Director of a Suspense Film

Ch14.1 – I’ll Light a Candle for Your Sake

It wasn’t long before the red bus had passed through the chasm and through the forest, getting them to their destination. 

As the bus door opened, the driver waved his hand at them, “This place is way too far away from anything and it’s even deep in the Xiangxi Valleys. If you guys hadn’t chartered the car, I never would have come here.” 

Xiangxi?! 

The new actors couldn’t hide their surprise when they heard that. 

Jiangzhou was thousands of kilometers away from Xiangxi, yet in the span of a single bus ride through a suspicious fog, they managed to get here in just ten minutes. Not only that, even the time seemed to have changed rapidly. A single glance at their phone showed that the time had changed from morning all the way to the evening. 

“You’re even bringing along an old man in this group, sigh… How inconvenient. We’ll just do what we agreed on before— I’ll come back here every week. See you all next week, I guess.” 

“Oh right,” The driver turned towards them, eyes flitting towards the Hanged Coffins over the cliff, “I’ll just give you a word of warning… This village is cursed. Everyone that drives around here knows about it so remember to be careful.” 

No shit, sherlock. We’re all here to film a horror movie, it’d be weirder if this place wasn’t cursed. 

Crow said a word of thanks to the driver and they all watched as the bus slowly disappeared into the road that they had gotten here by, swerving into a corner and disappearing. 

Fixer took Anna’s bag and said, “Let’s get moving, don’t just stare at the front of the village. If you’re all free, go give a hand to Professor Long, don’t waste too much time walking to the village.” 

That was a well hidden intruction for the newbie actors. 

As expected, after hearing that, Professor Wang pushed Zong Qi aside and ran forward as if his feet were coated in lubricant to support Godsend. 

After seeing his Character Points go up by 1%, his face immediately lit up with happiness. 

Seeing that, Zong Qi rolled his eyes. 

Professor Wang had pushed him from behind. Coincidentally, Xiao Hong was also resting on his back, so… 

Seeing the edges of his own shadow darkening in displeasure, Zong Qi silently lit a candle in his heart for Professor Wang. (t/n: lighting a candle in chinese is like saying rip to someone ig???) 

Angering him is fine. As long as it doesn’t involve life and death, Zong Qi likes to think of himself as someone with a good temper. But if you anger a fierce ghost, especially one who holds grudges like Xiao Hong, then it’s a different story. 

He turned around and opened his phone’s camera app, taking a close up picture of the Hanged Coffins on the cliff. 

The actors’ phones didn’t have sugnal, but the director’s phone still did. 

Zong Qi had noticed this back on the bus. He even saw Gao Mu messaging him with his private number, asking him to visit the police station when he can. 

Zong Qi had sent the picture of the Ouroboros mark he found in the dorm to Gao Mu the day before yesterday, but she had only responded today, and it was to invite him to the station. No doubt it was to clear up the situation. 

However, Zong Qi was currently taking part in a Major Plot and will only be able to go back seven days later, so he had no choice but to put it on hold for now. 

But the still present signal gave Zong Qi an idea. 

He had found the illegible scrawls above the cliff familiar when he first saw it. And he was someone who was friends with a master of Xuan Xue. (t/n: it’s been a very long time, so i’m praying to god i explained this already) 

Quality over quantity. While he didn’t have a lot of friends, he had good ones. 

Thus, after taking his pictures, Zong Qi happily send them over to Qi Ningzhou, shamelessly asking for help from an outsider. 

“Office Worker, do you have signal?” 

Anna walked over and consciously slowed her speaking down, adopting her character’s gentle disposition. 

Zong Qi admired her quite a bit. This sister didn’t talk much this whole journey. Not only was she calm, she also instantly got into character. 

Directors would naturally feel bias towards obedient yet talented actors. 

Thus, he naturally exchanged dialogues with her. 

“No, I stopped getting signal ever since the bus drove up the mountain. I think the Hanged Coffins look magnificent, though. I wonder how they brought all of these up back then. It’d be great if we could get a closer look at it.” 

Although he didn’t need Character Points, Zong Qi was still religiously following the persona that he had constructed for himself. 

Adventurous and daring. When seeing odd things, not only would he feel unafraid, he would also feel a sense of curiosity. 

“So that’s how it is.” 

Anna instantly gained inspiration and learnt to stop every once in a while, feeling the greenery, making a mental note to do some research and find out whether this village truly exists or not when she got back. 

They walked along the narrow pathway of the valley and finally found something that wasn’t the mountain or the forest.  

“No wonder this place is called Desolate Village,” Blondie couldn’t help but sigh, “This village is truly desolate.” 

Behind the layers of green leaves not far away from them stood a blackish-gray village. 

Most of the houses were in the unique style of Xiangxi’s stone slabs, cement, and wooden structure[1]. They typically had a three-room, four or five-pillar, eight-ridge structure, making it look incredibly exotic. The windows and doors were intricately carved, though most of them were filled with thick strands of spiderwebs.

Fortunately, there were a few youths sitting under the tree at the entrance of the village currently in conversation. Seeing them coming over, they revealed wary looks and immediately swarmed forward. 

“Who are you people?” 

“We contacted the village beforehand,” Godsend immediately stood forward, nervously explaining, “We’re the team coming here for an expedition.” 

Expedition? 

The youths wearing farmer clothes gave each other a look. 

The one called Lao San spoke up, “So it’s the student misters. I do recall our village head talking about this… follow me.” (t/n: lao san, old 3 = third oldest) 

Crow didn’t miss the way the soles of their shoes looked when they started walking. 

At this time, the able bodied men in the village should have just finished working, but not only were they not holding a hoe, they also didn’t look like they had just finished doing strenuous work. It was hard not to find it suspicious. 

Walking into the village, they found that they didn’t hallucinate whatever they had seen just now. 

Although there were a lot of houses in the village, most of its doors were sealed shut with a wooden plank. It looked more like an abandoned village. There were barely any houses drying meat or with open windows around. 

“Why is there so little people in the village?” Blondie make conversation with the villagers familiarly. 

“What are you asking that for?” 

The second he asked that question, the farmers immediately looked at him with eyes full of caution. 

Blondie was cursing silently in his heart when he saw Crow stepping forward. 

“We don’t hold any ill intentions towards you, my fellow Da Ges, we’re here to learn. It was just a harmless question.” (t/n: da ge = big brother he’s just being respectful) 

“Yes, yes!” Seeing someone helping him, Blondie quickly followed up, “I didn’t mean to offend you, it was a harmless question.” 

He laughed it off while fishing out a cigarette box from his pocket and passing it the few farmers. Only then did their expressions shift into something less cautious. 

This attempt of sounding them out wasn’t completely useless. At least now they know that these villagers were oddly wary of them. 

“A bunch of villagers were brought away by zhi qings[2].” The villager put the cigarette in his mouth and explained, “Some of the younger villagers hit the jackpot outside and moved their families out, so there isn’t many people left.” 

“I see.” 

“Then why didn’t you guys move out with them?” Fixer naturally cut into the conversation. 

“What other reason is there? Because we’re poor.” 

Perhaps it was because they hadn’t smoked for a very long time, but the farmers’ mouths were much looser now. 

“You guys all label our village an impoverished village too, or you wouldn’t be here to learn about us. Sigh, if it wasn’t because we were too poor, we would want to move out of the mountains too.” 

During the entire time they walked, they only saw a few women holding dustpans in their hands. 

Although they donned a body of plain clothing, their heads were adorned with silver crowns and hair ornaments, simple but beautiful, a style that they had never seen before. They could see the silver strands weaved into their black hair from afar, designed to look like a butterfly flapping its wings. 

“The ornaments on their head are so pretty.” Anna sighed. 

“Which one do you like, Nana? I’ll buy you whichever one you want!” 

Professor Wang immediately displayed his sincerity, earning a cold glare from Fixer. 

You could say that he managed to find the method to increasing his Character Points. 

After shuffling closer towards Anna and supporting Godsend, Professor Wang’s Character Points had gone from negative to a whopping 6%. 

This horror film was way too easy. He was just being melodramatic back then. 

Recalling how the Fixer said it wasn’t hard to live, Professor Wang’s confidence shot through the roof. He even found the time to think about how he could become a famous movie star after this film ended. 

Out of all the people here, only Zong Qi was carrying a bag. He comforted Xiao Hong, who seemed to be getting madder and madder, while walking leisurely, as if he was shopping. 

The actors were tripping over their feet to get more information, taking advantage of their good moods to ask about the Hanged Coffins. The villagers were obviously reluctant to answer and only said something about how their ancestors had left them behind, and no, they didn’t know how it was transported there. They didn’t know much about them either. 

After a few dozen steps away from the village entrance, they were finally at the village. 

At the same time, the entire village was revealed in front of their eyes— including a well that stood at the very middle. 

[1] https://picx.zhimg.com/v2-866e9e8dc9045e10b0149972af7e45e1_b.jpg 

[2] young people who left the urban districts of the People’s Republic of China to live and work in rural areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent-down_youth

t/n: Hi bitches, guess who’s back. Anyways I’m so sorry I left you guys for like a solid year. I’ll be going overseas for the next two weeks so I’ll try to stockpile and update weekly anyways but we’ll have to see. Hopefully, if nothing goes wrong, I’ll be uploading until this entire series is completed!!!