Chapter 24: The Shock of Pear Garden
Since Qiyi has already started to harm people, Mo Xuanji can't just sit back and watch.
After seeing off the first customer since the store opened, Mo Xuanji used the invisibility technique taught to him by the omnipotent Doraemon, and none of the psychics who were responsible for keeping an eye on him noticed that he had left the house.
"Reporting that the little girl has left the Target store and her vital signs are normal."
"Keep watching."
"receive."
The person on the other end of the intercom breathed a sigh of relief. They had already contacted the top leaders of the demon clan, but there was no such demon as Yu Heng among the demon clan, and there were no relevant records on the human side. No one knew him, as if he had appeared out of nowhere. The only trace of his activities that could be traced back was a month ago in Qishan, where he had casually rescued a student from an S-level monster.
Although Yuheng's two actions were to save people, his origins were unknown. It was not uncommon for him to pretend to be friendly and then reveal his true face after they let down their guard. They even suffered a loss not long ago. Before they were sure whether Yuheng was an enemy or a friend, they could not act rashly.
Mo Xuanji came to the place where Fang Ying's bronze mirror was broken. Not much time had passed, and there were still traces of some unlucky person left on the ground.
There were scattered dirt stains on the clean blue brick floor, mixed with some green juice, and some porcelain fragments that had not been cleaned up were still left in the cracks of the bricks.
Mo Xuanji looked up subconsciously, and sure enough, there was a windowsill on the upper floor filled with potted plants, with a few gaps near the edge.
"It looks like a flowerpot fell down. How unlucky! Judging from the traces, it must have been someone chasing her and smashing it." The system sighed in its consciousness.
Mo Xuanji didn't say anything. He closed his eyes and tapped his palms lightly with the fan. His consciousness quickly dispersed in all directions, and a colorless world appeared in his mind.
Under the effect of this skill, some details will also appear clearly in his mind. This is the detection skill he learned from the bamboo slips. It is very convenient to use it to search for strange things, but it consumes a lot of mental energy. Just when Mo Xuanji was about to give up, a deep purple mist appeared in the detection range.
“Found it!”
Following the mist, Mo Xuanji soon arrived in front of a residential building. To be more precise, it was outside the window of a resident on the first floor.
The sound of opera singing could be heard faintly from inside the house. The person seemed to be quite young, and his voice was still a little childish.
"But you are such a treacherous person..."
"Xuanxuan, stop singing and eat something. It's been two days..."
Beneath the singing was the voice of a woman begging desperately. The other party seemed not to hear it, and the singing never stopped.
"Xuanxuan, Xuanxuan, please wake up soon. Whether you want to learn painting or opera singing in the future, mom will support you, okay..."
The girl's hollow and hoarse voice sounded extremely strange amid the woman's crying.
"There is a strange aura about this child." Mo Xuanji's expression was solemn. He used a fan to hold up the purple mist, and the other end of it was connected to the girl's eyebrows.
This looks like the work of a weird psychic. But...why is it a psychic?
…
The huge theater was filled with red veils and an atmosphere of decadence. The audience was filled with well-dressed spectators wearing clothes from the 1980s and 1990s, sitting stiffly in their seats, motionless. The bleak light shone down from overhead, and their faces were hidden in the shadows, with no facial features visible.
On the stage, a girl in costume mechanically sang the lines, her eyes full of fear. She seemed to have been performing on stage for a long time, her voice was hoarse, and her feet were bleeding. The bright red blood soaked her cloth shoes, and every step she took left a bright red footprint on the ground, but even so, she never stopped moving. She didn't dare to stop.
"Mei Niang, please, I've been dancing for a long time, can you let me rest for a while? Just for a while."
A female voice sang in an operatic tone: "You said three days and three nights, so it's three days and three nights. You can't break your promise. Young lady, just concentrate on singing and don't disturb the official's interest~"
Lin Xuan tried hard to keep her voice and movements standard, but even so, mistakes were inevitable.
The tone of the theater was dark and depressing, and the red gauze that could be seen everywhere was like the bloody mouth of a beast. As Lin Xuan made mistakes in her movements, the whole environment began to change. The stage, the audience, and the red gauze, sometimes they were normal, and sometimes they turned into flat pieces of paper. The color on the paper changed, and there were bursts of sounds that could be called mental pollution.
Lin Xuan fell to the ground under the double torture of body and mind, and her face turned pale in an instant.
The audience burst into laughter, slapping their paper-like hands, shouting "good" and throwing "gifts" onto the stage. Some tore off a bloody arm, some dug out their eyeballs, and some took out their hearts. They were even still beating when they were thrown onto the stage, squirming a few times before growing teeth with a "click-click" sound, and crawling towards Lin Xuan in a twisted manner.
Such a horrifying scene frightened Lin Xuan so much that she screamed on the spot. She finally broke down and cried, "Mei Niang, I was wrong! I'm sorry! I will never write such a story again. Please let me go, I will change it for you when I go back!"
"Don't go back on your word~" the voice was still singing.
The paper people in the audience, covered in blood and holes, laughed and watched Lin Xuan's collapse.
This was the explosive scene that Mo Xuanji saw when he came in, and his san value almost evaporated all at once.
"Oh my god!" the system exclaimed.
At this time, there was also a little girl in the audience. She was anxious and wanted to rush onto the stage, but she was blocked by the paper-covered audience every time. After finally squeezing out a step, she was pushed back again.
Mo Xuanji quickly used his spiritual sense to investigate and found that he and the two girls were the only alive people in the entire space, the rest were all strange creatures.
The little girl noticed Mo Xuanji's appearance and turned her head in surprise: "Huh? You too..."
She realized something and quickly covered her mouth, but it was too late. All the spectators around turned their heads to look at them, with a resentful expression twisted on their hollow faces.
They opened their mouths and made sharp cries.
Mo Xuanji couldn't stand the noise anymore, so he waved his fan and the paper figures were blown away for a long distance. Mo Xuanji quickly rushed onto the stage and rescued Lin Xuan.
The paper figures seemed to have triggered some mechanism. Their bodies began to twist, stretching and twisting, turning into long pieces of paper, sweeping over with a strange and unique stench, trying to snatch Lin Xuan back. The little girl quickly pulled Lin Xuan over and carried her on her back: "Hurry, follow me!"
Mo Xuanji waved his fan to cut the piece of paper that was extended to him, then turned around and followed her steps.
The little girl seemed to be very familiar with this place. She led them to a room. There were some costumes in the room, a mirror on the table, and some makeup items in front of the mirror. There seemed to be a certain rule here. After closing the door, the paper figures were completely isolated outside. Even if the door was slammed, no paper figure could get in.
Lin Xuan was so frightened that she trembled. The little girl patted her back and comforted her softly, then bowed to Mo Xuanji: "Thank you for your help, sir. My name is Xun Lan, and I am trapped here with Miss Lin. The evil spirit captured Miss Lin and forced her to go on stage. If she fails to sing well, the evil spirits in the audience will go crazy like they did just now."
Lin Xuan nodded frantically and wiped away her tears: "Mei Niang still forced me to...act according to the script."
"Mei Niang?" Mo Xuanji felt something was a little strange. He suddenly remembered what Lin Xuan had said on the stage: "Excuse me, what did you mean by 'I will never write this kind of story again' when you said on the stage?"
His intuition told him that this might be the key to breaking the deadlock.
Lin Xuan showed a tangled expression, and Xun Lan patted her shoulder.
Seeing the encouragement and comfort in Xun Lan's eyes, Lin Xuan finally decided to tell the truth.
"Yes...it's like this." She lowered her head: "Mei Niang is a character I created, and the script is also the past I arranged for her when I created her..."