Chapter 10 - Luring (1/2)

When Su Min caught sight of the manager’s expressionless face as he appeared in the corridor, his heart skipped a beat.

The other person was clearly a living human being, yet the scare the man gave him exceeded the fright he received from confronting ghosts.

Truly experiencing a horror movie as opposed to just normally watching it was indeed different.

Su Min thought that if he was watching this movie in the theaters and saw the protagonist getting scared from this, he would say that it was unreasonable. As expected, only through personal experience could he clearly understand the situation.

He didn’t watch the previous spat-on-the-streets horror movies this director created. He merely saw the online critics ranting on how unintelligible the movies were and how they didn’t understand what the director was trying to convey.

Maybe that was the problem when literary film directors go rogue; they wanted to add more meaning to a horror film, failing to realize that this genre was not meant for that.

“University Thriller” probably learned from its failed predecessors. Some of Su Min’s current experiences were common tropes found in horror movies, but there were also some scares that were innovating and frightening. If the secrets revealed in the conclusion were not too chaotic, it could be said that the director made process.

In the corner, Lin Yiri nervously stood on the stairs. “What is it? Did the manager discover us?”

Su Min shook his head, “No.”

When the manager came from the staircase at the other end of the hallway, they just barely managed to make it into this one.

Lin Xiao Yan patted her chest. “That scared me. Let’s hurry up and return the key while the manager is gone.”

There wasn’t that many people at dusk.

While Lin Xiao Yan and Lin Yiri were on the lookout, Su Min quickly placed the key back. As he left, he couldn’t help turning back to take a backward glance. Coincidentally, he saw the manager emerging from the stairs.

‘In this horror movie, you have to live like your life is on the edge every second,’ Su Min sincerely thought.

The sun had already set outside, leaving behind a burnt orange afterglow in its wake.

As the three people saunter down the deserted road, Lin Xiao Yan asked, “Su Min, did you find out who the schoolgirl was?”

Su Min showed them the pictures he took. “I didn’t have time to check, but they should be her classmates.”

It was the first time Lin Xiao Yan saw this kind of photograph.

She thought that it was too bizarre. These faceless people from a photograph who knew how many years old were utterly horrifying.

“This graduation photo is so scary,” Lin Xiao Yan spoke her thoughts out loud.

“Scary, yes, but it gave us a clue,” Su Min said. “Why did so many people die in one class?”

The hole in Lin Yiri’s brain widened. “Was there an accident when they were all out on a trip?”

They went out as a class to travel, but like those terrible bus accidents, the bus overturned and the lives of many students perished–he theorized.

Su Min rejected that theory, “Impossible. The accident should’ve happened inside this school.”

If it had occurred outside, the thing Lin Xiao Yan and her roommates summoned would not be Kuai Xian but another ghost.

Lin Xiao Yan was doubtful, “But they had to have died together or else there wouldn’t be so many faceless people in this photograph.”

Su Min thought for a moment. “That’s also possible.”

However, because this was a horror movie, he was more inclined to believe that all of them died in one accident as oppose to many. But the two of them didn’t know this, so he kept this thought to himself.

He took about six pictures on his cellphone. Excluding that graduation photo, the rest were pictures of the student profiles that turned black-and-white, along with their corresponding personal information.

The information not only included the students’ home address, but also their home phone number. ‘At least one of these phone numbers would get through,’ Su Min thought.

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When they arrived back to the dorms, the sky had already darkened.

There were still only three people in his dorm room. From the beginning to end, Su Min never caught a glimpse of his fourth roommate.

Su Min had thought that the man was involved in the incident and hid himself, but now, he didn’t know what to think. Why was he gone for so long? Was this movie that careless in its explanations?

Zhou Runian was in the middle of playing a game. Hearing the sound of movement, he turned his head to the door and asked suspiciously, “Where are you two heading off to recently?”

Lin Yiri replied, “We went to admire the beauty of the campus with the belle Lin1.”

Zhou Runian didn’t believe him, “Uh huh, right2.”

Instead of answering, Su Min went to the bathroom. He splashed cold water on his face, and felt himself becoming more clear-minded.

Lin Yiri humph-ed.

Indeed, they were with Lin Xiao Yan, but instead of appreciating the scenery of the campus, they were ‘appreciating’ paranormal activities together.

Lin Yiri felt that his life right now was very exhilarating.

“Why didn’t you go to class this afternoon?” he casually asked.

“In the afternoon, I saw a crowd at our neighboring school, so I went to see what the fuss was about. I forgot I had class,” Zhou Runian replied.

Lin Yiri was curious, “What did you see? Big gossip?”

Zhou Runian shook his head, revealing a bit of emotion. “Did you know that someone tried to jump off the building?”

“What university doesn’t have students jumping to commit suicide?” Lin Yiri said without thinking.

Nowadays, there were often news articles of student jumping off of school buildings to kill themselves.

‘It’s whatever if you want to go off by yourself, but it’s another story if you jumped and accidentally hit a passerby. In the end, you’d be the one who survived while the other person unjustly died.’ Lin Yiri thought.

“The person who jumped really is a sin.” During the day, Zhou Runian went out and listened to a stranger explaining the story. “She jumped and hit a schoolgirl who just so happened to come out of the teaching block. The schoolgirl died on the spot, and the lawn was covered all over in blood.”

“What the fuck?” Lin Yiri got scared.

His thought just then was too accurate. He should just become a fortune-teller if the whole school thing doesn’t work out.

Zhou Runian sighed with sorrow. “That girl was truly wronged. It was class time then. People upstairs saw a shadow dropped, and those on the first floor heard a loud sound.”

When Su Min came out of the bathroom, he heard this sentence and abruptly stopped. “What did the students on the first floor hear?”

Zhou Runian said, “A thump, ah. Can someone jump off a building and not make a noise when they hit the ground?”

A flash of inspiration crossed Su Min’s mind.

In the office building, when they were stuck in a ghost’s trick and had to close their eyes, he heard the sound of a heavy object crashing onto the ground. At that time, he thought that a ghost had been throwing things.

Thinking about it now, if he was right, it was the sound of a body jumping off the building and colliding with the earth.

But who was it?

Was it the schoolgirl between Zhang Yuan and Liu Lili, the one with bloodstains on the corner of her mouth?

Lin Xiao Yan returned to her room to sleep for the night.

Two consecutive people had died. Her friends didn’t dare to offer her a room again.

Actually, even if they did, their roommates would’ve made remarks, and Lin Xiao Yan would’ve had enough self-awareness to leave untold.

However, she didn’t dare go outside, fearing that no one would save her from death. In any case, there was still Su Min and Lin Yiri at school.

Fortunately, Chen Ke, her remaining roommate, was with her in the dorm.

The two people were similar.

Chen Ke’s expression was awfully poor. The unorthodox deaths of her two roommates affected her immensely. “Should we not have played that game?”