246 Getting Closer

 

Hearing what Han Fei had to say, Li Xue and the other officer were shocked. They only just found out about Spider’s adopted son recently. This actor was better at intelligence collecting than most law enforcement officers.

“The situation with Spider’s adopted son is quite unique.” Li Xue said with clear difficulty on her face. “There is no clear evidence linking him to the Butterfly so we can’t subpoena him to talk to us. But we’ll try our best to persuade him.”

“Aren’t you shooting a movie at Fu Gui Meat Packing Plant? Sometimes, Spider’s adopted son will go there, so you might run into him.” The driving officer said, “In fact, I believe he had returned there yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Han Fei was instantly reminded of all the strange events that occurred during shooting yesterday. “Did you find any suspicious person at the set yesterday?”

“An old tenant living on the 5th floor admitted to placing the dead birds on the staircase but he didn’t do that to scare you. He is just very superstitious. He was doing some kind of ceremony. I’ve had a stern talk with him, he promised he won’t interrupt with the movie shooting anymore.”

“What about the strange feeling that the stunt actors reported? The thing about an arm pulling on their ankles.”

“They appeared to have fallen under some kind of hypnosis. We found no one suspicious at the set.” The officer told Han Fei everything to get Han Fei to feel safer at work. “We’ve already requested our best psychologist to have a talk with them. The person who was behind the psychological hypnosis knows what they’re doing. This matches Butterfly’s previous mo. This proves that the Butterfly is still following you and aiming to harm you.”

“One last thing, when I jumped down from the 4th floor, I saw a figure inside one of the rooms, did you find out anything about that?” Han Fei remembered that scene clearly. He only shared a quick glance with the thing and his back was already drenched in cold sweat.

“We can’t find the figure you’re talking about, but we did run into Spider’s adopted son when we searched that particular building. He said he was just visiting his father’s home.”

“Really?” Han Fei’s interest in this adopted son deepened. This was someone who was heartless enough to sell his own adopted father’s brain to a pharmaceutical company.

When Han Fei arrived at the set, everyone was already in place. They all looked at Han Fei with respect. A comedy actor dared to attempt a scene where even stunt actors had to reconsider. Han Fei’s leap had earned many people’s respect. Compared to big celebrities, everyone thought the casually-dressed and polite Han Fei was easier to approach. Greeting the crew, Han Fei entered the living compound. All the 9 actors were there. Everyone was studying their script, getting into character. Han Fei had already memorized the full script so he spent most of his time studying the other actors, and then tried to apply Spider’s subpersonas on them. It had to be said that Director Zhang had a very good casting eye. Even though these actors were not the biggest stars in the country, they matched their assigned roles perfectly. Doing this movie was basically giving Han Fei a free chance to reconstruct the scenario from years ago, to experience what Spider did. While he tried to understand Spider, he would search for a new solution to the past problems.

Ever since Han Fei met the 6th persona in the cryptic world, he had been bothered by something. Why had all the subpersonas which were killed by the writer appeared at the House of the Butcher? However, the writer, the supposed killer of all the characters, was conspicuously missing.

It felt like Spider had trapped himself inside Cattle Alley.

‘I will help you shake off your shackles, don’t worry.’ Gripping the script, Han Fei promised the writer. After witnessing the pig-faced monsters and the human meat packing plant at Cattle Alley, Han Fei gained a fresher understanding of sin in the Spider’s heart. Now he was going to have to find Spider’s kindness. He had chopped the half heart that was rotten and filled with sin. His next goal was to locate the other half which should be brimming with kindness.

Cattle Alley was the stepping stone for Han Fei to take on the Ziggurat. He had to use everything within Cattle Alley to improve his neighbours’ power. Furthermore, Han Fei himself was quite intrigued by the hidden map. If he could complete Spider’s dying wish, he might inherit half of the map like how he did with Yi Ming Private Academy.

When a normal person accidentally wandered into Cattle Alley, their first and only concern would be how to escape alive, how to remove the curse put on them at Cattle Alley but Han Fei’s perspective was different.

Half an hour later, the dressed actors entered the set. The cameras aimed at them. The scene would be taken from all angles so that not one good shot would be lost. The scene today involved all 9 personas as well. It was after the first night they spent at the living compound and everyone suffered from nightmares. But some of the nightmares were real and others were fake; some stayed awake throughout the night, others had their lives marked by Death in their sleep.

The scene was shot in the day and the 9 actors had to bring alive that oppressiveness inside the brightly-lit room. Fear and anxiety crawled like vines. Everyone had their own agenda to pursue but one of them only wished to murder everyone else. The moment the cameras rolled, everyone got into the required state. Han Fei who sat at the corner pressed the switch in his mind. At that moment, he was the writer.

The subpersonas with different occupations started to share their nightmares from the night before. The line between dreams and reality blurred. They realized things from the nightmare were coming true. The atmosphere turned increasingly oppressive. The personas were slowly influenced by anxiety. After Bai Xian who played the doctor shared his nightmare, everyone turned to Han Fei.

He rubbed the wound on the stomach of his finger. The pair of complicated eyes slowly lifted upwards. “I dreamed that something was looking at me. It stood at the window of the opposite building, staring at me quietly.” His eyes moved to the window. And Han Fei’s eyes colored with shock!

At that moment, standing at the window of the opposite building was a humanoid creature with an extremely pale face!

This was the second time he encountered this thing at the living compound, the first time was when he did the stunt and jumped down from the balcony. His hands chilled. As Han Fei’s eyes were drawn to the thing, the words felt like they were pulled out of his mouth, “I can feel it getting closer to me. It will claw its way out from the nightmare and devise different ways to kill me.”