Who Is Watching

Take out the self-heating rice, tear open the package, pour the rice, side dishes, and seasoning packet inside into the plastic bowl, add water, then tear open the self-heating pack and place it at the bottom of the bowl in the outer package. Add water, put the plastic bowl on top, and cover it with the lid.

Then all he had to do was wait to eat.

Some students might ask: In such a bizarre and unpredictable place, could Lu Ban really eat?

The answer was yes. Of course he could.

People needed food to live, and no one could stop Lu Ban from eating.

While waiting for the rice to finish cooking on its own, Lu Ban casually swept his flashlight around the hall again.

Because of the hole in the dome, the theater hall had actually suffered far more severe erosion than the corridors and dressing rooms, especially the area directly beneath the hole.

Aside from the spotless stage, the remaining floor was already covered in thick moss. It was extremely slippery and easy to fall on, and the dampness had spread from the damage in the dome. Some plants had even grown on the ceiling, though only near the opening.

After night fell, the temperature dropped, but Lu Ban did not feel cold.

"The taste isn't bad."

Lu Ban picked up his chopsticks and put a chunk of beef brisket coated in tomato sauce into his mouth, savoring it carefully.

The self-heating rice was not actually very hot, only barely hot enough to steam the processed rice until it was cooked. The beef brisket had naturally been seasoned beforehand, and its rich sauce covered up the taste of industrial production. For instant food, it tasted quite good.

As he ate and drank cola, Lu Ban had the feeling that he had not come to explore a secret realm at all, but to do an outdoor eating livestream.

"Maybe I really should try it next time?"

Lu Ban thought of some outdoor-food uploaders. Their videos involved going into remote wilderness and eating better food than restaurants served. If he came to a terrifying, bizarre place like this to livestream himself eating an abundant meal, would he be popular too?

While eating, he also watched a cached video on his phone. The signal in this wasteland was practically nonexistent, but fortunately, Lu Ban had prepared in advance.

He was watching a paranormal exploration video.

The video explored a hotel rumored to be haunted. Lu Ban did not know whether it had an eighty-star rating, but from the outside, the building was extremely dilapidated. Combined with the dark-green underworld filter and the video maker's spooky narration, it was actually somewhat frightening.

As he watched the video, Lu Ban continued eating the food in his bowl.

When the host turned his flashlight and illuminated a human face, Lu Ban sucked in a breath.

"How scary!"

He could not help taking a big bite of rice.

When the video ended, it still had not made clear what was wrong with the hotel. It simply ended there.

He had watched it, but it felt as though he had not completely watched it.

Lu Ban finished eating too. He downed the cola in one gulp, put the trash into a bag, and set it aside. After checking his phone, he saw that it was only eight o'clock.

Picking up his flashlight and taking the crowbar, Lu Ban prepared to check on the control room on the other side.

Out of habit, Lu Ban shone his flashlight toward the control room on the other side. He saw that the few mannequin figures with eyes drawn on their faces were still standing by the window, watching Lu Ban's every move in the theater hall.

He shone the light toward the control room directly opposite the stage again. It was empty.

Lu Ban also swept the flashlight over the window of the control room he had visited earlier.

He saw that inside the pitch-black control room, behind the shattered glass, a mannequin figure with strange black eyes drawn on its face was standing there.

Thump—

Lu Ban felt his heartbeat suddenly become deafening. Blood rushed against his eardrums, making his ears ache. Then came the feeling that everything was moving away from him. His gaze locked onto the faces of the mannequin figures, and he stared into those strange eyes for several moments.

"Has it started?"

Lu Ban suppressed the various imaginings and speculations surging in his mind.

At this point, he instead felt that there was nothing much to fear.

There really were ghosts in Jiangcheng Grand Theater.

If he did not know what was causing the trouble, Lu Ban might still have worried about being crushed to death by a road roller falling from the sky. But now that he understood it was ghosts causing the disturbance, he had a clear enemy.

Besides, based on what he had just seen and heard, Lu Ban quickly summed up a few conclusions about the ghosts.

"The ghosts in this theater can interfere with reality. Whether it's making the piano produce sounds or moving the mannequin figures, they have to rely on physical means."

"The ghosts here aren't evil spirits that will immediately appear and slaughter anyone they see alive. Either their power isn't strong enough to affect me, or they have some other objective. In any case, if these ghosts were extremely dangerous, I should have died the moment I entered the control room."

"The mission objective is to find the performer, and there's only one piano here. So I'll definitely find the performer on this stage in the end. There's no need to explore other places."

After obtaining this information, Lu Ban sat down again.

Although the mission had an exploration rating, Lu Ban felt that, as an ordinary person who could not even truss a chicken, exploring Jiangcheng Grand Theater at night was not a wise choice.

Wasn't sitting here and watching videos to pass the time much better?

He took out his phone again and continued watching another cached video.

The video was about a woman who thought her house was haunted, so she invited two "professional exorcists" over. The two men installed surveillance cameras throughout the house and slept in the guest room. In the end, they actually captured footage of the female homeowner's head twisting around as she crawled up the wall on all fours.

As he watched the pajama-clad woman slowly crawl up the wall like a spider, and as her head twisted around, Lu Ban distinctly heard the sound of something hitting the floor as it rolled from the entrance to the hall behind him.

He paused the video and turned around.

The areas away from the hole in the dome were already very dark, and the entrance was even darker. Only by relying on his flashlight could Lu Ban see the situation clearly.

The entrance was empty, with only the dense darkness outside. Even the flashlight's beam could not penetrate it.

There was nothing there.

No.

Inspiration flashed through Lu Ban's mind. He raised the flashlight and shone it toward the control room facing the stage.

At some point, the mannequin figure in the tattered formal suit had appeared there. Its face was pressed against the still-intact glass, and its twisted, bizarre eyes stared fixedly at Lu Ban.

Lu Ban's breathing stopped for a moment.

The deeper the night grew, the more restless these things became.

Lu Ban picked up the crowbar and used his flashlight to check the mannequin figures in the other two control rooms.

Then he discovered that the mannequin figure by the window of the first control room was gone!

"Do these mannequin figures move on their own at night?"

Lu Ban guessed.

"Is the performer among these mannequin figures? Were they victims of the fire back then, and did their resentment keep them at the scene of the accident?"

"What exactly happened back then?"

As questions arose in his mind, his flashlight swept across the theater hall.

The round patch of light skimmed over the second floor, the VIP boxes, the back rows, the front rows, the entrance to the emergency passage, and the backstage.

At that moment, Lu Ban suddenly noticed that someone in red seemed to be standing at the entrance to the emergency passage!