Chapter 158
Prophecy from the Other Shore Chapter 9: Nightmare Cage
A charred corpse curled up in the alley, with smoke rising from its mosaic-covered black head.
It was a news photo with the title: "Charred corpse found in late-night alley."
At the top of the picture, the huge Arabic numeral "3" seems to be hanging in the air.
A long-handled knife extends out from this number as the center. Its shape is very special. People who are familiar with art will recognize it as a paint scraper.
The metal tip was stained with light and dark paint, but because it was black and white, it was impossible to tell whether it was red or green.
The scraper is like the hands of a clock, starting from the twelve o'clock position, dragging out a layer of mottled bloodstains, forming a fan shape on the picture.
The next frame is another news photo, from a bird's-eye view, showing a woman with twisted limbs lying under a tall building.
Title: "Young woman falls from building late at night."
The huge number "2" was suspended with a crack, and the scraper pointer left an afterimage, as if it was spinning rapidly, and the bloodstain had spread to two-thirds of the circle.
The third frame shows a factory building that collapsed after a fire. The tilted steel beams are covered with cloth, and a curled and broken hand is exposed at the edge.
News headline: "Man entered abandoned auto repair shop to smoke, causing disaster; oil barrel exploded and killed him."
The number "1" hung in the air, and the scraper swung towards the starting point of the bloodstain, about to close.
In the next frame, the picture suddenly darkened, the scraper stood upright, and the bloodstain closed into a circle, like a broken clock face stuck on the dark night sky.
This time, there were no numbers displayed, only two large characters standing out in abrupt rows:
"start".
The bloodstained clock face gradually faded, and against the dark background, an old man's face appeared overlapping as if emerging from the water.
The bloodstains completely faded, and the old face became clear.
It was a pampered face, but from the sagging muscles, fine lines, and sparse hair, one could tell that he was about sixty years old.
The camera zooms out, revealing a luxurious bedroom.
The man was wearing Chinese-style clothes and trousers. He sat on the edge of the bed, his hunched shoulders trembling slightly.
Next to the head, there was a subtitle clearly marked: famous painter Zhu Zangmo.
The camera turned to a bottom-up angle. His pupils looked small as he stared at his phone, and he muttered with wrinkled lips:
"Xu San, Yu Er, Xing Yao. 3, 2, 1... start. What does start mean?"
He trembled. "Does that mean that if Xu San, Yu Er, and Xing Yao die one after another, it will be the next one..."
He threw his phone away.
"Fake, fake! Coincidence, it's all coincidence! The three of them are dead, and all the secrets have been taken to hell, and no one will know them anymore! Isn't this a good thing? Haha..." He laughed stiffly.
"Oh……"
A faint sound floated through the air.
Zhu Zangmo's laughter stopped abruptly and he looked around: "What's that sound?"
The camera zoomed out to a panoramic view, revealing a large and empty bedroom. The man, hunched over and looking around, appeared timid and sneaky, like a rat.
"Are they... restless again?" His eyeballs turned to one side, showing a lot of white in his eyes and very little black in his pupils.
He suddenly pointed at the air, as if scolding someone: "I burn incense for you every day, what on earth are you still not satisfied with?"
A look of resentment appeared on his face. He got out of bed, put on his slippers and walked away.
Walk out of the bedroom and through the dimly lit corridor of the luxurious residence.
Walking down the winding wooden stairs, it became darker and darker, as if entering a basement.
A small dark door appeared in front of me, floating quietly in the darkness.
He pushed open the door.
A ball of light was visible in the darkness, and a face with a talisman paper stuck on its forehead suddenly appeared behind the crack in the door.
As Zhu Zangmo pushed the door open, a gust of wind blew in, lifted the talisman paper, and revealed the face underneath.
The face was extremely pale, the expression was stiff, but the mouth was in the shape of a smile.
The door opened wider.
It turned out to be a puppet.
The puppet stood on an altar, enveloped in candlelight. Compared to the height of the candlesticks, it was only 20 to 30 centimeters tall.
The puppet is in the shape of a girl and is very delicate.
The wooden body is well-proportioned, like a miniature version of a real person.
The shoulder-length hair is embedded in the wooden head one by one, and the material looks like real human hair.
The talisman paper pasted on the face was narrow, reaching the chin, covering only the middle, leaving the face painted with white paint on both sides, with the eyebrows and eyes carefully drawn.
As lifelike as it is lifeless.
The clothes on my body are made of real cloth, sewn stitch by stitch.
It was a hospital gown.
There is a small badge on the chest of the hospital gown. The camera gives a close-up.
The name on the badge reads: Lu XX.
There is also a logo on the badge, which is a variation of the two letters CM.
That is the logo of the Tibetan Ink Base.
Zhu Zangmo walked into the house.
On the long altar against the wall opposite the door, there is a row of puppets, seven in total. The one just revealed is only the first one on the left.
In addition to candles, there are also incense burners, fruit plates, and snacks in front of you.
The puppets are all in the shape of girls, with talismans pasted on their faces.
Each of them is extremely exquisite, with different clothes and names written on their breastplates.
Zhu Zangmo closed the door, bringing up a stronger wind, which made the talisman papers on the puppets' faces rustle, revealing the faces underneath, each with its own unique features.
But the mouths were all painted into the shape of a smile, and the pupils were also painted as black as beans. Under the flickering candlelight, it seemed as if he was smiling.
Beautiful and eerie.
The camera zoomed out to a full view. The light was too dim to tell how big the room was.
The surroundings were shrouded in a distorted black air, with only a few candles providing a blurry ball of light, enclosing a strange row of puppets, and Zhu Zangmo, who was even stranger than the puppets.
Like an isolated space floating in the ghost world.
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