Fire, Moonlight, Melody

Lu Ban immediately gripped the crowbar in his hand.

He observed carefully and found that the face of the mannequin seemed to have been damaged by something, revealing the contours of human features.

"Were these mannequins the cause of the fire back then?"

Lu Ban took two steps back, shining his flashlight around the electrical panel.

He didn't understand circuits well, only seeing that the fire was most intense around the panel and lessened further away.

"But if the fire started backstage, why would Du Danping die?"

Judging by the state of the theater lobby, the fire had spread throughout the entire hall, even creating a large hole in the dome. Could a fire starting backstage really escalate to this extent?

"There shouldn't have been many people in the theater at the time. If there were no other accidents, they should have been evacuated quickly. What affected them?"

The more Lu Ban thought about it, the more something felt wrong.

A dozen or so people were rehearsing here, and when the fire broke out backstage, no one noticed, allowing it to spread and almost destroy the entire theater? Had everyone lost consciousness and fallen asleep?

At the same time, Lu Ban felt an absurd amount of heat around him.

Sweat beaded on his back, and the heat continued to rise.

Lu Ban turned his head and saw the entire theater engulfed in flames!

In that hell of scorching heat, humanoid figures, engulfed in fire, struggled and wailed in agony, crawling towards Lu Ban, trying to drag him in as well.

Lu Ban saw the mannequin with human facial contours at his feet, burning with flames, reaching out towards his pant leg.

He immediately swung the crowbar in his hand, striking the mannequin's head.

Crack--

The crowbar was unstoppable. The already rotten mannequin head shattered with a single blow. Just as Lu Ban was about to run off the stage, he found the entire theater lobby dimming again.

The great fire just now seemed to have been a momentary illusion. The theater remained deserted, lonely, and dark.

Lu Ban looked at what he had shattered with the crowbar. It wasn't a mannequin, but just an ordinary, randomly placed wooden shelf.

As he made his way out, the fused mannequins he had seen earlier had disappeared, as if it were all a nightmare.

Lu Ban reached the piano and looked back towards the backstage with his flashlight. It was empty.

Wiping the cold sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, Lu Ban realized that the previous heat might have truly been an illusion.

His flashlight beam swept across the messy second floor. There were no wailing mannequins, no scorching flames, only silence.

However, when Lu Ban's flashlight confirmed the mannequins with weird eyes in the control room opposite the stage, he was astonished to find that the mannequins that had been staring at him from the window were all gone!!!

Where had these mannequins gone? Lu Ban had many guesses.

"These are the people who died in the fire, their resentment lingering here, trying to find their killer?"

"If that's the case, they shouldn't hurt me, they should help me."

Thinking this, he felt a little more at ease.

Lu Ban returned to his backpack in the first row.

After all, he wasn't a detective who could solve cases just by sitting in a rocking chair. The police had investigated so many times; he was sure he wouldn't find many new clues about the case. It was better to wait for the other party to appear than to try a thankless task.

Since the mission stated he needed to find the performer, it meant there would definitely be a performance here tonight. People on the local forum had also mentioned this.

Lu Ban sat back down, took a sip of water, and picked up his phone to watch videos again.

Perhaps it was because his perception of those weird mannequins had changed, but for a while afterward, he didn't encounter anything strange.

To be precise, there were no phenomena worth his attention.

Occasional strange sounds from outside the lobby, like footsteps, the crisp sound of marbles hitting the floor, and mannequins that would occasionally appear and disappear in the control room window—if you ignored these, it was indeed quite peaceful.

Midnight passed. Lu Ban checked the remaining battery on his power bank and looked up at the piano.

The moon was just above the hole in the dome at this moment. Clear moonlight streamed down, falling directly onto the piano, forming a natural spotlight.

The theater lobby was bathed in a hazy moonlight, becoming much brighter.

Under this radiance, the once sinister, dark, and weird theater lobby didn't seem so terrifying anymore.

A cloud slowly drifted by, obscuring this beauty.

Ding--

Suddenly, a string sound came from the piano.

Lu Ban immediately put away his phone, grabbed his crowbar, picked up his flashlight, and walked towards the stage.

Ding--

Another piano sound, stiff, dull, and hesitant, like a disabled person struggling to lift their hand to press a key.

Ding--

Lu Ban saw the black and white keys of the piano being pressed down abruptly and automatically, as if an invisible person were tuning it.

Ding--

By the fourth note, Lu Ban heard that this sound seemed much more pleasant, like a musician who hadn't touched an instrument in years finally finding their rhythm.

Ding—

By the fifth chime, a faint, ethereal melody seemed to emerge between the two piano pieces.

As the clouds drifted and moonlight once again graced the piano, the melody surged.

Completely contrasting the eerie atmosphere, the clear and melodious piano notes filled the entire theater hall like flowing water, bringing a sense of exhilaration.

The black and white keys rose and fell, like waves swaying at dusk, creating a melody Lu Ban had never encountered before.

He was momentarily captivated by the music, his mind filled only with this melody.

The music continued to flow and leap, and the theater hall quietly transformed.

Those rotten, desolate, and dirty things suddenly gained color. Reds, greens, blues—colors imaginable and unimaginable echoed throughout the theater hall.

Unbeknownst to him, many mannequin dolls with weird eyes stood by the control room window, in the ruined boxes, and at the entrance. They didn't step into the theater hall, but simply watched the stage as if they were an audience awaiting a performance or devout worshippers.

Within the melody, a blend of contradictory emotions—sacred, solemn, reverent, light, melodious, lively—Lu Ban was immersed, seemingly forgetting what he was supposed to do.

He could see, under the moonlight, on the stage, beside the piano, sat a performer.

The performer wore a tuxedo, their fingers dancing nimbly on the black and white keys, like a master musician of the highest skill.

However, that person, or rather, the humanoid performer, was covered in scorched marks, as if baptized by fire and finally reduced to ashes. Their veins, muscles, and bones were entirely inhuman.

Seeing this, Lu Ban immediately snapped back to reality.

He knew clearly that this was the greatest anomaly of the Jiangcheng Grand Theater!