Chapter 24

  The deep gray sky, the city's shell crawling under the gray-blue sky. The sound of people is loud, from the dance classroom looking down, the black crowds are shuttling back and forth on the streets without a bit of green. Cars, streetlights, railings, this world seems to be cast in steel, appearing cold and emotionless.

  Miss Wen taught new steps today. Although Youyou's hospitalization delayed her classes for over a week, she still managed to impress Miss Wen with her performance. Miss Wen has privately told Youyou that she has a talent for tango dancing. However, she still can't muster up interest in it.

  It seems that Du Jiajun is looking forward to this dance. During the class break, Teacher Wen announced that there would be a beginner's tango dance competition, and she immediately pulled Youyou to sign up. Although they are going to participate in the competition, Du Jiajun looks worried, she has always been dissatisfied with her male partner, not because he doesn't dance well enough, but because he is not handsome at all.

  If she could tango with her crush, Du Jiajun would be knocked out by happiness.

  A grey-white pigeon flapped its damp wings on the electric wire outside the window, while a group of girls sat tightly together at the windowsill, gazing intently at the screen of Huajie's DV machine. Probably she had found another interesting video online, but this time the girls' faces were tense with anxious expressions, and they let out heavy breaths as they hugged each other.

  Du Jiajun pulled Yu You over and asked: "What are you guys looking at again?"

  "Ghost... ghost advertisement."

  A girl replied with a terrified expression.

  "Really?" Du Jiajun felt very curious and also wanted to see the outcome, but there were too many girls watching, so she simply said to Hua Qizhen: "Let's just connect the TV and let everyone watch together."

  With everyone's consent, Huā Qízhēn picked up the DV camera and stood up, walked over to connect the plug of the TV used for teaching. Before playing it, Huā Qízhēn solemnly said: "I must explain beforehand, those who are timid or have heart disease, don't watch it. If something happens, I won't be responsible."

  "Alright, alright. Got it." Everyone impatiently chased her away from the TV. The boys who were chatting and laughing on the other side also stopped and stared at the screen of the TV.

  A forest appears on TV.

  A group of children were playing train game with their shoulders on each other's.

  One by one, happy smiling faces appear on the screen.

  Only a few minutes passed and nothing was out of the ordinary. Du Jiajun and You You looked at each other in confusion, completely bewildered.

  A burst of boos and hisses erupted from the crowd of men, "Cut it out! Trying to scare us? What a ridiculous commercial! Not even one ghost in sight!"

  "Who says there isn't?! If you can't understand, then shut up!" Hu Qi Zhen stood up angrily and walked over to press the replay button again. The TV showed a forest with close-ups of several children's faces. Hu Qi Zhen paused the playback here and asked everyone: "Count, how many kids are in this?"

  "Seven."

  One or two boys who deliberately made trouble were almost drowned by the spitting and staring of the crowd, but six little kids came out to answer.

  Hua Qi Zhen continued to play on the screen.

  The photography technique unique to this advertisement condenses the screen into a subtle sense of desolation, the forest is slightly barren, and the joyful smiles of the seven children seep out with an almost imperceptible sorrow. Just as it seems like the advertisement is about to end, a girl suddenly discovers something and lets out a startled cry.

  "Eight... eight pieces!"

  Huaji Zhen deliberately paused the screen. Everyone looked at the girl who was scared pale.

  "What's going on?" a voice came from the boy's side again.

  The girl gasped heavily, as if she was about to drown, and with a trembling hand pointed at the TV and said: "It's not seven kids, it's eight kids!"

  The screen is fixed on a close-up of the backs of those children.

  Let's count again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... eight!

  Walking at the back was a kid wearing a yellow raincoat. Since only the back could be seen, it couldn't be told whether the kid was a boy or a girl. Only a pair of pale little feet were visible under the yellow raincoat, covered with mud.

  "Hey, the director is really stupid, why add a kid at the end? Isn't that a plot hole?"

  One of the boys jeered again. However, others apparently guessed what was going on and fell silent, the atmosphere suddenly becoming very oppressive, like a dark cloud pressing down heavily on their heads. The pale light outside the window made people's chests feel suffocated.

  Du Jiajun quietly approached Youyou's ear and whispered: "Could it be that the last child is... a ghost?"

  Yu Yu also looked puzzled and uncomprehending.

  At the beginning of the advertisement, when those kids appeared, everyone clearly counted them and there were indeed only seven kids. But why did one more suddenly appear at the end? Was it really a director's mistake? Unlikely, because the last kid in the yellow raincoat was wearing something that didn't match with the other kids at all, and what's even stranger is that he wasn't wearing shoes...

  "This ad is indeed strange enough, but it can't be said to be a ghost ad!"

  The boys were always full of suspicious spirits. Hu Qi Zhen glared at them with some impatience and rewound the video to a close-up shot of each child. The children's faces and feet passed by one by one on the screen. When it played to the seventh child, everyone let out a chilling cry.

  "Hand... hand!"

  The girls huddled together in fear, and the boys also gasped in unison. All the doubts just now were ruthlessly crushed. They could see that on the seventh child's shoulder was a pale small hand, but behind the child was already the end of the line, and there was no one else.

  A pair of small hands suddenly appeared on the shoulders of the last child.

  Hua Qizhen saw everyone's shocked expression and felt a little proud of herself.

  "Scared now? Haha, still dare to say I'm cheating?"

  One of the three men calmed down, staring at Hu Qiujin with a suspicious look: "It can't be that this video has been tampered with? With today's computer technology, it's easy to do something like that."

  Everyone else thought what the boy said was very reasonable. However, Huaji Zhen had an expression that seemed to say "true gold is not afraid of the fire".

  "Who's lying? This ad really was broadcast on TV! It was just a decade or so ago, when we were still young. But I can swear, this ad is absolutely true! My aunt next door even said she had seen this ad."

  "Cheater." The boy threw over a suspicious glance and said: "An advertisement from more than a decade ago, does that aunt still remember it?"

  "Of course, I remember it. Because this ad was a big sensation at that time. It's said that the woods where they filmed the ad were actually the scene of a murder case, and many strange things happened during filming. As a result, the TV station was so scared that they quickly pulled the ad off the air. I think you've all guessed it by now - the extra child is the last one in the yellow raincoat..."

  Hua Qizhen was halfway through when Wen Laoshi walked in from the doorway. She saw the image on the TV and, unsure whether she was scared or angry, her face suddenly fell. She pulled out the DV machine's plug and looked at Hua Qizhen with dissatisfaction: "How can you show this kind of thing in class? Don't do it again."

  "Yes, yes."

  Huā Qí Zhēn nodded in agreement, but when she ran back with the DV camera, she still couldn't help but whisper to people around her: "Want to know what happens next? Wait till after class and I'll tell you all about it."

  But a large group of girls ran away in a flurry.

  At this time, Du Jiajun turned her head and looked at Youyou in a low voice, asking: "Hey, do you believe that there are ghosts in this world?"

  She thought for a moment and shook her head.

  "I don't know." Don't follow me Latest chapter Chapter 24 URL: html/7/7810/