinema.
In any case, it was spoken sincerely.
Su Min had not left yet when the movie critics and media left the theatre behind him.
He even saw several envious looks.
The staff next to Su Min whispered: “Please don’t mind it Mr. Su. They’re like that because they didn’t succeed.”
The director of “Death Show” had invited a total of 16 movie critics and 8 members of the media.
Six of the movie critics and three members of the media died at the hotel and didn’t even manage to get to the main part of the movie.
The remaining film critics and members of the media were either eaten when they tried to flee, or they were turned into bones. Others were unfortunately selected by the clown and killed.
It could be said that they met very unfortunate endings.
Su Min: “...............”
For a moment, he couldn’t find the right words to describe their misery. Afterall, it was really unlucky to be selected and it was also unavoidable. He had only managed to escape that fate because of Chen Su.
The difficulty of holographic viewing of this movie wasn’t low.
Because there are very few people who weren’t afraid of ghosts, when faced with such an immersive experience, they would naturally reveal their weaknesses and end up dying first.
For Su Min, it was because he had experience that he didn’t do anything excessive.
The staff a.n.a.lysed: “In fact, several of them chose to watch it with a friend but they ended up having a fight and meeting a terrible ending.”
Su Min wondered: “There were actually several of them?”
He had thought that they would tackle it alone. One group even got into a fight. In a horror movie like this, it’s basically asking for death.
The staff laughed and didn’t say anything.
Su Min thought for a moment and said: “Then I’m going back. I might be back again after the score is out.”
The staff said: “You definitely will.”
Although he wasn’t the one giving the scores, he knew that if he was able to survive until the end, the score for it would definitely be good.
After exiting out the corridor, there weren’t many people outside.
Su Min looked at the ticket sales on his phone. “Death Show” was just released and its film rating appears to be okay.
As usual, he bought the earliest session and then went out to the mall to have a quick bite while browsing through some real-time comments on Weibo.
“I didn’t understand it at all. I was frightened the whole time. What was this movie trying to say?”
“You guys were all watching for the plot. Was I the only one wondering if anyone watching it through the holographic viewing managed to live until the end?”
“I understood it hahaha. In fact, it wasn’t that hard to understand. The answer was basically right there in front of you.”
“Justice to brotherhood. I thought it was a female protagonist, so I really didn’t expect that twist.”
“.........”
Seeing that last comment about twists and brotherhood, Su Min was a little confused.
But eating was more important, so he didn’t pay it too much attention. He went into a Sichuan skewer store. Although he didn’t know if the taste was authentic or not, it was delicious.
Su Min belonged to the group of people who enjoyed spicy food, but his family couldn’t take much of it.
So, when he’s at home the housekeeper would cook his and his parent’s food separately. If they put them together to eat, his parents wouldn’t be able to take it.
After eating the skewers, there were still more than ten minutes.
While the movie hadn’t started yet, he went over to the poster.
Before he came, he didn’t pay any attention to the poster of this horror movie. The two people standing at the front were indeed Li Chi Yu and Le Ling.
Behind them was a small dirt mound and black fog loomed in the distance. Through the dark fog you could faintly see the shape of the performance venue built using human bones.
In all fairness, the poster looked pretty good.
Su Min looked at the cast. He didn’t recognise these two actors. This could also be because he didn’t pay much attention to the entertainment industry.
Thinking this, he searched online.
The results of his search shocked him.
Turns out, the actor for Le Ling was a man. Perhaps it was because of his lack of fame and also because this movie was a horror movie and they didn’t reveal much of the backstory, not many people noticed.
Su Min felt speechless.
Now that he thought about it, was the Le Ling in the movie a female or a male?
All along, he had thought that Le Ling was a woman. Because Li Chi Yu had regarded her as a G.o.ddess from the very beginning, he was influenced by it and was under the impression that Le Ling was female.
Su Min looked at the movie ticket in his hand and felt that the world was a very scary place.
A ticket inspector not far away called out: “Ticket check for “Death Show” at 8:20pm has begun. The ticket check for “Death Show” at 8:20pm has begun......”
Su Min returned to his senses and went over to get his tickets checked.
***
With five minutes to go until the movie started, Su Min sat down in the theatre.
Unlike “Murder Island” last time, this one was 3D so there weren’t many people watching but, for a horror movie, the audience turn out was pretty good.
Su Min bought the ticket late, so he was seated at the back.
As soon as the lights darkened, the movie began to play its t.i.tle. This time however there was no t.i.tle song. Only instrumental accompaniment played.
Someone in front suddenly spoke: “If this really is a garbage movie, I’ll deal with you when we get back tonight.”
Her voice wasn’t loud, but Su Min heard it.
The man next to her said: “It shouldn’t be. The director has filmed others so no matter how bad it is, it can’t be as bad as “Vixen”.
Su Min thought for a long time before remembering which movie they were referring to.
After the director of “University Thriller” moved on from literary movies to horror movies, the first horror movie that was made was called “Vixen”. The box office response to this movie was miserable.
He rubbed his nose and concentrated on watching the movie.
As expected, the first person going missing was Zhou Qing Qing. She was rolled away by the carpet and, when she disappeared, the camera had also turned back to show the black and white corridor.
Su Min thought internally: Looks like there really was something wrong with the corridor.
If he guessed right, there was probably a place they used to watch over them secretly. It was probably the same for all the floors.
Because they needed to eat, they would inevitably pa.s.s through the corridor after leaving the room. It was also a good time for them to observe them.
There weren’t many scenes showing the missing people or deaths in the movie. Even the scene involving the vase flashed by.
No one stood up to look in and find the dead body inside like he had.
The scenes after that weren’t that special. Even if Su Min wasn’t in the movie, the scene involving the characters discussing killing the driver still happened and the man still died in the end.
This continued until the appearance of the clown.
The magic at the beginning was the same. It was the dead Zhou Qing Qing.
As for the second hat trick, because he was not inside, the clown just chose a random person and gave him a similarly tragic ending.
This was then followed by Luo Zhanshen’s unfortunate experience.
In the end, Jiang Taozhi separated from Li Chi Yu and them and the movie revealed her scenes. She was tortured to death by the clown. Su Min couldn’t bear continuing to look.
As for Le Ling and Li Chi Yu, they ran around through the graves.
They didn’t manage to get any information from Xu Jian and only knew that he had intentionally brought Zhou Qing Qing to the show. In the end, Xu Jian died leaving behind a pile bones.
As for the fire, for a while they couldn’t think of what to do.
This resulted in the movie being dragged out a little longer. It was only until the very end when the dust had all settled that Su Min was able to learn of Le Ling’s ident.i.ty.
As it turned out, the clown was not fixed.
The clown magician was like a universal symbol that anyone could use. As long as you are selected you could be it.
Le Ling was the predecessor.
He was indeed not a woman. Before the end of the last show, he was a real man and he pretended to be a woman in order not to be found.
Those who become clowns were eventually fated to die.
On the screen Le Ling sat before a grave and spoke to Li Chi Yu: “This is my parents’ grave. They were the ones that saved me.”
Every performance was different.
For example, the escape the water tank performance and the dart performance this time didn’t exist in the previous show, so Le Ling didn’t know what was going to happen. All he knew was that someone would die.
When he was selected, he didn’t realise he was going to kill but there was a ghost behind him helping him. It helped him select his victims and only requested for him to perform well.
This continued until Le Ling realised that his parents were among the audience.
For the first time, Le Ling spoke a lot. His voice was quiet: “........I ran. I was originally supposed to turn into a pile of bones.”
When the movie played until here, he decided to surrender to the police. Although it wasn’t voluntary, those deaths back then were related to him.
As for the posts in the forum, they were all posted by those who were selected to be the clown in order to attract more audiences.
Minutes and seconds pa.s.sed, and the secrets were gradually revealed.
Su Min couldn’t figure out why the ticket had turned into a coin earlier, but he now understood that it was because there were in another person’s grave the entire time.
Like the ghosts knocking on the door, everything in the hotel was an illusion. Even the bus only went around in circles.
This was also why he couldn’t set alight the curtains.
It was because they were all an illusion.
That tunnel was a road to the grave. It was hidden there because the owner of the grave wanted to have it covered.
As for how the owner of the grave ended up dying, this wasn’t shown. He would have to ask the screenwriter to find out.
There were many bugs in the movie, but you could easily miss them or ignore them while experiencing the movie. If you nit-picked at everything, the viewing experience wouldn’t be very fun.
When the last scene was done showing, there was a picture of Li Chi Yu standing behind Le Ling with the sun shining from high above.
Every time, the performance was done through human-ghost cooperation. This time the reason why the clown was so angry was because Le Ling had betrayed them and had betrayed their alliance.
And because he was a victim himself, he had meticulously made posts to attract more people to the point that there were several times more turn out than before.
After Li Chi Yu mentioned it, Le Ling decided to follow over and this led to the opening scene of the movie.
Su Min waited until the end of the Easter egg.
The Easter egg was about Le Ling and there was also a director’s cut which revealed some small, fine details.