Extra 3

Director Fang, Fang Mingge, did not want to be negligent toward Chi Qingzhou, so he chose a hotpot restaurant with both excellent flavor and a great reputation.

It was said that this restaurant primarily served people from the entertainment industry and had excellent confidentiality measures. After choosing a private room, Fang Mingge confidently led the film crew up to the seventh floor.

The food was truly exceptional. As Chi Qingzhou ate, his eyes narrowed in satisfaction, and his slender shadow stretched along the walls of the private room, swaying lightly under the lights.

Meanwhile, a determined paparazzi clutched his camera, suspended by a rope, and carefully descended from the window of a nine-story hotel. He snapped a few shots of the scene inside, but when a stranger sitting beside Chi Qingzhou calmly turned his head toward him, he was so startled that he immediately grabbed the rope, ready to climb back up.

However, in the very next second, he locked eyes with that man.

What kind of eyes were those?

The paparazzi couldn’t remember.

All he felt was as if he had plunged into ice-cold water, his mind going blank, his consciousness scattering in an instant.

By the time he snapped out of his daze, he was still hanging in the same position outside the building, having spent the entire night suspended in the cold wind.

His body was stiff, his muscles sore, but strangely enough, his camera was perfectly intact.

He couldn’t figure out what had happened, but his instincts told him not to dwell on it.

Attributing his survival to professional instincts, he climbed back up to the ninth floor, took a hot shower, then eagerly opened his laptop, ready to edit his hard-earned photos.

“I just need to touch up the photos from last night… Hopefully, the originals are clear enough.”

Muttering to himself, he connected his camera to his laptop. However, as he glanced at the photos, his face instantly turned deathly pale.

W-What was this?!

The shadows on the walls, could those even belong to humans?!

Had the film crew noticed him and deliberately played some kind of trick on him?!

Overwhelmed with fear, he shakily reached for his mouse, intent on deleting the photos.

But at that moment, a bone-chilling cold suddenly enveloped him.

His brain felt frozen, his vision blurred.

By the time he regained awareness, the photos – now accompanied by vague captions – had already been posted directly from his account!

A wave of cold surged from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

The paparazzi didn’t even bother checking the account’s data or the comments. He frantically packed up his belongings, scrambled out of the room, and bolted down the hallway, shouting at the hotel front desk to check out immediately.

This place wasn’t clean!

He couldn’t stay a second longer!!

…

[JiuJiu Loves Movies V]: “Wanxiang truly lives up to the reputation of a renowned director’s new work…”

[Lao Gua’s Sharp Reviews V]: “Examining actors’ sincerity through Wanxiang…”

[Movie Paradise V]: “Wanxiang—A film that outwardly tells a story of ghosts and deities but ultimately conveys deep humanistic concerns…”

On the night of the premiere, many film critics published their reviews of Wanxiang.

Their overwhelmingly positive reviews quickly attracted the attention of onlookers. The way their words exuded sheer survival instincts, the occasional awkward phrasing, and the accompanying photos of them walking out of the screening room pale-faced—these details instantly propelled “Wanxiang Premiere” onto the trending list.

One particularly sharp-witted netizen commented:

“This doesn’t look like acting.jpg. Guys, blink twice if you’re being threatened.”

The critics, seeing this comment, could only smile bitterly in silence.

Even after leaving the theater, the bone-deep chill still hadn’t dissipated. The eerie voice still echoed in their minds. How could they possibly respond?!

With complicated emotions, they logged out of their accounts. Almost all of them wanted nothing more to do with Wanxiang. After a quick cleansing ritual, they rushed off to places filled with people, desperate to regain their sanity.

Unaware of the truth, netizens saw that no one was speaking up and assumed it was just a successful marketing stunt.

Naturally, this led to more discussions about the film.

Among them, the hottest topic was: The ending of “Wanxiang” is neither a dream nor a delusion.

【Has the relevant department relaxed its standards on supernatural horror films?】

【Does this mean we can look forward to more films like this?】

【No way. So many ordinary genres still haven’t been unbanned, how would supernatural horror get a pass first?】

【Could this mean a film rating system is on the way?】

【You guys might as well say Fang Mingge has connections. Don’t you understand how the authorities operate? Instead of overanalyzing and making things up, why not do something productive?】

Arguments were an eternal theme in online discussions.

It wasn’t even a big deal, yet for some reason, people started fighting.

Seeing the debate getting heated, a bystander decided to step in with a tongue-in-cheek comment:

【Stop fighting, stop fighting! I declare that “Wanxiang” passed censorship uncut because the world is about to undergo spiritual revival! Today, “Wanxiang” is the omen that shines; tomorrow, we shall be at the top of the evolutionary chain!】

The way this person dramatically jumped into the conversation left everyone speechless, and somehow, no one felt like arguing anymore.

【Damn it, I actually laughed at that.】

Just as the topic was starting to settle down, a new development exploded onto the trending list, paparazzi photos of the Wanxiang crew’s dinner gathering.

Curious, people clicked in to take a look, only to return drenched in cold sweat.

That photo, wasn’t it fake?

Could real people cast shadows like that?

It had to be Photoshopped! Absolutely!

Logic and reason told them that the image couldn’t be real. But inexplicably, a chilling instinct whispered otherwise to everyone who had seen it.

In the depths of their minds, an unknown presence seemed to silently mock them:

【Congratulations, you’ve glimpsed the truth of this world.】

Terror seized their brains. Their responses became frantic and disorganized, and by the time they regained composure, the comments under the leaked post had turned into a primitive mess, like a historical record of early humans encountering the internet.

For a moment, those refreshing the thread were at a loss for words.

Silently, they backed out of the topic and hurried back to the premiere discussion thread to talk about anything else, like whether the film critics had been threatened or whether there really were eerie whispers in the theater.

But clueless bystanders were baffled by how synchronized the comments were.

Thinking it was just an elaborate marketing stunt, they scoffed and insisted that ghosts, supernatural beings, and eerie phenomena were all fake. When the movie hit general release, they would go and debunk it themselves.

However, after the public screening…

The phrase “There’s something unclean in the movie theater” shot straight to the top of the trending list.

Those once-confident, naive viewers were now scared out of their wits. They desperately wanted to slap their past selves awake and shake Fang Mingge’s shoulders, demanding to know if he had messed with something that shouldn’t be messed with.

【Fine, you stirred up whatever you stirred up, but why did you have to film it?! I have no grudge against you—I’m just a random moviegoer—why must you torment me like this?!】

The audience was filled with resentment, flooding the internet with complaints and curses.

But Fang Mingge offered no response.

Before viewers could come up with some way to ease their fear, another news story suddenly dropped onto the trending list, with a deep red “BREAKING” tag attached.

【Massive sea monster spotted in island nation waters, suspected to be a mutated octopus.】

Shaken to the core, netizens felt an overwhelming sense of unease.

With trembling hands, they clicked into the trending topic.

The next second, a crystal-clear photo filled their screens.

A monstrous, Lovecraftian (subgenre of horror) nightmare, rising from the ocean, sending towering waves crashing against the island. Against its sheer immensity, humans were nothing but ants.

And behind it, something even larger.

A colossal black shadow, its blood-red eyes slowly opening. Its lips curled into an unnaturally wide grin.

This wasn’t Photoshopped.

That realization struck every viewer with absolute, terrifying clarity.

In a single instant, they understood the truth.

—The world really was undergoing spiritual power revival.