Horror Movie Set: This extra is too good at playing the tricks.

Chapter 72 The NPC Who Keeps Saving

The flame of the kerosene lamp flickered violently inside the glass shade, as if struggling to escape the wick's confinement.

Zhang Min wiped her face; her hands were covered in tears and snot, making her delicate features look somewhat pale.

Her gaze pierced through the dimly lit main room, through the wooden door that offered no real protection, and landed on a distant place that didn't exist.

"You think this is a game, a script, right?" Zhang Min's voice was very soft, with a deathly calmness, like a corpse that had been buried in a graveyard for too long and had been dried out by the wind.

"For me, this is just another 'Monday'." She shrank her neck, as if the chill in her memory was more biting than the cold wind in reality.

"I've lost count of how many 'censuses' this is; maybe it's the first, maybe it's the tenth."

"Back then, my name wasn't Zhang Min, and I didn't look like this. I've almost forgotten my name; maybe it was Xiao Hong, maybe Xiao Li. Who cares?"

Zhang Min gave a self-deprecating twitch at the corner of her mouth.

"That time there was no app, no tasks, and no damn designer."

"We're driving a beat-up Jeep, we're really here to conduct a census."

"Back then, the mountains were still green, and the water was still clear. Shuangshan Village looked no different from any other impoverished village."

"Until that night—" Zhang Min's pupils dilated slightly, her focus unfocused, as if she had been sucked back into that nightmarish night.

......

The change happened without any warning.

We were staying at the village committee, which is now the village chief's house, eating sweet potatoes and talking about whether we could get some rural allowance when we got back.

Suddenly, the kerosene lamp exploded.

A devastating explosion; shards of glass splashed into my sweet potato and onto my face.

Then the ground began to shake, but I swear, it wasn't an earthquake. The shaking felt like the whole world was trembling.

We saw a scene in this room that we will never forget for the rest of our lives.

The sky has cracked open.

The pitch-black night sky looked as if it had been cut open by a giant pair of scissors, revealing the hazy gray background behind it.

That crack split Shuangshan Village in two.

The left side is daytime, and the right side is nighttime.

They were not as separate and distinct as they are now.

That night was out of control; they were like two glasses of oil and water forcibly poured together, squeezing, seeping, and twisting wildly, with sunlight and moonlight mingling together.

The village loudspeaker blared, its voices merging into countless screams: Run! Run! That was what Team Leader Ye shouted at the time.

Oh right, back then he was also called Ye Jianguo. Isn't that a coincidence?

Because in this script, Ye Jianguo is not just a name, he is a position, a symbol.

In every group of people who come, there is always one leader who wants to live out that kind of life.

Back then, Team Leader Ye was even more formidable than he is now. He was holding a fire axe and dragged me towards the back of the mountain.

But the road was gone, and the mud-brick houses on both sides of the village road wriggled like living things, with pale arms growing out of the walls and the doors turning into gaping mouths.

Those villagers, those who had been serving us tea during the day, all went mad in that instant.

Some creatures have one half in the daytime and the other half in the night, their torn sides stained with black ash. They tear at each other and devour one another, even as their intestines spill out onto the ground, they still cry out, "God, I want to see God!"

We were forced to the threshing ground, which was practically a battlefield.

I saw them. The headless white-clad god on the left emerged from the shadows. It was ridiculously tall, at least 3 meters, and its white theatrical robe was blindingly bright, with thick black smoke billowing from its neck.

The red-clad, two-headed god on the right crawled out from the sunlit side, lay on the ground, and its two heads were tearing at each other, making a sound like a baby crying.

They collided in the middle of the threshing ground.

Countless tentacle-like white ribbons flew out from the white-robed god's sleeves, tightly strangling the red-robed god's two necks.

The red-clad god opened its two large mouths and frantically devoured the white-clad god's torso.

Each collision produces a loud popping sound, and the surrounding air is like a shattered mirror, reflecting countless distorted images.

In those reflections, there are villages of the past, ruins of the future, and even... you yourselves now.

We were as small as two ants at the feet of two colossal figures.

"Run! Run!" Team Leader Ye roared. Half of his face had been corroded by the splattered divine blood, revealing his bare white bones.

I wanted to run, but my legs felt like they were made of lead.

My neck feels so itchy and heavy, like a second head is growing out of it, yet it also feels so cold and empty, like my head might fall off at any moment.

I started to hear sounds, countless sounds frantically drilling into my head.

Stay, become us.

Sew it up, it will look better when sewn up.

My vision began to turn blood red, and I felt that Team Leader Ye was a piece of fresh, juicy, and steaming hot meat.

I'm hungry.

Hunger instantly overwhelmed my reason. I threw down the notebook in my hand, drooling like a dog, and bit at Team Leader Ye's calf.

Wake up! Team Leader Ye kicked me away, but he didn't kill me.

Ha, that idiot, that hopelessly good-natured person, still thinking about bringing everyone home in this broken world.

He pinned me to the ground and pressed his knee against my spine to prevent me from suddenly attacking someone.

Listen, there's no way out here! He yelled at me, but he was probably yelling at the damn heavens too.

There must be an anchor point; someone must stay behind to stabilize this collapsing world so that others can survive.

He pulled an eyeball from his pocket. It looked like a black hole made of crystal, surrounded by golden floral patterns, and it was blinking incessantly. That was the "eye".

I'm going to plant it. I'll never forget the expression on Team Leader Ye's face.

With a new core, this place will reset, and the rules will be rebuilt. You will definitely survive.

Without hesitation, he raised his eye and plunged it into his own chest.

Ah—! His scream drowned out the roars of the two gods.

Countless purple veins burst from his chest and instantly spread all over his body.

His body began to swell, his bones cracked, his leather jacket ripped, and his once resolute face began to contort and elongate.

He turned into a monster, but he still retained a sliver of sanity.

Team Leader Ye, who had transformed into a monster, gently lifted me from the ground with his enormous, hairy hands.

"Live on." These were the last three words he uttered as a human being.

Then he threw me out.

I flew over the threshing ground, over the two gods still fighting, and into the mist behind the mountain.

The moment I landed, a deafening roar came from behind me.

Team Leader Ye charged towards the two gods. He used his own body as fuel to detonate the eyes within him.

The blinding white light engulfed Shuangshan Village.

When I woke up again, the world was quiet.

The sky no longer cracked, the realms of Yin and Yang were redefined, and the mountain behind suddenly rose higher, separating day from night.

The two gods disappeared.

But I've found that I've changed too.

I am no longer an ordinary census taker. I am wearing clothes that don't belong to me, and my mind is filled with memories that don't belong to me.

Did you know? I became Zhang Min, a slightly neurotic NPC in the script who is responsible for recording data.

Then I saw a new car drive into the village, and three people got out of it.

The man in the lead, wearing a leather jacket and with an upright demeanor, extended his hand and said, "Hello, my name is Ye Jianguo."

At that moment, I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

I wanted to rush up to him and tell him, "Run!"

But what came out of her mouth was, "Hello, Team Leader Ye, I'm Zhang Min. I will keep good records of this census."

My body is out of control, my mouth is out of control.

I became a cog in this giant meat grinder, forced to watch you designers walk in confidently, only to become corpses, monsters, or the cured meat hanging in the cellar.

Then one day, another Ye Jianguo came in.

Unlike the previous people, he seemed to be using this village for something.

In the end, he resurrected the headless god and the two-headed god.

The balance has been broken again. How ironic!

Team Leader Ye turned into a murderous monster in order to save me.

In order to survive, I became a guide who tempts people to die.

Zhang Min finished telling her story, and the main room fell into a deathly silence.

Occasionally, the kerosene lamp would burst into flame, making a soft crackling sound.

She raised her head, her eyes pleading, and looked at Lu Dan.

"Every batch of Ye Jianguo will die or be assimilated. The monster you defeated was the previous or even the batch before that of Team Leader Ye."

"Please, please help me, no matter what?"