Chapter 26

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Chapter 26: Star Death Reality Show (IX)

What an unsettlingly natural development, just like countless horror stories: Whenever the protagonist discovers new clues and asks the insider, the insider’s personal safety is not guaranteed.

“Oh hello, this is so good,” Dr. Lu grinned.

“Wake everyone up right now and check who’s not in their houses!” Qi Leren decided.

The three people were afraid to split up due to this pattern of missing persons. This polar village surrounded the church, and the area enclosed within the laser network was roughly a circle. They searched all the way along in a clockwise direction. The first house was Annie’s. After listening to them, Annie coldy refused the offer of help: “I’m very tired and need a rest. Let’s wait until you find Mark.”

Saying that, she shut the door solidly.

Close to Annie’s house was Qi Leren’s house and Lara’s house. Lara joined their team immediately after hearing about it and said, “Let’s split into pairs to tell the others, have everyone gather in the church, and we will decide how to find the people.”

“Three people have disappeared now, it may not be safe to work in pairs,” Qi Leren said.

“Well, then let’s go together.” Lara didn’t insist on her own opinion, but followed them to the next occupied house.

Lara lived close to Dr. Lu and Du Yue, and next was Jing Sixue’s house. The four people knocked on the door and learned that Jing Siyu had woken up, but because she had fallen into the basement and knocked her head, she currently had severe symptoms of a concussion and she had become sick and was vomiting frequently. Jing Sixue was worried about her and didn’t join the search team, but promised to lock the doors and windows.

Next was Francis and Jing Siyu’s house. These two houses were in the southernmost part of the village. Francis had fallen asleep. After being woken up, he didn’t complain. Instead, he asked about Lara with concern. Lara smiled at him and quietly pulled his hand: “I’m fine.”

Having gone around the big circle and returned to the west of the village, there was He Yi, Janet, Alex, and Mark’s houses. Alex answered the door when Janet’s door was knocked on.

“Why are you here?” Francis asked.

“Hey man, it’s none of your business. I’m not in Lara’s house,” Alex said rudely.

Janet gave a crooked laugh and raised her eyebrows at Alex. “Honey, shouldn’t we ask them first what the group of people are rushing around for so urgently?”

“Xue Jiahui is missing, and there are traces of a struggle in the house,” Qi Leren said succinctly. “You’re relatively close to there. Did you hear anything from her house?”

“No, I only heard this cold wind, I didn’t hear any fighting,” Janet said, laughing again. She poked Alex in the side with her elbow and sneered, “Maybe this dear covered my ears.”

“Then you must have blindfolded me,” Alex said sincerely.

The two people laughed, indifferent to Xue Jiahui’s disappearance. Everyone could see that these two people were “in love”. Although it was a very common way to attract attention in reality TV shows, Janet and Alex obviously had no plans to actually get together. In this interstellar era, it was no longer the time to demand the star be “super relatable”, but to emphasize everyone’s “personality”, whether it was friendly, mean, smart, stupid, team player, solitary… There were always people who pursued your uniqueness. As long as you had a persona, whether you applauded or abused, it was better than mediocrity. It was like in this reality show, if anyone suddenly jumped out and beat everyone up, he would undoubtedly become the “Best of the Day” because he stood out.

The attitude of these two people was extremely careless, which angered the others. Francis was brutally honest: “Enough, there are three people missing by now. You should at least show a little sympathy and concern instead of being sarcastic here!”

“Uh huh. Dear Francis, don’t you understand? All this is the director’s play. Most of us really don’t have any scripts, but He Yi, I bet that guy must have been instructed by the director. By the way, spoiler: He Yi is a distant relative of the director, from the same family, all surnamed He. Do you understand now?” Janet blinked at him and said mockingly, “And Annie, when she went on before, she and He Yi echoed each other and brought up the topic of the extinction of this civilization. Do you think that was a casual remark? Annie explicitly threatened us. Is it really because she can’t wait to preach to us? Don’t be ridiculous. She’s just reading her script. Think about who Annie has the best relationship with. Well, Mark, right? It just so happened that he and He Yi played missing together, which made us panic. Oh, and that Xue Jiahui, I guess she also has a script in her hand. If it’s not acting, I can only say: Miss Xue, you should find more boyfriends.”

In a dead silence, Janet took the arm of her freshly baked boyfriend Alex and waved to the group of people with a laugh: “I hope you find these three outstanding actors as soon as possible. I was with you all afternoon. Right now I want to continue our nightlife. Goodnight.”

With that said, she closed the door.

Qi Leren was impressed by this woman who had behaved like a mindless drama queen from the beginning. He suddenly realized that he had looked down on this woman too much before. Janet wasn’t stupid. On the contrary, she was very smart. She explained the disappearance of three people with a reasonable theory—He Yi, Mark, and Xue Jiahui. They disappeared according to the requirements of the script. Even these three people may have some channels to communicate with the production company so they could carry out the story according to the requirements expected of them.

This explanation was only too reasonable. If Qi Leren didn’t know what kind of horror game copy he was in, he would almost have been persuaded. Lara, for example, talked quietly with Francis after this brief shock.

“When the director personally talked with me about my involvement, I once asked him about it. He made it clear that there’s no script and no default actors in this reality show. He just wants to shoot a group of people who have limited supplies for seven days. He wants to see what kind of story comes out of it,” Laura said.

Francis frowned. “Well, that’s what he told me. But I wouldn’t be surprised if one of us really did get a script. After all, someone has to control the rhythm of the program so it doesn’t go too off the rails.”

Qi Leren sank into thought, and his line of sight extended forward along the snow-free path shovelled out around Xue Jiahui’s door. This path was shovelled up to the entrance of the church, which was shovelled out by a group of them in the afternoon for the convenience of movement. By now it was close to midnight, but the village in the polar daytime was still bright. The cold light shone on the stone church and glistened brightly on the broken but colourful glass.

This picture made him think a lot. For a moment, he thought that this was like Neverland in the ice and snow—although he had never been there, to that holy land where it snowed all the year round, it carried too much possibility and dismay. Even just the similarity of this copy made the thoughts in his heart surge.

Even though he always tried to escape the longing, he was easily swept into the gentle undercurrent.

“…Qi Leren, what do you think?” Lara, still mid-discussion, looked up at Qi Leren.

Qi Leren, whose name had suddenly been called, came to his senses and said after a slow beat, “We can’t prove whether there is a script right now, but if there isn’t? Or, even if there is a script, what happens if we don’t go along with it? The contract we signed said this may be life-threatening. How can we ensure that the missing people are safe right now?”

Dr. Lu also nodded: “Yes, so let’s keep looking for them.”

Du Yue said sullenly, “Where do we start?”

“Don’t worry yet, let’s go to Xue Jiahui’s house to have a look.” Lara pointed out that she and Francis hadn’t seen the scene yet.

Qi Leren nodded and agreed, so they went to Xue Jiahui’s house together.

Originally, there were thirteen of them. After He Yi, Mark, and Xue Jiahui disappeared one after another, there were only ten people left. The Jing sisters didn’t come, Alex and Janet didn’t participate, and Annie claimed sick, so there were only five of them.

The advantage of having fewer people was that it wouldn’t be a mess to discuss things. Lara was also a courageous and meticulous woman. After looking at Xue Jiahui’s house, she said: “It seems that they had a physical conflict, but it ended quickly. Otherwise, if Xue Jiahui shouted for help, people nearby should have been able to hear it.”

“Is it possible that she;s still in the house and wasn’t taken away?” Qi Leren asked, once again remembering the attic and the basement.

“It’s unlikely. If you think about it, this is Xue Jiahui’s house. If outsiders came into her room andl stunned her but didn’t take her away, they would have to be a prophet to know that there’s a basement that they could hide her in. It’s logically problematic. Hmm… Of course, I don’t rule out that… Xue Jiahui may have colluded with the people.” Lara was obviously influenced by Janet’s conspiracy theories.

“What about motive?” Francis raised a question.

Lara pursed her lips: “I don’t know, it’s impossible for anyone to make some big scene. Maybe they plan to clean us up one by one?”

Dr. Lu gave a desperate cry: “Don’t say such an ominous thing. The pattern of serial killings in a mountain villa is too old-fashioned. ”

Lara smiled: “It’s old-fashioned because it’s a classic. Think about it, it’s a classic horror novel routine that has been popular since before the Big Universe Era.”

—No, I don’t care if it’s classic or not. I only care that your crazy flag-raising behavior has seriously lowered our survival rate! Dr. Lu had practically written this on his face, which made Qi Leren laugh.

Lara walked out of Xue Jiahui’s house, looked at the cleared path to the church, and said, “Let’s put it another way. First of all, the person who attacked Xue Jiahui must be one of the contestants, because there’s no other people in this village; Secondly, Xue Jiahui was taken away from the house and hidden somewhere, and the perpetrator should be a man with great strength, otherwise he couldn’t take Xue Jiahui away; Third, Xue Jiahui’s possible locations are so limited that we can even rule them out one by one. Come on, let’s walk along this cleared path. If the perpetrator deviated from the cleared path, he would definitely have left footprints in the snow. If there are no footprints, it means that he hid Xue Jiahui in a house along the same cleared road. There are only five of us who have walked along the road this afternoon, plus Alex, Janet, and Xue Jiahui. Yes, only eight of us have walked it.”

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Editor’s Notes: My apologies for the fact that the last couple chapters have been late.

Due to changes in my own schedule, I’ve decided to set specific days to release chapters rather than simply having it be every second day. So, for the next couple months at least, chapters will now be uploaded on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.

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