Knowing that the Butterfly might do something to him at the living compound, Han Fei was still not that nervous. He had already contacted Li Xue before he arrived and the police was notified of his movement. Han Fei was no longer the innocent extra thanks to the Iyashikei game. He could easily meld into the crowd and no one would have known he was a martial arts expert just from his appearance alone. These were all skills Han Fei had mastered from the cryptic world. The man who had been investigating the Butterfly had some of the supercriminal’s property rubbed off on him.
However, the scariest thing was the speed by which Han Fei had grown. The Butterfly had lost the perfect window to murder the man. The Butterfly no longer had a superb advantage. A fight between Han Fei and the Butterfly now would be a level playing field.
Closing the book he was holding, Han Fei was about to check the other places inside the study when his phone vibrated. It was Director Zhang calling everyone to gather downstairs. After leaving Room 401, as Han Fei walked down the stairs, he could hear the sound of windchimes being carried on the wind. The sun started to set and night arrived. The crew was still setting up the place. Director Zhang and the other actors walked into the factory living compound. During this period Han Fei had sought out Director Zhang to remind him of the danger of the Butterfly and to request for additional security. However, Han Fei’s warning appeared to fall on deaf ears. Even a supercriminal was not going to stop him from completing this film.
Director Zhang poured a lot of heart into this project, he was not going to let anything stand in his way. He spent the whole afternoon going over the script with the actors, helping them analyse the individual persona of the Spider. To reconstruct the truth as much as possible, Director Zhang even found the psychiatrist who had once treated Spider and brought him to the set. Now, other than Han Fei, all the other actors had a deeper understanding of their character. Everyone knew that it would be beneficial for everyone for the movie to get popular so they paid full attention during the lessons.
“Come on, let’s get into the set and begin the rehearsal.” Director Zhang and 2 other workers led all the actors into the living compound. They headed straight for the 4th floor. This particular floor had been cleared so it was quiet. “You should have read the scripts already, right? The Spider did not originally stay at this place. All the personas had gathered to decide the location to make their new home. Based on the plot from the House of the Butcher, they needed their new home to be somewhere special. In the end, as we know now, the Spider chose Fu Gui Meat Factory Living Compound. After they moved in here, strange events kept happening and the personas got mysteriously murdered one after another.” Pushing open the door to Room 404, Director Zhang walked in. “To prevent the shooting from damaging Spider’s actual house, we have duplicated his house in Room 404. You don’t need to worry about damaging anything here, everything here has spares in the warehouse.”
The 9 actors filtered into the room. Based on the script, they moved to sit at different locations inside the room. “I’ve given everyone one whole afternoon to study their characters, I will leave the stage to you now. Hopefully everyone will get into the state as soon as possible and embody the characters.” Director Zhang wanted to see the chemistry between the different actors and at the same time, work out any kinks that needed adjusting. The 8 other characters had a fixed personality, Han Fei’s character was an exception. When Director Zhang left the room, he even levelled an encouraging gaze at Han Fei.
The door closed and Director Zhang left with the crew. Room 404 which was a remodel of Spider’s Room now only had the 9 actors inside it. Scanning all of the other actors, Han Fei put down the script and went through everyone’s info in his mind.
Han Fei: The first persona, aka the author. The character’s age is 31, entangled in a deep web of self-conflict and separation. Personality unknown, requires a good actor to bring him to life.
Zhang Lie (C List Actor, known for his antagonist roles): Second sub persona, 32 years old, aka the brute. Easily angered, brash and has an explosive temper. Good at fighting and has a martial arts background.
Bai Xian (B List Actor, nominated twice for Best Actor of the Year): Third sub persona, 40 years old, aka the doctor. Mature, rationality, careful, but sometimes paranoiac, the glue that holds the other personas together. He fixes the problems between the different personas and hopes that everyone can coexist in peace.
Xiao Tong (A former singer turned actor, has a huge fanbase): Fourth sub persona, 21 years old, aka the university student. Happy-go-lucky, optimistic, hardworking, a complete opposite from the Spider. The type of person whom the Spider is the most envious of.
Lee Ran (New B List Actor): Fifth sub persona, 27 years old, aka the teacher. Pretty, kind, gentle, responsible for education and conflict negotiation.
Lee Huaiming (A list Actor): Sixth sub persona, 64 years old, aka Uncle Lee. Extremely cunning, will do anything for his own survival. Appears harmless on the surface but is actually extremely psychopathic, has a serious antisocial tendency.
Candy (Famous child actor): Seventh sub persona, 11 years old, aka the Dreamer. Young, innocent and naïve, has a stutter, is an accidental witness to many things. She loves to paint.
He Wanqiu (Former A List Actor, now a special lecturer at Xin Lu Film and Television Academy): Eighth sub persona, 49 years old, aka the chef. The second most complicated character after the author. Before the first murder, he has serious cleanliness issues. He is extremely kind and is responsible for all the cleaning around the home; But after the first kill, his personality shifted greatly, turning from the chef to the butcher.
Fu Sisi (C List Actor, a well-loved romance novel writer): Ninth sub persona, aka the reader. Loves to communicate with the author, rarely appears at the House of the Butcher. Most of the time, she communicates with the author via letter correspondence. There are some arguments regarding her existence, some believed she is the first sub persona while others did not think she existed at all.
The 9 individuals were all good actors. Based on the internet actor ranking, actors between rank 50 to 200 would be B list actors, while actors between rank 201 to 500 would be C list actors. Someone like Han Fei who was ranked several thousand plus was nothing compared to the others. He was chosen by Director Zhang because of his stellar performance in Twin Flower. However, different from Ah Cheng, none of the other actors underestimated Han Fei. They all knew that there had to be something about Han Fei to make Director Zhang leave such an important role to him.
After a temporary silence as the door closed, the middle-aged man with the feminine good looks put down the script, “Let’s skip the pleasantries, we are all public figures so there is no need for self-introduction. Let’s get into character and try to act out the first scene where the Spider first got his idea to kill.” He referred to the scene where the 9 personas had gathered together for the first time. “It happened inside Spider’s room, Director Zhang has done everything to remodel a similar setting for us so we should try our best to restore the Spider’s original frame of thought.” The middle-aged man was Bai Xian. He was a famous actor but he had no arrogant air. Everything he said and did was for the sake of the movie.
Bai Xian glanced at the clock. “We’ll start at 8 pm sharp. Since this is a rehearsal, there might be some halts here and there. Do not be worried about them, just keep on going. The purpose of this exercise is for us to get used to each other’s acting habits and to understand each other’s styles. We’ll stop and have a revision session once the dry run is over. After all, this is also a rare chance for us to learn from each other.” There was still some time until 8 pm. The actors used their own method to get into character while Han Fei silently looked out the window at the night outside.
‘The old man on the 5th floor has warned repeatedly to not discuss anything related to the Spider after dark, it’ll lead to tragedies if you do. It is as if… an invisible ghost lives at this place.’ Han Fei had reminded Director Zhang and the other crew members about it but no one seemed to mind it that much. In other words, no matter what Han Fei said or did, the show must go on.
At that moment, all Han Fei could do was to do his best to look after the others, to prevent them from falling victim to the Butterfly. Han Fei was suddenly hit by an inspiration when he studied the 8 other people in the room. ‘The Spider has experienced something like this before. It was why he had decided to use murder to reach salvation, or to use salvation to achieve murder…’
The clues about the Spider floated up in his mind and intertwined together. Han Fei allowed his own memory and emotion to submerge. At that moment, he was the Spider. He was envisioning the capture of the Butterfly through the mindset of the Spider.
