The Cannon Fodder Stole the Male Lead’s Script GL - Chapter 21

The group continued walking deeper inside.

At the end of a damp and shadowy hallway stood a dilapidated room. Its iron door was loosely secured, covered in rust and a sticky fluid that made it look thoroughly repulsive.

“There’s no way forward,” Cai Minhao said with a trembling voice. He hid behind Yan Kuo, his tall and broad frame crouching so low it seemed he had shrunk an entire head. He was visibly shaking. “What do we do now?”

Yan Kuo swallowed hard, trying to suppress his fear. “There’s no other path. We have to move forward.” He made a conscious effort to keep his voice from trembling, though a subtle trace of nervousness and a slight quiver still slipped through.

Jiang Yun couldn’t help but scoff inwardly. With this kind of performance, how could he possibly become the brave, cunning, and powerful male lead described in the script? It is not simply a matter of the female lead never falling for him. Even I find it difficult to respect him.

“Then what do we do… sob… I’m so scared…” Li Yue whimpered, nearly in tears. Xin Keke wrapped an arm around her shoulder and tried to comfort her. “It’s okay, I’m here with you, Yueyue. We just need to remember that everything here is fake. That’s all we have to do.”

“But Keke, you’re trembling too,” Li Yue said with a pitiful look.

Xin Keke fell silent.

“I’ll go first,” Jiang Yun said, stepping forward confidently. She positioned herself at the front of the group. Zhan Rao joined her.

“Yes, I’ll walk in front with Jiang Yun. I’m not afraid.”

Yan Kuo frowned. “We can’t let the two of you go ahead alone,” he said, holding his flashlight tightly and staring at the door in front of him. His fear was overwhelming, but he felt this was his moment to display the charm expected of a male lead. He could not allow the female lead to be disappointed in him, not when his protagonist image was already so fragile.

“Zhan Rao, both of you step back. Stay behind me. I’m going to open the door.”

Jiang Yun raised her eyebrows but didn’t argue. She took Zhan Rao’s hand and the two moved to the rear of the group.

Seeing them shift positions, Li Yue quickly stepped forward and clung tightly to Yan Kuo’s sleeve.

The door creaked open with a loud screech. A wave of metallic blood scent surged toward them, thick and overpowering.

In the dim lighting, they could now see a narrow stone pathway about 1.2 meters wide. On either side of the path were deep red pools that seemed to stretch endlessly into darkness. Bubbles rose ominously from the liquid, and the blood-like fluid slowly rose higher.

Everyone gasped audibly.

Li Yue instinctively grabbed Yan Kuo’s sleeve again and cried out, “This is terrifying!”

Cai Minhao covered his eyes, unable to even look.

Yan Kuo and Xin Keke forced themselves to glance around, but their fear was clear.

Interestingly, the only two who showed no sign of fear were the girls who remained quietly at the very back of the group, Zhan Rao and Jiang Yun.

Ever since they entered through the door, Zhan Rao had been in an oddly excited mood. However, she had to pretend to be frightened in front of everyone else, which she found incredibly frustrating.

Jiang Yun, on the other hand, felt nothing at all. Every terrifying illusion filtered through her vision like meaningless stage decorations.

“Do you think someone is going to jump out right now?” Zhan Rao whispered next to Jiang Yun.

The room was so quiet that everyone could hear her clearly.

Li Yue couldn’t take it anymore. She raised her voice and scolded, “Classmate Zhan, this place is already terrifying enough. Could you please stop making these pointless jokes?”

Zhan Rao pouted. “Fine. I was just speaking casually. I wasn’t trying to scare anyone. I was only talking to Jiang Yun…”

Li Yue shot her a glare and then turned to Yan Kuo. Her tone softened dramatically. “Yan Kuo, let’s get out of here quickly. This place is far too frightening… Ahhhhhh!”

She hadn’t even finished speaking when she let out a scream of terror. Her face turned ghostly pale.

Startled, Yan Kuo turned to look where she was staring. A blood-soaked figure wrapped in bandages sat in a wheelchair, slowly rising from the blood pool. As it reached the same height as the stone path, the wheelchair suddenly shot forward, speeding directly toward them.

“Holy crap! A ghost! Ahhhhh!”

All thoughts of maintaining his male lead image vanished from Yan Kuo’s mind as he screamed and bolted forward. Li Yue, still gripping his arm tightly, lost her footing and stumbled, almost falling flat on her face. She quickly regained her balance and ran after him.

Jiang Yun and Zhan Rao exchanged glances, then immediately sprinted as well, heading toward the stone room at the end of the path.

They were the calmest of the group, so they ran the fastest. Upon reaching the room first, Jiang Yun immediately spotted a mechanism near the stone door. She waved frantically. “Hurry, get in here! There’s a mechanism to close the door!”

Everyone picked up speed, rushing the final hundred meters into the stone room. Jiang Yun and Zhan Rao pressed the mechanism together, managing to shut the stone door just in time.

The mummy was left outside. Inside, the group collapsed in exhaustion and fear.

Cai Minhao said, “Oh my god, I thought I was going to die. This haunted house is too terrifying.”

Tong Xue added, “It’s so realistic. No wonder the online ratings are so high. I nearly peed myself.”

Xin Keke was too frightened to speak. Before entering, she had been the loudest, insisting there was nothing to be afraid of. But now, faced with the real thing, she had become the weakest of all. She could not even look after Li Yue, whom she had vowed to protect.

“Yueyue, maybe we should leave. I don’t want to keep playing this game.”

Li Yue shook her head. “Keke, we’ve already come this far. Don’t say things like that now.”

“But I really…” She couldn’t bring herself to say she was scared. She didn’t want to admit weakness in front of others, especially not in front of Li Yue. She had come in determined to protect her, yet here she was, the most frightened of all.

Xin Keke felt completely useless.

[Congratulations, everyone. You’ve successfully entered the second level. However, this is a sealed stone chamber. Once the door closes, there is no way out. You must solve the internal mechanism within the allotted time to escape. Otherwise, the stone door will open again, and the mummy outside will rush in to tear you apart~]

A cold, eerie voice suddenly echoed through the stone chamber.

At the same moment, a red countdown timer lit up on the ceiling.

It displayed: 30:00:00.

The timer began ticking down, each second slipping steadily away.

“We have to get out in thirty minutes? But this room is massive,” Tong Xue said as she shone her flashlight around. Her rough estimate was that the stone chamber was at least half the size of a football field. Its layout was cluttered with what appeared to be intricate and chaotic mechanisms.

Pipes and cages were piled together with other strange apparatuses, forming what looked like an endless and twisting maze.

Trying to escape from such a place within thirty minutes felt utterly unrealistic.

Cai Minhao groaned. Yan Kuo got up and started scanning the room for any potential exit.

Xin Keke walked a few steps, but finding no exit, she turned back and complained, “If I had known, I wouldn’t have come in. Maybe we could have found another way out back there. Even if we couldn’t pass, being outside would be better than being trapped in here for half an hour.”

Right now, all she could think about was escaping. Whether or not the game continued meant nothing anymore.

Li Yue nodded. “Actually, we didn’t have to shut the door. We could’ve lured the mummy in and slipped out another way.”

Tong Xue raised her eyebrows. “Wait a second. Are you saying Zhan Rao and Jiang Yun shouldn’t have closed the door? Given the situation, there wasn’t another option. This haunted house is clearly designed to lead us from one level to the next. Yan Kuo didn’t see any other exits. Even if you had lured the mummy inside, you’d still need to reach the second level. What you’re suggesting doesn’t make any sense.”

Initially, she had found Li Yue likable, especially since she was close to Xin Keke. But now, she realized the girl was manipulative.

Li Yue shut her mouth. After a long moment, she murmured, “I was just saying… I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Then maybe don’t speak unless you actually have something helpful to say,” Yan Kuo replied irritably. Li Yue instantly went quiet.

Zhan Rao nearly applauded. For once, this foolish male classmate had managed to act like a decent human being.

“What we should be doing now is splitting up to search for the mechanism. The faster we find it, the sooner we can get out of here. I doubt there’s anything too scary in this level. It seems to be focused on reasoning,” Yan Kuo said, finally sounding like a team leader. “Cai Minhao, come with me and check the east side. Xin Keke and Li Yue, head to the south. Zhan Rao, go to the west. Tong Xue, could you handle the north?”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Fine…”

Everyone agreed to their tasks.

Zhan Rao turned to Jiang Yun with a gleam in her eye. “Jiang Yun, want to search together?”

She was clearly holding back excitement. Jiang Yun chuckled. She finally couldn’t hide it.

“Let’s go.”

They set off first. The rest of the group also split up. Xin Keke, still trembling, grabbed Li Yue’s hand. “Let them search. I really can’t do this. My legs feel like jelly.”

Li Yue frowned. “Then stay here. We joined late, so if we slow them down now, it wouldn’t be fair. But if you really can’t go on, take a break. I’ll be back soon.”

Xin Keke wanted to go with her but was too afraid. She worried something terrifying might appear again and she would die from fright.

“All right.”

But instead of heading south, Li Yue secretly followed Jiang Yun. She wanted to see what the other girls were doing.

Jiang Yun and Zhan Rao had located a mechanism and then split up to look for more clues.

“Jiang Yun, I want to talk to you,” Li Yue said, seizing the moment when they separated.

Jiang Yun set aside the blood-smeared knife in her hand and looked at her. She was curious to see what tricks Li Yue had up her sleeve.

They found a quiet place to talk.

Li Yue looked conflicted. Her hands kept twisting nervously.

“Go ahead,” Jiang Yun said impatiently. “What do you want?”

“Can I ask… is there something going on between Zhan Rao and Yan Kuo? I know it sounds strange, but watching them today… I just feel like something is off…”

She didn’t say it directly. She tried to gauge Jiang Yun’s reaction, but Jiang Yun immediately understood what Li Yue was truly implying.

She had suspected before, but now, seeing Li Yue’s reaction, it felt like confirmation.

There was no doubt about it. Li Yue liked Yan Kuo.

No wonder she had insisted on joining their group.

No wonder she always acted delicate when Yan Kuo was around.

No wonder she used to look happy but jealous when Jiang Yun and Yan Kuo interacted.

Thinking back on it now, Jiang Yun felt thoroughly disgusted.

She had been fooled by this scheming girl for so many years?

“Were all those sneaky little things you did behind my back just for Yan Kuo?” Jiang Yun asked bluntly.

Li Yue froze. She gave a nervous laugh. “What are you talking about? What sneaky things?”

“Li Yue, do you think I don’t know what you’re scheming? You’ve liked Yan Kuo for a long time, haven’t you? But because you used to hang around me, you were afraid I’d see through you, so you kept it hidden. Now what? You think I found out you weren’t really sincere with me? Is that why you finally have the courage to act?”

Li Yue stood there, her lips trembling. “Jiang Yun, you’re making things up! I never pretended with you! Is this still about that vocabulary test? If you think I was wrong, I’ll apologize again!”

She looked like she was about to cry. That had always been her strategy. She used tears to win sympathy. It might have worked on the old Jiang Yun, but not anymore. Now it just made her sick.

“There’s no one else here. You don’t have to act anymore. Do you know how disgusting your whole helpless act is? If you like Yan Kuo, just say it. I don’t even care about him. But going behind my back to damage my reputation, that’s just asking for a beating.”

“I didn’t!”

“Whether you did or not, you know the truth. I’m not wasting time arguing over this garbage. If you don’t have anything else to say, then go back and find clues. We need to get out of here.”

Li Yue clenched her teeth as she glared at Jiang Yun, fury distorting her face into something nearly unrecognizable. Her tears dried up, leaving only resentment behind. “You’re right. I do like Yan Kuo. Why is it that only you get to like him, and I can’t? Just because you’re some rich girl from the Jiang family? Does that give you the right to control other people’s feelings? You were never really sincere with me either. And that time in our third year, when you went to the hospital with a stomach ache, it wasn’t what you thought. I put something in your drink.”

Jiang Yun’s eyes narrowed.

Li Yue’s voice grew louder, each word like venom. “I’ve always hated you. I hated how you act like you’re better than everyone else. I hated how easily you live. Every smile and every move you made made me sick. You’re only special because of your background. If I had your life, I would have done so much better. So don’t act like you’re superior.”

“And just so you know, I didn’t spread lies to ruin your reputation. I just told the truth so people could see you for who you really are. So if you’ve got a bad reputation now, that’s on you, not me.”

Slap.

The sound echoed as a sharp slap landed on Li Yue’s face, turning her head to the side.

She blinked in stunned silence.

Then she saw Zhan Rao, who had somehow appeared beside them. One hand held Jiang Yun’s, the other still raised from the blow.

Zhan Rao’s voice was cold. Her words sharp like needles. “Say one more word and I’ll slap you again.”

Li Yue clutched her cheek, wide-eyed and frozen. She couldn’t believe the famously sweet and beautiful school idol had just slapped her.

“What’s your problem?!”

Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

Four more slaps fell in quick succession. Li Yue’s face turned red and swollen as Zhan Rao’s strikes jerked her head violently from side to side, leaving her reeling like a doll caught in a storm.

“I told you. Every extra word means another slap,” Zhan Rao said calmly. She cracked her knuckles, each pop slicing through the silence like a warning. She tilted her head. “Honestly, when I saw that blood pool earlier, I really wanted to toss you in. What do you think, Li Yue? Wouldn’t that have been fun?”

Li Yue stammered, “You—you—”

Her head spun. Her face stung. Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears, but she dared not cry. She opened her mouth, saw Zhan Rao raise her hand again, and fled in terror.

Zhan Rao watched her retreating figure and sighed with regret.

Then she turned to see Jiang Yun looking at her thoughtfully.

Zhan Rao froze.

“Uhh… Yun Yun~  I can explain, okay?”