Dark Light Chaser.

Chapter 416 (Can't think of a title)

Taking advantage of the fact that no one was around, the two front desk staff began to engage in a war of words, exchanging polite greetings and various sarcastic remarks.

Although arguments are common in movie theaters, most of those arguments happen between couples. This is the first time I've ever seen a waiter arguing.

However, even if you can't watch the movie, just watching these two argue makes the movie ticket feel worthwhile.

It's a real loss that these two don't perform crosstalk.

The three sat on a bench at the entrance of the cinema for a short while before heading to the ticket checkpoint to enter.

After taking their seats, Ai Liang sat down between the two, and the movie officially began.

What was playing on the screen was not an art-house romance film, but a suspenseful science fiction film.

Yue Qihua bought the movie tickets, and naturally, she also chose the movie.

Given Kika Yoshiyuki's personality, it's not surprising that she would choose this type of movie.

Surprisingly, Yang Xingyue did not object, perhaps because she considered that Ai Liang also did not like watching romance movies.

The film tells the story of a gifted child with a blank expression and behavior patterns resembling those of someone with Asperger's syndrome.

The film begins by showing a conference room where a group of researchers are arguing about something, before the perspective shifts to the young boy who is still a child.

In the first half of the movie, apart from the protagonist's rather strange behavior and his abnormal talent in science, there are no other science fiction elements to be seen.

As the story unfolds, with the help of his parents, friends, teachers, neighbors, and other people around him, the protagonist gradually changes his introverted personality, and his expressions begin to become more vivid and lively.

After a Chinese language exam, the protagonist scored points on the reading comprehension section for the first time. The whole class, including the teacher, applauded him from the bottom of their hearts, while the protagonist responded with an unnatural, stiff smile.

In the days to come, the male protagonist attends junior high and high school. With the encouragement of his classmates, he eventually succeeds in being admitted to the renowned humanities and arts college of Asia Union.

The protagonist of his university days has grown into a warm, cheerful, and sunny young man.

At this point, the movie was already halfway through, and at first glance, it seemed like a normal coming-of-age inspirational film.

Upon seeing this, Ai Liang couldn't help but turn to look at Yue Qihua. He had reason to suspect that Yue Qihua had mistaken herself for the male lead in the movie.

Ai Liang was sitting in the middle, and if he made any unusual movements, the two of them would definitely notice it out of the corner of their eyes.

"Look what I'm doing."

Yue Qihua noticed Ai Liang's gaze and turned her head to ask.

"It's nothing." Ai Liang turned her gaze back to the screen.

At this moment, Yang Xingyue raised her hand and poked Ai Liang's arm: "Hehe, the movie's protagonist looks a lot like you, doesn't he?"

"When Huahua was choosing a movie, she saw that the character's personality description was exactly the same as yours, so we both chose this movie."

Yang Xingyue's explanation made Yue Qihua blush deeply: "N-no, it's just that the other two movies released at the same time are notorious for being terrible online, and this one is the only one that was just released and I haven't seen it yet..."

It is very impolite to talk in a movie theater, but all three of them kept their voices very low.

Moreover, there were fewer than ten people in the entire screening room, and the sound was drowned out by the movie sound before it could travel more than two meters.

It won't bother anyone at all.

Similar to me? I can't show my emotions and deliberately appear indifferent.

The protagonist of the movie has a lack of mirror neurons, so he doesn't have any normal human emotions at all.

Yang Xingyue's words had too many flaws, and Ai Liang didn't know where to begin, so she could only refocus her attention on the movie.

As the movie officially entered its second half, the plot suddenly took a bizarre turn.

The laboratory scenes, which only flashed by in the first half of the story when the protagonist graduated from elementary, middle, and high school and were completely unrelated to the current plot, began to appear frequently.

At first, the audience thought that these laboratory scenes were foreshadowing the protagonist's future work, which would involve solving problems that even the top researchers couldn't solve.

After all, the protagonist has a very strong talent for science, which is a perfect match for the mysterious and impressive instruments in the experiments.

But as the audience watched, they began to realize that something was amiss.

The protagonist is currently studying at an art college, which has virtually nothing to do with physics.

What was the point of those fleeting images? Was it just to create suspense?

The movie is nearing its end, and the protagonist smoothly graduates from university and begins working as a folklorist.

Just when the audience thought this was a campus story disguised as science fiction and suspense,

The group of people in white coats in the lab finally appeared in the same shot as the protagonist for the first time.

They politely invited the male protagonist into their car and took him into a military base.

Here, the protagonist meets his parents, neighbors, teachers, college roommates, and other people who are often around him.

A man dressed as a manager stepped forward and revealed his identity to the male protagonist.

The protagonist is not actually human; his true form is a humanoid biological computer made of special materials.

The past ten years or so have been spent conducting intelligent AI experiments in order to give the protagonist human consciousness.

At the end of the film, the person in charge invites the protagonist to join the laboratory, and the film abruptly ends before the protagonist can give an answer.

It's obvious they're planning a sequel.

As the movie ended, the audience members in the theater gradually got up and left, with the vast majority complaining.

Words like "watched something pointless," "bad movie," and "boring" repeatedly appeared in people's discussions.

This includes Yang Xingyue.

"I thought this was a campus story that was mistakenly categorized as science fiction... I couldn't understand what the movie was trying to express at all at the end..."

Yang Xingyue crunched on a chocolate-filled stick and complained.

"I think it's alright. There are many parts in the movie that actually hint that the protagonist is not a normal person, you just didn't look closely."

Yue Qihua shook her head and denied Yang Xingyue's opinion: "The movie arranged a lot of funny inner monologues, and everyone around the protagonist, including passersby, had them, but the protagonist's inner monologue never appeared."

Furthermore, when the protagonist encounters unexpected situations, he basically acts in accordance with the laws of the Asian Union at every step…

Yue Qihua began listing the details of the movie one by one, but Yang Xingyue tucked her hands into her sleeves and covered her ears: "I don't want to hear it! I don't want to hear it! Watching a movie is for entertainment, who cares about those things?"

"Xingyue is right, this movie is indeed quite a failure."

Ai Liang thought for a moment and then shared her opinion: "This movie completely fails to follow the narrative structure of a film story, and it is a complete failure from both a commercial and artistic point of view."

If the movie were adapted into a TV series, the ending would be a barely acceptable part.

But movies are all about compressing the plot. If people haven't even figured out what the story is going to be after nearly two hours, forcing a sequel with suspense will likely only attract a small audience.

(End of this chapter)