New Times, New Hell Chapter 85 - Watching a Movie

Chapter 85 - Watching a Movie

The First Annual Luofeng CEO Appearance Design Contest ultimately ended with Shang Que’s proud and open rigging of the results.
Zhao Ruola had originally been confidently awaiting her first place. She hadn’t expected that her skills would ultimately lose to an under the table deal. Additionally, the program she had written to automatically pair clothing articles had too futuristic of an aesthetic. She unfortunately got eliminated.
The employees at the company didn’t dare to be displeased with Boss. They could only furiously message Yu Zhengdu in private.
【Tell me! What mesmerizing potion did you feed Boss!】
【All you put on Boss was an average suit and shoes. And now you’re the champion?!!】
【Give me my doubled monthly performance back!】
In regards to these messages, Yu Zhengdu was extremely calm. He copy and pasted the same reply for all of them:【Go complain to Boss】
Soon after, everyone shut up.
Can’t afford to piss off the nepotist’s favorite!
After Shang Que unilaterally declared that the cold war was over, he very generously expressed that Yu Zhengdu could once again freely enter and exit his office.
Yu Zhengdu: ……To be honest, he didn’t feel like he had visited Shang Que’s office any less during their cold war.
Of course, he still had to pretend to be extremely surprised to Shang Que’s face. Additionally, the fetal education time couldn’t be forgotten either.
As such, several more days passed. This day, Yu Zhengdu was in the middle of writing code when Lu Lingxi came looking for him. She said that some employees at the Luofeng headquarters had told her that they hoped Luofeng could be like the companies of the mortal realm and occasionally organize some team building activities.
Only now did Yu Zhengdu remember that since he had started working at Luofeng till now – which was quite a long time – aside from the garden party during the Ghost Festival, their company had seemingly never arranged any group activities. Previously, this had been because their company was very small and full of ghosts. Thus, he hadn’t put much thought into this matter. Thinking about it now, ghosts had socializing needs too. Additionally, because of Shang Que’s temper tantrum and the Ghost King costume changing competition a few days ago, everyone was quite on edge. It was a pretty good idea to arrange for everyone to relax right now.
Yu Zhengdu said, “Sounds good. You can go arrange it.”
Lu Lingxi hesitated for a moment before finally sharing the true reason she had come looking for him. “Everyone says that they don’t want to continue visiting graveyards, rural areas, or other places like these anymore. Being a ghost is no fun. They want to go play in the mortal realm.”
Yu Zhengdu hesitated. “That’s against the rules, right?”
Lu Lingxi lamented, “Yeah. Since the collapse of the Underworld, we’ve borrowed a part of the mortal realm to take care of business, but there are too many rules. We can’t do anything freely.”
Yu Zhengdu understood everyone’s thoughts too. Because of the fact that they couldn’t disturb the order of mortal society, Underworld spirits had a very limited range of activities that they could do and that were safe. They also couldn’t openly use the entertainment facilities of the mortal realm. Their daily lives truly were a bit boring.
He thought about it and said, “How about this. We’ll go buy out a midnight screening at the theater and watch a movie together.”
Lu Lingxi’s eyes lit up. “That’s a good idea.”
If they bought out a screening, they could control the time and location to ensure that the mortals would all be sleeping. Doing as Yu Zhengdu said – buying out a midnight screening – basically wouldn’t disturb the usual order of mortal society.
An idea struck Lu Lingxi. “I read on the news that there’s a movie that just got released recently and has less than ideal ticket sales. The producers bought a lot of ghostly showings themselves. We can simply fill up those ghostly showings.”
Yu Zhengdu looked at her, speechless. “You truly are an innovative talent in the field of saving money.”
Lu Lingxi modestly said, “I don’t dare to be called a talent, but I really am a ghost.”
Yu Zhengdu facepalmed. “Those ghostly showings are only for ticket sales. The movie theater might not actually play the movie. There’s no need to save money in this manner. Just buy out a screening normally.”
“CTO is still the resolute one.” Lu Lingxi gave him a thumbs-up. She asked again, “Then, let’s see. How about you go file the request with Boss for this activity, okay?”
Yu Zhengdu side-eyed her. “If you need me to submit the request for such an activity, why does the company need you to be the HR manager?”
Lu Lingxi answered very reasonably, “Boss even forgave you after you used him as the main character of an outfit changing game. If you’re the one who makes the request, Boss definitely won’t deny it.”
Yu Zhengdu: “……”
He actually had no response to that.
Yu Zhengdu thought about it and stood up. He knocked on Shang Que’s office door.
Peppa’s fetal education music had already changed from Mozart to Beethoven. Shang Que looked up and asked Yu Zhengdu, “What’s wrong?”
Yu Zhengdu placed the name of the movie theater and the time of the showing that Lu Lingxi had already chosen out in front of Shang Que. He casually stated, “I want to file a request to watch a movie with you.”
Shang Que leaned his body slightly back. His expression was composed. “I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to allow that. Isn’t it a little fast if we start dating now?”
Yu Zhengdu: “……” To tell the truth, when saying these kinds of things, can you not look so secretly delighted, Boss?
Yu Zhengdu calmly stated, “It’s a request for a company group activity.”
Shang Que: “&#k2026;&#k2026;”
Shang Que’s expression became disappointed at a speed visible to the naked eye. He offhandedly picked up the proposal Yu Zhengdu had handed over and very calmly stated, “Why are you randomly organizing a company group activity……”
Yu Zhengdu smiled. “If Boss has the time, I also want to submit a request to watch a movie with you privately.”
The corners of Shang Que’s lips quirked up. “Agreed.”
His response was too fast. He only realized this after already answering. When he looked up, Yu Zhengdu was cheerily staring at him. Shang Que hurriedly put on a serious expression and added, “I mean that I’ve agreed to the company group activity. I still need to consider your private request.”
“Is that so……” Yu Zhengdu dragged out his syllables and said, “If Boss is too busy, then nevermind.”
“It’s fine. I’m not that busy these days.” Shang Que actually pulled up his schedule and looked over it carefully. Then, he thoughtfully said, “……Free up your time this weekend, then. I’ll see if those two days work.”
Yu Zhengdu smiled, but didn’t say anything.
He had already guessed that Boss’s “consider” was probably referring to considering how to schedule his time.
Luofeng’s team building activity successfully came into being. All the ghosts in the company were very excited. It had been a long time since these Underworld spirits had been able to watch a movie on the big screen. Regarding this, they expressed extreme anticipation.
The night of the activity, all the ghosts headed towards the movie theater the showing was at under Lu Lingxi’s direction. Because Zhao Ruola needed to take care of the elders at her home, she couldn’t attend. Originally, after considering that it was more difficult for living humans to stay up late, Lu Lingxi also notified Zheng Yan that he didn’t need to go. However, because the movie that they were going to see also happened to be one that Zheng Yan wanted to watch, and also because contemporary youths didn’t fear staying up late, in the end, Zheng Yan still bravely tagged along.
Prior to leaving, he didn’t forget to bring along his mini eight trigrams mirror and bodhi bracelet.
Yu Zhengdu watched as Zheng Yan rubbed his bracelet while walking. He couldn’t help inquiring, “Do you think it’s appropriate to be bringing a bunch of ghost-removing tools with you to watch a movie with a group of ghosts?”
“We’re going out in the middle of the night. What if we run into other ghosts?” Zheng Yan asked very seriously. “I’m being prepared for all possibilities.”
Yu Zhengdu scanned the Luofeng employees surrounding them. He, too, very seriously stated, “I reckon that if there are other ghosts, they probably won’t dare to appear.”
When they arrived at the movie theater, though, they discovered that their company of ghosts weren’t the only people here to watch a movie. There were also quite a lot of humans. Yu Zhengdu glanced at the date and finally remembered that tomorrow was Friday. Coincidentally, a new movie was getting released at midnight tonight.
Upon noticing this, Lu Lingxi hesitated for a bit. Yu Zhengdu waved his hand. “Either way, we’re in different auditoriums. It’s not important. Just remind everyone to not go randomly visit any other showings.”
Lu Lingxi nodded and started gathering the employees. As the representative, Yu Zhengdu needed to communicate with the movie theater’s employee. The employee stared at Yu Zhengdu, then at Shang Que and Zheng Yan who were standing behind him. He was a bit surprised. “The three of you bought out a showing?”
If they had bought out a showing in a small auditorium, that would’ve been more reasonable. But they had bought out a showing in the largest auditorium in the movie theater. Additionally, they had told the movie theater to place popcorn and Coke in the cupholders of all the seats in advance. The employees had all thought that this was an entire company coming to watch the movie. They had even been wondering what kind of company would buy out a midnight showing.
He had never expected, in his wildest dreams, that only three men would appear.
It would even be more reasonable if this was one man with two women or one woman with two men!
Yu Zhengdu’s expression remained unchanged. “The stubbornness of the wealthy.”
Employee: “……”
The employee confirmed the auditorium number with Yu Zhengdu, pondered for a bit, then informed, “Oh right. We’ve been experiencing trivial technological difficulties recently. However, nothing too serious. If any situation happens while you’re watching your film, all you have to do is shout for me.”
Yu Zhengdu asked, “What situation?”
The employee hesitated for a moment before muttering, “Nothing too serious. Just, our system has recently fallen victim to a virus. These past few days, the midnight showings will sometimes be interrupted by part of a different movie halfway through. But the interruption isn’t too long. Only a minute. It won’t affect your viewing experience.”
Yu Zhengdu instinctively felt like this employee’s explanation was a bit illogical. However, this was the movie theater’s problem. To them, as long as there was no effect on the viewing experience, things were fine. As such, he only smiled and said, “Okay.”
After entering the auditorium, everyone conscientiously left the centermost seats – the best viewing location – for Shang Que. However, Shang Que didn’t go sit there. Instead, he tugged Yu Zhengdu along and headed straight towards the corner-most seats of the last row.
Their coworkers instantly felt greatly touched. “I hadn’t expected that Boss would be so kind. He actually left the best seats for the rest of us and is sitting in the corner now.”
Shang Que was too lazy to listen in on what the others were saying. He pulled Yu Zhengdu down and glanced at him, satisfied. “If we’re sitting here, it won’t be too obvious when you want to scoot close to me.”
Yu Zhengdu: “……”
Though Boss claimed to have never been in a relationship before, he had quite a deep understanding of these coquettish methods.
The movie theater employee: ……These three guys have already bought out the entire showing. How come two of them are sitting in the corner, leaving one person in the middle?
The showing Luofeng had bought this time was a comedy that was pretty popular right now. Because everyone in the auditorium worked together, the atmosphere was quite relaxed, unlike usual, when they were very cautious at the movie theater. While watching, they quietly chatted with one another. Also because of the fact that their company had prepared popcorn and drinks for all of them, the atmosphere was very calm and peaceful.
Shang Que propped one side of his face on his hand. While eating his popcorn, he watched the movie. He wasn’t in a great mood.
In only a moment, Yu Zhengdu discovered the other’s glum mood. He nudged him with his arm and whispered, “What’s wrong? Not happy?”
Shang Que turned to look at him. He replied, softly as well, “I was originally planning on watching this movie with you over the weekend. I hadn’t expected that Lingxi would book this movie showing. She truly doesn’t know how to make plans.”
Yu Zhengdu burst into laughter. “Aren’t you still considering? How come you’ve already decided on a movie?”
Shang Que’s expression remained the same. “There’s nothing wrong with being too prepared.”
Yu Zhengdu pulled out his phone. He lowered the brightness and unlocked it. “No worries. We can choose a different movie right now.”
Only now did joy appear in Shang Que’s eyes. He scooted his head close. “Okay, we’ll choose a different one.”
Their heads were next to each other. Shang Que could even feel Yu Zhengdu’s breathing. The corners of his lips unconsciously quirked up. He thought about it and handed the large bucket of popcorn in his arms over. “I’ll share my popcorn with you.”
Yu Zhengdu scanned the bucket of popcorn. He couldn’t help reminding Shang Que, “Boss, the popcorn we prepared was originally meant to be shared between two people.”
Shang Que refused to admit defeat. “Nobody dares to share popcorn with me.”
Yu Zhengdu: “……” Boss was right.
At the same time, the employee in charge of checking up on the auditorium glanced at the two people squished next to each other in the corner. Then, he glanced at Zheng Yan, who was sitting by himself in the middle of the room. His gaze was filled with sympathy: single dog, tragic.
Shang Que grabbed a handful of popcorn and handed it to Yu Zhengdu. “Eat.”
Yu Zhengdu was in the middle of reading through the reviews for other movies on his phone. Thus, he didn’t look up. He simply ate the popcorn out of Shang Que’s hand.
A barely discernible smile appeared on Shang Que’s face. He took a bite too and left a review in his heart, the popcorn at this movie theater is very delicious.
At this time, the screams of a crowd of people sounded out from outside the auditorium. The soundproofing of the movie theater was quite good, but those screams were honestly too loud. They actually managed to pierce through the wall and travel into their auditorium.
Though the sound had already diminished greatly by the time it reached their ears, it was still easy to tell the horror in the screams. This caused all the ghosts present to turn around, slightly perplexed.
Yu Zhengdu’s gut was telling him something was wrong. Thus, he stood up and said, “I’ll look around outside.”
Shang Que had originally been happily eating his popcorn. After being interrupted like this, his expression darkened. “I’ll go with you.”
The two of them exited and walked down the hallway. There, they saw a few girls who had come to watch a movie standing in the hallway and wiping away their tears. Beside them, several movie theater employees were placating them. “It’s fine, it was just a clip from a movie. It’s not real……”
One of the girls among them broke down. “I almost got scared to death. Don’t you know to close the theater because of this problem?”
The employee’s expression was exasperated. “We’re already trying to fix it. Also, I already warned everyone about this possibly happening in the beginning……”
The girl angrily yelled, “You guys didn’t say that it was this kind of film!”
Yu Zhengdu furrowed his brows and stepped forward to ask, “May I ask what happened?”
That employee happened to be the one who had received Yu Zhengdu and them previously. As soon as he saw Yu Zhengdu, his expression became apologetic. He said, “Ey, just the situation I told you about earlier. It happened again just now. A segment of a different film started playing halfway through their movie……”
Yu Zhengdu stared at the girl who was still trembling and asked, “A segment from what kind of film?”
The employee’s eyes darted around. “A horror film.”
Yu Zhengdu: “……”
Employee: “Ey, we had no other choice either. The tech team investigated for several days, but couldn’t get any results. This is such a large movie theater. We can’t possibly halt business because of such a small error……”
Yu Zhengdu’s gaze became solemn. “What’s actually been going on?”
The employee couldn’t keep hiding things. Thus, he obediently told the truth.
It turned out that starting from a few days ago, this movie theater’s movies would suddenly start getting interrupted by part of a horror film at night. The rate of occurrence wasn’t very high: the film would appear maybe once or twice every night. Sometimes, it wouldn’t necessarily appear. It also wasn’t very long, probably only half a minute or a minute in length. But because it was a horror film, it had a rather serious impact.
The movie theater told the public that they were experiencing technical difficulties. The internal staff were also conducting investigations in this regard. However, after a few days of investigating, they still couldn’t find the source of the error. That film was appearing randomly. The movie theater had no way of stopping it, but also couldn’t close. They could only bite the bullet and continue business as usual.
Yu Zhengdu felt like something was off as soon as he finished hearing the full story. “You guys really think this is a technical problem?”
At this time, the movie theater’s manager had walked over too. He happened to hear Yu Zhengdu’s words. Consequently, his expression was a bit foul. “What do you mean by that?”
Yu Zhengdu didn’t get annoyed, though. He only calmly stated, “If this was due to a viral infection, the conditions for its appearance would be much more random. Why do problems only occur at night?”
As soon as he said this, the employee nearby’s face suddenly turned white. His voice started trembling too. “A-actually, we’ve always thought that……”
The theater manager hurriedly stopped him. “Shut up. What bullshit are you spouting?”
Yu Zhengdu didn’t miss the guilt in the manager’s eyes. Just as he was about to continue, abruptly, an ear-piercing screech sounded out from the auditorium they had rented. “Aaaah, there’s a ghost——”
It was Zheng Yan’s voice.
Yu Zhengdu’s gaze darkened. The employee nervously hit his own head. “Ey, it’s definitely appeared in your auditorium as well.”
They rapidly pushed open the door of the auditorium and walked in.
Luofeng had bought out the largest auditorium in the movie theater. As soon as they walked in, they saw that the originally bright and colored comedy had disappeared from the screen. Instead, a depressing black and white replaced it.
In the middle of the screen, a woman whose hair was completely down like Sadako was peeling an apple. She wore an ankle-length white dress and her hair hung in front of her face like a waterfall. It covered her face completely.
Her hands were pale and withered, but her fingernails were bright red. She held a tiny knife and carefully peeled the apple skin off. While peeling, she slowly asked, “Do you……want to eat an apple?”
“The apples I peel are……very delicious.”
The employee hurriedly told Yu Zhengdu after hearing her words, “Ey, hurry and close your guys’ eyes. After she finishes peeling the apple, she’s going to part her hair.”
But Yu Zhengdu didn’t listen to the employee. Instead, he crossed his arms in front of his chest and expressionlessly stared at the movie screen with Shang Que.
They could already tell that this movie theater wasn’t experiencing any technical difficulties.
The horror film on the screen was clearly a real female ghost.
The female ghost had already finished peeling the apple. She slowly held her hand forward. “Come, time to eat the apple……”
The employee became greatly agitated. “Ey, hurry and close your eyes! It’s really scary when she parts her hair! Also, this horror film is 3D. She’ll force the apple into your mouth!”
But it was already too late. The female ghost laughed eerily and parted her hair like someone drawing open curtains, revealing her deathly pale skin. The skin of her face was cut open and her rotting tendons were faintly visible. Her eyes were terrifyingly large. Like two black holes, they sunk into her face. Her voice was also horrifyingly sharp. “Eat the apple……”
Employee: “No matter what you do, don’t scream! I’ve warned you!”
The next second, the female ghost froze in place.
From her perspective, she wasn’t facing the usual auditorium full of humans.
Instead, it was an auditorium full of ghosts.
At this time, all the ghosts had one leg crossed over the other and were expressionlessly staring at her.
Female ghost: “……”
“Aaaah, so many ghosts!” The female ghost tossed the apple away and held the apple-peeling knife in front of herself. She shrieked, “Prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, lawful——”
Staff member: “……???”
Yu Zhengdu: “……”
This female ghost had a really good understanding of the core socialist values!
The author has something to say:
Female ghost: Socialism, protect me!