Chapter 23: Theater

The more I thought, the more frightened I felt.

Back at the pawn shop, I slumped over the counter, feeling listless.

Li Qingying poured me a cup of tea and asked, "Are you still thinking about that woman?"

"Sister Qingying," I said wearily, "I'm just afraid."

Li Qingying patted my hand and comforted me, "Don't be afraid; I'll protect you. What happened that night won't happen again."

"I don't mean that," I said. "My very existence poses a great threat to some people. Even if I wanted to single-handedly stir up all the dark forces in Wufu Town, I couldn't."

I'm too ordinary; I don't cultivate, and even my life depends on Liu Junyan's merit to sustain me. What I can truly do is far too little.

So-called sense of justice and mission need real ability to back them up, and what I lack most is ability.

Moreover, this kind of ability cannot be acquired through later effort; that is the most powerless.

Li Qingying pondered, then asked, "Will you compromise?"

"No," I answered bluntly. "If it's fated that I'll be caught up in all this mess in Wufu Town, then what I can do is to use whatever I have to tear this gap as wide as possible, so those oppressed underneath can see a glimmer of hope."

Li Qingying asked again, "Xiao Jiu, do you believe in fate?"

I thought seriously, then nodded, "I suppose I do."

Looking back on my eighteen years, at birth the midwife's words 'a lone crane brings only mourning' meant I could never return home; being taken in as a dead pawn was also due to the so-called entirely yin fate.

Everything seemed predestined.

What surprised me was Li Qingying saying, "I believe too."

I gave her a strange look; according to her personality, she shouldn't.

Li Qingying said, "Fate always toys with people; sometimes you seem close to the peak, and it strikes you down; sometimes you feel you're in dire straits, and it lets you survive against the odds."

Didn't that Daoist say you're destined to have a noble patron? I think your fate shouldn't be like this; there will surely be a turning point.

Li Qingying's words inexplicably calmed my unease; I smiled, reached out and hugged her, saying, "Sister Qingying, thank you for the kind words."

That night, I still didn't close the pawn shop's door.

Just past eleven, the woman appeared again.

She tiptoed in, holding that knife, stammering, "Pawn… pawn the knife."

I had long been ready; I immediately produced a pawn ticket and asked, "May I ask, is this a living pawn or a dead pawn?"

Woman: "Dead pawn."

Her consciousness tonight seemed somewhat clearer than the previous two days.

I then asked, "How much for the pawn?"

The woman said nothing, her dark eye sockets fixed on me.

I didn't know if she couldn't speak or hadn't decided yet.

Time ticked by; seeing her posture wobble again, she raised a hand to point at the funeral shop and hoarsely said, "Incense."

I immediately understood, hurried to the funeral shop, grabbed a stick of yellow incense, and offered it before her.

The woman greedily inhaled it; the yellow incense burned down almost as soon as it was lit.

When the stick of yellow incense finished burning, I also filled out the pawn ticket.

Pawn item: one Lingchi knife.

Pawn value: one stick of yellow incense.

The pawn ticket in duplicate; I handed the brush to the woman, who lowered herself to write "Meilin Shuang" in delicate small script, then pressed a bloody handprint.

I gave one copy of the pawn ticket to the woman, and stored the other together with the Lingchi knife.

After doing this, the woman's body shook violently; before being drawn away, she left her last two words: "Theater…"

Theater?

What theater?

What exactly did she want to tell me?

Li Qingying and I stared at each other.

The woman appeared at the pawn shop to pawn this Lingchi knife, but her ultimate goal was, through pawning the knife, to have me help her discover the cause of her death and guide her soul.

Could this theater be related to her cause of death?

The town mayor's house has no theater; that is certain.

Does Wufu Town have a theater?

Some long‑buried memories suddenly surged.

I was probably only seven or eight then; while Grandma tended the funeral shop, I sat beside her doing homework.

I recall one afternoon an old woman with white hair came to buy funeral clothes, chatting with Grandma for a long time.

The old lady loved listening to and singing opera; she wanted to be buried in her favorite opera costume after death, but her children wouldn't allow it, so she first came to Grandma to order a set of funeral garments.

That day she happened to mention the theater, saying Wufu Town's Grand Theater had encountered something unclean, had been closed for a long time, and that as a child she had gone with her grandmother to watch performances there.

So Wufu Town does have a theater; it's just been shut too long for us youngsters to know.

I struggled to recall that conversation between Grandma and the old lady, searching the corners of my memory for the information I wanted.

The Grand Theater the old lady spoke of lies in the northwest corner of the town, not far from my family's pawn shop.

I sprang to my feet; Li Qingying startled, asking, "Xiao Jiu, where are you off to?"

To look at the theater.

Having said that, I lifted my foot and walked off.

Li Qingying hurriedly shut the shop door and ran after me.

The night was deep; the streetlights were dim.

We tried to tread lightly, moving in the shadows.

On this side of the town's northwest corner lies a large garbage dump, its stench overwhelming; the rows of houses behind it have long been abandoned, their walls painted with huge 'demolish' characters.

But it's ridiculous that, although many places in Wufu Town are marked with the 'demolish' character, they have never actually been demolished.

I used to think Wufu Town was too remote and too poor to be worth demolishing, but now it seems the reasons behind it…… are probably not as simple as I imagined.

I had never been to this area before; what I didn't expect was that, in that deserted block of houses, Li Qingying and I easily found a building whose gate bore a sign reading 'Wufu Town Assembly Hall'.

The building covers a considerable area, its doors and windows tightly shut; not only are dust and spiderwebs hanging on it, but also numerous yellow talismans are pasted.

The talismans are both new and old, showing they are replaced on a regular schedule.

Li Qingying easily pried open the main gate, and we slipped inside.

With the flashlight's beam, as soon as we entered we saw that, right in the center of the Assembly Hall, a tall stage had actually been erected.

The stage was surrounded by seats, from which one could imagine how lively it once was.

Li Qingying and I dared not delay; we shone our flashlights and carefully searched all around the stage.

But the stage had been abandoned for too long; it was empty, with nothing at all.

Li Qingying whispered to me, 'It's too dark to see clearly; why don't we come back tomorrow daytime to sneak in and search again?'

That's all we can do.

Just as we were cautiously preparing to retreat, a muffled thud suddenly came from the stage.

My scalp instantly went numb, and Li Qingying and I turned our heads at the same time.

On the stage, a faint beam of light from somewhere shone down at an angle.

In that light and shadow, a blood‑stained water sleeve swayed slowly down from above……