Chapter 251: Shadow Puppets and Lamplight (17)
Lu Xingxing was grinning cheekily, his eyes reflecting golden-red light, sparkling like a sky full of stars.
He was half-kneeling on the ground, behind him a long trail of marks left by his sliding, yet he hadn’t let Song Ci, who was in his arms, get hurt in the slightest.
Even though he had been wincing in pain just moments ago, the instant he saw someone familiar, his first reaction was to boast about his difficult maneuver. He looked proud, like a child waiting to be praised.
Nan Tian was first surprised, then stunned speechless by Lu Xingxing’s completely unexpected move. It took him several seconds to recover and start smiling again.
“Yes, yes, Lu Xingxing is the coolest.”
Nan Tian praised him while glancing toward the room behind the two. “But, how did you guys show up? I checked the room earlier and didn’t see you.”
Although he had been slightly distracted just now while avoiding the pursuing shadow puppets, he still noticed that Lu Xingxing had rushed out holding Song Ci from the very room he had previously inspected—the one with shadow puppet props and the little stage.
Judging by the way the two of them looked, it didn’t seem like they had exited normally—it looked more like they had just barely escaped a disaster.
This made Nan Tian rather confused. He didn’t know whether his eyes had deceived him or if something had happened that he wasn’t aware of.
When Lu Xingxing heard that Nan Tian had been in the room, his previously grinning face turned serious. He quickly asked, “Did you leave the door open when you left?”
Nan Tian, though unsure of what was going on, nodded.
“No wonder.”
Lu Xingxing murmured to himself as he looked at Nan Tian. “So that sudden beam of sunlight came from that…”
“Brother, you really helped me big time!”
Lu Xingxing exclaimed excitedly, “If you hadn’t opened that door, I might not have found the exit. Then the young master and I would’ve really been trapped inside for good.”
As he was speaking, he suddenly felt Song Ci pinch the soft flesh at his waist. He cried out in pain with an “Ow!” and scrunched his whole face up, hurriedly looking down.
Song Ci, who had been forgotten in Lu Xingxing’s arms while he boasted to Nan Tian, silently raised his hand and gave Lu Xingxing two firm smacks on the head.
Like an angry cat with bristling fur.
“Put me down! Do you think this position is comfortable for me?!”
Song Ci snapped, “Aren’t your arms sore?”
Their posture was indeed quite awkward. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Lu Xingxing were standing, but he was kneeling, and Nan Tian was standing right in front of him. This made Song Ci’s position not only uncomfortable but also made him look like an offering to the Buddha.
It was a good thing no one else had seen this scene—otherwise, Song Ci might’ve really beaten Lu Xingxing to death.
Fuming, he struggled out of Lu Xingxing’s arms and stood up. Before he could even ask Nan Tian about the situation outside, he noticed blood on his pant leg.
Frowning, Song Ci followed the trail of blood down and suddenly realized that Lu Xingxing’s ankle was bleeding profusely.
It was like a faucet turned to a slow drip that someone had forgotten to shut tightly. The wound wasn’t large, but blood kept pouring out of it, dyeing the tiles beneath him red.
And yet Lu Xingxing was still foolishly trying to say nice things to cheer him up. He was even trying to multitask—talking to Nan Tian while asking with a grin if he looked super handsome.
What an idiot!
Song Ci flew into a rage. He grabbed Lu Xingxing by the collar and yanked him up. “Are you stupid? You didn’t even notice you were hurt?”
Lu Xingxing nearly choked from the grip on his collar, his face turning red.
But he wasn’t angry. In fact, he was even thinking to himself how strong Song Ci was—proving once again this place wasn’t actual reality.
Still, Song Ci’s outburst reminded Lu Xingxing of something he had forgotten due to the chaos earlier.
He looked down and was shocked to see that what he had assumed was just a small cut was now gushing blood. The bright, strangely vibrant red color of it made it clear the wound was anything but normal.
Lu Xingxing tilted his head in thought, quickly forming a theory in his mind.
He figured he hadn’t been cut by the white paper on the lake surface, but rather wounded by one of the corpses in the water. That would explain the bizarre color of the blood and why it wouldn’t stop bleeding.
While Lu Xingxing was zoning out, Song Ci was about ready to explode from frustration.
The young master quickly turned to Nan Tian and asked if there was a first-aid kit. He remembered Zhang Wubing had prepared a lot of supplies.
But Nan Tian’s voice trembled with a sob as he replied—don’t even mention a first-aid kit. Everyone and everything was gone.
Song Ci ground his teeth in fury. He felt like the heavens must really have a grudge against him, sending Lu Xingxing as punishment.
But as angry as he was, he couldn’t just ignore Lu Xingxing. If he hadn’t noticed the bleeding, this idiot probably would’ve bled out before he even thought about bandaging the wound.
Muttering curses under his breath, the young master took off his scarf, crouched down again, yanked Lu Xingxing’s leg over, and began wrapping it.
He didn’t know how to do proper first aid, and there was no medicine around. His only option was to tie it as tightly as he could, using pressure to stop the bleeding by force.
Fortunately, the young master was now quite strong, so at least this part could be managed.
Even so, the pain made Lu Xingxing grimace and bare his teeth. He quickly came to his senses and said he would handle it himself—he knew a blood-stopping spell!
This was the most practical spell he had learned after realizing its importance from past events. When he returned to Haiyun Temple, he had pestered his master until he finally learned it!
But when Song Ci, with a grim expression, stepped aside to give him space, Lu Xingxing muttered for quite a while over his wound—and nothing happened.
Lu Xingxing was immediately dumbfounded.
Both Nan Tian and Song Ci had seen Yan Shixun use the blood-stopping spell before. The moment the spell was cast, the bleeding stopped instantly. It was so mysterious and miraculous that even the most skeptical person would be forced to admit the spell’s effectiveness.
But Lu Xingxing…
No matter how you looked at it, he just seemed like some idiot on the roadside talking to his own foot.
Song Ci asked, “…What is he doing?”
Nan Tian replied, “No idea. Maybe the kid’s so happy he’s gone dumb.”
Song Ci walked over speechlessly. “Alright, that’s enough. If you don’t have Brother Yan’s skill, don’t try to act like him.”
Lu Xingxing whined, “I really did learn it! Really! I even purposely cut my arm while I was at Haiyun Temple just to test it out. I swear, believe me… Ow!”
Song Ci suddenly yanked both ends of the scarf hard, and the pain made Lu Xingxing’s eyes well up with tears.
Still, the tightly wrapped scarf, though soaked with blood, had visibly slowed the bleeding.
Song Ci held up Lu Xingxing by the arm and helped him stand, though his brows were tightly furrowed.
This was only a temporary fix. If they couldn’t find a permanent solution soon, Lu Xingxing would be in serious danger from blood loss.
And that was assuming nothing else went wrong in such an already dangerous and uncertain situation.
Song Ci recalled what had happened earlier in the room—when he smashed the glass only to find bricks behind it—and quickly turned to ask Nan Tian for more details.
The two exchanged everything they knew. Gradually, the abnormalities in the room and courtyard became clearer.
“I’ve been with Lu Xingxing in that room the whole time, and thinking back now, the moment we entered the room, things probably started going wrong—we just didn’t notice it at first.”
Song Ci frowned. “Since you’re saying your room also had problems, and Xie Lin has vanished… then maybe it’s not just us. Maybe all the rooms are in danger.”
“But right now, we have to survive before we can think about finding the others.”
Just then, Lu Xingxing’s voice piped up weakly beside them.
They turned to look at him, only to see that Lu Xingxing—standing facing the opposite direction—was pointing behind them.
A faint rustling noise followed.
Nan Tian whipped his head around—and came face to face with several pale, ghostly faces not far off.
It was the same shadow puppets that had been chasing him earlier.
Before Lu Xingxing and Song Ci ran out of the room, these shadow puppets had already been after Nan Tian. They’d stretched out their arms like they were trying to grab him. He had only managed to shake them off with great effort.
But now, just as they were tending to Lu Xingxing’s injury, the shadows had caught up again.
To make matters worse, from the room that Lu Xingxing and Song Ci had come from, they suddenly heard the sound of dripping water.
Having already experienced something similar, Nan Tian and Song Ci exchanged a glance—an uneasy suspicion forming in their hearts.
Could it be…
Were those water-logged corpses from the lake coming after them again?
They didn’t have to wonder for long. The door to the room slowly creaked open from the inside, making a grating “screeeech” sound.
When they looked over, the first thing they saw was water flowing out over the threshold.
Then, a drenched head appeared behind the doorway—black hair plastered to a bluish-white face—just like a water ghost seeking revenge.
Lu Xingxing couldn’t help but curse. “Don’t tell me those corpses that chased us for half the day are back again?”
There was still a hint of wishful thinking in his voice, but his hand had already latched tightly onto Song Ci, ready to run at any moment.
However, the scene that unfolded as the door fully opened crushed the last shred of hope in Lu Xingxing’s heart.
—The entire room that had once been filled with stage props had undergone a complete transformation.
The shadow puppets that Nan Tian had seen earlier had vanished without a trace. In their place was a vast, endless expanse of water.
Floating all over the water’s surface were paper offerings, and the mournful sound of funeral music drifted faintly from a distance.
Behind the doorframe, corpses slowly rose from the water, piling up layer by layer at the threshold. Their blood-red eyes stared out from beneath their dripping black hair, fixing cold, lifeless gazes on the people in the courtyard.
Nan Tian shivered under those stares. He hadn’t realized before just what kind of horror Lu Xingxing had encountered—and now, in comparison, his own experience seemed almost mild.
The corpses slowly stretched out their stiff arms, trying to grab hold of the few living people left in the courtyard.
One corpse laboriously opened its mouth, trying to speak, but its ruined vocal cords could only produce a hoarse, rasping “hhh-hhh” sound that made the scalp crawl.
Seeing the shadow puppets encircling from behind, and the corpses emerging from the left, Lu Xingxing immediately pulled Song Ci along and shouted for Nan Tian as he broke into a run.
As he ran, he formed hand seals and chanted incantations, trying to cast a spell.
But Lu Xingxing soon realized something was wrong with his body.
His meridians felt completely empty—he couldn’t sense anything.
Cultivators, after long periods of connecting with heaven and earth and meditating on the Dao, would start to feel the existence of “qi.” That sensation was indescribably profound and mysterious, and only those who had experienced it knew that such a force truly existed.
Even someone like Lu Xingxing—who had never been the most diligent—had, through his talent, sensed the Dao and felt the flow of qi through his body.
But now, that feeling was gone.
Lu Xingxing froze in place, stunned. His steps slowed.
He lowered his head and looked at his palm, wearing an expression of utter disbelief.
Meanwhile, Song Ci, who had just been expecting Lu Xingxing to use a talisman: “…………”
The moment he saw Lu Xingxing’s expression, Song Ci understood—this was a complete failure.
“…Just a few seconds ago I was actually hoping you’d succeed. What an idiot I was.”
Song Ci deadpanned, “Trusting a dog not to destroy a house is more realistic than trusting you to use a talisman.”
“No, this isn’t my fault! I swear I only left the temple after I’d definitely learned it. My master and a bunch of master uncles almost beat me half to death over it.”
Lu Xingxing quickly tried to explain, wailing like a wolf mourning a ghost, “There’s something wrong with this place! I can’t connect with the forces of heaven and earth. This must be the territory of some powerful vengeful spirit—so strong that even the heavens have been shut out.”
Song Ci gave him a dead-eyed stare. “Oh.”
Then he turned to Nan Tian and said, “We can’t count on this idiot. Let’s handle it. You’re from Nanming Mountain, right? Do you know anything useful?”
Nan Tian scratched his face awkwardly while running from the shadow puppets chasing them. “They say I have shaman blood and come from Nanming Mountain… But my grandma sent me away too early, and I didn’t get to learn much.”
“I used to carry a few talismans Brother Yan gave me, but when I checked them in the room earlier, they’d already turned to ash.”
As he spoke, Nan Tian showed Song Ci the cloth he had tightly held in his hand. “This is all that’s left. It’s thanks to this that I managed to escape the room just now.”
When Nan Tian pulled out the cloth, Song Ci’s expression softened slightly.
Lu Xingxing, though ignored by the two of them, was forced to hop along on one leg due to his injury. He winced in pain with each hop, letting out sharp, hissing sounds.
Still, after thinking it through, he felt more convinced than ever that his suspicions were right.
One piece of evidence was Song Ci’s strength.
If Song Ci hadn’t helped support him while they ran—despite ignoring him otherwise—Lu Xingxing would’ve surely fallen over while awkwardly hopping.
Originally, this pampered young master shouldn’t have had the strength to carry him at all.
After all, Lu Xingxing might look baby-faced and cheerful all the time, but he was still a fully grown man—180 cm tall and weighing 71 kg. Moving over a hundred jin of flesh wasn’t an easy task.
Yet Song Ci had done it—and effortlessly, as if it meant nothing.
On top of that, the earlier blood-stopping talisman had failed. Now, the ghost-expelling talismans weren’t working either. Even the qi he used to feel within his body had vanished.
Then there was Xie Lin, who had turned into a paper figure. Everyone else had mysteriously vanished from the courtyard…
Lu Xingxing felt that they hadn’t returned to the real world at all. He and Song Ci had merely jumped from one space to another—but this definitely wasn’t reality.
And there were still others unaccounted for. Xie Lin was missing. Even Yan Shixun was nowhere to be found. They didn’t even have anyone to rely on.
Lu Xingxing couldn’t help but worry. Tears welled up in his eyes, but none fell. He desperately prayed for Brother Yan to return soon.
He thought to himself: if Brother Yan could appear right now and save everyone, he would even call him Daddy!
Meanwhile, Song Ci frowned deeply as he listened to Nan Tian explain in detail the origin of the shadow puppets.
“Even though Brother Xie looked like a paper figure, the whole room was filled with shadow puppets, so I had a comparison. And I really think Brother Xie’s paper figure looks way too similar to those shadow puppets. If you swapped paper for leather, they’d be exactly the same.”
Nan Tian nodded sincerely. “I’m not the kind of person who denies the existence of ghosts. My grandma and ancestors were all in this line of work. I’m certain that Brother Xie’s situation is directly related to those puppets.”
Song Ci let out a sigh. “Even if we’re sure it’s connected to the puppets, there’s nothing we can do right now. At least until Brother Yan finds us, we need to stay safe and try to locate the others if we can.”
His lips were tightly pressed together, drained of color. His small face looked pale and troubled.
As the young master of the Song family, nothing had ever worried him this much.
But Xie Lin…
Song Ci remembered how, back when Xie Lin had lost his younger sister, he’d gone completely hysterical—so much so that he had even tried to commit suicide multiple times.
He bit his lip, turned his head mid-run, and looked back at the shadow puppets chasing them.
“Could it be…”
Nan Tian hesitantly voiced what they were both thinking: “Brother Xie might have become one of those shadow puppets?”
“I suddenly remembered—those puppets hanging on the wall in the room, not a single one was missing. Brother Xie’s paper figure just appeared out of thin air. But…”
Coming from Nanming Mountain, Nan Tian recalled the mountain’s funerary rituals. They followed ancient customs—using real human skulls and bones in sacrifices.
But outside of Nanming Mountain, the more common practice was to substitute things—steamed buns instead of heads, roasted piglets instead of corpses.
Though the offerings differed, in terms of the ritual, whether it was a skull or a bun, it was the same to the gods.
Thinking of this, Nan Tian asked in a low voice, “What if it was a substitution? What if the puppet on the wall and the living Brother Xie had their identities swapped? Brother Xie became a shadow puppet, and the puppet became Brother Xie?”
Song Ci’s pupils contracted sharply.
…
Xie Lin felt like he had finally slept a deep, sweet, and peaceful sleep—something he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Ever since he had lost his sister, he hadn’t slept well even once.
The past decades had felt like a long nightmare with no escape.
He couldn’t stop replaying the day he lost his sister over and over in his mind.
That morning when he left the house, his sister had still been holding her teddy bear, sweetly waving goodbye and saying, “See you tonight, brother.”
Her cuteness had melted his heart like warm cotton candy. He’d felt dizzy with happiness, thinking his sister was just like a little angel. It was because of her that he worked so hard, wanting to give her the very best.
And Xie Lin had achieved that.
But his quickly rising career, which shot straight to the top, had also brought the side effect of being constantly busy.
He had looked at his sister that morning and even hesitated—wondering whether he should just skip work for the day. It was just a concert and a TV interview; he could probably postpone it and take her to school himself.
He crouched down by the cozy front door and hugged her tightly for a long time. But then, it was his sister who patted his head and comforted him, saying in her soft, childish voice, “You have to work hard, okay?”
At that moment, Xie Lin ruffled her hair and laughed, agreeing with a cheerful “Okay.”
Yet that became the last thing he ever said to her.
While at work, he received a call. On the other end, someone frantically told him that the nanny and his younger sister had been kidnapped, and their condition was unknown.
His phone slipped from his hand and shattered on the ground.
At that time, the most top-tier superstar of the era, panicked to the point that everything before his eyes went black. When he tried to stand, he staggered and fell, then got up with the help of those around him and rushed to the scene.
From that day on, Xie Lin lived in hell.
He indefinitely postponed all his work. Every day without his sister was spent sleepless and without food or water. He kept watch, clinging to even the slightest progress or piece of news with frantic hope.
But what he ultimately got was an even deeper nightmare.
The body of the nanny was found.
At the same time, the bodies of the kidnappers were also discovered.
In an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts, the moment one stepped inside, the thick stench of blood filled the air.
The nanny sat slumped in a chair, lifeless.
But the kidnappers around her had died in ways that were far more tragic and horrifying.
Over a dozen men—not one had an intact body.
The most complete of them all was just a head still connected to a bit of chest beneath the neck.
The rest had become piles of minced flesh.
Blood flowed across the dust-covered floor, smeared wildly on the surrounding walls. Bits of meat stuck to the walls, and among them, an occasional eyeball could be seen staring dead at anyone who entered.
Entrails had been tossed upward, dangling from the ceiling beams, swaying gently. The shattered faces still held remnants of terror.
One body had been dragged from the deepest part of the warehouse all the way to the door. First came the feet, then the legs, then a trail of spilled intestines that stretched over ten meters. His skull was smashed by the door, and his hand still reached outward as if struggling to escape.
A trail of blood behind him stretched for dozens of meters.
It was as if he had seen something terrifying and tried to flee, but something followed him at a slow, unhurried pace—every time he crawled forward, a piece of his flesh was chopped off.
Giving him hope, only to crush it completely. When he finally thought he could crawl out the door to freedom, he died right there at the threshold, forever staring out at the world he would never reach.
His eyeballs had been gouged out and placed right on the doorstep. The first people who entered didn’t notice and stepped on them with a squelch—”Splat!”—bursting them into bloody pulp.
It was like the killer’s most twisted form of mockery and revenge.
The kidnappers thought they were in control of everything, never realizing that they themselves were prey in someone else’s hunting ground.
The hunter hummed a nursery rhyme, walking with light, leisurely steps, slowly chasing down his prey.
The entire warehouse had become a glorious display of the hunter’s trophies. The flesh smeared across the walls was the hunter’s medal of victory—just like the mounted deer heads in old traditions.
But the most disturbing part wasn’t even that.
It was the human mannequins in the warehouse.
This had once been a clothing factory’s storage room. After it was abandoned, the discarded plastic mannequins—no longer useful—were simply tossed in here as well.
Those mannequins were ghostly pale, their facial features rigidly carved, eyes fixed in a blank stare straight ahead.
Because they had been scrapped, many bore cracks and damages—some missing arms or legs, some reduced to just half a body.
Now, however, those mannequins that had once been piled in a corner were standing in the center of the warehouse.
Their once-pale surfaces were now stained with large swaths of blood. Some had pieces of the kidnappers’ flesh draped over them. Others gripped human organs in their plastic hands.
Blood had splashed across their faces, and combined with their stiff, expressionless gazes, the scene became eerily terrifying.
At a glance, it looked as if these lifeless plastic mannequins were the ones who had slaughtered the kidnappers.
The entire warehouse was covered in chunks of flesh and blood.
Some younger or less experienced officers vomited violently as soon as they got a clear look, retching until they were completely dry.
But when Xie Lin saw the scene, he had only one thought—
If everyone here was dead, then where was his sister?
Fortunately, after a thorough examination, no trace of his sister’s DNA was found, proving that she had not become one of the mangled corpses.
The officers told Xie Lin they suspected it was a case of betrayal between criminals—perhaps something had gone wrong between two collaborating groups. The kidnappers left behind at the factory had been silenced, and the scene had been deliberately staged to look like the work of a deranged killer, all evidence erased, and even supernatural elements added to throw off the investigation.
And Xie Lin’s sister—had likely been taken away by the other party.
When Xie Lin heard this, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
But in others’ eyes, his expression had twisted into madness—he had completely broken down.
A death sentence delivered immediately, or a sliver of hope that left you endlessly waiting—he didn’t know which was worse.
Xie Lin thought: if the kidnappers had just called him, he would’ve given them all his wealth. He would’ve done anything they asked.
As long as… as long as they gave his sister back.
But that call never came.
At the height of his fame, Xie Lin announced his retirement from the industry. He poured all his energy, time, and wealth into the search for his sister.
But every time, the result was the same—others shook their heads and sighed.
Some couldn’t bear to see him so crazed and disheveled. They patted his shoulder and advised him gently, urging him to stop searching and move on with his life.
But Xie Lin knew—that was impossible.
Years ago, when he was only thirteen, he had been an orphan raised by the villagers, living off their charity, eating whatever meal he could find. He never looked forward to tomorrow and never thought life held anything beautiful.
He was merely surviving.
Then came the crying baby in the fields—who gave him a new faith, a new dream.
Xie Lin could never forget that moment. When he bent down and picked up the baby, that tiny little thing looked up at him and smiled sweetly.
She was unbearably cute.
Thump thump, thump thump.
That tiny heart beat steadily—that was the pulse of life.
Suddenly, a profound clarity washed over the young boy, and a thought arose in his mind: “Ah… this is what life is.”
From that moment on, his life became inextricably bound to his sister’s.
Rather than saying they depended on each other for survival, it would be more accurate to say that it was his sister who gave him the strength to keep going.
She was the reason the man named Xie Lin came to be who he was today.
And when he lost her, he lost everything.
Xie Lin wandered the bustling city streets like a lost soul. Faces passed him by in a blur, their features indistinct, even their voices slowly fading from his ears.
No one knew that the legendary figure they worshipped—the Song God who had ushered in a golden era, the icon who drew screams, cheers, and admiration—actually needed very little in life.
So little, in fact, that all he needed was one person—his sister.
Even though Song Ci had saved him and he had gone through a long period of treatment and recovery, Xie Lin never stopped searching for her. Every night, he lay awake in bed until dawn. In the dark, illusions would surface, bringing him back to that morning so many years ago.
In the vision, his sister hugged her teddy bear and obediently waved her chubby little paw to say goodbye.
Xie Lin always stared blankly at the illusion, smiling until tears began to stream down his face, soaking the pillow beneath him.
“Brother.”
His sister’s voice echoed in his ear: “You’re really making me worry. Didn’t I tell you to work hard? What’s with this look now, huh—You’re not my brother. My brother is a big hero.”
Xie Lin knew it was another hallucination.
He had imagined hearing her voice again.
And yet, he still opened his eyes in a panic, unwilling to miss even the slightest chance of seeing her again.
But this time, what he saw was different from all the hallucinations before.
His sister wore a beautiful little dress he had never seen before, cradling an intricately carved wooden doll in her arms, sitting by the fireplace with a beaming smile as she looked at him.
“Good morning, Brother.”
She greeted him cheerfully, “I didn’t think I’d see you again. Did you come here just to find me?”
Xie Lin stared at the scene in front of him, momentarily frozen in place.
The firewood in the stove crackled. The brick walls of the house were blackened from the smoke. Through the window, the outlines of a village could be seen, along with the rippling dark blue waters of a lake.
Wooden scaffolding filled the room, holding numerous half-finished woodcarvings. Little wooden figures sat on the shelves, their tiny wooden legs dangling. One of them rested its arms on a head that hadn’t been carved with a face yet, looking straight at Xie Lin.
The carved wooden heads and human-like figures on the shelves slowly turned their heads in unison to look at Xie Lin. Their dark, hollow eye sockets stared silently and expressionlessly.
His sister tilted her head. She sat on a chair much too big for her, swinging her legs back and forth—a tiny figure of pure adorableness.
“Brother doesn’t believe I’m still here, huh? But that’s okay.”
She smiled sweetly. “We’ll see each other very soon. Brother is already on his way to pick up Brother, and your friends are coming too—to visit here.”
“Brother, Jiao Jiao really misses you. Will you stay with me?”
Xie Lin stared at the little girl before him, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
He wasn’t sure if it was the blazing fire in the house or something else, but a thin layer of sweat had formed on his back.
His sister had disappeared when she was just a few years old. Decades had passed. If she were still alive, she would have grown into a young woman by now.
But the girl in front of him looked exactly the same as the sister he had lost all those years ago.
In appearance and age—there was not the slightest difference.
In his search for her, Xie Lin had visited many spiritual masters, hoping to use mystical means to find her. Through them, he had heard many stories.
Stories that said ghosts and spirits could peer into a person’s deepest longing, take on the appearance of their beloved, and lure the living step by step toward death.
Stories that warned, if someone called your name in a dream, you must never answer—because that was a ghost trying to take over your body, steal your soul, and drain your life energy.
He knew all of this.
But even so… he missed his sister.
Under her gaze, Xie Lin felt a lump in his throat. His lips trembled as he spoke hoarsely, “Okay.”
Just like on that morning years ago, when he promised her he’d come home early to keep her company.
—Even if it was a ghost, so what? Just let me… let me see my sister again.
Hot tears streamed from the corners of Xie Lin’s eyes.
His sister smiled sweetly at him.
The fire suddenly extinguished. The room was swallowed in darkness.
A loud crash erupted from the shadows.
“Bang!”
Xie Lin jolted and snapped his eyes open. Before he could even make out his surroundings, Yan Shixun’s face appeared in front of him.
“Xie Lin? What are you doing here?”
Yan Shixun frowned as he strode over, grabbed Xie Lin by the collar, and dragged him forward.
“Weren’t you all visiting the first courtyard? Why did you end up here? Did something happen up ahead?”
It took Xie Lin a long while to come to his senses in the biting cold wind.
He looked around and saw the mountains veiled in darkness and mist. The outline of the village was barely visible, and a few dim yellow lights flickered in distant windows, with shadows moving behind them.
“Mr-Mr. Yan?”
Xie Lin finally spoke, only to find his voice extremely hoarse. “Where… where are we? What happened?”
Yan Shixun shot him a surprised look and scoffed, “That’s what I want to ask you. Weren’t you with the others?”
Yan Shixun truly had no idea how Xie Lin had ended up here.
He and Zhang Wubing had been surrounded by corpses and shadow puppets in the theatre, with no escape routes in sight. The only option left was to force their way out.
Reluctantly, Yan Shixun had to include the female puppet on stage in his plan.
He hadn’t wanted to do it. Whether it was the shadow puppets or the carved wooden dolls, they all indicated that the woman had died with deep resentment—very likely the root cause of the current predicament. But at the same time, she might still possess a soul that could be saved.
But right now, there was no other way out. Yan Shixun, feeling helpless, had no choice but to prepare to use the woman as a hostage to force back all the corpses and shadow puppets, hoping to find a way out of the theater that led to the lake beyond.
—After all, it was this woman who controlled all the corpses and puppets.
If that was the case, then the key to breaking out of this desperate situation lay with her.
Just as Yan Shixun was about to make his move, he suddenly noticed that in the pitch-black night sky, a moon had unexpectedly appeared.
The moon, always in contrast with the sun, had long been a symbol of yin energy. Many animals and plants were said to worship the moon, and folk tales about “becoming spirits by worshiping the moon” had circulated for generations.
From the start, there had never been a moon inside the theater’s sealed space. To Yan Shixun, this had been further evidence that the space was completely cut off from the outside world.
But now, the moon had appeared out of nowhere.
At the same moment, the surrounding ghostly energy surged rapidly, far beyond what an ordinary ghost could produce, and even denser than the eerie energy that had filled the theater before.
Yan Shixun instinctively became alert, but then realized that this power seemed to have no intention of harming him. In fact, it felt almost intimate—it flowed into his meridians as if it belonged there.
He paused his actions and looked up at the moon, only to feel a growing certainty—was that… a figure on the moon?
Chang’e?
Yan Shixun was puzzled.
But then it hit him—he suddenly understood why this felt so familiar.
When Ye Li had previously lent him his power, it had felt exactly like this!
In other words, this moon was the manifestation of the power Ye Li had sent into the shadow puppet world from the outside. It not only symbolized his ghostly, divine status that stood shoulder to shoulder with the forces of heaven and earth—it was also delivering power to him.
Though Ye Li and he were trapped in separate spaces, he had not stopped trying to find him. Through this false reality, he had located him and sent his strength across.
As Yan Shixun pieced this together, the moon in the night sky suddenly began to plummet, crashing down toward the theater.
Its pale yellow light, though cold and eerie, illuminated the entire theater clearly, dispersing the red glow of the candles.
Not only did Yan Shixun notice the falling moon, but the female puppet on the stage did too.
Her mouth opened wide, unleashing a piercing shriek.
But before the sound could linger, a deafening crash roared through the air, swallowing all other noise.
Amid the falling bricks and collapsing beams, Yan Shixun saw the corpses and puppets wailing as they disintegrated into dust. The female puppet, once seated upright on the stage, sprang to her feet in an attempt to flee.
The entire theater collapsed with a thunderous rumble.
Only Yan Shixun—empowered by Ye Li’s energy, which resonated with his own—remained completely unscathed in the face of this seemingly apocalyptic destruction.
Not even a speck of dust touched the hem of his clothing.
Zhang Wubing, still held tightly in his arms, had been shrieking moments earlier, but now fell with the theater’s wreckage into the lake.
Zhang Wubing: *Glub glub blah glub glub…*
A series of bubbles escaped from Zhang Wubing’s mouth, rising to the surface.
Yan Shixun kept his eyes open. By the lingering light of the moon, he could clearly see everything beneath the dark lake’s surface.
When he blinked again, he found himself standing on the shore of the lake.
His clothes weren’t even wet.
By contrast, Zhang Wubing had swallowed a stomach full of lake water and now knelt on the ground pitifully, coughing it all back up.
It was as if the ghost deity favored him too much to allow even a drop of cold lake water to touch his beloved.
A faint smile appeared in Yan Shixun’s eyes.
Ye… Li…
He softly whispered the ghost deity’s name.
But as he turned around, Yan Shixun suddenly spotted Xie Lin standing not far away, dazed and lost in thought.
At first, Yan Shixun suspected it might be a ghost impersonating Xie Lin. But after a bit of observation and probing, he was surprised to confirm that it really was Xie Lin himself.
So, he picked up the still-coughing Zhang Wubing and walked over, dragging along the soul-absent Xie Lin with him.
He had planned to ask Xie Lin about the others’ whereabouts, but Xie Lin just gave a confused shake of his head and said that he must have fallen asleep—when he opened his eyes, he was already here.
Xie Lin’s last memory was of Nan Tian introducing shadow puppetry to the audience through a split screen.
Although Xie Lin didn’t know anything beyond that, just those few words told Yan Shixun everything he needed to know—the others were definitely in trouble.
Moreover, if they were in trouble, that meant Ye Li—whom he had left in the courtyard—might have also encountered something unexpected.
Though he could at least be sure Ye Li was still safe for now—after all, he had just helped him from the other side—Yan Shixun still felt uneasy about the situation spinning out of control. He needed to confirm Ye Li’s condition immediately.
He had to return to the shadow puppet museum as soon as possible.
But after only a few steps, Yan Shixun’s peripheral vision caught sight of a nearby village—and he abruptly froze.
—The village they were passing looked nearly identical to the one that had appeared multiple times in the shadow puppet scenes.
Yan Shixun stopped, frowned, and looked toward the village.
Through the glowing windows, he could faintly make out figures moving inside—villagers, it seemed.
Their eyes radiated malice as they silently watched Yan Shixun in the darkness.
Then came the creaking sound of doors being pushed open—one after another.
The village lights came on one by one.
The villagers stepped out from their homes, each standing in place without uttering a word, all staring intently at Yan Shixun.
“Brother Yan, we…”
Zhang Wubing was still spitting up water, so much that it even filled his eyes. He sniffled pitifully and looked up, just about to say something to Yan Shixun—only to catch sight of the villagers through his blurry vision. The moment his gaze met theirs, he sobered up from fear on the spot.
Yan Shixun didn’t hesitate. He shouted decisively: “Run!”
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