Chapter 102: Shadows in the Cinema
After Chen Chuan was invited to the reception room inside the cinema, a waiter brought him tea. After waiting for a while, a fat middle-aged man came here. He might have run all the way here, he was out of breath, and sweat was oozing from his temples.
After seeing Chen Chuan, he came up and shook his sweaty hand, saying enthusiastically, "I am Huang Dacheng, and you must be Entrusted Chen, right?"
Chen Chuan didn't care about the sweat on his hands. He shook hands with him and said, "My name is Chen Chuan. I'm just a Wuyi student now, not a client yet."
Manager Huang's enthusiasm remained unchanged. "It's okay, it's okay. We know you're young and promising, Mr. Chen, and I heard you're an expert in this field. The conditions here are simple, and I'm sorry I can't accommodate you well. Please come with Mr. Huang."
Chen Chuan followed Manager Huang up an open staircase. Manager Huang introduced the cinema as they walked. "Our Lanxiang Cinema is invested by the Molan Company. It can accommodate 5,000 people at a time. We also provide comprehensive catering, dances, concerts, and other services. Many large-scale social events in the city are held here..."
He talked incessantly all the way, and then took Chen Chuan to his office, which was a room decorated in a foreign retro style, with a leather sofa, a large gilded desk, a wine cabinet filled with a row of imported famous wines, colorful arched glass, black and white checkered floor tiles, a large crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and a large gramophone in the corner, with the golden trumpet facing the entire room.
At this moment, the curtains were open, and soft sunlight shone in from outside. Chen Chuan took a few steps. From this angle, he could see the square outside. There were well-dressed men and women coming in and out, and from time to time, luxury cars whose names he couldn't remember drove by.
At this moment, he heard a melodious melody. Turning back, he saw that it was Manager Huang who turned on the phonograph.
Manager Huang walked over to him again and said with a smile, "Mr. Chen, our cinema has the best location in the entire southern part of the city. It's almost the end of the year, and citizens will choose to come and watch movies when they have free time, but...ah."
Chen Chuan turned around and said, "Manager Huang, I'm here to solve this problem."
"Yes, yes, thank you, Mr. Chen. Oh, please sit down, please sit down..." Manager Huang invited Chen Chuan to sit on the sofa and asked, "Mr. Chen, what would you like to drink?"
Chen Chuan said: "Boiled water will do."
Manager Huang gave a thumbs-up. "Mr. Chen, this is a very good habit. Drinking alcohol is harmful to your health. Drinks are highly sweet, but they only provide a momentary pleasure. Plain water is better. It's milder and calmer, and it's the drink of a gentleman."
He went over and personally poured a glass of water for Chen Chuan, handing it to him respectfully.
Chen Chuan took it and said, "Thank you."
Manager Huang waved his fat hands and said, "Thank you, you're welcome. I want to thank Mr. Chen for coming all the way here to help us solve this problem."
Chen Chuan skipped the pleasantries and asked directly, "Manager Huang, how many days has this happened? The information I received states it's about a month. Is there an exact date?"
When Manager Huang heard him mention business, he immediately got into the mood. His expression became a little serious. After thinking for a moment, he said, "It should be twenty-five days."
Chen Chuan asked again, "Has this happened in the past?"
Manager Huang sighed, "I had heard some rumors before I took office, but I thought they were just weird stories spread to attract business. Mr. Chen, you know, the more bizarre these stories are, the more attractive they are. After all, everyone has a curiosity."
Chen Chuan understood this. He was also curious about mysterious things, but he wanted to explore the cause behind it and was interested in the source of that power. "Manager Huang, have you seen it with your own eyes?"
Manager Huang shuddered and shook his head quickly.
"Has it happened at other times?"
Manager Huang quickly shook his head and said, "Not yet. Currently, it's only from 8 o'clock to midnight."
Chen Chuan looked at him and asked, "Besides the employees listed in the information, were there any other casualties? I want to hear the truth."
Manager Huang hesitated, nodded, and raised a finger. "There was a drunk customer. We didn't find his body until the next day. We didn't know where he ended up that day. He was the only one, really."
Chen Chuan didn't delve into it. After thinking for a moment, he said, "I roughly understand it. I'll stay tonight to deal with this matter."
Manager Huang was overjoyed. He came over, shook Chen Chuan's hand, and said, "Okay, then I'll leave it to you, Mr. Chen. I will do my best to cooperate with whatever conditions Mr. Chen has."
Chen Chuanshuo said: "My only condition is that no one should get close to me during that time."
Manager Huang nodded repeatedly. "Of course, of course. By the way," he took out a card, handed it over with both hands, and said respectfully, "This is our cinema's VIP card. It allows you to occupy a private room and watch movies and cabaret performances free of charge all year round. Please accept it, Mr. Chen."
Chen Chuan took it without hesitation and said, "Thank you, Manager Huang. Now can we go check out that place?"
Manager Huang quickly said yes, but he didn't dare to go himself, so he asked a trusted assistant to take him to the venue where the incident happened.
This place can accommodate three hundred people watching movies at the same time. After walking around, he sat down in the middle and waited for a while. The surroundings darkened, and as the projection beam from the back came in, the big screen in front lit up and began to play current movies.
By the way, I was also a movie lover in my previous life. There were many movie posters at home, and a lot of my pocket money was spent on them. I even didn’t want to buy new clothes.
His favorite series in his previous life were the Swordsman series and the Mysterious Cave series, but after he came to this world, he had been training hard and pursuing martial arts, and had no time to watch them. The films being played this time were all specially selected by him, which could be regarded as making up for the regrets of his previous life.
While watching the movie, a waitress brought soda and snacks with a food cart. He didn't touch the soda, but he tried some of the snacks. He felt that the fried taro chips were the best to his taste. They had a crisp texture and tasted good, not worse than the potato chips in his previous life.
Because he was there to deal with a problem, the seats around him were not sold to the public, so he almost had the entire theater to himself, and he watched one movie after another.
When it was dinner time, he walked out and had a sumptuous dinner in the restaurant downstairs. He talked with Manager Huang and then returned to his previous seat, still sitting in the same seat and continued watching the movie.
There was nothing around him. He was the only one sitting there under the huge screen, the light from the screen occasionally shining on his face.
Time passed by little by little. After watching another movie, he looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. The previous problem occurred during this time period.
He put down his hand and didn't do anything unnecessary. Instead, he adjusted his breathing slightly to keep himself alert and continued to watch the screen.
At this moment, the above plot has reached a critical moment. The protagonist entered an unknown deep cave, and the light dimmed. Then the protagonist turned on the flashlight with a click, illuminating the scenery in the cave. At the moment the light came on, he suddenly found that there was a person suddenly appeared two rows in front of his seat.
It seemed to be a woman, and only her long hair could be seen at the back, covering both shoulders.
Chen Chuan stared at the figure from behind and thought to himself, "Here it comes."
This is one of Yangzhi City's urban legends: the midnight shadow of the cinema. If you are alone at the Lanxiang Cinema at midnight, there will suddenly be another audience member to accompany you.
But you must not greet this audience member at this time, because if you greet him, then when you return home the next day it may be that audience member instead of you.
He looked at it silently. The information Cheng Zitong gave him warned him that to deal with this urban legend, as long as he watched the movie at this time for three consecutive days and did not leave, the ghost would automatically disappear.
During this process, you cannot talk to the shadow. The most important thing is that you cannot leave during the process, and you must not walk to the front to look at the shadow's face.
This should be the experience summarized by predecessors, and he has no intention of exceeding it. There is a simple way to deal with it, so there is no need to take risks, so he just sits in his seat and does not move.
At this time, he glanced at the "second self". As expected, a faint shadow appeared on the second self, which was exactly the same as the situation when he encountered the doll in the well. It seemed that this state would last for a while this time, and because of the particularity of this strange story, it might last even longer.
He glanced at his watch and decided that he would just have to watch the movie.
Now, the night is still long.
So he turned his attention back to the screen. After watching for about three hours, or two movies, he felt something strange. It didn't come from the ghost, but from himself.
He found that the growth of his alienated tissue had actually accelerated a little, but this process was subtle. If He Xiaoxing had not taught him an observation technique, which made him more sensitive to his own alienated tissue, he would hardly have noticed it.
At this point, he suddenly realized, could this be how the Second Self's Void transformation came about? How similar is this to using medication to stimulate alienated tissue, causing some degree of damage to the body?
So, ghost stories also play this role to some extent?
No, it should be more than that.
He thought about it and realized that there might be other injuries that he didn't know about, but now all of them were borne by the second me.
At this moment, an idea came to his mind. If this was the case, could he use this strange story to guide the alienated organization?
In fact, he didn't want to get involved, but now he was at a critical moment of correcting the alienated organization, especially since it had already penetrated into some subtle places. He must not allow the alienated organization to grow so independently and disorderly. Even a slight deviation could pose a hidden danger in the future.
So he thought about it and used his breathing to guide it so that the direction of growth could be controlled by himself.
Several hours passed in a flash, and when it was four in the morning, he looked up inadvertently and found that the figure had disappeared at some point.
He sat for a while, then stood up from his seat, walked out, and walked along the corridor outside. He said something to the waiter who was waiting here anxiously, and the waiter immediately ran out to inform Manager Huang.
When Manager Huang heard him coming out, he wiped the sweat off his face with a handkerchief and hurried over. When he saw him, he quickly said, "Mr. Chen, how are you?"
Chen Chuan looked at him and said, "I saw her."
Manager Huang's face turned pale and he stammered, "Well, then..."
Chen Chuan said, "This strange rumor will take about three days to clear up. I will come here for the next few days."
Manager Huang breathed a sigh of relief, then revealed a look of joy. He said, "Okay, thank you for your hard work, Mr. Chen. We will definitely give you a satisfactory thank you gift afterwards."
Chen Chuan nodded to him, left the cinema, took the cinema car back to school, took a short nap, and then continued his daily training.
The next day, he did not go there during the day, but asked a car to pick him up at around six o'clock in the evening. After arriving at the seat in the cinema, he sat in that seat again.
Manager Huang is a very good person. Today, a new batch of movies were released, and many of them were newly released. He watched them until about twelve o'clock, but after the time came, he did not see that figure.
No, it didn’t appear.
The only difference was that the figure's position was different from last time. It was no longer in the first two rows, but... right next to him.
…
…
(End of this chapter)
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