Chapter Ch211.1 - Sacrifice

translator: xiin

editors: apricot & juurensha

The night was dark like thick, heavy ink.

The mirror was blurry, and the yellow glass clearly only reflected Wu Jin and Wei Shi. The air held a strong damp smell, like a sewer that hadn’t been cleaned for months, that was teeming with mucus and hair.

The mirror was to the left side of the bed.

The pale moonlight reached in from outside the window, and the pallid ghost looked at the two people on the bed silently through pupils that were twice as big as those of ordinary people!

The female lead from <Red Dancing Shoes>.

Compared with the first time they had met in the bathroom, she was more like a female lead than before. She was silent and motionless, crouching in the narrow bedroom in the most common hunting posture from horror movies, her spine curving abnormally. She stood in the furthest corner away from the mirror, but her long and crooked neck was stretched out as she looked at the dorm beds with a strange smile on her face.

Wu Jin: “!!!”

The youth was about to dart out of bed with a whoosh, but was suddenly held down by the big boss.

“Get dressed.” Wei Shi was expressionless.

Wu Jin turned around busily inside the quilt.

This wasn’t a matter of putting on clothes or not! Following the ghost’s appearance, the dormitory camera’s green light turned on, which was the warning light that flashed 15 seconds before the live camera turned on in order not to invade a player’s privacy––

It was in the middle of the night, and two Crosson Show contestants were in the same bed, along with a little sister dancer. Wouldn’t this be a source of joy and delight for the Crosson audience?!

8 seconds. Wu Jin tidied up his messy pajamas. Wu Jin had no idea where his trainee pants had gone while he was sleeping, so he didn’t even think twice about pulling Wei Shi’s pants onto his own body.

Wei Shi: “……” Just before the camera turned on, Wei Shi strode neat and quick towards the other bed and inserted himself beneath the quilt.

When the camera turned on, the two trainees woke up one after another, removing the quilts from their beds as the ghost in front of the mirror charged straight towards Wu Jin!

Wu Jin dodged away quickly!

At this time, his vision had finally adapted to the darkness of the night. The ghost in front of him was obviously different from when he’d seen her last. Her arms and fingers that had originally been pale and bruised now had a lifelike, red tint that seemed almost anthropomorphic. Her cheeks were more plump, and it was like she’d sucked up enough blood essence. She could also get closer to the mirror––

Wu Jin looked at his wrist watch.

The survival count was now at 40. A total of eight contestants had been eliminated in one night. In contrast, the female ghost’s spirit had really been recharged. The eliminated players seemed to have become ‘food’ for the female lead from ‘Red Dancing Shoes’. The smell of damp rushed into Wu Jin’s nose, making his empty abdomen feel nauseated. Just as the ghost was about to grab Wu Jin’s ankle and pull him out of bed, Wu Jin’s right hand came out and chopped down on the ghost’s arm!

The female ghost leaned to the side to dodge, her upper body moving bonelessly, and her torso folding strangely. At this time, Wei Shi arrived to provide support. The man’s leg aimed at the female ghost’s empty calves!

The female ghost was caught off guard and turned back.

Wu Jin reacted very quickly. He no longer tangled with the female ghost. The youth’s pupils contracted slightly, and his right hand applied great force as he locked onto the ghost’s throat, taking the opportunity to press the female lead straight towards the bedroom mirror!

It was much easier to use the rules than fight directly.

The female ghost immediately began to struggle fiercely, her expression turning to panic as she approached the mirror. Wu Jin breathed a sigh of relief and was just about to bow his head when the ghost girl suddenly showed a strange smile––

She no longer seemed to be afraid of mirrors.

Or, after sucking in several players, she’d become more powerful than ‘the thing in the mirror’…

Wei Shi: “Careful!”

Wu Jin’s muscles reacted one step ahead of his consciousness and obeyed the big boss’s instructions. The youth’s pupils contracted abruptly, his right hand not hesitating as it released the female ghost’s hold, his figure suddenly making a sharp turn––

Five bloody, sharp fingers swept by, slicing through the air where Wu Jin’s cheek had just been!

If the strength of a female ghost could also be rated.

Then, in just one night, she’d been promoted from a Crosson Show C-level to an A-level.

Wu Jin suddenly looked up.

The ghost’s dark and terrible pupils held no feelings, and her mouth was tauntingly bloody. However, even now, there was still always a small gap between her and the mirror; she wasn’t touching it––

Wu Jin attacked again!

He practically ignored the female ghost’s attack and charged head on, full of openings. Anyone who was clawed by the female ghost’s fingertips would be eliminated on the spot, but this unreserved attack allowed Wu Jin to take the absolute upper hand in strength. He lifted the ghost’s cold waist, then smashed her into the mirror with all his strength––

Crash!

The color on the ghost’s face faded at a speed visible to the naked eye, and a crack opened up in the mirror. The female ghost no longer paid any attention to Wu Jin and thrashed back repeatedly, as though afraid that something might come out of the crack.

In front of her, Wei Shi and Wu Jin worked together to prepare for a second impact.

The female ghost was anxious as she screamed silently. Her figure squeezed along a seam in the wall, and she broke away from Wu Jin’s hold to run away, disappearing into the ceiling!

Wu Jin looked up.

He could finally see where the female ghost had come from, and where she’d gone.

The entire training room’s ceiling was divided in two two parts, with the trainees on the bottom half and the ghost living in the upper part. The ceiling could be separated soundlessly from any gap. The ghost had grabbed onto thin threads suspended in the air and dropped down from the ceiling to lie in wait silently in front of Wu Jin’s bed.

The only thing the female ghost was afraid of was the mirror.

It was like there was something in the mirror that could break out at any time––

Wei Shi bumped Wu Jin’s arm.

Wu Jin looked up slowly.

In the dressing mirror that was now divided by several cracks, there was a figure looking straight at him.

Wu Jin’s eyes opened wide.

The figure was blurred, and its face couldn’t be seen clearly, but they were between him and the big boss. However, there were only two people outside the mirror.

‘It’ was dressed in an ancient court gown and was also a woman.

Wu Jin tilted his head, and she followed suit. If the female lead from <Red Dancing Shoes> was a person who couldn’t be seen in the mirror, then this was a figure who only appeared in the mirror.

Moonlight streamed in through the thin curtains.

The woman in the mirror grew clearer and clearer, and her facial features, eyebrows, and eyes gradually took shape––

The pupils that took over two thirds of her eyes suddenly cleared up, and her cheeks that were the same tragically pale white as the female lead of Red Dancing Shoes turned towards Wu Jin. She slowly, slowly reached out of the mirror…

Wei Shi pushed Wu Jin behind him.

At this time, in the distance, in the comprehensive trainee building dozens of meters away, screams quickly sounded out, followed by the sound of a broken mirror, the sounds carrying through the humid air that came after the rain!

The lady gave up on Wu Jin directly and went back into the mirror, disappearing without a trace.

The three groups <Red Dancing Shoes>, <Snow White>, and <The Nightingale and The Rose> were all woken up by the sound of an alarm. The students opened up their windows one after another. The bright red roses had grown wildly after the rainstorm that night, and the dazzling red petals almost blocked out the entire window.

Their wrist watches vibrated slightly.

Another trainee had been eliminated.

Survivors, 39.

Footsteps rang out in a hurry throughout the corridor.

The female ghost, the red dancing shoes, trainees disappearing one after another, with similar events occurring frequently in the other buildings, made this long night come to an end ahead of schedule. Wu Jin’s eyebrows drew together tightly, but he couldn’t link the clues together.

There were at least two female ghosts.

The female lead from <Red Dancing Shoes> who wandered through the ceilings, and the lady who could shuttle through the mirrors, but that lady was never mentioned in the story for <Red Dancing Shoes>. Wu Jin quickly opened the door amidst the stream of people scurrying along anxiously, his head bowed as he discussed with the big boss:

“The female lead from Red Dancing Shoes, Karen, once had a foster mother, but she wouldn’t be wearing a court gown…”

A window in the corridor was half open.

Wu Jin stilled abruptly.

After the rain, the roses were blooming all across the converted factory training facility, and the black and red roses were dazzling. All the roses were growing outside the trainees’ windows.

In the distance was Wilde’s <The Nightingale and The Rose>’s trainee building, and every window was still firmly locked. Some trainees had even put barbed wire around the sill. There were several broken windows with glass scattered over them.

The roses outside the windows were abundant, but it was dark inside, and nobody had turned on the lights.

The Andersen group.

The training room was dimly lit, and the TV was still playing <Red Dancing Shoes> on repeat. Karen, the female lead in the clip, was accompanying the coffin. Caesar and Yu Chu had arrived the earliest, and when Wu Jin came in, Yu Chu nodded to him.

The King of Hearts also mingled in with the crowd and sat in the corner.

Within the group of trainees, Yu Chu very skillfully took over the command position.

His technique was much more mature than the first ‘Leica’. Caesar chattered and complained, his identity clear even with a mask on. Yu Chu didn’t shy away from using Caesar’s ‘high identity in the Crosson Show circles’ to implicitly express the military protection he could provide for the rest of the trainees. Additionally, over the previous few incidents, he’d slowly established his voice bit by bit.

“We lost 5 people.” Yu Chu’s expression was heavy.

<Red Dancing Shoes> had lost five people in one light, but only nine people had been eliminated across all three programs. The elimination rate for Red Dancing Shoes was far higher than it was for any other program.

As the crowd walked into the training room, the program team cameras turned on, and a new round of ‘program recording’ began. Yu Chu looked back at the cabinet beside the training room.

The female lead’s red dancing shoes were locked there.

“C-position.” Yu Chu thought for a moment, then finally said, “A c-position player hasn’t been chosen for Red Dancing Shoes. … When training is lax, she will personally come out to supervise and guide. She’s everywhere…”

“This is her threat. I think that we need a c-position.”