Do Not Laugh! This Is a Horror Movie - Chapter 4

Ten minutes later, Fu Lanyu and Qiao Yunzheng left the house, one following the other. Judging from their expressions, both were in a bad mood, especially Fu Lanyu.

“I told you earlier, we should have chosen the one in the Xiuhe dress. Why didn’t you believe me?” Fu Lanyu said with a somber face.

“Did you forget the ballad sung every night? ‘Mother, watch over my red bridal gown.’ It was such an obvious hint, of course we should have chosen the red one!”

Qiao Yunzheng followed behind, apologizing patiently. “My apologies, I didn’t think it through. Fortunately, no dangerous situation occurred.”

“But the opportunity was wasted! This house only gives one chance per day. If you tried incorrectly, you can only come back tomorrow! What if someone else gets ahead of us tomorrow?”

“They won’t,” Qiao Yunzheng said softly to reassure her. “Those people aren’t as smart as you; they won’t find this place.”

“…I shouldn’t have teamed up with you!” Fu Lanyu flung her hand away in anger. “You’re more likely to mess things up than to succeed!”

The two walked away, squabbling.

After their figures completely disappeared into the mist enveloping the small town, a young man and woman emerged from behind a tree at the street corner.

“I thought that man surnamed Qiao was so formidable, but he’s just an idiot whose judgment is clouded by lust,” Beibei snorted.

“Fortunately, we didn’t ally with him; an alliance wouldn’t have been useful anyway.”

Li Chenguang smiled rather sinisterly. “He was still a bit useful. At least his foolishness allowed us to gain an advantage.”

“True.”

The two held hands and entered the house, quickly making their way into the bedroom where they saw the two picture frames standing by the bed. Sure enough, one was a white wedding dress, and the other a Xiuhe dress.

Li Chenguang looked up. “Oh, these pictures are meant to be hung on the wall.”

“That woman just said we should hang the Xiuhe dress one, but she hung the wrong one,” Beibei recalled carefully.

“Indeed, I remember the ballad last night also sang about a red bridal gown, and something about ‘the bridal gown is red, the poison is white.’ Isn’t that an obvious clue?”

“Exactly,” Li Chenguang agreed with her. “We’ll hang this red one. Thanks to those two fools for testing the waters for us.”

So the two happily picked up the red Xiuhe dress frame and, stepping onto the bed, hung it on the wall.

…Who knew that after waiting for a long time, the picture remained silent, showing no reaction whatsoever?

Li Chenguang grew a bit anxious. “How come? No clue reward even after answering correctly?”

“Do we have to wait until night for it?” Beibei guessed. “Or perhaps the reward is sent directly to our room? This has happened in other worlds before.”

“Should we go back first then?”

“Alright.”

Beibei was helped down from the bed by Li Chenguang. As she landed, she vaguely felt the floor beneath her feet was somewhat sticky.

She looked down and saw that, at some point, water was slowly seeping out from the cracks in the floorboards.

…No, it wasn’t water; it seemed to be blood. The bloody water continued to spread, staining the edges of her white sneakers.

“Ah!” she screamed, grabbing Li Chenguang’s hand and running out the door. “This place is too spooky; let’s get out of here quickly!”

The two quickly fled the scene, not daring to look back.

✵✵✵

Fu Lanyu’s routine in this world was extremely regular. She ate steamed buns in the morning, steamed buns at noon, went out for a stroll in the afternoon, came back to catch up on sleep, and continued to eat steamed buns in the evening.

While she complained about the poor food, she actually didn’t eat a single bun less. Xiaohui deeply admired her easy-going spirit and believed that even if she lived another seven years, she would never reach that level.

Moreover, she might not even live for seven years.

Night fell, and the rich aroma of stewed meat once again wafted from the first-floor kitchen. Fu Lanyu went to take a look; the previous corpse had indeed vanished, and the large iron pot was back on the stove.

Hmm, this time it might be the bespectacled man’s turn to be eaten. The bespectacled man was rather thin, so the amount of stewed meat was relatively small. Thinking this, she expressionlessly took her steamed bun and went upstairs.

This time, no one dared to touch that pot of meat.

“Miss Fu, I still want to know, what exactly did you see this morning?”

“Nothing much, just the corpse of that big idiot from the first night, bloody and disemboweled—they probably stuffed a lot of it into the steamed buns last night.”

Xiaohui clapped her hand over her mouth. “Ugh—”

Fu Lanyu pushed her. “Go vomit in the restroom; don’t vomit on the bed. I still need to sleep tonight.”

“…”

What an unsympathetic woman.

It was late at night. Kiki had been severely traumatized today and dared not sleep alone. She asked Wang Xin if she could sleep in his room.

Wang Xin agreed and kindly gave her the bed, while he slept on the floor. The two chatted idly, trying to come up with a way to safely leave this place.

“Tell me, how exactly do we win and clear this game?” Kiki asked, troubled. “Everyone else seems so experienced, but we two are completely clueless.”

“Is there a time limit, and as long as we survive until then, we succeed?” Wang Xin asked. “Or is there some important item we must find to succeed?”

“How would I know?” Kiki sighed. “And I don’t think we can rely on those few others. They talk about pooling wisdom, but they won’t actively share clues if they find any…”

Wang Xin was about to say something more when his vision suddenly went dark; the oil lamp in the room had extinguished again.

The female ghost’s song, which they had to listen to several times every night, resonated once more. The song was still mournful and creepy, but after hearing it many times, they had developed a slight immunity and were not as terrified as on the first night.

“Kiki,” he whispered, reminding her, “Stay focused. If anything dirty appears, don’t be scared, don’t shout…”

However, before he finished speaking, the oil lamp on the windowsill flickered to life, illuminating a gory, teeth-grinning human head. It was clearly the head of the bespectacled man who had died on the second night.

Its scalp had been peeled off, and its eyeballs had been gouged out, yet his glasses were still perched on the bloody face, the lenses slightly swaying, reflecting a murky light.

Wang Xin made eye contact with the head on the spot. He trembled all over, then suddenly raised a hand to cover his mouth, thus avoiding the tragedy of screaming aloud right then and there.

“…Kiki, get under the covers, don’t come out.”

Kiki was obedient and immediately wrapped herself from head to toe in the blanket, not even glancing at the windowsill.

Who knew how much longer passed until the light extinguished and the head disappeared. It seemed this hurdle for the night had been safely passed again.

Wang Xin wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

But before the stale breath in his chest was fully exhaled, the next second, he suddenly felt a strange gust of wind beside him, followed by a pair of icy hands that had already clasped around his neck.

“…”

He didn’t even have time to let out a final cry of despair before a sharp dagger plunged instantly into his heart.

✵✵✵

Li Chenguang and Beibei, even though they found the house and hung what they believed was the correct picture frame, never received the expected clue reward. They waited until late into the night, but still found nothing.

Li Chenguang was in a very bad mood, and when he was in a bad mood, he wanted to do things that wouldn’t be shown on TV. Like O-ing and X-ing with his girlfriend… well, no need for further details.

The two tossed and turned on the bed, passions burning. They were indeed seasoned veterans with transmigration experience; even in such a dangerous moment, they could remain calm and entertain themselves.

The oil lamps in the room flickered, then extinguished one by one.

Li Chenguang gasped, stopping his movements. He felt a bit strange. Before, every night, all the oil lamps would extinguish, but tonight, it seemed only half of them had gone out. The room was much darker, but he could still see his surroundings clearly.

“Honey,” he whispered. “Something’s not right…”

“Oh,” Beibei responded numbly, her chest rising and falling slightly quickly. “What’s not right?”

“Only half the oil lamps went out, and it’s… a very neat half.”

He noticed that the unextinguished oil lamps were all concentrated near his side of the bed, forming a boundary of half-light, half-darkness, trapping the two of them within it. Why?

Before he could figure out the answer to that question, he heard the familiar song echoing through the brick building once more.

“Mother, watch over my red bridal gown,

Don’t let me die too, too soon.

Ah~~ ah~~ ah~~

Late at night, your flowing hair,

Late at night, you closed your eyes,

This is a secret promise,

Belonging to me, belonging to you…”

No, this song sounded different from the previous two nights. This time, the singing came closer, and closer. Listening carefully, the female voices slowly overlapped, sounding more like a duet. Someone was singing outside, and inside… someone was also singing.

A faint gust of wind seemed to sweep through, sending a bone-chilling coldness through Li Chenguang’s sweat-soaked back. He swallowed with difficulty, feeling his neck as heavy as if it had been struck by two pounds of steel nails, his neck bones crackling, his skin bristling with goosebumps.

He finally turned his head slowly to look beside him—

The picture frame he had hung on the wall during the day had, at some point, appeared at his bedside. The young woman in the picture frame was still wearing that deep red Xiuhe dress, the peonies in her hair vivid and fresh. He froze on the spot, feeling the blood in his veins solidifying bit by bit.

The woman’s cherry lips parted and closed, singing.

“Late at night, your flowing hair,

Late at night, you closed your eyes,

This is a secret promise,

Belonging to me, belonging to you.”

“…”

Li Chenguang stared at the picture frame, clenching his back teeth, using all his strength to prevent himself from screaming.

He saw the woman in the painting change; the Xiuhe dress was gradually transforming into a blood-soaked white wedding dress, the peonies on her head had disappeared, and her long hair, previously tied up, was now unbound, covering half of her face.

The woman’s eyes were dark and deep, her crimson lips opening and closing, still singing.

“May the woman you caress bleed endlessly,

One night of passion was not, was not my fault;

May the woman you caress rot,

One night of passion was not, was not my fault…”

Li Chenguang felt his scalp crawl. He didn’t know where he found the courage, but he suddenly grabbed the picture frame and forcefully threw it to the floor.

The picture frame landed with a crisp snap. The glass on the frame cracked in several places, but it was probably an illusion—the woman inside seemed to smile even more eerily and happily.

She grinned, like a stuck tape recorder, repeating the last segment of the ballad over and over again.

“May the woman you caress bleed endlessly,

One night of passion was not, was not my fault;

May the woman you caress rot,

One night of passion was not, was not my fault…”

Li Chenguang stood stunned for a long while, then suddenly realized something, feeling a chill run through him.

He turned his gaze, casting a terrified glance at his girlfriend lying on the bed.