Chapter 137 The Black Shadow in the Screening Room

Chapter 137 Shadow in the Projection Room

Had there always been two people in their group responsible for filming?

It was only after hearing Su Bai's question that everyone suddenly began pondering the issue.

Yeah, they weren’t filming a documentary or anything like that—why would they need two people holding phones to shoot at the same time?

"I asked Su Bai to help with filming outside the projection room earlier. At that time, Su Bai even scared us with math exercises. That memory doesn’t feel fake at all," Ai Xiaojia glanced at Su Bai, then looked toward Jia Yan standing on the other side. "I also asked Jia Yan to help take photos since she doesn’t like being on camera, but she's pretty good at photography and framing."

"But I also feel like I couldn’t have asked two people to help with filming." After a moment of thought, Ai Xiaojia noticed the phones Su Bai and Jia Yan were holding.

Strangely, the phone in Jia Yan’s hand was the same model as Ai Xiaojia’s—or rather, actually the same phone. But the one Su Bai was holding was a much older model, with even the body showing signs of paint chipping off.

"Strange, in my memory, I think I gave my phone to Su Bai." Ai Xiaojia’s gaze toward Su Bai carried a hint of suspicion. "Are you really Su Bai? Did we really run into a classmate who’s been missing for over two months in the library late at night?"

"How does that even make sense? The four of us sneaking into the school is one thing, but what are the odds of running into a classmate we barely know in the library?" Jia Yan chimed in. "Does this world really have people who like staying in the library until midnight?"

"And I’ve already checked just now—the footage I shot with this phone doesn’t have Su Bai’s face in it at all!" Jia Yan pointed to the phone that looked just like Ai Xiaojia’s, then turned to the others. "So what does that mean?"

"Means I’m the one filming the video?" Su Bai noticed the stares from everyone but didn’t seem bothered by it, continuing in a calm tone. "This phone in my hand really isn’t Ai Xiaojia’s; it’s my own phone."

Before the impatient Jia Yan could say more, Su Bai went on, "The reason I didn't use Ai Xiaojia’s phone is because I left that phone outside the projection room."

"Since none of us can leave the projection room, who can verify that?" Jia Yan’s persistent questions made the atmosphere in the room tenser and tenser.

But Su Bai seemed completely unaffected by the pressure and the tense mood, replying calmly, "You’ll find out soon enough."

Almost the moment Su Bai finished speaking, the lights in the projection room dimmed again. This time, however, the room didn’t go completely dark again. Instead, the bright lights grew dim, and the screen at the front of the room, the size of a blackboard, lit up.

The dim lighting, combined with the glow from the screen, allowed everyone in the room to still see the confusion and bewilderment on each other’s faces.

Then, Ai Xiaojia’s face appeared on the projection room screen.

"Hey everyone, I’m Ai Xiaojia from Class 2, Grade 12, an ordinary supernatural and horror enthusiast."

"...Or maybe I’ve run into a special companion—ta-da! It’s our classmate Su Bai, who’s been on leave for two months..."

"Shit!" Seeing the video playing on the screen, Ai Xiaojia, who usually tries to act proper, couldn’t help but curse. But she wasn’t cursing anyone else—she was cursing herself!

"Why didn’t I think of this video?" Ai Xiaojia grumbled to herself, then thought of another problem. "Wait, why is the projection room playing the video I just filmed?"

"Because there’s a media console outside the projection room," Su Bai explained leisurely. "I was walking last, so I saw that the screen not only displayed many movies but also had three modes: 'Random,' 'Select Film,' and 'Import Resource.' Plus, there was a USB cable next to the screen that could connect to a phone. So I thought having the projection room play the video from Ai Xiaojia’s phone might help us find who didn't belong."

"Originally, I could have taken some time to copy the video from the phone to the media console, but you all went in too quickly. So I just left the phone connected to the machine outside, allowing it to read the video directly from the phone."

As he spoke, Su Bai waved the old, chipped phone in his hand.

"Since I promised to help with filming, I had to use my own phone to record. The quality might not be great."

While Su Bai was speaking, the video of Ai Xiaojia introduced each person in the group one by one. When the video ended and automatically switched to another recording on the phone, the player group and the student group both turned their attention to the girl named Jia Yan.

Ai Xiaojia, with her hands on her hips, glared angrily at the girl and said in an irritated tone, "What 'Honghuai Four'? That name sounds awful! If our 'Iron Triangle' really had a fourth person, we should at least be called the 'Honghuai Four Heavenly Kings'!"

"..."

"Who are you, really?" Zhou Qingshou took a few steps back with the other two, put some distance between them and "Jia Yan."

"Me..." The entity calling itself "Jia Yan," which had initially looked indignant, sighed as if deflated. "Forget it, how can we keep playing like this?"

Then, in the flickering light of the screen, the human-like figure claiming to be "Jia Yan" transformed into a black shadow, just like the shadows you see all over the campus. It had no discernible gender or facial features, and even the weakest wandering spirits in the nightmare world had more presence than these shadows.

Just as the shadow in the projection room gave up, the soundproof door that not even an axe could break through unlocked instantly. The sound of the lock clicking open was almost simultaneous with Mr. Flashlight’s shutter sound, and the heavy door opened a crack leading outside, just as it had before.

The player group and the student group looked at Su Bai with immense gratitude. Ai Xiaojia and the others looked like they were almost ready to agree to Su Bai’s request to solve math problems. But only Su Bai himself knew that thinking of using the recording wasn't that hard. Perhaps Ai Xiaojia had even considered saving everyone’s images as backup when she filmed the video earlier. It was just that those memories and thoughts had been interfered with by the shadow the moment they entered the projection room.

Human memory is mysterious; even more powerful ghosts find it difficult to create a complete, flawless memory. So rather than saying the shadow implanted a complete memory of "Jia Yan" in everyone’s minds, it was more accurate to say that the student group and player group were only given fragments of memory and, under the shadow’s influence, didn’t dwell on the specific details.

In simple terms, everyone’s minds became slower than usual.

However, the shadow’s power couldn’t affect Su Bai, whose mental strength was vast and terrifying. Even if Su Bai’s displayed thinking ability was only at a normal level, as long as he wasn’t influenced by the shadow, the existence of "Jia Yan" and her various claims sounded full of holes to him.

As for the others affected by the shadow’s power, once someone pointed it out, they quickly snapped out of their sluggish state.

So what Su Bai did wasn’t much, but in that situation, it might have been crucial.

Still... the power of the shadow in the projection room was indeed more interesting than the anomaly in the restroom mirror. Even the beaded bracelet on Su Bai’s left wrist acknowledged the shadow’s unique power.

Considering that no merchandise had been acquired back at the Luolimasi Hotel, and unsure when the Fog Shop would officially open, Shopkeeper Su deliberately stayed behind until the end as everyone else hurriedly left the projection room. He then collected the shadow, which had lost its will to resist, into his bracelet.

The bead that contained the projection room shadow only turned slightly darker, as if even the bracelet understood that the shop was in a special period and couldn’t afford to be too picky about the quality of merchandise, at least for the time being.

With that, only three of the Seven Campus Mysteries of Honghuai No. 1 Middle School remained.