Everyone instantly moved away from the window, instinctively gathering around Mu Yiran as if that was the safest place.
Surrounded, Mu Yiran thought,
"...Which photo did you take before you noticed the problem?" Ke Xun, feeling squeezed out of his "teammate circle" by the big guy Cao Youning, simply asked the photographer directly, "Why did the 'click' sound in the first photo seem faster than the second?"
Mai Peng tried to remain calm: "Yes, the shutter speed of the first photo was faster than the second. The first one was a test shot; I chose my usual 1/250 second, a speed suitable for photographing people in normal motion. I felt my hand was handling it well, so I decided to try a slower shutter speed. Actually, slow shutter speeds are best for night scenes, so I tried 1/30 second. I thought this speed could barely tolerate the error caused by my shaky hands."
Mai Peng paused, then continued, "Only when taking the first photo..." Seeing the two bright spots by the window, even though the second photo was taken from a different position, the window was still within the frame. Unfortunately, it was so bright when I took the picture that my eyes were blurry, and I didn't get a chance to see anything.
Ke Xun thought for a moment and then made a bold suggestion: "We only have one roll of film left. Do you dare to take a picture of what's outside?"
Mai Peng: "Outside the door?"
Ke Xun stood up and walked to Mai Peng's side: "Yes, let's open the door a crack, point the lens at the corridor outside, and take a picture. I'll go with you."
Mai Peng felt her hands were sweating as she held the camera. She wiped them on her cotton robe and then held the camera steady again: "Okay, I'll try."
The others in the room didn't say anything more. Even though they thought it was risky, clues often come from danger, and getting into the picture was itself a risky process.
Ke Xun accompanied Mai Peng to the door and gently opened the latch. The darkness outside was like a thick fog, threatening to engulf the entire room at any moment.
"I'll hold the door shut. Try not to lean out. Just shoot through the crack." Ke Xun stood behind the door, narrowing the crack to the width of a camera lens. "Go ahead and shoot."
Mai Peng took a deep breath, feeling reassured by Ke Xun's tone. He steadied himself, holding the camera steady, and quickly finished shooting. Perhaps afraid of disturbing anyone or anything outside, Mai Peng didn't use the flash. —Some things can be captured even without a flash.
Ke Xun pulled Mai Peng back into the room, quickly closed the door, and bolted it. "Did you find anything new on that last shot?"
Mai Peng replied somewhat sheepishly, "I didn't dare look. Besides, it was pitch black outside, so I couldn't see anything. I just adjusted the aperture and distance appropriately, and to avoid my hands shaking, I set the shutter speed to 1/60 of a second."
"That went smoothly," Ke Xun said, pulling Mai Peng back to the table and noticing that her hands were already a little cold. "The next step is developing the film."
The newcomers began to prepare for developing the film, and under the direction of Mai Peng and Xi Shengnan, they gradually divided the tasks clearly and proceeded in an orderly manner.
The veteran members assisted from the side. About an hour later, the roll of film was finally fixed and could be taken out of the developing tank.
Everyone turned on their phone flashlights, and Xin Chun also peered over with bright eyes.
"Very successful, even more successful than expected." Mai Peng slowly unrolled the film, his focused gaze sweeping over each frame of the images. "The room temperature here is too low, so the image grain is a bit large. Even by controlling the water temperature and time, we can only guarantee basic clarity."
Du Lingyu couldn't help but say, "To produce such a negative under these conditions is already incredible."
Most people remained silent, simply staring intently at the film pattern in Mai Peng's hand, each frame like a tiny world, leaving behind eternal light and shadow.
Because it was Lu Heng's film, he looked at it with extra care: "The first few frames were taken on the mountain. Looking further, the highway, yes, and then the sunset, yes, the city night view. That's right, the night view I took before loading the film was last night."
This sentence sounded rather melancholic.
But no one had time to dwell on melancholy. Fourteen pairs of eyes (including Xin Chun's) were fixed on the slowly unfolding city night view. A dozen night views slowly passed before their eyes, and finally, a night view of the TV tower was displayed.
"This is the last one; she'll be in the picture after that." Lu Heng's voice was a little weak.
The next picture—Du Lingyu couldn't help but scream, then covered her mouth tightly with her hand, hiding behind Cao Youning. Cao Youning wasn't in a good state either; his plump body trembled slightly: "What...what is this? Oh my god...this woman is terrifying."
The entire picture was light gray, seemingly indoors, with the blurry shadow of a dark gray woman, seemingly running. Because the picture was too small, it was impossible to see clearly.
Fang Fei stared at the screen for a long time: "I think this is the second floor of the Lantern Pavilion, the place where we went to see the deceased Xia Yu today. I remember these wooden pillars very clearly, and the overall layout is basically the same."
Lu Heng was completely flustered, stammering for a long time without being able to speak coherently: "I, yes, I, I took this picture from this spot, but, but, but, there were many people when I took the picture, and the deceased was lying there covered with a white sheet! You, you were all there, you all saw it!"
Wei Dong patted Lu Heng on the shoulder: "Yes, this is where we were standing, there are two pillars in front, and it was full of people... But, how could the photo look like this? Who is this woman? Why is she running? This is too bizarre."
"The woman seemed to run incredibly fast, completely blurry, like a gray shadow," Qin Ci commented. "We could only vaguely make out it was a woman from her hairstyle."
Lu Heng hesitated for a moment before saying, "The blurry figure is easy to explain, because I used a very slow speed, only 1/16 of a second. I… I was originally planning to photograph a corpse…" He glanced at Xi Shengnan beside him, who patted his hand, seemingly to comfort him.
Mai Peng continued, "If you used such a slow speed, then the figure wasn't actually moving very fast. Judging from the blurriness, this person's speed was actually slower than the walking speed of an average person."
The analysis had ultimately reached a dead end.
"Let's continue." Mu Yiran broke the silence.
"Okay." Mai Peng continued to unroll the film. The next shot was of the room. The photo was completely white, perhaps because the room was too dark at the time, but the two black dots by the window were exceptionally clear. In reality, those would be two extremely bright dots.
"Woo..." Xin Chun seemed startled, leaping from the table to the bed, then running to the window, as if trying to find the shadow dog "imitating" her in the photo.
Shao Ling examined the photo carefully for a long time: "When the photo was taken, we were all sitting separately, so why is there almost no one in the photo?"
Mai Peng also found it strange: "I took the photo from the bedside towards the window, and there were many people sitting there, especially Cao Youning. He was clearly lying on the bed trying to sleep... Why, why are they all gone?"
"Let's look at the next one," Mu Yiran said.
The next photo was completely black, much darker than the previous one, showing a large group of people huddled around a table, seemingly doing something. —Clearly, this photo was brighter and therefore clearer.
Ke Xun, with his good eyesight, examined the photo carefully for a long time: "I feel like these people are..."
"Eating something," Zhu Haowen finished for Ke Xun.
Upon hearing this, Du Lingyu curled up behind Cao Youning: "I can't take it anymore, this is too outrageous and too bizarre."
Zhu Haowen frowned and looked for a while longer: "The person at the table is waving a large, spherical thing in their hand, what is that?"
"Xin Chun is in this one too," Luo Yi noticed a dog at the table, "its eyes aren't as bright, but Xin Chun seems to be eating something, a huge pile, oh my god, what is it eating..."
"Look at the last one," Mu Yiran said.
Mai Peng felt like he had completely stopped thinking, now only mechanically following orders. He stiffly moved the film in his hand, revealing the last one. Half of the last one was pure black, as if the photo was only half a picture.
Everyone was mentally prepared; everyone remembered what the last photo was of—it was the one Ke Xun and Mai Peng took through the crack in the door, looking down into the corridor. Who knew what would appear in this one?
Mai Peng wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "I can explain the half-image. Although this roll of film has 36 exposures, because the entire camera was restored to an old-fashioned style, the film also became the original film. I discovered this when I was developing the film. This roll of film was manually wound from a large black-and-white reel. You can tell from the shape of the trimmed top that it was manually trimmed."
"What do you mean? I didn't quite understand," Wei Dong asked.
"It means that the film wound by the user might not be exactly 36 exposures. A tight hand might wind 37 exposures, while a loose hand might only wind 35. This roll was wound loosely, so it only has 35 and a half exposures. That's why the last photo we see is only half a photo."
"Oh..." Wei Dong also wiped the sweat from his forehead. "It made me think that only half of the world outside the door was left."
Even though only half a photo remained, its horror still exceeded people's expectations.
The negative was grayish, not as white as expected, but the contrast was relatively clear. Everyone could immediately identify that this was the wooden corridor by the door. What was terrifying was that a very close figure was standing in the doorway, directly opposite the crack in the door. Because the image was only half-image, only half of the figure was visible. Due to the backlighting, it appeared very white on the negative, but facial features were indistinct. There were two very dark dots on the left chest of the figure.
"Oh my god..." Mai Peng's hands trembled. "Could it be that when we were taking pictures outside, there was someone outside?! And this person seems to be about to come in! And he's so close to the lens! Could it be that he's already in the room?"
At this moment, it was difficult for everyone to remain calm. They huddled together, fearing that the figure "slipping in" through the crack in the door would suddenly attack.
Du Lingyu completely covered her ears, unable to bear listening any longer.
Fang Fei squinted and stared at the negative for a while: "The black dots on this person's left chest and left arm should be two very bright dots in reality, right? I feel like this person is holding something, like an animal, an animal with eyes as bright as a spring."