Chapter 12: Genius!
Another “click” sounded lightly, and the screen lit up again.
The image appeared.
“Wait?”
But with the image that had just appeared, Aiai Takeshita was completely stunned.
Having seen many exquisite animated films before, she never imagined that the image she was seeing now even had a style from the ancient era, from the time before she was born.
“What the hell is this!?” Aiai Takeshita felt a spark of anger rise in her heart.
She thought she was being toyed with.
Because what appeared on the screen was an extremely crude style similar to “Kamishibai”—that is, a magic lantern show-like static painting style.
The characters were like paper figures cut out from yellowed old paper, with stiff movements and simplistic scenes.
In the background sound, a man wearing a mask used a hoarse and eerie tone, clapping clappers, and ghostly narrating the opening remarks.
“Come one, come all, don’t miss out, An Shizhi time is here…”
Aiai Takeshita’s brows instantly furrowed.
What was this? A student work?
That stubborn old man Kiyoto Suzuki, had he gone mad? Submitting this thing to the Audit Department?
She leaned back on the chair back, arms crossed, her face already showing some impatience and disappointment.
She decided that if within one minute, this thing didn’t show any redeeming qualities, she would shut it off directly and write “amateurish, crude, not approved” in the review opinion.
The story of the first episode began.
The title was—《Fu Nü》.
On the screen, there was a young man who had just moved into a new apartment. The apartment’s walls, door, walls, and even the ceiling were all covered with many strange talismans.
The narration, in an emotionless tone, described how the man didn’t take it seriously, just thinking the previous tenant was somewhat superstitious.
Then, he noticed.
In the window of the opposite apartment, there was always a long-haired woman quietly watching his side.
Whether day or dark night, as long as he looked out the window, the woman was there, motionless, her black long hair covering her face, only a blurry outline visible.
Seeing this, Aiai Takeshita’s crossed arms unconsciously loosened.
Her body silently leaned forward slightly once again.
An indescribable sense of familiarity quietly spread from the bottom of her heart.
She remembered when she was in her early twenties, to save money, she had also rented an old apartment in a remote corner of Tokyo. That building was equally dim and damp, the corridor lights flickering on and off, the neighbors all with blurred faces, carrying the indifference and alienation unique to urban people.
She seemed to… have had a strange neighbor once too.
And at this moment, Aiai Takeshita discovered that as the plot deepened, she seemed to have quickly grown accustomed to this crude animation production in the shortest time.
She even felt that this slideshow-like animation, after seeing too many exquisite animations, had a unique sense of contrast.
“Then I’ll keep watching.” Aiai Takeshita pursed her lips and chose to continue watching.
The story continued.
The man began to feel uneasy; he drew the curtains, but always felt that gaze could penetrate everything. Things in the house started moving on their own, and at night he always heard strange scratching sounds.
He grew more and more afraid and remembered those talismans. But when he came back from work, he found the door unlocked, and more talismans had been posted on the walls.
Just as the man, somewhat annoyed, wanted to tear off this talisman, the woman suddenly appeared.
Sudden face kill!
“Ugh!” Even Aiai Takeshita was startled; unknowingly, she had become immersed in it.
Then the police came and took away the woman who had broken into someone else’s room. But just before leaving, the woman was still saying something to the man, seemingly a warning.
But the man didn’t hear clearly and was still puzzled.
So the man didn’t take it seriously, thinking she was just mentally ill.
Back home, looking at the footprints all over the floor, he helplessly wiped the room with a rag.
Until he lifted a round table and found the underside of the table covered full of talismans.
“These talismans…”
Aiai Takeshita’s heart skipped a beat for no reason.
She remembered her own home, where a traffic safety amulet from Senso-ji Temple hung at the entrance, and her mother had also sent so-called blessed shrine talismans to put in her wallet to ward off evil.
These seemingly superstitious things had long integrated into Japanese people’s daily life, becoming a kind of psychological comfort.
The man in the story, trembling hysterically, tore off many talismans.
At the moment when fragments of talismans filled the air as they were torn down—
The screen suddenly cut!
One by one, vengeful spirits appeared above the protagonist’s head as if hanged, accompanied by some eerie heartbeat sound, and the screen instantly went black!
“Whoosh!”
Aiai Takeshita abruptly stood up from the chair; the chair slid backward due to her movement, its wheels screeching against the floor.
Her chest heaved violently, her heart pounding as if it would jump out of her throat, frantically slamming against her ribs.
“Thump! Thump! Thump!”
The office was very quiet; she could even clearly hear her own thunderous heartbeat.
A drop of cold sweat slid down from her temple, icy cold and piercing.
It was over?
Just like that, it ended?
What happened to that man? What was that Fu Nü?
No explanation, no follow-up, only that abrupt moment of terror sufficient to leave endless shadows in one’s heart.
Unlike the causal, complete “story-like” terror of 《Oni-bō Samurai》, what 《An Shizhi》 brought was a purely irrational, phenomenal terror!
It was like a poison-laced needle that precisely stabbed into the softest, most everyday part of your heart when you were completely off guard.
It made you doubt if your home was safe, doubt the shadowy figures outside your window, doubt the stains on your ceiling, doubt every moment you took for granted yet became terrifying upon reflection.
If they were Japanese people on Earth, they would know this is the essence of urban legends!
But the Japanese people of this parallel world’s Blue Star didn’t know.
Aiai Takeshita slowly sat back in the chair, picked up the water cup on the desk, took a big gulp of water, and barely suppressed the churning palpitations.
Her hands were still slightly trembling.
Having been in the industry for so many years, she had reviewed hundreds of horror theme works—gory ones, disgusting ones, ones that toyed with humanity—but none could make her feel such real, belated fear after watching like this crude, low-cost magic lantern show.
She didn’t even dare to recall that old apartment she had lived in back then, didn’t dare to think about that neighbor with the blurred face.
“Kiyoto Suzuki… Hiroshi Nohara…”
Aiai Takeshita looked at that simple proposal, murmuring these two names.
She picked up the video tape, looking at the three words 《An Shizhi》 on it, her eyes bursting with an unprecedented light.
It was the surprise and excitement of discovering a rare treasure.
“Genius…” She sincerely uttered these two words: “This is absolutely a genius idea!”
