Chapter 245: Shadow Puppets and Lamplight (11)
As they stepped into the third courtyard, Yan Shixun had already swept his gaze across the place.
Just as the old ticket seller had said, the third courtyard was filled with items related to Baizhi Lake’s shadow puppetry archives.
Inside the surrounding rooms, aside from some discs and paper materials, there were no shadow puppets or stage props to be found.
The rooms had clearly long been abandoned. A thick layer of dust coated every surface, cobwebs hung everywhere, and the whole place exuded a sense of decay and desolation.
Yet at this moment, every piece of paper pasted on the windows and doors had turned into shadow puppet screens, with the setting sun acting as the light source for the show.
But the light was clearly outside, and the shadows should have fallen inward—yet instead, they cast themselves vividly onto the brittle, yellowing paper on the windows.
In the blink of an eye, both Yan Shixun and Zhang Wubing felt as if they were no longer standing in a deserted and lifeless courtyard—
But sitting below a shadow puppet stage.
Where the courtyard had once been empty, old-fashioned wooden tables and chairs suddenly appeared. In the dimming light, their polished red wood gleamed. Feet landed quietly on the intact blue stone tiles.
Yan Shixun’s gaze slowly lifted.
On each long bench sat villagers with indistinct faces.
They wore clothes of an older style, and their facial features looked like melted pigments, blurred and impossible to make out.
But their laughter still rang out clearly.
The villagers lounged with one leg crossed over the other, holding sunflower seeds in their hands, eagerly awaiting the start of the shadow puppet show as drums and gongs played.
Every face Yan Shixun looked at disappeared into the shifting shadows, half-lit and half-dark, as if grinning ghosts were applauding human misery, clapping excitedly in anticipation of seeing living people fall into despair.
Zhang Wubing sat beside Yan Shixun on the same bench, his eyes still wide and vacant, utterly dull, as though his soul wasn’t present. The body sitting beside Yan Shixun seemed no more than an empty shell.
Yan Shixun quickly noticed something was wrong with Zhang Wubing.
But he didn’t make any sudden moves. He remained calmly seated, coldly observing everything around him.
Heaven and earth no longer seemed to exist within this courtyard. It felt as if this entire space had been cut off from the rest of the world.
With the Dao no longer in control, humans, gods, and ghosts all fell into chaos. Even Yan Shixun couldn’t determine whether the villagers here were people or ghosts, or whether this place was real or an illusion.
If what he was in now was merely a nightmare conjured by evil spirits, then by coming here to find Zhang Wubing, who was to say he hadn’t just dragged him into the nightmare too?
If that were the case, then he would have personally doomed Zhang Wubing.
—Such was the trick of evil spirits.
They loved watching people chase after what they thought was hope, only to reveal the truth at the moment they believed they had escaped. They thrived on watching humans collapse in horror, crying in despair after realizing they had brought harm to their own loved ones.
Yan Shixun slightly lifted his lashes, his gaze turning coldly to the stage in front of him.
Until he figured out the truth, he would not act rashly.
Who knew if this stage… might be about to perform a story related to him?
Yan Shixun sat steadily on the bench. His black trousers outlined his long, straight legs with smooth lines. A long black coat draped over his shoulders, one side slipping off the bench with a sharp curve.
Beneath that coat, his muscular build remained taut and firm, the power hidden beneath his skin silently lurking, ready to spring into action should any crisis arise.
If any of those “villagers” around them made a wrong move—
Yan Shixun would strike without hesitation.
He slightly lowered his lashes, his handsome features like a sheathed blade—like a sleeping tiger with its eyes closed in silence.
Even in such a strange and eerie place, Yan Shixun remained calm and composed. Not a trace of emotion crossed his face. It was as if he were simply sitting in the courtyard of his own home.
His back was perfectly straight, like a pine tree or a sword, unwavering.
His broad and solid shoulders easily withstood all the cold and hostile gazes coming at him from every direction. He remained unshaken by the villagers’ malicious stares.
Zhang Wubing’s soul was unaccounted for. The condition of the program team remained unknown. Even the nature of this very place was a mystery.
Yet Yan Shixun’s sharp brows and calm gaze remained undisturbed, unshaken by the danger before him.
The courtyard had transformed into an old-style theater. All around, red lanterns lit up one by one in the darkness, casting a crimson glow over everyone’s faces.
The drums began to sound.
The show was about to start.
The villagers slowly and stiffly turned their heads. Their eyes, which had been locked onto Yan Shixun, now shifted in unison toward the stage.
Behind the dim yellow curtain, lights flared to life.
A woman’s shadow flashed across the screen in an instant.
Then, the shadow puppet show officially began. One finely crafted shadow puppet after another appeared behind the curtain, with props depicting mountains and rivers gradually unfolding across the screen.
Yan Shixun lifted his gaze slightly. But the moment he saw what story was being portrayed on the curtain, his eyes flew wide open.
Even though these were merely handcrafted shadow puppets—not nearly as realistic as photographs—the artisan’s masterful skill had carved each figure’s features and posture with astonishing precision, making their identities instantly recognizable.
Xie Lin.
The very first puppet to appear on stage was none other than a young and naïve version of Xie Lin.
Yan Shixun watched as a ragged boy walked into a field under the moonlight and bent down to pick up a baby wrapped in a burial shroud.
The blood had soaked through the shroud’s fabric, blooming like flowers.
The infant had no face—only a pair of black and white eyes that stared calmly at everything.
Musicians sat on either side of the shadow puppet stage, dressed in long robes. Their faces were just as blurred, but the instruments in their hands moved like falling jade and flowing water.
The mournful sound of the erhu was like a woman softly weeping in the dark, until the piercing screech of the suona broke through the deathly silence, like the final cry of a soul on the brink of death—filled with pain and refusal to go.
The young Xie Lin cradled an infant in his arms and walked away, while the outline of the village in the distance behind him was slowly engulfed by a dark shadow. Only faint traces of light shone through the windows of the village houses.
That faint glow tangled with the cold, pale moonlight, resembling the unclosed eyes of the dead, filled with unresolved gazes.
Behind the window of one of the village houses, a teenage silhouette flickered past.
Then the entire village was swallowed completely by darkness, leaving not even the slightest glimmer.
On the shadow play screen, only the silhouette of a woman remained.
Behind her, the sun rose and set again.
In the ancient theater, tinted blood-red by the glow of red lanterns, Yan Shixun sat among the audience.
Separated by the screen, he stared coldly at the woman hidden behind the curtain.
He watched the sun rise and fall thirty times.
Yin and yang cycled, the cosmos shifted, life and death alternated, prosperity gave way to decay.
Scarlet liquid began to trickle slowly from the top of the curtain. Under the illumination of the stage lights, it gradually soaked every inch of the pale yellow screen.
It also cast the woman’s figure in a bloody hue.
Her eyes stared unblinkingly at each person in the audience. Her eyeballs rolled within their sockets, sweeping from left to right.
Every villager she looked at seemed to be decapitated by an invisible blade. Heads dropped suddenly, rolling across the stone-paved ground, while blood gushed like fountains from the necks.
In the entire theater, severed heads rolled beneath every table and bench.
Headless corpses sat upright on wooden benches, their blood soaking into their clothes and flowing down to the ground, pooling into expanding puddles of red.
The blood kept spreading, creeping toward Yan Shixun’s feet. It stained the soles of his combat boots and continued to rise.
Like a rising tide, the blood rippled in waves, slapping against his boots, surging higher with each swell, as though trying to engulf him.
Yet he remained seated, unmoving, as still as a mountain.
Amid the thick, metallic stench of blood, Yan Shixun lifted his eyes and stared fixedly at the woman behind the screen. After a long silence, he finally opened his mouth and asked softly:
“Who are you?”
Even Song Ci, who was closest to Xie Lin, had never learned such detailed stories about Xie Lin’s childhood.
Xie Lin was from the southwest region. According to him, the village where he was born was near Baizhi Lake.
If this woman could recreate the events of that year through a shadow puppet performance, then perhaps she had once known Xie Lin.
Who was the teenage boy in the village?
And that Master Bai, who had once appeared in posters and newspapers with a completely different vitality—was it because something tragic had occurred in the village over the years?
As the viewer became engrossed in the story, the puppeteer behind the screen refused to offer further explanation.
The woman’s figure slowly faded.
On the stage, the musicians continued playing their instruments.
But the images appearing on the screen no longer depicted the village of the past.
Now, it was a modern highway in the southwest.
A convoy of vehicles drove along the road. The music was cheerful, and the faces of the people visible through the car windows were filled with smiles.
Yan Shixun’s eyes narrowed sharply. In an instant, he realized—the people on the screen were the production crew.
His heart sank.
If that were true, then it meant that the entity hiding behind the curtain had been watching them ever since they entered the southwest.
But why?
Was it because Xie Lin was in the car?
No one answered Yan Shixun’s questions. Even the image of the woman on the screen had already vanished.
A cold, pale full moon rose from behind the theater’s eaves. Enormous and heavy, it hung low over the courtyard, exerting a crushing pressure.
The red lanterns around the theater held no festive atmosphere at all. They swayed gently in the blood-scented wind, as if the paper itself had been dyed with blood.
The corpses of the villagers around him had long gone cold. Even the metallic scent in the air had turned heavy and putrid, unbearable to the senses.
Yet Yan Shixun remained seated in this environment. His eyes never blinked as he watched the changing scenes on the screen, trying to decipher what message the hidden ghost or spirit was attempting to convey through the shadow play.
The production crew’s convoy stopped outside the archway. One by one, the crew stepped out and passed through the gate.
In that very moment—
“Splat!” Blood suddenly burst from behind the screen, splashing across its surface.
It bloomed like crimson flowers—gorgeous, eerie.
Then the blood slowly streamed down along the petals, like the tearful bloodshed of wronged souls unable to rest in peace.
Yan Shixun’s full attention locked onto the screen. He tried desperately to see past the curtain of blood, to make out what was behind it, to understand where the blood had come from.
But just then, he suddenly felt something beside him move—Zhang Wubing, which had been lifeless and cold since the beginning, stirred.
Yan Shixun’s expression turned sharp. He whipped his head toward Zhang Wubing, and his slender hand transformed into a blade, chopping straight at Zhang Wubing’s throat.
His swift movement stirred up a gust of wind, ruffling the loose strands of hair at his temples.
The red lanterns cast their light into his eyes. Through the disheveled locks, his sharp brows and cold eyes glinted like a drawn blade—unrelenting and deadly.
The force of his strike made his coat billow. In an instant, his palm was already at Zhang Wubing’s jaw—
Zhang Wubing remembered clearly: when the strange events had begun in the courtyard, he had definitely been holding onto Yan Shixun’s arm.
In just the blink of an eye, Yan Shixun suddenly vanished from beside him.
His arm reached out only to grasp empty air, and he nearly stumbled to the ground.
Zhang Wubing shook his head and refocused, glancing to his side, only to find nothing but empty space.
Only the shadow cast by the setting sun, stretched long over the edge of the rooftop, remained.
Worst of all, the doors of every room around him began to shake violently.
As if someone was trying to push open locked doors, people seemed to be coming from all directions, heading toward the courtyard.
Panic overtook Zhang Wubing. He turned his head quickly from side to side, but everything around him spun wildly in his vision—he couldn’t find a single point of stability.
In that desperate chaos, Zhang Wubing’s heart pounded so fiercely it felt like it might burst out of his chest the next second. Other than the thundering of his own heartbeat, he could hear nothing else.
His survival instincts were screaming at him—run, run now!
Zhang Wubing could feel every muscle in his body starting to lock up. His hands trembled so much that he couldn’t even form a fist.
When people are afraid, their instincts drive them to flee what frightens them, to escape from an impossible situation, to tell themselves that everything before them is just an illusion.
But Zhang Wubing couldn’t even do that.
There was nowhere to run, and he couldn’t escape.
The courtyard in front of him and behind him were the same one. Whether he moved forward or backward, he remained inside the same courtyard. It was as if the entire world had been built around this single scene, and everything beyond it didn’t exist.
Most importantly, Yan Shixun was gone.
Zhang Wubing didn’t know what had happened in that brief moment when he lost focus, but one thing was clear—
He had lost his Brother Yan. And worse, his Brother Yan might be in danger.
He couldn’t just leave. He had to find his Brother Yan. What if… what if Brother Yan needed him right now?
Even if Brother Yan didn’t need him, he couldn’t be a burden to him. He had to try—try to save himself!
Zhang Wubing’s calves were trembling uncontrollably, but he forced himself to stand, eyes wide open, watching as the surrounding doors opened one by one.
A loud bang! echoed out.
Startled, Zhang Wubing whipped his head toward the source of the sound.
The door directly facing him had been violently flung open from the inside, crashing into the wall and splintering apart.
And someone was revealed behind that door.
But to Zhang Wubing’s horror, the thing that appeared behind the door couldn’t even be called a person.
It was a headless corpse.
The head above the neck had completely vanished. He could even see the pulsing blood vessels and muscles under the skin, with blood bubbling and gushing up from the open neck. Foam clung to the severed surface like fragile bubbles that would burst at a single touch.
Before Zhang Wubing could make sense of what was happening, another loud bang rang out near him.
Bang!
Bang!
One door after another was thrown open, revealing the figures hidden behind them.
However, unlike the silhouettes cast onto the window paper and door panels, all of these “people” had no heads.
Blood flowed and gurgled from their severed vessels, and one headless corpse after another formed a new wall, closing in around Zhang Wubing.
Instinctively, Zhang Wubing scooted a step backward, but his calf gave out, and he nearly tripped over the uneven, broken stone tiles.
But he quickly realized—there was nowhere for him to retreat to.
The Yan Shixun who usually protected him wasn’t behind him this time to shield him from harm.
…No.
He had to go past these headless corpses, to find out where Yan Shixun was.
A wave of despair and helplessness surged up inside Zhang Wubing.
In casual conversations before, he had heard An Nanyuan talk about how he felt while watching movies. He’d also discussed what he saw on set with Zhao Zhen.
Those explosions, corpses, blood, and death… were all just props.
After dying in a movie, actors would still stand up when the director yelled “cut!” and smile while asking, “How was it?”
But those who had never seen real death with their own eyes couldn’t truly feel the weight of it through a movie screen. They couldn’t understand the hollowness of actual death.
The stench of blood clung to his nose, bile churned in his stomach and surged upward, his throat tightened, and his heartbeat raced to a dangerously high rate. In his ears, there was only the distant crackle of static noise, and his mind was completely blank.
Even the cleverest thoughts would cease functioning when faced with death. The deaths of others, the sights, the smells—everything screamed at his brain—
You will die too.
You will die at the hands of these wicked, ghostly monsters.
And this time, there wouldn’t be an exorcist powerful enough to hold up the heavens and the earth, frowning coldly as he stepped through blood to save him from the demons.
A loud ringing filled Zhang Wubing’s ears.
He opened his mouth, trying to speak, but his vocal cords refused to work. Not a single word came out.
The headless corpses in the rooms didn’t stop moving just because of Zhang Wubing’s fear.
They raised their stiff, sluggish legs and began stepping out of the rooms.
At that moment, Zhang Wubing saw it with his own eyes—those bloody, mangled corpses suddenly transformed into normal villagers.
Their heads were back on their necks, and the cold, bluish skin that had been exposed outside their clothes had turned warm and full of color again.
They… had come back to life.
Each face was twisted into a vicious, malicious grin. But strangely, there were no eyeballs in their eye sockets—only pitch-black emptiness, staring lifelessly and soullessly at Zhang Wubing.
Behind those villagers, where a room had once faintly glowed with the rays of the setting sun, nothing remained.
In its place now stood a solid wall.
As if they had always been behind a stage curtain, disappearing behind it the moment they left the stage.
Never to see the light of day again.
Zhang Wubing’s eyes brimmed with tears. He turned his head in panic, his gaze quickly sweeping through the courtyard.
Then, suddenly, he noticed—there was only one room where no villagers had appeared.
That room’s door had never been shut from the beginning.
Through the half-open door, he could still see the crackling, static-filled screen of an old-fashioned television set.
But at some unknown point, the woman inside the television had vanished, and the shadow puppetry that had been playing was also gone.
It looked like the signal had simply gone bad.
Maybe—just maybe, Brother Yan was in there?
That thought flashed across Zhang Wubing’s mind.
But another possibility rose in his heart as well—that this could be yet another trap. Like a pack of hyenas cornering their prey, driving a trembling, helpless creature into the only open space, just to finish it off in one swift move.
Zhang Wubing understood this could very well be a dead end, designed to lure him in when panic robbed him of reason.
But maybe… maybe Brother Yan really was in there. Maybe that place was actually safe.
He gritted his teeth. And finally, just as the villagers closing in from all directions had almost left him no room to escape, he broke into a sprint.
With the fastest speed he had ever mustered in his life, he dashed toward the half-open door, yanked it wide open, and leapt across the threshold with his long legs, landing on the floor inside the room.
Before he had even fully steadied himself, he immediately lifted his head and looked at the television.
The moment his eyes landed on the screen, Zhang Wubing’s pupils shrank.
——That TV, which had shown nothing when he was outside the room, now displayed an image of Yan Shixun.
Yan Shixun, who had disappeared from his side, was now sitting in the frame of the TV, his back to him, as if seated in a theater.
And scattered across the floor beneath Yan Shixun’s feet were countless corpses. Severed heads rolled across the ground. Headless bodies were stacked high like mountains. Blood pooled into a vast, crimson sea.
Zhang Wubing’s heart trembled in fear.
His shaking hand reached toward the television—but he instantly felt a cold, sinister gaze sweeping in from the side.
A bone-deep chill crept up from his arm and spine, inch by inch, numbing his scalp.
Slowly, Zhang Wubing turned his head to look to the side.
There, on a large poster hanging on the wall, a shadowy figure stirred faintly.
The printed shadow puppet stage on the poster seemed to come alive—as if a real shadow play was being enacted behind the curtain, with someone backstage manipulating the puppets, commanding them to laugh or weep.
Lifelike, as if they were truly alive.
On that poster’s shadow screen, a woman stood trembling with laughter, head tilted back, reveling in what looked like a cathartic revenge. The villagers who had once surrounded her were now falling one by one.
Blood snaked across the floor beneath her feet.
At that exact moment, on the television screen Yan Shixun was watching, the shadow play was also soaked in red—the curtain drenched in blood, everything beneath it consumed.
The crimson spread toward Yan Shixun from every edge of the screen.
As if some invisible danger, full of malice, was watching him.
Zhang Wubing stared helplessly as it all unfolded before him. He lunged toward the TV, clutching the screen with both hands, frantically as if trying to find an entrance into the screen—desperate to break through and warn Yan Shixun of the danger approaching.
“No! Impossible! Brother Yan—Brother Yan!”
His cries were heart-wrenching, and tears surged from his eyes in an instant, streaming down his cheeks.
The urgency felt as if it could shatter his very soul.
Shaking the heavens and earth.
Zhang Wubing’s eyelashes quivered, tears still flowing down his face. Yet the panic and helplessness in his eyes had vanished—his lips slowly drew into a cold, steady line.
He straightened up from his disheveled, sobbing posture at the TV.
As all warmth and emotion faded from his features, it was like a mask had been stripped from his soul—revealing his true self beneath.
And only now could one truly see—
So that little fool who used to sob and whine, constantly calling out “Brother Yan, Brother Yan,” actually had such a handsome face—one that radiated authority without needing to express anger.
Zhang Wubing lifted his lashes coldly and turned his gaze slightly toward the nearby poster. In his stern and noble features was a kind of commanding majesty.
It was as if a ghost deity stood upon the divine altar, judging souls and sins.
And hell itself lay crushed beneath his feet.
Below him, countless ghosts howled in torment. The infernal flames burned year-round, scorching their souls.
But none of it could shake him in the slightest.
An invisible aura surged outward from him, sweeping through the entire courtyard.
The villagers who had gathered at the doorway, their limbs outstretched menacingly as they tried to grab Zhang Wubing, froze in place, stunned. They stared in disbelief at his back, their hollow eye sockets revealing genuine fear.
But Zhang Wubing chuckled softly.
His voice was icy.
Gone was the whimpering, timid tone from before—what remained was like magma cooled at the depth of tens of thousands of meters underground: silent, dark, and powerful.
Even though his voice wasn’t loud, no one—no being—dared to ignore it.
“You all… are trying to stop me now?”
Zhang Wubing asked in a deep voice, addressing the woman on the poster, “Your son defied life and death—do you also wish to harm the miracle promised by the Dao of Heaven and Earth?”
“Yan Shixun.”
He withdrew his gaze from the poster, as if even that glance had been a lofty act of grace.
Turning back to the television screen, he quietly murmured Yan Shixun’s name. A low laugh followed, reverberating faintly from within his chest.
Even the stern corners of his eyes—usually severe and unyielding—seemed to carry the faintest trace of a smile when he spoke that name.
“An Evil Spirit Bone Transformation… the only, and final, hope of survival…”
Zhang Wubing slowly reached out his hand. His slender, clean fingers moved closer and closer to the TV screen, finally pressing against it.
And at the very moment his fingers touched the screen, the hard surface seemed to melt like molten iron, letting his hand sink right in.
His tall and upright figure began to disappear, little by little, from the room.
And yet, in the now-empty room, silence remained. No person, ghost, or object dared to make a single sound.
The villagers stood stiffly at the doorway, their bodies slowly losing warmth, becoming rigid and icy again. Then, just as the setting sun cast its light past the eaves and into the room, a sharp cracking sound rang out.
“Ka-cha!”
The villagers’ bodies were like failed pottery figures, their cracked and broken forms collapsing in the courtyard outside the house, turning into a pile of red bricks and stones on the flagstone ground.
Even the posters inside the room returned to their original places, with no swaying women or shadow puppets performing. It was as if they were just ordinary character posters, with the people on them being merely printed colors.
They didn’t move, nor did they transform into ghosts or monsters.
…
Zhang Wubing felt like he had just woken from a long dream. He got out of bed, and the soft warmth from the blankets hadn’t fully faded when he was forced to open his eyes.
However, when he looked, he was almost scared to death.
Yan Shixun was sitting next to him—but he was treating him with the cold, murderous intent he would reserve for ghosts, and his hand was raised as if to strike him across the neck.
Zhang Wubing immediately screamed in panic, begging for mercy: “Brother Yan, Brother Yan, it’s me! It’s Xiao Bing!!”
Tears nearly started flowing, and he felt like he was going to die from the fear, even the skin on his face could feel the approaching wind of the hand about to strike.
The fear of dying at the hands of a blade caused Zhang Wubing to stop breathing instinctively, his eyes wide with terror as he stared at Yan Shixun.
But as soon as Zhang Wubing spoke, Yan Shixun, with his sharp senses, immediately detected his breath.
The person sitting next to him was indeed Zhang Wubing.
Not the empty shell without a soul from before.
Yan Shixun suddenly stopped, his hand frozen mid-air, halting just before it could strike.
In the end, just as Zhang Wubing looked like he was about to collapse in fear, Yan Shixun’s hand stopped mere millimeters from his throat.
It was less than a centimeter from Zhang Wubing’s Adam’s apple.
Yan Shixun raised an eyebrow and looked at Zhang Wubing, his gaze softening.
Zhang Wubing shivered and then, as if the terror had drained all his strength, collapsed weakly onto the bench.
He leaned his head against Yan Shixun’s waist, weakly whining, “B-Brother Yan, QAQ, you really want to kill me, don’t you? Woo woo woo.”
Yan Shixun scoffed, slowly pulling his hand back. “Don’t worry. There’s no one as stupid as you. The person who was sitting next to me before wasn’t you.”
He looked down and saw the tear stains on Zhang Wubing’s face, shimmering under the light of the red lantern. Immediately, he became more disgusted.
“Are you crying now?”
Yan Shixun asked in surprise, “When did this happen? I’ve been watching you and didn’t even notice.”
Zhang Wubing, hearing this, instinctively raised his hand to touch his face and, sure enough, felt the coldness of his tears.
When did I cry…
Zhang Wubing was confused, his mind drifting as many scenes flashed through his head.
The headless corpse in the courtyard, the shadow puppet show on the TV, the moving posters… But in the end, all of these images were overshadowed by the figure of Yan Shixun in front of him.
“Oh, right.”
Zhang Wubing suddenly realized, recalling what had happened earlier: “Brother Yan, you mysteriously disappeared in the courtyard. I couldn’t find you, and I got so anxious that I cried.”
Yan Shixun originally wanted to mock Zhang Wubing, but then he suddenly grasped the information in his words.
“You’re saying, I disappeared from your side? You came into this courtyard from where we were before?”
Zhang Wubing, not fully understanding, nodded: “Yeah, I couldn’t find you anywhere, and almost got killed by the headless corpse. Then, unexpectedly, I watched a TV show and found myself by your side.”
Although Zhang Wubing clearly remembered being so anxious to save Yan Shixun that he nearly cried, he had no recollection of how he ended up by Yan Shixun’s side. But he did remember that the scene on the TV was exactly where he and Yan Shixun were now.
After listening to Zhang Wubing’s story, the lighthearted smile that had appeared on Yan Shixun’s face when he saw Zhang Wubing disappeared little by little.
“I see… I was on the TV?” Yan Shixun murmured, repeating the words, falling into deep thought.
He was a spectator at the theater.
But wasn’t he also on the stage of another audience?
On the shadow puppet screen in the theater, Yan Shixun saw the young Xie Lin and the village from decades ago.
But Zhang Wubing had seen his figure appear on the theater stage.
Earlier, when Yan Shixun and Zhang Wubing had watched the shadow puppetry on the TV, they had witnessed the woman’s sorrow and rage.
But before he knew it, Yan Shixun himself had become part of that shadow play.
If he really died in the theater, would the next person to enter the shadow puppet museum see a play starring him as the protagonist, and wonder which play it was from?
Yan Shixun pondered for a moment, then grabbed Zhang Wubing and stood up, his sharp eyes once again filled with resolve.
He lifted his gaze to the stage ahead.
Since Zhang Wubing entered the theater, the curtain on the stage had lost all its scenes and characters. The musicians on both sides immediately deflated, transforming from living people into thin shadow puppets.
Only a bloodstained curtain remained, gently swaying in the night breeze under the dim light.
The smell of blood, along with the red lanterns hanging high, cast a blood-red hue over the courtyard.
Yan Shixun’s gaze swept over the entire scene. This place had already turned into an empty grave, with shattered corpses scattered all over the ground.
Heads, eyes wide open, stared at them unblinking.
Yan Shixun completely ignored the dead eyes, while Zhang Wubing, terrified, grabbed his sleeve and nervously hid behind him, unable to bear looking at the corpses.
It was like a child finding their guardian.
When there was no one to protect him, he could walk bravely for thousands of miles, wiping away his tears and moving forward even in fear.
But the moment he saw his guardian, all his strength melted into the tears of grievance, and he ran into their arms, seeking comfort and praise.
—Of course, Yan Shixun wouldn’t praise him.
He would only disdain him for smearing his face with snot and tears.
“Zhang Dabing, if you dare wipe your nose with my coat, you’re dead.”
Yan Shixun felt the heat behind him and disdainfully said, “I meant what I said.”
Even as he spoke, he pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and, with no gentleness at all, slapped it onto Zhang Wubing’s face with a sharp “smack!”
Although he didn’t turn around, it was as if he had eyes in the back of his head. With just the sound and temperature, he could accurately tell where Zhang Wubing was standing. The handkerchief landed precisely on his face, and he roughly wiped it.
It was as though a father was hurriedly wiping his son’s face, anxious to get back to his game.
Zhang Wubing cried out in pain.
“Brother Yan, Brother Yan, this is my face, not the ground! QAQ.”
Zhang Wubing: Whining sound.
Yan Shixun grabbed the collar of Zhang Wubing’s clothes and lifted him, stepping over the pools of blood on the floor. He calmly walked over the scattered bodies with no change in expression, his brows and eyes cold as he headed outside.
Zhang Wubing’s words made Yan Shixun realize they weren’t in the real world right now but were trapped in some opera or scene created by a vengeful ghost or some other force.
Once they entered the theater, both he and Zhang Wubing became mere players in a shadow puppet show.
Yan Shixun couldn’t help but think back to the image he had seen on the wall behind the poster earlier.
The puppeteer hid behind the screen, skillfully manipulating the wooden sticks, directing the shadow figures to perform various actions.
The puppeteer could make them feel sorrow or joy at will.
Even though the puppets were beautifully drawn, they were entirely under the control of another, unable to act on their own.
This was something Yan Shixun could never tolerate.
The only way to break free from this control, without being able to identify the mastermind behind the scenes, was one—
Leave the prepared stage.
The smell of blood, carried by the cold night breeze, filled his nostrils. Yet Yan Shixun was unbothered, his mind racing as he took each step. He quickly reconstructed the layout of the theater and the surrounding courtyard in his mind.
The scene of the convoy arriving at the Shadow Puppet Museum that he had just seen, along with his habitual scan of the environment before entering the museum, all rapidly came together in his mind, extending the outside scene into his thoughts.
A three-dimensional map appeared in his mind.
Yan Shixun curled the corner of his lips into a slight smile.
Beyond the stage prepared by the manipulative puppeteer… there was a broader world.
If there was no world, he would build one himself.
If he couldn’t communicate with heaven and earth, he would rely on himself.
The sound of his Martin boots hitting the theater’s entrance echoed solidly.
Yan Shixun slightly tilted his head, glancing at Zhang Wubing beside him, and asked with a smile, “Xiao Bing, are you ready?”
“Huh? Huh?”
Zhang Wubing looked up in confusion. “What?”
Yan Shixun turned back, nodding gently. “Looks like you’re ready.”
Before Zhang Wubing could ask another question, Yan Shixun suddenly stretched out his hand and pushed open the theater doors, leaping over the half-meter-high threshold with long legs, and leaped into the pitch-black darkness outside.
Zhang Wubing, once bewildered, now felt his eyes tighten in fear.
“Ah, ah, ah—!!! Brother Yan! Ah! I don’t feel ready!!”
Amid Zhang Wubing’s desperate cries, the two of them jumped into the unknown, diving into the abyss of danger and darkness.
The rushing wind from their rapid descent whipped past Yan Shixun’s ears, and his eyes gradually brightened, as though ignited by a blazing fire.
There was no fear, no dread—only excitement.
Yan Shixun even felt an urge to laugh out loud, the thrill of confronting danger and the excitement from facing ghosts surged in his chest, flowing like fresh vitality through his veins.
The ghostly energy and vitality fused, the yin and yang blended and rotated, like the cycle of Tai Chi.
A pair of eyes slowly opened in the darkness, full of disbelief and shock. The figure tightened their grip on the puppet in their arms.
“How could it… disappear?”
In the room of the courtyard, where the television set stood.
The screen flickered with static and snow, and the image reappeared.
Yet, in the blood-soaked theater, there was only silence.
The big red lantern swayed gently.
But there wasn’t a single person in sight.
Outside the room, in the courtyard, the human-shaped red bricks, once piled up, suddenly crashed to the ground.
In the blink of an eye, they turned into blood and flesh, “cracking” as they fell to the ground.
The blood flowed through the cracks in the bricks, while the withered trees trembled, casting twisted, grotesque shadows.
The spreading shadows consumed the blood and flesh scattered across the floor.
Not even the faintest trace of blood remained.
The golden-red sunset flickered, and everything in the courtyard appeared normal, with the second gate of the courtyard beyond.
Yet, it was also filled with silence.
…
After failing to reach Zhang Wubing on the phone, the official in charge realized something was wrong and immediately set off for the southwestern region.
On the way, he closely monitored the various screens on his tablet while dialing the numbers of everyone in the crew who knew the contact information.
However, the only sound from the phone was the persistent “beep-beep” of the line ringing.
No one answered the call.
Yet, strangely, everything on the screens remained normal.
There were people napping, and others watching DVDs.
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