Chapter 14: Ghost Mountain Villa 14
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Initially, Yan Shixun had been suppressing his impatience, trying to patiently listen to the male actor’s ramblings in hopes of extracting some useful information from them.
However, the actor’s words were nothing but a nonsensical stream of “corpse” and “let’s all die together,” and his voice had become unbearable, causing discomfort to Yan Shixun’s ears.
Finally, Yan Shixun raised his hand impatiently, his slender fingers swiftly forming a seal in the direction of the male actor, casting a calming and dispelling shock gesture.
In the next moment, the male actor’s hysterical screams abruptly ceased, his eyes rolled back, and he fell backward with a heavy thud, landing on the floor.
The stunned crew members who had been terrified by the actor’s outburst finally snapped out of it. They rushed forward, frantically lifting the actor from the ground.
“What should we do now, Brother Yan?”
Amid the heavy, oppressive silence, Zhang Wubing didn’t even consider the fact that the main live camera was still rolling; he immediately sought guidance from Yan Shixun.
Yan Shixun, however, lowered his gaze, focusing on the personal camera attached to the actor’s shoulder. “First, take him to the paramedic and keep an eye on him along with Liu Yiyi. If he starts causing trouble when he wakes up, try to calm him down—don’t let him speak again to prevent him from saying anything he shouldn’t.”
“And, when he left just now, was the split-screen camera on?” Yan Shixun chuckled. “At least there’s one good thing about it.”
With the situation having escalated to this point, even the most obtuse person realized that something was wrong.
“Mr. Yan,” one of the guests looked at the male actor’s pitiful state and tremblingly asked, “What’s going on?”
Some were more concerned about what the male actor had just said. “Is he telling the truth? Are those things really outside? What should we do, Director? I don’t want to continue shooting. I want to leave now!”
“You can try,” Yan Shixun raised his hand to support his chin, looking at the person with a sly smile. “Perhaps, when you come back later, the first aid room will have one more person.”
Hearing the implicit meaning in Yan Shixun’s words, the person shivered and fell silent.
In the face of inquiries, Yan Shixun simply took out his phone and searched for the program-related tags on social media.
As expected, the impact of the footage captured by the actor as he left the villa moments ago sent shockwaves through social media platforms, once again igniting discussions and debates about the show. Some users even uploaded recordings of the actor’s split-screen footage.
From the footage, it was evident that everything appeared normal as the actor exited the villa.
Despite being visibly shaken by Liu Yiyi’s gruesome fate, the actor’s basic rationality remained intact. He was afraid that he might suffer a similar fate in this eerie villa filled with strange occurrences.
However, he still possessed the most fundamental level of common sense. He knew that if he were to leave abruptly, he would not only face potential contractual penalties, compensation claims, or even legal action from the director and production team, but he would also leave a negative impression on the audience watching the live broadcast, potentially damaging his public image.
So, the actor opened his split-screen, put on a wry and distressed smile, and addressed the camera. He complained about the exploitation of the show’s participants by the production team, their insertion of horror elements for the sake of viewership, and their deceptive practices without informing them about the script in advance. He went so far as to accuse the production team of faking supernatural occurrences, claiming that these actions had led to Liu Yiyi’s injury.
Driven by a mix of fear and self-interest, the actor showcased his exceptional acting skills, earning sympathy from many viewers who hadn’t watched the previous night’s broadcast and even from some of his own fans. They joined in criticizing the production team, united in their condemnation.
The male actor looked at the comments and sentiments in his split-screen interface on his phone and nodded in satisfaction.
The comments on his split-screen were overwhelmingly in support of him, with only a few questioning the scripted nature due to watching An Nanyuan’s split-screen live stream from last night. However, his fans quickly labeled them as program-bought water armies* and launched harsh insults at them.
Note: Water armies: a group of individuals or accounts, often paid or hired, who engage in activities to manipulate online discussions, comments, reviews, or social media interactions.
The only thing that bothered him was that his call to his agent didn’t go through, with a message saying it was out of service area.
This damned remote place! No signal either.
The male actor sneered inwardly, planning to contact his agent and PR team as soon as he left Gui Mountain. Whether it was this idiotic production team or that condescending Yan Shixun, they could all look forward to his revenge!
That guy called Yan Shixun couldn’t even sign with a company and dared to treat him with such an attitude? He was going to make Yan Shixun understand the meaning of respecting seniors and celebrities.
What if he had a somewhat handsome face? It didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t get signed by a company.
He couldn’t wait for the day when he watched Yan Shixun being berated by his fans and public opinion until he broke down, hahaha!
The male actor found immense pleasure in the illusion of Yan Shixun’s handsome face, weeping and in despair. It helped him shake off the shock from seeing Liu Yiyi’s gruesome condition a moment ago. He was delighted and momentarily ignored the changing environment around him.
When the male actor was finally drenched in sweat and decided to look at how far he was from the base of the mountain, he strangely felt a sense of familiarity with his surroundings.
This familiarity left him puzzled, so he looked around in confusion. To his horror, he realized that he had been walking for half an hour but was still on the downhill path near the villa. What’s more, when he turned around, he could still see the villa’s spire emerging from the trees!
What, What on earth was happening?
Sweat poured from the male actor’s brow at that moment.
He couldn’t care less about interacting with the viewers on his split-screen. Instead, he quickened his pace, determined to get away from this eerie place as soon as possible.
However, as he began paying attention to his surroundings, he became even more terrified. No matter how fast he walked and how long he traveled, he seemed to be going in circles within the mountains. Whenever he turned around, he could still see the spire of the villa behind him.
The actor’s clothes were soaked with sweat, and amidst his own pounding heart and heavy breathing, he could no longer hear anything around him.
This included the strange sounds emanating from both sides of the cobblestone path in the woods and beneath his feet.
The viewers who were initially puzzled by the male actor’s sudden silence before his split-screen broadcast were becoming dizzy from the rapidly changing scenes. They complained about how quickly the actor had left.
However, at that moment, some observant viewers suddenly noticed something unusual at the edge of the woods in the split-screen footage – a vivid red figure.
[Look! What is that?]
[Maybe it’s villagers from the nearby village.]
[Who dresses in all red for work? It kind of looks like those artistic plastic mannequins you see in malls. But how could there be a plastic mannequin left here in the middle of nowhere in the deep woods?]
[No! It’s alive, that person moved!]
[It doesn’t seem to be a living person! He, he looks like someone who’s been skinned! I can even see the blood vessels, his guts are spilling on the ground, how, how can it still move!!!]
[Fck fck f*ck!!]
The actor couldn’t see the live stream bullet comments. Hurrying on his way, he also didn’t notice the red emerging from the depths of the forest, leaving the anxious viewers no way to warn him.
“Rustle…”
“Rustle…”
First came the faint sounds of leaves stirred by the wind.
Then, underneath the carpet of fallen leaves and rotting soil, the ground heaved and writhed as if something was traveling beneath the surface.
A blood-red arm suddenly burst from the earth, pointing straight to the sky.
It was like some kind of signal. The originally still forest began splitting open the earth one after another, with crimson corpses crawling out from within.
The skinless corpses had all blood vessels and organs exposed to the air. Some were even severely damaged, half the body smashed to reveal white bones inside. Others were disemboweled, stomachs and intestines hanging outside the body, swaying as they walked.
They sluggishly crawled up from beneath the fallen leaves and soil, shaking off the mud before slowly straightening up. From all directions in the forest shadows, they converged on the still oblivious actor.
The stone path down the mountain seemed to infinitely extend, never reaching its end.
When the actor once again found himself in the familiar scenery, as if trapped in an endless loop, he nearly despaired.
Panting heavily, he looked all around, wanting to find a path down the mountain.
Only then did the actor suddenly notice the approaching red humanoid shapes in the layered shadows of the dense foliage.
Those humanoid entities devoid of skin dragged their long-decayed bodies, weathered by centuries, toward the living under the sun. They extended their hands slowly, yearning to touch the vitality of the living and bask in the sunlight.
They opened their dark gaping maws, wailing, pleading, wanting to drag the living into their world.
“Don’t…leave…”
“Stay here…with us, together…in the ground…”
“Give me…your skin, let me…leave this place… Give me your blood, your flesh… I want…to go down the mountain… My child is still in the village, I must go back, my wife, my child…”
“You…can’t leave anymore… This is a graveyard, only a graveyard… Join us…”
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts so much… Where are my legs, where is my head…”
“It’s bandits… it’s bandits who killed me…”
Ghostly whispers echoed, overlapping and reverberating into a deathly silence in the mountain woods.
Each of them recounted their grievances and unwillingness, their ghostly voices resounding in the woods. They reached out to the male actor with their already decaying fingertips, even though they screamed in pain as they were burnt by the sunlight the moment they touched it. Nevertheless, they continued to move forward, wanting to grab the male actor.
Their sharp voices were almost soul-crushing, and their faint weeping made one’s head ache terribly.
The male actor stared in terror at the red monsters approaching him from all sides, his eyes wide open, but extreme fear rendered him unable to utter a word, only producing a wheezing sound.
Finally, when one of those red creatures, whether they were ghosts or something else, grabbed the male actor’s ankle with an arm bone blackened and reduced to ashes by the sun, he let out a heart-rending scream. The bizarre scene, beyond comprehension and normality, shattered his entire psychological defense.
“Ahhhhhhh! Ghosts, ghosts!”
The male actor’s eyes were wide open as he forcefully kicked away the withered bones on his ankle. He scrambled downhill, desperately trying to shake off these things and escape the horror.
As he fled for his life, he kept looking back, only to find with terror that these things were stumbling after him.
And it wasn’t just them.
The soil in the forest continued to writhe, and one by one, blood-red, decaying arms pierced through the layers of earth and centuries of stagnant time, breaking through the ground.
The male actor ran in frantic fear and despair, but more and more red humanoid monsters emerged from the soil layers deep within the woods. They wailed and wept as they moved toward the male actor’s direction.
They wanted to keep the male actor, to drag a living person into their graves.
They wanted to peel the male actor’s skin, drink his blood, pick up his flesh to become their own bodies, replacing the male actor’s living identity and leaving the grave of the deceased.
With their eye sockets hollow and black, they stared fixedly at the running male actor. They opened their rotten, foul-smelling mouths and emitted cries and screams more piercing than the last, with tears of blood flowing down their long-decayed eye sockets.
The male actor, constantly looking back and forth, slipped on the stone path, landing flat on the ground. When he managed to crawl back up, he realized that the blood-red humanoid monsters had approached him during his brief pause.
They came one after another, stacking up around the male actor, forming piles of corpses, reaching out their hands, eager to touch the living flesh.
The male actor, with no way to escape, looked at the dense horde of monsters surrounding him, and the line within him that marked him as a normal person finally shattered.
“Go away! Go away—!!”
The male actor screamed in agony, using both hands and feet to scramble along the stone path in a panicked escape.
As the camera followed the male actor, shaking violently and occasionally spinning. As the viewers faced those blood-red humanoid monsters, even making eye contact with their hollow, dark eye sockets, they were filled with fear and shock. Some even felt nauseous and couldn’t stop retching.
Trembling, the viewers seemed to empathize with the male actor’s perspective, and for a moment, they were overwhelmed by the deep malevolence of those monsters, leaving them terrified and as pale as paper.
……
After watching the entire split-screen recording of the male actor’s perspective in the living room, all the guests and staff fell into a long silence.
Except for Zhang Wubing, Bai Shuang, and An Nanyuan, the other guests, despite waking up and learning about the issues with the live broadcast from last night on social media, didn’t have time to carefully review the recorded footage. They only knew a rough outline from some variety show Vloggers and popular comments.
Now, they were witnessing what the male actor experienced outside the villa as he attempted to descend the mountain, and it left them pale, trembling, and struggling to stand.
Zhang Wubing had developed a habit of listening to Yan Shixun’s advice ever since their college days, confident that following Yan Shixun’s lead would keep him alive. However, he never anticipated that the reason Yan Shixun said it was impossible to descend the mountain was due to these entities. His complexion turned paler.
As for Bai Shuang and An Nanyuan.
Having witnessed the horrifying scene of Liu Yiyi earlier in the morning, the two people who had managed to survive thanks to Yan Shixun last night now had a deep respect for him. Upon seeing the recording and realizing the danger of Gui Mountain, they stayed even closer to Yan Shixun, looking reassured as if being by the side of a big shot would ensure their survival.
The rest of the staff were in shock; they had never expected that what was supposed to be a simple travel variety show would turn into such an absurd situation!
“So, are we really unable to leave Gui Mountain? What should we do? I don’t want to stay here; I want to go home!” one person’s voice even quivered with a hint of tears.
Yan Shixun calmly closed the screen, chuckled, and said, “For those who leave the villa without permission during the daytime, I want to express my gratitude in advance for providing me with more visual material to study the outside situation. Thank you for the sacrifice you’ve made to save others. You will forever live in my heart.”
Understanding the unspoken message from Yan Shixun, the person immediately fell silent and refrained from mentioning leaving the mountain again.
The grim condition of the male actor returning from outside was witnessed by everyone, and no one wanted to become the next person scared out of their wits by the monsters.
“Brother Yan.” Zhang Wubing called out to Yan Shixun in a hushed tone. Despite being frightened, as the director, he was still striving to maintain composure and command the situation.
“Liu Yiyi’s injuries should be fine in the short term, but if too much time passes, there will definitely be problems. As for the other one, the paramedic examined him, and aside from some minor abrasions and scrapes, his main issue is psychological… We can’t let him continue like this.”
Even with the current situation, Zhang Wubing hadn’t given up on getting everyone out of the dangerous situation and continuing the variety show.
Yan Shixun glanced at Zhang Wubing’s determined expression. “Remember to add extra compensation. Our initial contract was just for a regular variety show. If you want me to do more, you’ll have to pay an additional price.”
He detested creating unnecessary karma with anyone.
Zhang Wubing readily agreed.
An Nanyuan, who was beside him, quickly chimed in, “Brother Yan, I’ll transfer the money to you immediately! Just tell me the amount, and I’ll pay without bargaining.”
Bai Shuang: “Me too!”
The rest of the guests, judging from the attitudes of these few towards Yan Shixun, gradually realized that Yan Shixun probably wasn’t just an ordinary person; he seemed to possess knowledge in that domain.
Regardless of how they might have looked down upon or ignored Yan Shixun before, these individuals were now competing to make offers, promising high pay to Yan Shixun, fearing rejection.
Yet, Yan Shixun didn’t accept any of the offers. He simply lifted his hand to support his well-defined jaw, sitting calmly on the sofa in the living room, showing no fear of the dangerous situation and setting the rules with everyone.
“So, in order to leave Gui Shan, let’s work together——”
“Firstly, no one is allowed to leave the villa during the day, and at night, no one is allowed to open their room door or leave their room.”
“Second, you are not allowed to utter any non-scientific words or mention anything unrelated to science.”
“Third, do not trust anything outside the program team in the villa, and do not consume anything casually.”
“Fourth….”
Yan Shixun paused for a moment, then, under the anxious gaze of everyone, he revealed the final rule.
“Believe in yourselves that you will all leave Gui (Ghost) Mountain and head to Gui (Rule) Mountain.”
“Because I am here.”
His long eyelashes were as thick as raven feathers, and there was a glint of excitement slowly lighting up in his hidden eyes.
Like he had encountered something thrilling, the current Yan Shixun appeared full of determination and madness, as if he would fearlessly charge into the enemy and engage in a satisfying battle at any moment.
The people who had just been immersed in fear and danger couldn’t help but feel a glimmer of hope as they looked at this confident Yanshixuan.
“‘Knock, knock.'”
However, just as everyone’s spirits were rising, a faint knocking sound suddenly came from the edge of the living room.
The old steward stood at the border between the living room and the dining room, wearing a fake, stiff smile.
“Ladies and gentlemen, breakfast is ready.”
Seeing everyone’s caution and reluctance, the old steward, with this eerie smile, continued, “Please rest assured, for the sake of everyone’s health, there won’t be any suitable food in the mountains for the guests. To prevent overly curious guests from getting stomachaches, the only food you can consume is what the villa kitchen provides.”
“Of course, if you have doubts, you can refuse.”
“However… it’s been said that the experience of starving to death isn’t very pleasant.”
Hearing the old steward’s unvarnished malice, everyone shivered involuntarily and retreated, their guard up.
But Yan Shixun, surrounded by everyone, simply put his hands in his pockets and stood up confidently.
His handsome face was filled with a wild excitement as he gave the old steward a cold smile with no warmth.
“If it’s the cuisine from the villa’s kitchen, then I definitely can’t miss it.”
“The flavors from a hundred years ago are truly enchanting.”
Separated from the crowd, Yan Shixun exchanged a silent glance with the old steward.
After a moment of silence, the old steward stepped back, opening the way to the dining room.
“So, everyone, please.”
In the space devoid of light and windows was but pure darkness, it was like the gaping maw of a monster, waiting to devour its prey.
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