Chapter 5

If Jiang Yiruo is not a veteran actor, he must indeed be in a relationship with that woman.

Ye Xiang and Zhang Nianzhou, along with Du Yan and others, were searching for the woman's traces, listening to Jiang Yiruo say her name was Han Ruoyue.

There was no way to call her on a mobile phone here; they could only go find her.

Seeing that they couldn't find her, Jiang Yiruo started shouting loudly, "Ruoyue, Ruoyue! Where are you?"

Ye Xiang was instantly startled! This was a truly haunted wilderness. If he called out like that, what if he really summoned a ghost?

However, from his position, he couldn't immediately find a reason to contradict him.

"Bad luck, this woman!" Zhang Nianzhou had already noticed that saying lines no longer deducted from the death redemption coupons. He said resentfully, "I've had the worst luck, actually..."

Ye Xiang pinched his hand hard and gestured to him. At the moment, he was Zhang Nianzhou and must remember this identity, not thinking of himself as an actor from the real world forced to play a role in a horror movie!

"Mr. Jiang!" He walked over and pulled Jiang Yiruo, saying, "Mr. Jiang, you should..."

At this moment, he noticed that the death redemption coupons in his mind were decreasing again. From 177, they dropped to 167. This made him feel a chill, but he didn't know what the consequences would be if he continued.

"But, Ruoyue..." Jiang Yiruo said very urgently, "I don't know where she went..."

"Hey, look!" The Sichuan man Zhang Dekun suddenly pointed to something and said, "That is..."

Upon hearing this, Ye Xiang and Jiang Yiruo's gazes shifted over. They saw a shoe stuck between two rocks. Jiang Yiruo immediately rushed over, picked up the shoe, and said, "This... This is Ruoyue's shoe!"

This confirmed that the woman was indeed in danger!

Ye Xiang felt his scalp tingle and his whole body tremble.

He was usually a very brave person, always calm when watching horror movies. But now, he was in a real horror movie! Thinking of classic horror scenes, such as Sadako crawling out of the TV, Kayako in the haunted house, these terrifying ghost images made Ye Xiang unable to take another step.

Ye Xiang was just an ordinary office worker who had never experienced anything supernatural and never believed in ghosts. Seeing the shoe, his mind immediately conjured up many terrifying scenes. He was already showing good psychological resilience by staying calm and not running away. The others also had changed expressions, except for the young man with the baseball cap, Liu An, whose expression was unclear.

Not only that, but the number of death redemption coupons was also decreasing. If they became negative, even if he could leave the horror movie alive, he would still end up dead!

"Hey, look!"

Zhang Dekun squatted down and carefully examined the rock behind the shoe. Ye Xiang and the others immediately went over to look. They saw that the soil behind the rock was clearly indented and extended into the depths of a forest. Ye Xiang immediately imagined a terrifying ghost dragging Han Ruoyue into the forest.

Looking further, he noticed five clear finger marks in the soil next to the drag marks!

"Something, something happened!" Zhang Dekun said hurriedly, "We, we should go find her! Mr. Xia, you go back to the bus and tell the others to find more people to help! In this deep mountain, there might be wild animals or criminals who dragged her in!"

At this moment, Ye Xiang began to suspect that Zhang Dekun might be a veteran actor. It seemed that veteran actors could also play minor roles.

"Then... you..."

"I'll go with Mr. Jiang to look for her!" Zhang Dekun said firmly, "You go back and try to find more people!"

Jiang Yiruo immediately tightly gripped Zhang Dekun's hand and said, "Thank you, thank you so much!"

Then, the two immediately rushed into the depths of the forest!

Ye Xiang was stunned for a moment, then realized that the two must be veteran actors. They had likely accumulated many death redemption coupons from playing roles in horror movies before, so they could continue deeper. But Ye Xiang couldn't do that. Looking at the dark, deep forest, and thinking of the countless ghostly figures on the poster, he was hesitant to move forward.

There was no choice... he had to go back! At least according to the first scene script in his mind, the bus was safe. However, this meant he had wasted many death redemption coupons.

"We, we should go back!" Zhang Nianzhou said before Ye Xiang could speak, "I, I don't want to stay here anymore!"

Du Yan and Liu An remained silent. After a while, Du Yan sighed and said, "Let's... go."

Ye Xiang turned around and walked back to the bus. Liu An followed behind them, saying nothing. At this moment, Ye Xiang was speeding up his pace, afraid that a ghost might suddenly appear from the forest behind them.

As he quickened his pace, he eventually started running. To his frustration, even though they were returning to the bus, the death redemption coupons were still being deducted. By the time the bus came into view, the coupons had been reduced to 148.

Outside the bus, some people were standing, and Ye Xiang guessed they were hesitating about whether to escape like them.

"Ah, look, someone is coming!"

As Ye Xiang and the others approached, they all shouted. When Ye Xiang ran back, a man smoking a cigarette with a Shandong accent asked, "Why are you back? Couldn't you find the way down the mountain?"

"This... wait a moment..."

Ye Xiang got on the bus and saw the driver repairing the equipment. He had to admit the driver was very dedicated, knowing the bus couldn't be fixed but still trying hard.

"Miss Tour Guide!" He ran up to the tour guide and said, "It's like this..."

He explained the situation. The tour guide's face changed, and she asked, "Miss Han is missing? This is serious! Have you tried calling her phone?"

"There's no signal!" Ye Xiang shook his head, "Probably because of the mountain... Jiang Yiruo and Zhang Dekun went to look for her. They asked us to come back and find more people to help."

However, the other passengers showed no reaction, seemingly indifferent to the matter. After all, everyone knew there were ghosts outside, and who would risk their life to save someone in a place with ghosts?

Ye Xiang thought he had completed his task. He didn't dare go out again and sat back down with Zhang Nianzhou. Luo Haosheng and Kang Xueyan, the male and female leads, looked at them, and the male lead spoke, "Why are you back? Weren't you going down the mountain?"

It's worth noting that if the reason for saying non-script lines or performing non-script actions is due to other actors, it generally wouldn't deduct death redemption coupons. Of course, this was generally true, not absolute. If someone used this to deliberately deviate from the script to save coupons, it would become a major bug. So, there was a limit. Saying a few improvised lines or performing actions that didn't significantly affect the plot was fine, but if it changed the plot significantly, it was different.

"This wilderness probably has wild animals, so we dare not wander outside anymore," Ye Xiang shook his head, "Let's just stay here and wait for the driver to fix the bus."

He was very frustrated. If his phone had signal, he could at least go online. After looking at the travel map outside, he found it was extremely vague and couldn't determine which province or county in China this mountain was in. This area was mountainous and rarely visited by people, and it was night, making it an excellent location for shooting a horror movie.

If he could go online and find out the specific location, he might be able to look up any ghost legends and trace the origins to formulate a new strategy. But now, he had no idea why the ghosts were there. If the ghosts were seeking revenge, and his character had done something terrible, he wouldn't know what it was!

For a long time, no one wanted to go out to search. Since they couldn't call for help or contact people below, Ye Xiang sighed. He was just an ordinary office worker, now fighting for survival in a horror movie. But he had no choice.

At this moment, the male and female leads, Luo Haosheng and Kang Xueyan, continued their conversation.

These were the lines from the script.

"I will definitely complain to the travel agency when we get back," Luo Haosheng said, lighting a cigarette, "It looks like we might not be able to get down the mountain tonight."

"Yes," Kang Xueyan agreed, "The mountain roads around here are very difficult, and it's hard to know how long it would take to walk down. Besides, there might really be wild animals."

The smell of cigarette smoke started to drift over, and Ye Xiang immediately turned his head and opened the window. Smoking was not part of the script, but the actor playing Luo Haosheng found cigarettes on him and started smoking. Feeling the pressure and tension in this terrifying place, smoking was quite normal. From the way he lit the cigarette, he was definitely a heavy smoker. Ye Xiang, who usually believed smoking was very harmful to health and never smoked, tolerated the "secondhand smoke" out of consideration for the other person's feelings.

At the same time, he began to formulate a plan in his mind.

In the final scene of the first act, the driver died in the bus. This meant that the ghost started killing people in the bus at that time. Should he take precautions before that? But he had no religious beliefs, no prayer beads or crosses, and no materials to make a peachwood sword or black dog blood. Or, should he escape again before midnight?

But thinking of the many ghostly figures on the poster, he realized there were multiple ghosts. Even if he escaped, he might encounter other ghosts. According to horror movie tropes, ghosts usually kill two or three people at a time and generally don't appear in front of a crowd, even at night. There were nearly forty people on the bus, and although many were middle-aged or elderly and seemed weak, the large group would likely deter the ghosts. In which horror movie did ghosts appear and kill people in front of a crowd? It was always a character who strayed from the group and ended up alone.

So, leaving the bus earlier was a very foolish move.

After much consideration, Ye Xiang decided to stay on the bus. Collective wisdom could find a solution. If it came to the worst... to put it bluntly, if a ghost appeared, being among so many people, he couldn't be sure he would be the first to be killed. When others were in trouble, he could escape. Although this was somewhat immoral,