Chapter 165: Chapter 149: An Era is Calling_2
After the initial panic, Nie Hexiang began to struggle violently, screaming loudly, while Yang Xiao at this moment seemed like a possessed man, acting purely on instinct, "Don’t scream, it’s useless even if you scream your throat hoarse, I... I’ll just do it once, just once!"
Under Director Ding’s arrangement, Yang Xiao’s character was to have more of a rural feel; speaking in dialect, wearing old muddy leather shoes, and using a brown, peeling, ragged old belt, which would better harvest hatred and push the film’s topic to a climax.
"Filthy, sloppy, daddy-like, self-righteous, vulgar..." These were the tones Director Ding set for the male teacher’s role during the assault, which also happened to hit the hot buttons of certain extremists, magnifying them endlessly and affecting the whole society.
Unseen, this group of people would contribute huge traffic to the film.
Nie Hexiang’s acting was on point, struggling intensely, while Yang Xiao, following directions, began to get annoyed and angry, picked up a prop weight, and smashed it toward Nie Hexiang’s head, "Ungrateful thing, it’s your blessing that I, the master, fancied you, you rustic bumpkin..."
The awkward and terrible lines gave Song Yan and others goosebumps, reminiscent of the popular Dragon King short dramas on current short video platforms.
Yang Xiao struck Nie Hexiang’s head with force, one blow after another, causing the blood pack hidden in his hand to burst, splattering her half face with blood plasma.
Screams, roars, everything was too real; Yang Xiao’s hand veins bulged, his eyes were wide and furious as he gripped Nie Hexiang’s neck, delivering a deeply suppressed psychopath portrayal to the core.
Seeing such a crazed Yang Xiao, Pei Qiuyu Yu Man couldn’t help but feel a chill in their hearts. His performance was too real, so real that... it didn’t look like acting at all; he really seemed like he intended to kill Nie Hexiang.
Soon, someone realized something was wrong; Nie Hexiang’s struggles grew weaker, and her eyes began to roll back.
"Quick, stop him!"
Someone shouted, and several people rushed forward. Strangely, the moment Song Yan’s hand touched Yang Xiao’s body, Yang Xiao’s head tilted to the side, and he instantly collapsed.
Thanks to Song Yan’s quick reflexes, he caught him before he hit the ground.
Nie Hexiang lay collapsed on the table, gasping heavily, her snot and tears running down uncontrollably, her neck red, her mouth constantly moving without making a sound.
Song Yan knew a little lip reading and saw that Nie Hexiang was saying words like "I’m wrong, sorry, sorry."
After about ten minutes, Yang Xiao, who was carried to the bed, finally slowly opened his eyes; seeing him awake, everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"How do you feel?" Director Ding sat by the bed; Yang Xiao was the male lead, and any mishap with him would be troublesome.
After waking up, Yang Xiao’s body was fine, but his memory of the recent events was rather fuzzy. His last recollection was of grabbing the prop weight and swinging it toward Nie Hexiang’s head.
"Don’t overthink it, you must have gotten into character, really gotten into it!" Director Ding consoled.
These words clearly didn’t comfort Yang Xiao. Getting into character was false, possession by a ghost was true; it seemed as long as the filming continued, the ghost would keep killing.
And now, that ghost had set its sights on him and Nie Hexiang.
With such an incident occurring, the second take was definitely out of the question. Director Ding told everyone to get ready; they would immediately go to the new teaching building to film the student drills during class break.
The crew got busy, while Yang Xiao and the other actors gathered together, all aware of their challenging roles. After hesitating for a moment, it was Lu Ji who spoke up, "Chu Xi, don’t blame me for being a harbinger of bad luck, but the ghost will very likely target you and Nie Hexiang again. The scene you were filming angered it."
Yang Xiao nodded, "Mhm, I know."
Song Yan comforted Yang Xiao for a bit, then asked Lu Ji to go to the crew and get the handheld DV camera. Director Ding had mentioned that they couldn’t be idle later and needed to practice shooting some footage for the behind-the-scenes extras.
Getting their hands on the silver DV camera, Song Yan turned it on; he had his own plans. Yang Xiao saw what he was thinking and joined in, "Let’s watch it together, I too want to see what I was like at the time."
The DV camera had recorded the entire process of Yang Xiao grabbing the weight and hitting Nie Hexiang.
"Huh? What’s going on?" Lu Ji reached out and patted the machine, and the screen showed some glitches, "Is the machine broken?"
The video of himself truly startled Yang Xiao; he had never thought that one day he would become so unrecognizable to himself.
The video was fairly complete and could roughly be divided into two parts. The first part was familiar to Yang Xiao; it was when he was acting.
The latter half, however, was as if he had amnesia, being manipulated like a marionette, and in this state, he almost killed Nie Hexiang.
"Stop!"
Yang Xiao said, "Rewind it."
There seemed to be a signal problem at the junction of the two video segments. The image suddenly became blurry, with flickering snowflakes on the screen, and after a few seconds, the video returned to normal.
After several attempts, it was the same each time, and there was definitely a problem.
Finally, after Lu Ji tried repeatedly, he managed to pause the video at the exact moment of the blurry image.
Holding their breath, everyone instinctively crowded closer. Although the image was somewhat blurry, it was still rather clear. Yang Xiao had one hand around Nie Hexiang’s neck, and with the other hand he had picked up a weight, swung it, and was smashing it down towards Nie Hexiang’s head.
At first glance, the footage looked normal, with nothing out of the ordinary, until the next second when Yang Xiao’s gaze swept over something and he froze slightly.
"What is this?" Yang Xiao pointed to a spot on the screen, under a desk, a seemingly inconspicuous place where there were two small black dots.
Lu Ji scratched his head in confusion for a moment, "It seems... seems like snowflakes, who knows why this video is so chaotic."
"Can you zoom in to take a look?"
"No, it’s not operational." Seeing that Yang Xiao and Song Yan insisted, Lu Ji went to find someone from the production crew and borrowed a laptop.
After transferring the video to the computer, pausing it, and zooming in repeatedly until the two small black dots were clear, everyone present fell silent, with Pei Qiuyu and Yu Mi opening their eyes wide in disbelief.
They were a pair of black dress shoes, connected to a pair of legs garbed in white trousers, appearing out of nowhere under the desks where Yang Xiao and Nie Hexiang were filming.
Only the lower half of the body was visible; the upper half was empty.
Due to the blurriness of this short clip, and the exposure being off, the white trousers were almost concealed. Had Yang Xiao and the others not looked carefully, it might have been overlooked entirely.
Without a doubt, that male teacher had returned, this time making a direct appearance at their film set and almost killing Nie Hexiang.
"Chu, according to my analysis, this ghost will continue to target either you or Nie Hexiang next, be mentally prepared," Song Yan said.
Although he felt some fear, it was just a momentary thing, Yang Xiao thought with a wry smile as he shook his head; he couldn’t help it. He was the lead actor, playing the role of the male teacher himself and was deliberately caricaturing it. If he were the male teacher and after his death, someone made a false movie to disgust him, he too would return as a fierce ghost.
"Thump thump thump."
Rapid footsteps sounded outside the dormitory. The person approaching was from the props team, "All actors, Director Ding is calling for you. The students have almost all arrived and the music is about to start."
Pulling out his phone, it was now 7 o’clock sharp, and the sky had completely darkened. Several core members of the production crew, including Director Ding, had already gone ahead to scout out the location. Outside, some people were moving boxes, others were shifting equipment, and there were people setting up the scene in the neighboring dormitory, indicating that they would be returning to continue filming.
Following the person outside, they soon heard music coming from one side of the campus. The tune was very familiar to Yang Xiao; he remembered it from his school days.
"The times... the times are calling," Yu Mi suddenly said.
