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

Chapter 8 Temporary Protagonist, Survivor of the First Playthrough

The torrential rain seemed to be washing the whole world into black and white.

Lu Dan wiped the rain from his face, his gaze as cold as ice. He showed no panic; on the contrary, his thoughts became clearer in this desperate situation.

This is a common problem among designers: the worse the ending of a script, the more it inspires the desire to fix it.

Stop spacing out!

Lu Dan's voice pierced through the rain: "The system determines there is no solution because it is deducing according to the original logic, but in bad movies, logic is usually meant to be broken."

Lin Xiaoxiao squatted on the ground, her original confidence in controlling the whole scene vanishing as Chen Feng's head was moved.

She's just a screenwriter, not someone who goes on the action and kills people.

How can they recover? Chen Feng is dead; no one can withstand a single blow from that thing. Even if they go back now, they'll just be extra food for delivery drivers.

Just then, a crackling sound of electricity entered the three people's eardrums, and the red words on their retinas suddenly distorted and rearranged, like a director in a panic rewriting the script on set.

[A plot inconsistency has been detected. Emergency repair measures have been initiated. Characters are being reset.]

[Congratulations, player Lu Dan! Due to your acting score of S, you have been promoted and your role has changed from extra to male lead (temporary).]

[Gained Aura: Protagonist's Immortality (Pseudo). Effect: Before the final battle, you will have one chance to avoid a fatal attack. Side effect: Increased aggro; all vengeful spirits will prioritize attacking you.]

Lu Dan almost laughed out loud when he saw the words. This was not a promotion; it was as if the words "scapegoat" were engraved on his forehead.

"Alright, since I'm the main character now." Lu Dan took a deep breath and turned to look at the dark tenement building.

"Then I have the right to change the lines, right?"

He looked at the other two. Lin Xiaoxiao's label had changed to "Female Supporting Character (Key Clue)", while the label above the old charlatan Master Zhang, who had been pretending to be crazy, flickered before finally settling on "Mysterious Master".

Lu Dan narrowed his eyes, his gaze falling on Master Zhang's hands, which had been tightly protecting his cuffs even while rolling in the mud.

"Old man, stop pretending."

He walked over and kicked Master Zhang in the buttocks. The kick wasn't hard, but it was extremely insulting: "Just now in room 403, when Chen Feng mutated, your first reaction wasn't to dodge, but to reach for something in your sleeve. What? What treasure is hidden in there?"

Master Zhang froze, his previously cloudy and fearful old eyes suddenly cleared, and his sleazy demeanor vanished instantly, replaced by a sense of vicissitude and sharpness born of having experienced life and death.

He slowly got up from the ground, patted the mud off his buttocks, and straightened his hunched back a little.

"Young people these days have such sharp eyes," Master Zhang sighed, his voice no longer hoarse and unpleasant, but instead full of energy.

He reached into his sleeve and pulled out not some talisman, but a broken, blackened finger bone.

The finger bones were wrapped with dense red threads, emitting a nauseating, damp stench, yet they gleamed faintly with an oily sheen in the night.

Lin Xiaoxiao's eyes widened: "You're not a designer?"

"I am Master Zhang." The old man sneered, his eyes sharp as knives. "The real Master Zhang. I am not some substitute for the second playthrough. I am the only living person who climbed out of this building in the first playthrough."

"That night, Officer Chen really did die." Master Zhang stroked the broken bone, a hint of fear flashing in his eyes. "To protect me, he was torn to pieces by that woman in red. I hid in the coffin where the body was kept, using this piece of ghost finger to conceal my life force, and remained a corpse for three whole days before I finally crawled out."

"I thought I'd never have to come to this godforsaken place again in my life, but as soon as I stepped out the door, this damn system conscripted me and made me play myself all over again."

"Now that Chen Feng has died again, I don't need to play the conman with you anymore."

"That thing has evolved." Master Zhang pointed upstairs. "It devoured Chen Feng's soul and ate another vengeful ghost. Now it can be called a malevolent spirit. Once it's digested, no living thing will exist within a radius of 5 miles."

"So we have to make our move before he runs out of energy." Lu Dan's brain was rapidly constructing a new logical chain.

There's an ironclad rule in horror movies: vengeful ghosts kill according to rules, and those rules often stem from obsession.

Lu Dan first tried to walk in other directions outside the building, but found that there was an invisible wall less than 20 meters away from the old building, and he could not get past it no matter how he walked.

Lu Dan's lips curled into a crazed smile: "Since he's a perfectionist, then we'll destroy his perfectionism. Doesn't he want feet? We'll send them to him, but what kind of feet we send is up to me."

Lu Dan patted his head. "I am the scriptwriter and the current male lead. I have the right to decide the direction of the plot, even if it means adding a bit of absurd comedy."

He turned and walked towards the electric scooter that was still parked in the rain, and opened the trunk.

Besides the empty delivery box, there was a spare raincoat and a roll of wide tape to prevent food from spilling.

"Lin Xiaoxiao, as the original author, you should know what the 404 female ghost hated most in her past life, right?"

Lin Xiaoxiao paused for a moment, then subconsciously replied, "It was an extremely insecure person in its previous life. It hated it when people said it had big feet and was a germaphobe..."

Lu Dan picked up a brick covered in mud from the ground, wrapped it around his foot with tape, and then smeared a handful of mud on it.

"I want to go up and talk to him."

Lu Dan's eyes flashed with ruthlessness. "Didn't he want the perfect foot? I'm the marked protagonist now, and he sees me as a piece of Tang Sanzang's flesh. If I offer myself up, he'll definitely choose me first, instead of looking at that piece of dead Chen Feng's rotten flesh."

"You're going to be the bait?" Lin Xiaoxiao exclaimed. "Have you forgotten the protagonist's immortality rule only applies once, then it's over!"

Lu Dan tied the brick covered in mud to his left foot, making it look like a deformed, swollen pig's foot.

"Once is enough."

"Listen, the next act is called 'Cinderella's Stepmother.' Master Zhang, you need to use your skills to freeze it for even a second when it attacks me."

"As for you, Lin Xiaoxiao," Lu Dan stared at her, "you need to use your strengths. You're a screenwriter, you know how to provoke a woman, especially that kind of insecure and vain crazy woman."

"You want me to..." Lin Xiaoxiao seemed to understand something.

"Yes, I want you to subject him to all-around body humiliation and taste bullying."

In horror movies, this is called death, but in the current situation, it's called attracting hatred.

The three of them stood once again at the entrance to the dark stairwell. This time, Chen Feng was not leading the way; instead, there were three madmen, each with their own ulterior motives.

"Passerby A doesn't want to die, so he has to be crazier than a ghost."

Lu Dan muttered to himself as he took the first step.