Hell’s Cinema Vol 1 Chapter 4

Book 1 – Chapter 4: Plans and Incidents

Under the moonlight, everything became silent. But everyone felt short of breath, they all had some worries in their mind.

At that moment, Si Chuan man slapped Ye Jiang’s shoulder and said “ Brother, whatever happened, I am so lucky to be friends with all of you.”

Ye Jiang knew what he meant, and started to think about what to do next.

He did not know whether these actors were amateurs or not. There was too little information.

For Ye Jiang, the priority was survival, he would think about gaining more tickets afterwards.

First, he calmly explored all the information available. «h.e.l.l’s Cinema» was something beyond his imagination which could not be explained by science. A powerful curse which could easily force people into another world to act out horror movies, yet what was its purpose? Ye Jiang thought that «h.e.l.l’s Cinema» didn’t want to just torture the actors, because if it wanted to torture the actors to death then it simply needed to cut off his head, forcing him to act in a horror movie wasn’t necessary.

According to these considerations, « h.e.l.l’s Cinema » only wanted them for filming a movie, not to take them to a terrifying place to kill them.

If this movie was not like « The Grudge », there would be a path to survival. But if this was a horror movie, then there must be an audience. Who would be the audience for this movie? This question was part of the puzzle.

And when there is an audience, the characters of the movie must struggle to survive. If not, the rule of death tickets would not have been made.

This movie would spare him a chance to live. The first step in Ye Jiang’s plan was leaving the bus, but just that would not secure his life. In horror movies, once a person was haunted by evil spirits, wherever they ran, they would still die in the end. Running away just a short distance, it was hard to tell if he could keep his life. But he must try at least.

Still, there was the problem, how would he earn more tickets? In this movie, tickets determined how he could change the script and in turn, increase his chances of returning to the real world. If he could not pay 10,000 tickets, he would be forced to act in this cinema forever. This kind of horror movie wasn’t a sci-fi movie like «Alien» or «Resident Evil», where he could use machine guns or mortars to kill the monsters. It was also not a b.l.o.o.d.y horror film like «Friday the 13th» or «Saw», where humans were the only killers and not ghosts. Moreover, it could not remake the film which had well known script liked «The Grudge» or «The Ring». If this continues, how could a normal person continue to survive merely though luck? It was very important to obtain 10,000 tickets and escape from this world.

Of all the information he had, the way to earn tickets was very vague. But in general, Ye Jiang could tell that the longer he was alive, the more tickets he would earn. The number of tickets earned seemed to strongly relate to an actor’s role. For example, main characters would typically die later in the film, which would increase the number of tickets they earned. Of course, the details are a bit unpredictable. But it’s definitely right that he could earn more tickets if he could live longer. Then, what if he saved people who were destined to die? If he could save these people, could he get more tickets?

Ye Jiang must solve this problem himself, he would not discuss it with others.

Actors couldn’t exchange information related to «h.e.l.l’s Cinema», they must act with all your heart, that is the first rule. Frankly, when talking about acting with heart, the acting of Ye Jiang was really exceptional. As Xia Yun, he decided to quickly leave the bus as soon as a problem occurred. After only a short distance, he wanted to stop, this was quite illogical. But he had no other choices, if he continued, his tickets would be frightfully deducted.

What should he do next?

“Should we continue moving?” The guy from Si Chuan said “Did you get enough rest?”

If it’s not enough then what should he do, and wasn’t tickets of that man deducted enough? But staying here was not a good plan, they had just walked for about a mile, that was not far enough for needing to rest. From the given data, once he reached the key point of the script, NG would be made. And what is key point, there is no standard. But it can tell that, actors could use tickets to change the plot but it must be based on the characters to make it reasonable. If you play an illiterate character, then you shouldn’t know to read, if you are a talkative character then you can’t keep silent all day.

If he kept stationary doing nothing then there was a possibility that he would start contradicting his character.Ye Jiang was a normal person, it was hard for him to keep calm in this situation, and it was more difficult for him to calculate everything. He only thought as far as leaving the bus. In fact, there was no way he could predict the large deduction in tickets.

Ye Jiang even wondered if he left the bus too early? The first victim would be the driver, who would die at midnight, until then, there would be no other deaths. He could change his plans to adapt to the situation as he found out new clues. It was too late to regret his actions, the tickets wouldn’t be restored, it would be wasted if he came back.

“Let’s stay for a bit longer.” Ye Jiang could only answer with an unnatural smile.

Next thing he realized was that his sentence was not in the script but the tickets was not deducted. In general, he had changed the plot, so some new dialogue was not critical to deduct tickets.

Then he could talk a bit more to others, that was a good news. If he did not do so now, everyone would be too scared to talk a bit later.

“Maybe I sat too long in the bus, I am not able to walk properly yet.” Ye Jiang tried hard to find a logical reason to stay longer in this place while avoiding touching the key point of the plot. But this reason did not make much sense either.

He looked at Nian Zhou, took his hands and said:“Don’t worry, every problem can be solved if we stay together.”

This was encouragement for Nian Zhou. Things had come to this point, there was no more escape, so everyone must unite to go through this tragedy. For him, if he wanted to live, these people would naturally be his comrades, they were all miserable so they needed to hold hands to survive until the film end.

Just as Nian Zhou had his hand held like that, his body started shaking and sputtering “I…I….I…” Hewas numb with terror.

The Si Chuan’s guy seemed to be more easy-going, his face showed fear, yet his acts were so real. Next to him was Du Yan, he looked all around and tried to call someone, but there was no signal.

The married couple were hugging each other, it could be easily predicted that they were lovers in reality too. Ye Jiang could tell they were married because of the wedding ring on their hands.

After he stepped into this world, the clothes had gone a major change. For example, before the curse began, he had worn his office uniform, yet it turned into casual clothes when the he scene began. His properties, wallet, keys, cellphone, all were gone without traces. So, he guessed the rings were added when the couple came to this world.

The young man who wore cap just stayed silent in the corner. Maybe everyone kept silent to avoid losing tickets by unexpected dialog. But the wife suddenly expressed shame. She whispered in her husband’s ears, then the man nodded. She stood up and walked away. “Where is she going?” Ye Jiang asked hastily. This was the world of horror, why would she want to go alone?

The husband stammered: “My wife… she wants to go to toilet.”

Ye Jiang could now understand. All other people present here were male, a woman could not relieve herself in front of them. Unwillingly, he watched her back and said :“ You better not go too far!”

Ye Jiang knew he needed to talk more so everyone could discuss the issue without losing tickets, so he began the conversation:“Somebody say something, it will be gloomy to just be silent like this.”

Si Chuan’s guy said:“Oh right. Let’s do some introduction, shall we? My name is Zhang De Kun”

Ye Jiang tried to stop him but too late.

The husband rubbed his hands and looked around. When he saw everyone beginning to talk, he felt a bit more comfortable and spoke: “I am Jiang Yi.”

Nian Zhou seemed to gain some bravery, he spoke“I … am … Nian Zhou.”

Zhang Nian Zhou was not his real name, he talked in such hurry that he nearly forgot his character’s name. Next Du Yan told his name. The last one was the young man. He coldly said “Liu An” then continued to remain silent.

Ye Jiang felt relieved. It’s so fortunate that all people remembered to tell the characters’ name instead of their real name. Otherwise, it would go NG. So, he said his name: “I am Xia Yun.”

After the introduction, though everybody knew that the names were fake, Yi Jiang still felt everyone getting closer, he wanted to talk more with others but he suddenly remembered one thing ….

The wife did not come back yet? Earlier he told her not to go far ……

He had some uneasy feeling……

Thinking about it, perhaps she needed to take a s.h.i.+t or perhaps she felt shame or perhaps she still could not believe this was a horror movie and tried to find rescue?

“Mister Jiang,” Ye Jiang quickly asked Jiang Yi:“ Where is your wife? Why hasn’t she come back yet?”

“About this……” Jiang Yi was quite shocked, and he looked towards the way his wife had left.

“Let’s go, we should find her!”

Life was important!

When Ye Jiang recalled all the ghost images in the flier of “Terror Bus”, his heart suddenly felt cold …