Chapter 111: Reluctant Audience
Du Sixian grasped the edge of the white porcelain dish, fine beads of sweat seeping from her palms, her heart caught in a battle.
On one side stood the High Person who had saved her life, and on the other was An Qing, who had guided her onto the path of being a Spiritual Ability User and had taught her with great care. Both were people she didn’t want to hurt, making the choice incredibly difficult.
What if…
She simply destroyed this damned dish?
No, no, that would be too obvious, right? Besides, even if it shattered, it wouldn’t mean it couldn’t be used for that spirit communication or whatever, would it?
After all, I don’t even know what this spirit communication really is.
Du Sixian thought as she lingered before the desk for quite a while, until suddenly, the mourning owl badge on Ahua and An Qing’s chests began to vibrate.
After lightly touching the badge with her fingertip, Jiang Li’s cold voice echoed in the classroom, instantly capturing everyone’s attention, except for Du Sixian.
“Do you have any findings over there? If not, hurry over to the auditorium. I have a major discovery here.”
Upon hearing this, the crowd’s expressions subtly shifted, and the atmosphere grew somewhat tense.
Jiang Li was not someone who made a fuss; if she said there was a major discovery, then she must have found something extremely useful.
Du Sixian discreetly observed the others from the corner of her eye, noticing they all looked towards Ahua and An Qing, her gaze slightly sharpening. She quickly grabbed the white porcelain dish, not much larger than a palm, and swiftly tucked it into her clothing.
The porcelain dish pressed against her skin, emitting a cool sensation, causing Du Sixian’s heart to race. While stealthily watching the others, she adjusted the dish’s position, tightened her belt, and, after confirming it wouldn’t slip out, she quietly let out a sigh of relief.
I’ll just hide it on me for now; once I leave this d*mn place, I’ll find a place to throw it away. Du Sixian thought.
Meanwhile, the others had wrapped up their discussions after hearing Jiang Li’s brief description.
“Jiang Li must have discovered some important clues; we should hurry over there as things have varying levels of priority,” An Qing said. “Here, it seems nothing is amiss for now. We can return to search after we see to that side of things.”
“Alright! Let’s go with that then?”
Ahua, who knew her young lady’s nature best, agreed, feeling that An Qing’s statement made sense. She nodded, leading the members of the Special Action Team out of the classroom.
As she stepped out the classroom’s main door, she paused slightly, her gaze sweeping over Du Sixian.
Is it my imagination? Did she linger at that desk for a bit too long?
Why does it feel like something isn’t right? Ahua pondered for a few seconds, gently shaking her head.
Forget it, I might be overthinking.
…
Deep within Shihhekou Middle School, there was a building significantly lower than the others, designed with a curved dome reminiscent of the National Grand Theatre, complemented by some Roman columns, giving off a certain grandeur while also feeling strangely out of place.
This was the auditorium of Shihhekou Middle School, comprising two levels.
A few minutes earlier.
The members of Group A, to which Jiang Li belonged, had reached this spot after conducting searches. Before they entered, an unusual spirit energy fluctuation was felt.
The large front glass doors of the auditorium were all locked, covered in a thick layer of dust, obscuring the view within.
Standing before the glass doors, Jiang Li contemplated whether to find a member of the Special Action Team carrying the key to unlock the door or to save time by breaking in, when she heard a shout from the nearby members who were acting separately.
“Operator Two, there’s a safety exit we can enter through over here!”
Following the direction of the sound, she arrived at the safety passage discovered by a Special Action Team member, frowning slightly as she observed the heavy iron safety exit door, which appeared to have been violently smashed, warped inwards with a gap wide enough for one person to pass through.
Seeing this, Jiang Li turned to the three members of the Special Action Team behind her, instructing, “I’ll go in first, and once I confirm it’s safe, you can follow.”
“Understood!”
Hearing the group respond, Jiang Li took a step forward, a silver light appearing from beneath her feet, climbing up along her slender legs.
The moment both her feet fully entered the auditorium, she transitioned into a segment of Spirit Patterns release, her lower body clad in a silver-white armor glowing faint blue, her cane transforming into a narrow, sharp long kn*fe.
Standing firm in the corridor behind the safety exit, stale air mixed with an indistinct odor rushed in. Jiang Li expanded her spirit perception range to its maximum, ensuring no urban legends were hidden nearby before calling out to the outside, “You all can come in now?”
The three members of the Special Action Team squeezed through the narrow gap into the corridor, and then they lit up powerful flashlights, illuminating the dark passage.
This was a corridor that could accommodate four or five people walking side by side, extending forward for about four to five meters before bending right directly into the auditorium.
The surrounding walls had turned yellow, mold staining the corners, and debris was scattered on the floor, resembling a scene right after a movie without any cleaning.
Jiang Li took a couple of steps forward and suddenly stepped on something that made a faint sound. She furrowed her brows and, while feeling in the shadows, picked up a desiccated mouse carcass that had only its empty shell remaining.
“Crunch—!” Applying slight pressure with her fingertips, Jiang Li crushed the item in her hand and silently moved forward.
After walking for a distance and turning the corner at the end of the corridor, a large iron door appeared not far ahead.
Jiang Li approached, gently pushed the iron door, and as it creaked open slightly, a strange odor wafted out from within.
Jiang Li was very familiar with that unusual smell; she had encountered it many times at various urban legend attack sites—it was the scent of rotting corpses in a closed space.
Without lingering too long, she suddenly pushed the door wide open, stepping into the auditorium, her expression darkening upon seeing the scene inside.
The three members of the Special Action Team followed closely behind Jiang Li. Logically, this wasn’t their first mission, and their psychological resilience was stronger than average, yet upon seeing the sight in the auditorium, they were still startled. One of them even trembled, dropping the flashlight to the ground.
As a private aristocratic school, the auditorium of Shihhekou Middle School was built to resemble various theaters, with a high and spacious main hall that fanned out to nearly a thousand seats.
At this moment, in this auditorium that had been abandoned for many years, turbid air wafted with a chilling breeze, and as the beam of the flashlight swept across, it revealed that nearly a thousand seats were shockingly filled with shadowy figures.
“They” sat quietly in the dimly lit hall, resembling a group of deeply obsessed audience members who, after the performance had concluded, still gazed at the stage, unwilling to depart for a long time.
At the very front of the hall, the stage curtain was tightly drawn, dull and white, thick with dust.
Faced with such a bizarre scene, Jiang Li shot a glance back at the three startled members of the Special Action Team, walking forward unhurriedly. She grabbed the head of the shadowy figure closest to her, lifted it with one hand, and tossed it in front of the three.
“Take a look; there’s no spirit energy fluctuation. It’s not an urban legend.”
Upon hearing Jiang Li’s voice, the members of the Special Action Team finally settled down, directing the flashlight beam toward the figure on the ground.
It was a dummy made from bedsheets and pillows.
Judging by the style of the bedsheet cover, it appeared to be the uniform bedding supplied by Shihhekou Middle School.
Since the students there were either wealthy or privileged, few used the standardized bedding, leading the Siye Society to discover a large stash of bedding piled up in the storage room during their first search.
This had been documented in the records regarding Shihhekou Middle School.
The dummies were crudely made, barely resembling a human shape.
What was particularly eerie was that a face was drawn on the pillow with colored pens, with eyes, a nose, and a mouth drawn with remarkable detail, and on the back, the class and name were written.
“d*mn it, that grandson brought those piled-up bedding here to pull this nonsense, scaring me to d*ath!”
Perhaps feeling that as a member of the illustrious Siye Society, he had been scared by a pillow and blanket, the member who had dropped the flashlight cursed while giving the dummy a kick. The next moment, he cried out in shock.
“Holy cr*p, holy cr*p… it moved, it moved!”
Whether by coincidence or the dummy truly had something bizarre about it, when he kicked it, the iron buckle on his combat boot snagged the rope on the dummy’s chest. In the instant he pulled back his foot, the dummy, pulled by the rope, sat up abruptly and lunged at him.
Realizing that the dummy had moved because it was caught by his boot, another member of the Special Action Team helped him untangle the rope while teasing him.
“Xiao Dong, are you scared? Even though this is only your third mission, there’s no need to be so timid, right? Really, jumpy as a cat!”
“d*mn it! How was I supposed to know? If it were you, wouldn’t you be scared?”
…
Jiang Li listened to the three members of the Special Action Team mocking each other, gently shaking her head. She raised her long kn*fe and, following the strange odor wafting through the air, moved forward.
Moving along the corridor, Jiang Li gradually approached the source of the strange smell, eventually arriving at the front of the stage.
At that moment, a sound reminiscent of metal snapping suddenly echoed from above the stage, sending chills down their spines.
“Creak—!”
“Crack—!” Something in the darkness broke, and the stage curtain fell with a whoosh, landing heavily on the stage and kicking up a cloud of choking dust.
When the dust settled, ten or so figures dressed in performance costumes were eerily revealed on the stage, hidden in the darkness, striking various poses and seemingly swaying their bodies gently…
