Chapter 10
In the blink of an eye, it was already the fourth day.
Last night, the ones chosen to go on stage were Ren Linlin and another student. Jiang Liu used the same trick again, snatching the role of Du Liniang and going on stage.
Until today—everyone had been chosen once.
And as time passed the halfway mark, everyone’s anxiety finally began to spread. The immediate trigger was—Ren Linlin.
The theater was finally no longer as calm as before. In broad daylight, a desperate howl erupted.
The male student sat on the ground, defeated, staring at the woman in front of him, on the verge of tears.
He really couldn’t take it anymore. It was one thing for this Ren Linlin to go crazy on her own, but why did she have to drag them all down with her?
Ever since she had disappeared and come back, she had shown signs of becoming obsessed. Today, she was even more outrageous. Without a word, she had pulled him into a rehearsal. Staring at her fully made-up mask, he couldn’t tell if the person in front of him was human or ghost.
“What on earth are you trying to do?!”
He sat on the ground, refusing to get up, looking at the others for help. But the girl in front of him forcefully turned his head back, her two fingers gripping his chin so hard that cold sweat broke out on his forehead from the pain.
In front of him were Ren Linlin’s unblinking eyes. She sized him up for a long time, then sighed and said with disappointment, “I watched you on stage the other day. Your footwork and positioning are still lacking. Get up and rehearse.”
Her voice was gentle, but her actions were merciless. She grabbed his arm and lifted him up, ignoring the male student’s pleas, and dragged him towards the stage.
On the side, Zhang Xiaochen leaned against the wall, looking at her with a speechless expression as he asked the person behind him, “Is she really okay like this?”
At that moment, Jiang Liu was lying in a rocking chair, basking in the sun. The warm afternoon sun fell on her body, the temperature just right, very comfortable.
Hearing his words, her eyes opened a crack to glance inside, then closed again. “It’s just a rehearsal.”
Ren Linlin would watch the opera at midnight to find faults, and then pull them in during the day to correct them. Jiang Liu was already used to it.
As long as they cooperated with her suggestions and rehearsed honestly, they wouldn’t be forced into this miserable state. But this student had a particular prejudice against Ren Linlin, still convinced that she was neither human nor ghost, and would often speak harshly. Even Zhang Xiaochen, who came from a gangster background, found it hard to listen to.
So, his current “special treatment” was his own doing. Jiang Liu simply turned a blind eye, pretending not to see.
Except for the one who was dragged away for extra practice, the rest of them stayed in the courtyard with Jiang Liu.
Xu Shu and Xu Meng sat side by side on small stools, one looking at the sky, the other at the ground. Although they didn’t speak, the tense atmosphere around them conveyed their emotions.
“Can we still go back?”
Xu Meng’s voice was no longer as cheerful as when she first arrived. It was now somewhat hoarse, laden with heavy worries that fell to the ground, but no one answered.
No one could say with absolute certainty that they could. Especially in the current situation.
Jiang Liu, whom they considered bold and decisive, hadn’t even been able to see Granny Chen. Were they really just going to wait to die?
At this point, as many clues were uncovered, no one believed that completing the performance would be enough to clear the level.
Without Jiang Liu, three of them would have already died. It was uncertain if they could even survive until the performance. In such a situation, it was hard to cheer up.
Only Jiang Liu had a mint candy in her mouth, thinking about how to break the deadlock.
After snatching the role of Du Liniang again, she had gone to find Granny Chen in the morning, only to be met with the old butler’s merciless reply: no guests today, come back another day.
This made Jiang Liu wonder, was it that she wasn’t seeing guests, or that she didn’t want to see her?
This was something she couldn’t test by trial and error, just as no one knew if Ren Linlin could still be considered normal, so naturally, no one dared to go to that house.
She sighed inwardly, feeling inexplicably irritable.
When was the last time she had felt so helpless?
She tried her best to recall past experiences, but there was always a layer of fog in her mind, preventing her from probing deeper.
The atmosphere grew cold as everyone’s spirits sank. Zhang Xiaochen was the first to lose his patience. He kicked a stone and cursed, “All this damn singing all day is so annoying.”
He just didn’t like this stuff. All this talk of love, life, and death, what was the point?
Xu Shu was still staring at the sky, his tone carrying a calm despair. “Literature is about symbolism. It may seem like it’s about romantic love, but it’s actually a critique of feudalism. It has a strong idealistic colo—”
Before he could finish, Zhang Xiaochen interrupted him impatiently.
“Alright, alright, master, please stop chanting. I don’t know anything about literature. Can literature get us out of here?”
After another two days of this, he felt like just banging his head against a wall. It would be better than ending up like Ren Linlin, losing himself and only knowing how to sing opera all day.
After being scolded by him, Xu Shu also fell silent.
Only Jiang Liu’s heart skipped a beat when she heard the phrase “symbolic meaning.” An idea flashed through her mind, and her vision suddenly became clear.
Everyone saw her shoot up from the rocking chair and walk over to Xu Meng in a few steps, crouching down in front of her.
“The materials in the secret room, I remember you organized them, right?”
Her tone was fast and urgent, as if she had remembered something important. It startled Xu Meng, who nodded after a moment’s pause. “Ah, yes, I read a few of them. They were all the original stories that she adapted into operas.”
The Troupe Master’s bookshelf contained not only operas but also many folk tales.
Xu Meng would go and read a couple of them when she had nothing to do during the day. Although she couldn’t absorb much, it was at least something to do, so she wouldn’t be constantly tormented.
Hearing her answer, Jiang Liu suddenly smiled. The earlier dejection was gone without a trace. She blinked her eyes and slowly stood up in front of her, her shadow gradually lengthening under the afternoon sun.
“Have you ever thought about why we have to rehearse The Peony Pavilion?”
In the old man’s account and the photo album’s records, this Troupe Master was best at writing original scripts. Her perspectives were unique and her meanings profound, achieving a balance between entertainment and artistry that was more popular than traditional plays.
If it was just for nostalgia, she could have chosen his most famous play. That would have been more commemorative. But why did Granny Chen specifically choose The Peony Pavilion?
This question left several of them stunned. Zhang Xiaochen muttered something about who knew what she was thinking, not really taking it to heart. But unexpectedly, after she mentioned it, Xu Shu’s eyes behind his glasses suddenly widened, and an idea popped into his head.
He suddenly looked up at Jiang Liu, his movements so large that his glasses almost flew off. But he didn’t have time to adjust them, just said in disbelief, “You mean—that’s impossible!”
A beautiful curve appeared on Jiang Liu’s lips. Her gaze swept over the furnishings of the theater, and she said with a half-smile, “Here, is there anything that’s impossible?”
The strange clock chimes, the ghosts that possess people to sing opera, and all the other unusual events—weren’t they proof of this place’s abnormality?
Thinking about all the strange things that had happened here, Xu Shu swallowed the words he was about to say and looked at her in horror. “Then we… can only wait to die?”
Hearing this, Zhang Xiaochen’s brows furrowed so tightly they could have crushed a fly. “Hey, what are you two talking about in riddles?”
What was all this talk about waiting to die? He couldn’t stand to hear such pessimistic words!
Before anyone could answer him, the male student who had been silently playing the role of a mushroom in the corner suddenly spoke up.
He first muttered “The Peony Pavilion” a couple of times, then his face suddenly turned pale, and he said in a panic, “I-I remember now! There are patterns on the stage! It looks like they were drawn with blood!”
Several faces changed. Jiang Liu strode over to him. “What patterns?”
The male student was trembling under her gaze and didn’t know how to describe it. He could only lead them into the room. “It’s right here.”
The place he pointed to was the ladder in the corner that helped people get on stage. This place was hidden in the shadows, and if you didn’t look carefully, you would only see a dark patch and not notice anything.
Even on the day they had the big clean-up when they first arrived, they hadn’t come here.
Jiang Liu squatted on the ground without a care for her image, turned on her flashlight, and observed carefully. Sure enough, she saw a blood-red pattern on the edge of the wooden platform.
She reached out and touched it, feeling a faint, uneven texture. If you weren’t careful, you wouldn’t have noticed it at all.
“How did you find it?”
Zhang Xiaochen was still confused by the two of them. Now he was kneeling on the ground, staring with wide eyes, and only then did he notice the marks. He was extremely surprised.
He had thought this kid only knew how to cry when he encountered trouble. Who would have thought he could be useful?
The male student coughed lightly and glanced at Jiang Liu with some embarrassment.
The story went back to the night before. At that time, he was sitting between Jiang Liu and Ren Linlin, listening to a bunch of opera analysis, and he was already trembling with fear.
When Jiang Liu hinted for him to rush onto the stage to save people, his limbs had already lost their strength. He had to scramble up a not-so-high step, and that’s when he had inadvertently seen a flash of red.
Jiang Liu frowned at him. “Then why didn’t you say so at the time?”
He scratched his head in embarrassment. “I was going to say something, but you glared at me for being slow, and I got scared and forgot.”
If they hadn’t just brought up the play The Peony Pavilion, he wouldn’t have remembered this.
Jiang Liu was at a loss for words, half amused and half exasperated. So she had the power to make children stop crying? Just one look, and this kid would remember it for so long.
Fortunately, it wasn’t too late now. With the discovery of this strange pattern, the truth was already laid out before them.
The somewhat confused Xu Meng finally understood, her face gradually turning pale. “No wonder they say you’ll go crazy after going on stage. It turns out we are all…”
She paused, unsure of how to describe it for a moment.
Jiang Liu casually finished her sentence, “Sacrificial Offerings, or you could say, Pawns.”
Everyone was talking back and forth, leaving Zhang Xiaochen with a face full of question marks. He finally couldn’t take it anymore and shouted, “Wait, have you all forgotten there’s another person here?!”
He kept pointing at himself. This feeling of understanding every sentence but not really understanding was really frustrating.
Xu Shu tutted. “So when we were discussing the script, you didn’t listen at all.”
Zhang Xiaochen was still confused. Since the ghosts were doing the acting for them, why should he bother to understand the script and lines?
Seeing his reaction, Jiang Liu couldn’t help but laugh. It was Xu Meng who kindly reminded him, “The Peony Pavilion is about Du Liniang coming back to life and finally being with Liu Mengmei. That’s why Granny Chen chose this play.”
Rehearsing The Peony Pavilion was for a very simple reason—she wanted the Troupe Master to be resurrected and be with her forever.
The initial clue had already been given through the electronic voice, written in the title.
They had been too focused on the theater itself and had forgotten the hints in the opera.
The strange blood-red patterns, the ghosts that controlled people to perform, Ren Linlin’s loss of self—all pointed to one answer.
They were not actors at all, but rather—tools for Granny Chen to resurrect the Troupe Master.