"Is it... a ghost?"
The frantic rain pounded against the cold window, and their hearts were like flickering flames in a lamp, unstable and uncertain.
"I... I don't know." The woman swallowed. "Should we notify the enforcers?"
"Are you crazy!"
Upon hearing the word "enforcers," the man, who had been frightened into a stupor, finally regained some semblance of reason.
"Once the enforcers get involved, what we've done will definitely be exposed... Absolutely not!"
"Then... what should we do about him?"
The woman paused for a moment. "Do you think... could it be that some 'calamity' has attached to Yifei's body?"
Both of them simultaneously turned their gaze to the tightly closed bedroom door and fell into silence again.
After a long while, the man, as if having made a decision, took a black raincoat from the door and pushed it open to leave.
"Where are you going?"
"To where we buried the body!"
"Now? Why?"
"To verify." Rainwater slid down the man's pale face as he spoke in a raspy voice, "Whatever is in the room now... it can't be Yifei! I want to see his body with my own eyes."
"I'll go with you!"
No one would willingly go out in such a thunderstorm, but compared to being alone with that unknown sleeping thing in the bedroom, the woman would rather choose the former.
In the heavy rain, two figures in raincoats hurriedly left.
...
Bedroom.
Chen Yifei, who had fallen into a deep slumber, suddenly had his eyelashes flutter lightly, as if he was having a nightmare.
In his dream, his consciousness kept sinking, as if falling into a bottomless pit. After an unknown duration, he felt like he had landed on some hard ground and finally stabilized his body.
Thunk—thunk—thunk—thunk—
A muffled mechanical sound rang out, and immediately afterward, a beam of light pierced through the darkness like a sword, converging onto a figure in red clothing.
Chen Yifei instinctively used his hand to shield his eyes.
"Where... is this?"
Chen Yifei's chaotic consciousness gradually became clear. After gradually adapting to this intense light, he looked around in a daze.
Within the range of the beam, he could only see the vermilion theatrical robe on his body, the old wooden floor under his feet, and the black curtain illuminated by the beam in the corner behind him... Beyond the beam was endless unknown and darkness.
Seeing this scene, Chen Yifei suddenly froze.
As if he had thought of something, he squinted his eyes and looked up. The beam of light illuminating him was coming from spotlights fixed on a steel frame.
"The stage?"
As an in-service director in a theater, Chen Yifei was very familiar with the stage. In his previous life, until he was killed by a falling light, he had been on the stage figuring out positions. His understanding and cognition of the stage even surpassed those of the actors.
So his first reaction at this moment was that he had been transported back.
Wait...
The lighting effects of the theater stage in his previous life were better than this, the curtain wasn't black, and the floor wasn't this old wooden one.
Was he dreaming?
Chen Yifei tentatively took a step forward, and the old floor emitted a harsh squeaking sound. As his figure was about to step out of the light circle, another beam of light followed closely behind his footsteps, pursuing into the darkness.
"Follower spot?" Chen Yifei's heart skipped a beat, and he subconsciously shouted,
"Who's there?!"
These lights could follow him, which was most likely manually controlled. Unless this stage also adopted an automatic follow-spot system, but given the stage's outdated condition, that possibility was almost zero.
"Who's there..."
"Who's there..."
"There..."
Chen Yifei's voice echoed in the darkness, becoming increasingly eerie and ominous.
At the same time, an electronic screen at the edge of the stage suddenly lit up.
In stage design, this position was usually set up for a teleprompter to prevent actors or hosts from forgetting their lines midway. But at this moment, the screen displayed a string of red characters:
[Audience Expectation: 29%]
At the bottom left corner of the screen, there were also a few small words:
"Please do not let the audience's expectation fall below 20%, otherwise the theater does not guarantee the safety of the performers."
Seeing this screen, Chen Yifei felt somewhat bewildered...
Audience? Where did they come from?
Thunk—thunk—thunk—
The familiar sound of lights turning on sounded again!
The darkness before the stage receded like a tide, revealing hundreds of wooden chairs spread out in tiers, surrounding the stage from the front, densely packed.
Audience seats.
These three words appeared in Chen Yifei's mind.
It was reasonable to have audience seats where there was a stage. What truly made Chen Yifei's scalp tingle was not this but rather when...
These audience seats were already filled with "audience members".
They were humanoid creatures shrouded in shadows. Even though the lighting was sufficient, Chen Yifei still couldn't make out their appearances, as if they were incarnations of the abyss.
The only exception was their eyes.
Countless crimson pupils opened in the dimness. They sat in their respective wooden chairs, gazing at Chen Yifei on the stage, resembling a group of cats cornering a mouse, with playful and greedy looks.
Chen Yifei, under their gaze, felt a chill at the back of his neck. He didn't know what these "audience members" were, but they were definitely not human!
Chen Yifei controlled himself from looking at those eerie eyes and turned around to sprint to the other end of the stage.
Logically, the exits of the stage were on both sides. If he could just leave the stage, he should be able to temporarily escape those creepy things!
The follow-spot light locked on the running figure in red and rushed straight to the edge of the stage, but what greeted him was a bare wall.
Chen Yifei froze.
Not believing it, he ran to the other side of the stage, and it was the same.
This stage... had no exits at all.
In the dim audience seats, the densely packed crimson pupils followed his escape, constantly moving, like a group of "audience members" immersed in an exquisite performance, utterly focused.
And the protagonist of this performance was Chen Yifei, dressed in red, on the stage.
At the same time, the characters on the display screen at the center of the stage flickered... The audience expectation value jumped from the original 29% to 30%.
"Damn, what kind of fucked-up nightmare is this!"
Chen Yifei pinched himself hard, trying to wake up from the dream actively, but besides feeling a familiar pain, there was no sign of waking up.
[Intermission ended, please continue the performance]
Another line of characters popped up on the screen, and immediately after, a crisp bell sound suddenly rang from above the stage!
Ding-ling-ling—
Before Chen Yifei could react, the scene in front of him fragmented inch by inch, and his consciousness rapidly blurred...
Before he lost consciousness, in a daze, he saw the huge and mysterious black curtain behind him slowly opening!
...
Bang!
Chen Yifei suddenly sat up from the bed!
The sheets were soaked with cold sweat, his chest was heaving violently, and his eyes were filled with terror.
He swallowed some saliva, looked around bit by bit, and finally relaxed after confirming that he was in his own room instead of that damned stage.
"Was it a dream... This dream was too eerie."
He calmed down, got up, and walked to the living room.
At this time, the rain outside had basically stopped, but the sky was still dark. Chen Yifei called out to his parents a few times, but there was no response, and the whole house was quiet.
"Did they go to work so early?" Chen Yifei muttered to himself.
Chen Yifei touched his empty stomach. The nightmare from the night before seemed to have consumed too much of his energy, making him feel lightheaded as he walked. With no other choice, he had to go into the kitchen to find something to eat.
Just as he stepped in, he was tripped by something. Looking down,
it was the remains of a water bucket that looked like it had been gnawed on by a wild animal.
What happened to this water bucket? Did it crack because of the cold?
Chen Yifei couldn't remember what happened last night at all. He muttered suspiciously in his heart, then picked up the water bucket and threw it into the corner. He turned around and found a rag, intending to wipe up the water stains on the floor.
As he squatted down, he froze in place.
He saw that the water stains on the floor began to move automatically, as if there was an invisible figure squatting opposite him, dipping their fingertips into the water and writing something on the ground.
The next moment, the transparent water stains visibly turned blood-red, forming a twisted and eerie line of text outlined in front of Chen Yifei.
——[We are watching you].