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Arc 1: University Thriller

Chapter 2: Dead Person

This ghost must be truly awful if it groped a man's b.u.t.t.

Su Min nearly fell down on the threshold of the bathroom. He wanted to be as far away from the toilet as possible and forgot to blow out the candle.

However, after he left, the candle was instantly extinguished.

A click was heard from inside the dorm, and in a split second, light flooded the room. Unable to bear with the brightness, Su Min raised his hand to obstruct his eyes.

The tip of his nose slightly percolated a cold sweat.

As a cannon fodder, he was supposed to die in the bathroom. But, against all odds, he came out alive.

His two roommates were waiting outside.

Out of the three of them, Su Min's character was the most soft-hearted and had very few desires. As a result, he would always become the target whenever they played paranormal games.

Today, they overheard Please, Jian Xian from a girl in cla.s.s. Hearing the girl talked piqued their curiosity, and they wanted to play it at once.

Su Min eyed around the room and saw that there were only three people here, including himself. "Where's the other guy?"

"In the evening, he said he was going to look for his G.o.ddess, so he might be sleeping outside tonight," Lin Yiri said without much thought. "Did you see your other half?"

That was what they cared most about.

Su Min didn't answer. Instead, he looked down at the red nightgown clinging to his body and asked, "Why am I wearing a woman's nightgown?"

The nightgown lining his skin made him look like a drag.

Lin Yiri said with a voice heavy with ridicule, "Because you don't own any red clothes, and the lingerie store off campus only had this nightgown. Besides this, what can you wear?"

There were no flaws to that reasoning.

The script Su Min received didn't have a setting for the nightgown. Only when he survived the scene did the movie automatically inserted the data.

Lin Yiri and Zhao Runian praised, "Don't be scared, you look very good in those clothes. Ignore the nightgown and quickly tell us, did you see your other half?"

Su Min shook his head and said, "I didn't."

Actually, there was a vague face in the mirror, but it couldn't even be considered an option.

Moreover, he didn't want to talk about the embarra.s.sing incident he experienced just a few minutes ago. Remembering that stroke made him want to ultimately go back and beat a certain someone up.

Besides, even if he were to say it, he reckoned no one would believe him.

His roommates saw him as a person who wouldn't lie and in succession, circled around to their bed, despondent. They didn't forget to remind, "Since you're last to go to bed, turn off the lights."

Su Min, "…"

In the dormitory, there was a rule that stated that the last to go up must be the one to turn off the lights.

Thinking of that, he calmed his heart and flipped the switch.

The dormitory was once again plunged into darkness. He could hear his own soft breathing, as well as the rustling that came from his roommates' beds.

In accordance with his memory, Su Min made his way to bed.

The nightgown was just a nightgown. No one was going to see it anyway.

I didn't die in the bathroom, so the script must be changed. If this continued, he might survive to the finale. Perhaps, he would even obtain a score high enough to make it into a rerelease.

While he was in a daze, he felt someone blowing into his ear.

……

In the female dormitory, it was pitch-black.

It was summer, so the air conditioner was turned on. The moonlight was restricted from peaking into the room, making the dorm inside a shadowy haze.

In the middle of the night, Liu Lili woke up with the urge to use the toilet.

With sleep-heavy eyes, she got out of bed and used the feeble light of her cellphone as a guide to the bathroom.

As soon as she entered, she saw the mirror in her peripheral vision. Because it was the dead of the night, and Liu Lili's courage was small, she didn't dare turn her head to the side.

She had yet to turn on the lights when she heard the splas.h.i.+ng sound of water. Drip, drip. It seemed to be coming from the shower.

The school supplied curtains to cover the bathtubs. It could be said that the necessaries provided were in very good conditions.

Who took a shower and forgot to turn off the taps?

This wasn't good; the water bill in the dorm were all handled together. Listening to the constant stream of splashes, she didn't know how much water was wasted.

In her hurry, Liu Lili forgot to turn on the lights and directly walked to pull apart the curtains. She found that the bathtub was nearly overflowing with water, the faucet still running.

This was the sound she heard.

Liu Lili reached out to twist the tap, and the water finally stopped.

She bent down to the tub, searching for the plug. She didn't expect that in the next moment, she would be pushed from behind, and her whole body would fall into the bathtub. Water splashed, unrestrained, in all directions above her head.

Liu Lili scrambled to get up, but a hand held her down.

It pushed hard on her head, submerging her into the water.

Her eyes widened in disbelief, heart trembling with fear. The feeling of suffocation grew stronger and stronger, and with it, the rumbling of chaotic bubbles.

Eventually, two hands rolled to one side, limp.

***

In the first hour of the new day, bursts of murmurs could be heard, as if everyone was talking all at once.

Woken by the noise, Su Min sat up and groggily kneaded his neck.

Inside his head, he heard the cinema's voice. Its tone was filled with an unusual intimacy as it gave him a hint: [Audience Su Min, congratulations for successfully changing your script. Please persists in your unremitting efforts. As a reward for your achievement, you will receive keyword hints. The first hint: bathroom]

It really changed.

Su Min couldn't help but rejoice with happiness. In the next moment, however, he began to feel nervous.

He knew he had altered something because the script was revealed to him. In the future, he would not have the luxury of that knowledge, so what has really changed would be entirely dependent on luck.

And, the bathroom hint… What is going to happen in the bathroom?

Underneath, both his roommates were panicking.

While he was in the middle of putting on his shoes, Lin Yiri looked up and said, "Su Min, hurry up and wear clothes! Someone died in school!"

Su Min's complexion changed.

This was the routine of horror movies. The beginning always starts off with the death of a cannon fodder.

He jumped out of bed and did not even have time to change clothes when Lin Yiri dragged him running out of the dorm room. Along the way, all the boys they pa.s.sed in the corridors gazed at Su Min's body.

Who was that beautiful person in the nightgown? Why are they in the men's dormitory during the night?

Su Min asked, "…Didn't you want me to change my clothes first?"

Lin Yiri shouted, "When it's this dark, who would know if you are a man or a woman?"

Su Min said, "But I'm a big man in woman's clothes."

He didn't have the habit of cross-dressing.

Three people quickly ran and arrived at the women's dormitory not too far away.

The incident was just reported, so the police and ambulance hadn't arrived yet.

Lin Yiri obtained the news fast. For the benefit of Su Min, he quickly caught him up, "Quickly go in, Liu Lili's corpse is still inside."

Zhou Runian immediately said afterward, "I saw it in the group. Just recently, those who weren't asleep blew up the chat. There are all kinds of rumors going on now."

Ten minutes ago in the female dorms, screams erupted one after another.

The first person to discover Liu Lili's corpse was her roommate, Lin Xian Yan. Not long after she called the police, everybody on the floor knew.

Many university students were night owls so nearly all of them got up in minutes.

Maybe it was because Su Min was in a nightgown, but none of the girls seemed to mind him being there. Under the impression that Lin Yiri was accompanying him as a friend, they gave them way one after the other.

It wasn't long before they arrived in Liu Lili's dorm.

The remaining three girls crouched together in the corner, s.h.i.+vering from the cold. They hugged each other so tightly they resembled a ball of glutinous rice.

Seeing the light in the bathroom, Su Min gingerly walked to it.

Behind him, Lin Xiao Yan's complexion changed and she shouted, "Don't go in!"

Su Min halted at the door. He asked, "What happened?"

Lin Xiao Yan gulped, the fear evident in her eyes. With a small voice, she explained, "The body will move… You better not go in. Wait for the police to come."

Su Min didn't feel that that was strange. When everything was said and done, they were, after all, in a horror movie.

However, this girl seemed very familiar.

He stood in place to think for several seconds and suddenly remembered the poster he glanced at when he was purchasing the ticket. Among the leading roles was her.

She should be the female protagonist.

In his memory, this girl was Lin Xiao Yan, his cla.s.smate. She was very popular with their peers, but they had never personally interacted.

Su Min asked, "Did you see it?"

Lin Xiao Yan raised her head and was shocked to see that he, a man, was wearing a woman's nightgown. However, what she was most surprised with was that, contrary to what she expected, he wore it better than most females.

She asked, "Su Min, why are you wearing a nightgown?"

That was quite a unique hobby.

Su Min waved his hand, saying, "It's a misunderstanding. My aunt bought my clothes with hers and accidentally switched it, so I had no choice but to wear it."

Lin Xiao Yan didn't doubt his explanation. She immediately went back to the topic at hand, "Under no circ.u.mstances should you go to the bathroom. Before you came, I went in and Liu Lili's corpse grabbed me all of sudden, dragging me into the bathtub!"

When she recalled that moment, her face paled with fear.

Lin Xiao Yan was the first to discover Liu Lili's body. Like Liu Lili, she had gone to the toilet in the midst of the night. When she came in, she saw a shadow flas.h.i.+ng by a corner.

Before she could turn on the lights, she felt a hand suddenly grasped onto her legs and heard the cras.h.i.+ng sounds of water splas.h.i.+ng onto the floors. The wet and slippery, ice-cold hand pulled her, intent on dragging her to the bathtub.

Lin Xiao Yan desperately struggled to turn on the lights. Once she did, the force on her body immediately disappeared.

It was only then that she discovered Liu Lili's body in the bathtub as if she wasn't gripping onto her legs just seconds before, as if everything that happened was an illusion.

Su Min felt that this female protagonist was very competent to escape from the confines of a corpse. Moreover, she was standing there still unharmed and perfectly intact.

As he thought that, Su Min made a note to stay far away from the male and female protagonists. It was better to watch from a distance.

Nevertheless, in order to live to the ending, it was essential to gain a better understanding of his circ.u.mstances. He cannot penetrate too deeply; he was merely a cannon fodder.

A cannon fodder. Not the protagonist who was guaranteed to survive 'till the end.

The curtain to the bathtub was pulled open, and a schoolgirl faced him, her head hanging down. Half of her body was in the bathtub while her two legs were glued to the ground, curving in an anomalous angle.

There were damp spots all over the floor.

Su Min felt that this scene was awfully dreadful. He was just about to retreat outside when he saw Liu Lili's body start to twitch.

The other's head suddenly rose from the water and looked at him.

Then he saw her dead body moving towards him. Face pale and swelling with foam, Liu Lili bared a friendly smile.

Her hands and feet swiftly crawled back into the bathtub. At lightning speed, her head twisted into the water, no longer looking at him.

Like Lin Xiao Yan had said, the corpse really moved.

But this way of moving was very peculiar.

Su Min, "…"

Are dead bodies in horror movies so unprofessional these days?

It seemed like the director's horror movie this time will once again be spat on in the streets.

As Su Min took a step back, he came in contact with a frore body. He suspected that a hand was resting on top of his waist.

The thin string of his nightgown that had slid off his shoulder was gently pulled up.

Then, he saw the fabric that covered his chest raised.

Su Min, "…"

Are you insane?

He turned to the mirror and saw himself, expression still a bit drowsy, being embraced by a tall, shadowy figure.

Su Min struggled to break free, but that only made the figure hug him tighter.

He thought he heard a voice near his ear, faint and nebulous, whispering his name, "Su Min," and saying, "Don't be afraid."

Su Min grinded his teeth. Where was he afraid?

There was clearly something wrong with the ghost's eyes.

Ahead, Liu Lili's corpse jerked, and her upper body twisted around in a 180˚ angle. Unlike the last time, however, the face that stared at him was warped into fear.

Seeing that it was found, the head quickly ducked back into the water.

Naeda's Log: Chào~

The t.i.tle was changed from "To Be a Fan…" to "To Be a Heartthrob…" as per violentfluffball's suggestion. Thank you again!

This week, I read , and I honestly didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did. It has beautiful translations, angst, forbidden love, fluff, timeskips–all that I could ever ask for. I'm at the stage where I don't know what to do with my life anymore while waiting for updates. So, if you have any recs, do feel free to share.

(Low key kinda wanna draw our boy in his red nightgown.)