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

Chapter 32 The "She" on My Back, The "Me" in the Mirror

The small door to the dormitory, a place that seemed to separate life and death, was pushed open a crack, and a deathly silence seeped in like stagnant water.

Lu Dan held his breath and peeked into the corridor. The terrifying chase with human skin that had just occurred seemed like a non-existent illusion; the corridor was empty. There wasn't even a breath of wind, only rows of red ropes hanging from the ceiling.

These human-skin monsters, which had once possessed physical forms and even wanted to devour him alive, have now reverted to their withered "clothes." They are neatly hung back in their original places, like rows of dried bacon, glistening with oil under the dim light.

"Who with severe OCD did this again?"

Lu Dan clutched his broken ribs and moved towards the stairwell. The second floor wasn't far, just a few dozen steps.

"Shh"—a faint rustling sound came from behind.

Lu Dan didn't turn around, but the hairs on the back of his neck had already reacted for him.

They are watching him.

The human skins, which had been swaying wildly in all directions, now seemed to sense the movement of living people and turned around in unison.

Hundreds of empty, sunken faces were fixed on the security guard being dragged along the ground. Although they had no eyeballs, their gazes, as if they were real, were like countless icy needles, densely piercing Lu Dan's back.

The feeling of being stared at by hundreds of human skins is more terrifying than a direct confrontation.

"Don't look back. A good security guard never looks back at the scenery behind him."

Lu Dan silently chanted the damned clown's warning in his mind, gritted his teeth, and squeezed out the last bit of medicinal effect provided by the regenerating candy, quickening his pace.

The chill, like a thorn in his back, grew stronger and stronger. He could even feel a damp, cold breath blowing on the back of his neck, as if someone were breathing right next to him.

I rushed up to the second floor and turned into the right-hand corridor, where the air was slightly more circulating than downstairs.

Before me was a huge balcony, which had now been transformed into an extremely absurd place.

There was no time clock that Lu Dan had been longing for; only a set of white table and chairs that looked very out of place, sitting alone in the middle of the balcony. On the table was a white vase with a single, long-withered black dried flower. Next to it was a sign that read: Open-air Psychological Counseling Station.

In this ghoul place filled with human skin and resentment, decorating it with this kind of minimalist style is really, really boring.

Lu Dan chuckled self-deprecatingly and dragged his battered body to the table. He was like a gambler, knowing it was a trap but forced to stick his head in to see if the life-saving machine was inside.

The entire open-air psychological counseling station was empty. During his search, he only found a piece of white paper pressed under a vase.

He could see the words on it by the moonlight:

Don't look back! Don't look back! Don't look back!

The three exclamation marks were like three sharp blades piercing into my eyes.

"Giggle~"

Almost the instant he saw the words, a sharp, chilling laugh exploded in Lu Dan's ears. A chill ran down his spine and straight to the top of his head, and all of Lu Dan's muscles instantly stiffened.

Turn around? Are you kidding me? Even if he had 100 times the courage, he wouldn't dare turn around to see what was behind him.

As a half-crippled passerby, doing something like a love triangle at this point is practically giving the King of Hell a boost in his performance.

Lu Dan forcibly suppressed the urge to turn around, stiffly straightening his body little by little.

His head was lowered as he began to move forward slowly. The weight on his back became increasingly clear, as if something was pressing heavily on his back, rising and falling with his breath.

One step, two steps, until a cold touch came from my right hand stretched out in front of me—it was the railing at the edge of the balcony.

"call--""

Lu Dan breathed a slight sigh of relief; touching the physical object gave him a false sense of security.

To reduce the accident rate, the school did not use railings on the balconies, but instead installed a single piece of thick tempered glass as a guardrail.

The glass was dirty, covered in dust and fingerprints. But in the pitch-black night, it was the best mirror.

Lu Dan slowly raised his head and looked at the blurry reflection in the glass.

In that instant, his heart skipped a beat.

In the mirror, the security guard, covered in blood and looking disheveled, had something lying on his back.

It was a skin, a girl's complete, pale human skin. It was like an ill-fitting raincoat, clinging tightly to Lu Dan's back, with empty eye sockets resting on Lu Dan's shoulders, staring intently at Lu Dan in the mirror.

It's Su Ke's skin.

Her lips parted, revealing a sweet yet eerie smile exactly like Su Ke's.

"I've found you."

......

The world outside, the dormitory building.

Compared to the eerie silence of the otherworld, there is a more unsettling sense of order in the air here.

Li Mu walked at the front, his blood-red, skinless figure starkly bright in the dim light. Su Ke was held in his arms, still sleeping like a delicate porcelain doll, completely unaware of everything happening around her.

"Where are those students who came out just now?" Bao Ping looked back with lingering fear.

Just now, those students who had been awakened by the bell and had wanted to rush out of the dormitory to return to their classes all fell straight back onto their beds the moment Li Mu led them away from the classroom.

There was no commotion, no noise, as if the collective sleepwalking just now was merely a hallucination.

"They are trapped souls. Unless certain rules are triggered, they are inanimate objects." Li Mu's voice was hoarse, tinged with sorrow. "Everyone here is waiting for a release."

The group went up the stairs to the second floor and headed straight for the balcony on the right.

"We're here." Li Mu stopped and stepped aside to make way.

Lin Xiaoxiao quickly stepped forward, her paper already prepared, ready to record any new clues.

However, the scene before them stunned everyone.

There was no open-air psychological counseling station on the empty balcony, only a machine—a rusty, old mechanical time clock that looked like it came from the last century, standing alone in the corner of the balcony, its red indicator light flickering in the darkness, making a clicking sound of gears meshing.

"Isn't this the thing the uncle was looking for?" Zhang Kai pointed at the time clock, his eyes wide like saucers. "How did it end up here? Didn't the uncle just waste his time over there?"

Lin Xiaoxiao felt a throbbing pain in her head; this was the most disgusting part of the script—spatial dislocation.

Lu Dan needs a time clock over here, while Lin Xiaoxiao needs a psychological counseling room over there.

The two worlds are like puzzle pieces that have been deliberately scrambled.

This is troublesome.

Lin Xiaoxiao clenched the paper in her hand.

Su Ke, who had been sleeping quietly in Li Mu's arms, suddenly opened her eyes. Her once clear eyes were now filled with chaos and madness.

Her lips began to curve upwards wildly, stretching to an exaggerated angle to reveal her gleaming white teeth.

"Su Ke?" Li Mu noticed something was wrong with the person in his arms. Just as he was about to look down to check, Su Ke suddenly burst out with amazing strength, broke free from Li Mu's arms.

"Who am I? Skin? My skin?"

Su Ke mumbled incoherently as she stumbled toward the edge of the balcony.

"Stop her!" Lin Xiaoxiao shouted.

But Su Ke was too fast. She lunged at the huge glass railing, her face pressed tightly against the cold glass. Her features were distorted by the pressure, leaving a distorted mist on the thick glass.

She stared intently at the empty darkness outside the glass, as if she saw something there that she could not accept.

"Who am I? Who is it? Who is Su Ke?"

Su Ke let out a heart-wrenching scream at the glass, frantically scratching at the surface with her index finger until her nail broke and bled profusely, leaving shocking streaks of blood on the glass.

......

On the balcony of the Inner World, Lu Dan was struggling to breathe under the weight of the human skin on his back.

Suddenly, the dirty glass in front of me trembled, and several bright red streaks appeared out of thin air on the other side of the glass, as if someone was frantically scratching at me from the other side.

Immediately afterwards, a twisted, crazed face covered in tears suddenly appeared before Lu Dan's eyes.

It's Su Ke.

In another world, Su Ke, through this mirror, is silently roaring at Lu Dan, or rather, at the skin on Lu Dan's back...