165. He Didn't Understand, but He Was Deeply Shaken
After the movie ended, many audience members remained seated, listening to the end credits song.
The ending theme song is also called "Crying," and it's a song of utter despair sung by a gentle girl in the softest of tones.
If you only listen to the lyrics of this song, you will only feel that it is sad and beautiful. But after watching the movie and learning about the background of the song, the song becomes more meaningful. It is full of a mother's infinite love for her unborn child. Even though the child has died, she is still full of affection and hopes to exchange her own life for his health.
Bai Qiquan doesn't like sentimental movies. He finds most of them awkward and believes that resonance is something that can't be forced. He's just a college student who grew up peacefully with his family still alive and well, so he can't understand the sadness of separation and death.
But this movie is different. In just over ninety minutes, he seems to have personally experienced all the strange events in the hospital. Even when the mother whose name he doesn't know is telling her story, Bai Qiquan himself.
He didn't understand, but he was deeply shocked.
It can only be attributed to the director's excellent filming and the actors' strong delivery of lines.
Many actors nowadays lack basic acting skills; they speak in a strained voice, without any sense of intonation or rhythm. They sound worse than machines when they read lines.
This is why some movies and TV series, even though they are spoken in Mandarin, still need to be dubbed.
The movie ended, and somewhat disappointingly, there were no post-credits scenes.
The problem arose when the audience began to leave.
Many people cannot stand up.
Some Bai Qiquan are so frightened that their whole body tenses up and their nerves become highly strained, resulting in their legs going numb; others are so frightened that they become Pang Zhen and their legs go weak.
So, it's not really that everyone wanted to hear the end credits song or was deeply moved.
It's due to physiological reasons.
After a while, someone stood up, grabbed a chair, and headed towards the exit.
Bai Qiquan and his girlfriend waited for a while until they calmed down before heading outside.
The mall was already closed, and the dim lighting made the once bustling shops seem somewhat eerie. People leaving the movie theater split into two groups, blocking the exit.
One group went to the restroom, because almost no one dared to go to the restroom alone during the movie, which resulted in a large number of people, especially girls, going to the restroom after the movie ended.
Another group, somewhat amusingly, were those who dared not cross through shopping malls that were already closed.
"Do we really have to walk this way? Is there any other way?"
"I'm a little scared, do we have to take the elevator downstairs later?"
"Could you please ask the property management to turn on a light? It's so dark, what if someone slips and falls?"
Bai Qiquan found it rather amusing that a group of young people in their twenties were afraid to walk through the dimly lit mall to take the elevator.
At that moment, a voice emerged.
"How can someone so old be so frightened?"
He was a fairly tall guy who came to see a movie with his friends. When he saw a group of people blocking the entrance to the cinema, he called out.
"Then you go first."
The person next to him chimed in.
"Let's go then."
The boy and his friend walked forward and entered the mall, which wasn't actually very dark.
Seeing the two people walk away, the other audience members seemed relieved and prepared to leave.
Just then, a startled cry came from ahead, which jolted everyone awake.
Then we saw the two boys who had been so brave just moments before running back in a panic, scrambling and stumbling, showing none of their previous courage.
"It seems... it seems there really is something."
The boy, who had previously been fearless, pointed to the corner ahead with a trembling voice.
Everyone gasped.
"How about we go back and find the security guard?"
Someone made a suggestion.
As people returned from the restroom, more and more people gathered at the entrance of the movie theater. Some even took out their phones to film videos and upload them to Weibo or the short video account of Tomorrow Online.
Bai Qiquan thought about it. Although he wasn't too scared, his girlfriend obviously didn't want to take the elevator downstairs at this time.
Moreover, after what happened with those two boys, people who were already somewhat uneasy and hesitant were even more reluctant to go downstairs.
Some things are better believed than not!
Helpless, he could only turn around and go back to the movie theater.
There are no midnight screenings here; the staff are preparing to pack up.
Bai Qiquan found a staff member and asked.
"Could you lend us a high-powered flashlight?"
"What do you need a flashlight for? There should be lights outside."
The staff were puzzled.
"Everyone... everyone was scared by the movie and didn't dare to go downstairs."
Bai Qiquan explained awkwardly.
The staff member gave him a strange look, then glanced at the other spectators gathered outside.
"Wait a moment."
He went to the storage room and took out a flashlight.
"Let me take you downstairs."
Finally, a very dedicated staff member took the lead and managed to lead the group of trembling moviegoers out of the mall.
"Can you go home by yourselves? I'll take you downstairs, but I'm not responsible for taking you home."
He even joked.
This experience was naturally filmed and uploaded online.
The staff member found it a bit strange. When he returned to the cinema, his colleagues had almost finished packing up, leaving him as the last one to leave. After thinking about it, he became curious about just how scary the movie was, that these viewers were too afraid to even go downstairs.
He went to the employees' rest area, pulled up the video, and prepared to watch it before going home.
That evening, topics related to "Crying" quietly gained traction on Weibo.
Apart from the screening with Bai Qiquan, other screenings of "The Crying" also encountered problems to varying degrees.
For example, in one screening, a parent insisted on bringing their elementary school-aged child to see the movie despite the staff's advice. As a result, the child was so frightened that they burst into tears and had to be taken out of the theater.
For example, in one show, an audience member who went to the restroom locked himself inside and started crying and screaming. He was rescued by staff after a long time, which frightened several other people who went to the restroom.
For example, in one movie, a couple was arguing at the beginning, which disturbed other viewers, but the noise stopped as the movie progressed, and by the end, the two had made up.
It's rare to see a group of people, like Bai Qiquan, so gripped by fear that they couldn't leave the movie theater.
How could young people who lack motivation during the day but are full of energy when scrolling through their phones at night listen to this?
That very evening, tickets for "The Cry" were sold out for the following day, especially the latest late-night showing.
Many people want to see just how terrifying a movie can be that can scare audiences like this!
Thank you to "571631. qdcn" for the 200-coin reward, and thank you to "Book Friend 20210117233811268", "Reading Books with Middle-Aged Illness", "Crazy Crazy", and "Azure Soul" for the 100-coin rewards!