Nightingale Play 1.2
After Su Wan's body was removed, the dressing room still reeked of a sweet, cloying scent of cosmetics, mixed with a faint smell of rust. Fan Jinci stood in front of the dressing mirror, his fingertips lightly tracing a tiny scratch on the edge of the mirror—the silver plating had been scraped away by a hard object, revealing a dark void underneath.
"The murderer didn't come in through the door," he said calmly, pushing his finger along the crack. The entire mirror slid open silently, revealing a narrow passageway behind it. "This is the secret passageway for actors in an old-fashioned theater, connecting all the dressing rooms."
The walls of the passageway were covered with photos, each a close-up of Su Wan during rehearsals. Her eyes were circled in red, with the words "Your tears are fake" written next to them.
Situ Jin crouched down, using tweezers to pick up a shimmering fragment from the corner of the wall: "A fragment of a mirror film, a one-way mirror film used in professional stage equipment." He looked up, "The murderer modified this mirror."
Jiang Zhaoyan leaned against the doorframe, toying with an old roll of film in his hand. "This secret passage wasn't on the theater's blueprints from thirty years ago," he chuckled. "Someone specifically rebuilt the 'Ghost Mirror' system for the purpose of murder."
Li Weimian put on gloves and opened Su Wan's script.
In the blank space of Act II of "The Blood Mask," there are a few lines of hastily written words, as if they were written in haste before death:
"There's someone behind the mirror; she's wearing her mother's costume. The knife is cold—"
The writing stopped abruptly at the last sentence, the pen tip tearing through the paper.
"Psychological projection," Li Weimian said softly, "The killer is playing the role of a 'mother'."
She pointed to an old photo that was repeatedly depicted on the photo wall—a poster for the 1983 film "Bloody Mask," in which the actress playing the female lead bore a striking resemblance to Su Wan.
"Cheng Xue, the youngest winner of the Plum Blossom Award for drama back then," Jiang Zhaoyan suddenly spoke up, "and also the only actress whose body was never found in the fire thirty years ago."
In the forensic center late at night, the operating lights illuminated Su Wan's chest wound, making it appear stark white.
Fan Jinci's scalpel cut along the serrated incision, and the tip of the scalpel suddenly hit a hard object—a rusty copper button embedded in the ventricular muscle.
"The logo of a state-owned clothing factory from the 1980s." Situ Jin placed the button into the evidence bag. "It matches the button on Cheng Xue's costume back then."
The surveillance screen suddenly flickered, and Yu Yan's image appeared outside the glass, holding a yellowed newspaper in his hand: "Found it! It was mentioned in the fire report from back then—"
The newspaper headline photo showed Cheng Xue lying in the center of the stage in her costume, a dagger stuck in her heart, and the date of the report was one day earlier than the official date of the fire.
"She didn't die in the fire." Fan Jinci stared at Su Wan's body on the autopsy table. "Someone killed her first, then set fire to destroy the evidence."
In the theater's archives, Jiang Zhaoyan pushed open the dusty safe.
A charred script lay quietly in the cabinet, the gilded "M" on the title page still faintly discernible. He put on gloves, opened the book, and suddenly chuckled softly, "Interesting."
On the yellowed pages, the lines altered in red ink were shocking:
"Act Three: Judgment Day—when the noose around the director's neck is placed in the audience, when flames engulf all lies—the play truly comes to an end."
He took out his phone and snapped a picture of the page, but the camera captured the reflection on the last page of the script—a strand of long hair held together with transparent tape, glowing with a familiar fluorescence under ultraviolet light.
The aluminum powder extracted from Lin Yan's trachea by Fan Jinci today has the exact same composition.
At three in the morning, the air beneath the theater stage was thick with the smell of engine oil and rotting wood.
Yu Yan's tactical flashlight beam pierced the darkness, illuminating the dried bloodstains on the elevator tracks. His boots crunched over splinters of wood, then suddenly stepped on a metal mechanism—
"Don't move!"
Fan Jinci's voice came through the communicator, cold and sharp like a scalpel cutting through the air.
But it was too late.
With a click of gears meshing, the entire lifting platform suddenly sank half a meter, revealing a hidden compartment on the side. A rusty metal frame slowly rose, resembling a medieval guillotine, its blade gleaming blue in the moonlight.
"A specially made prop from 'The Death of Marat' in 1962." Jiang Zhaoyan's voice suddenly rang out from the shadows. He had somehow crouched down beside the mechanical device, his fingertips tracing the transparent gel on the blade. "But someone modified the hydraulic system—now it can shred an adult's cervical spine."
Situ Jin's ultraviolet light shone on the ground, its dark red fluorescence extending along the track to the control room: "A large amount of bloodstains indicate it was used at least three years ago."
Li Weimian suddenly kicked aside a bunch of cables with the tip of her high heel, revealing a nameplate welded to a steel plate—
"Experimental Apparatus M-7, Lane Biotechnology, 1989"
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