A Night in the Theater

When Lu Ban woke up again, he found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

Green climbing plants, a dilapidated European-style dome, and stagnant air tinged with decay.

A ray of warm golden sunlight shone through the spacious hole overhead and fell across Lu Ban's face, slowly rousing him awake.

"Mm."

Lu Ban sat up.

He discovered that he was holding a suona in his right hand. The flashlight lay on the ground. The stage was old and dilapidated, covered in dust and filth.

The piano beside him had long since lost its strings, leaving only the heavy frame that was difficult to move. After years of exposure to rain, it had rotted, sprouting mushrooms and moss.

For some reason, Lu Ban had survived.

"Was that the effect of a critical success?"

The events of the previous night returned clearly to Lu Ban's mind. He remembered rolling a 1 when he had gone All In. Under these rules, that seemed to have been an exceptionally successful roll.

Under the effects of extreme luck, Lu Ban had managed to grasp onto the last vestiges of his rationality, pick up the suona, and play it.

Although he had no idea what power lay behind the suona, judging by the circumstances, the one opposing Du Danping did not seem to be on good terms with him.

Perhaps that final bit of luck was what had allowed Lu Ban to survive.

As he thought, the dust piled up on the stage seemed to develop a will of its own. It automatically gathered together and formed indifferent system text.

Congratulations on completing the task

Settlement will now begin

Task Exploration: 90%

Task Completion: Amazing

Your night in the theater bore witness to a martyr who had concealed his identity. You have engraved his melody in your heart. There will always be certain people in this world who play these melodies when they are needed most. Everything seems beautiful, but the seeds of disaster have already been sown.

Silence Points obtained: 700

Career reward obtained: Skill: Midnight Piano Melody

Career reward obtained: Item: A Night in the Theater

Settlement complete

Maintaining a high level of creative passion and continuing to create is the foundation of every creator

Choose to complete the Career Development Task and receive career rewards

The beginner's guide has been completed. Free-choice mode unlocked

Welcome back to The Silent Land

"Seven hundred points."

The reward was the first thing Lu Ban noticed.

During the previous task, his exploration had only reached 30%, earning him the rating "Mediocre." This time, his exploration had actually reached 90%, earning the higher rating "Amazing."

Yet the increase in Silence Points was not nearly as high as he had imagined.

Perhaps the two thousand Silence Points Lu Ban had earned from his short videos had already spoiled him.

He had worked so hard and nearly faced an alien monster from who-knew-where, almost having his brain blown apart, only to receive seven hundred Silence Points. He could not even make back what he had spent on the crowbar.

This system was seriously stingy.

"Could it be because of the task's difficulty?"

Lu Ban guessed.

The task difficulty had been Mortal, clearly the easiest level. In truth, if Lu Ban had not possessed so many useful items and had been unable to break free from the melody's control and smash Du Danping's head, he might have spent the entire night as a puppet, watching helplessly as those mannequin figures walked back and forth before him. It would have been a little frightening, but at least it would not have been so dangerous.

So perhaps the upper limit for a task of this difficulty was only one thousand Silence Points.

By comparison, making videos was still the better way to earn points.

Lu Ban suddenly found it somewhat ironic.

It was strangely similar to modern society. Working hard on scientific research and exploring the world might earn less money than a performer made from accepting a single advertisement endorsement.

Regardless, seven hundred points were still seven hundred points. At least he had recovered a little.

Lu Ban was not greedy, nor did he intend to question the system.

He was an ordinary mortal who believed that contentment brought happiness.

He examined his other gains.

A Night in the Theater was video footage, all of it stored on his phone. It had nearly filled his phone's storage.

He casually flipped through it. Most of it showed his activities throughout the night from various angles. The footage was very long and would need to be edited before it could be watched.

According to the career plan provided by the system, this should be the material he needed to produce his next short film.

As for Midnight Piano Melody, it was a melody.

It did not exist on Lu Ban's phone. It existed in his mind.

Unlike the techniques brought by the crowbar and suona, which clung to the grooves of his cerebral cortex like spiderwebs, this melody had been directly engraved into his brain stem and spinal cord, carved into his DNA.

In other words, Lu Ban could play this melody anywhere, using anything capable of producing sound.

He picked up his phone and turned on the key sounds.

Beep beep, tap tap—

His fingers began moving at a speed beyond Lu Ban's comprehension, playing the melody filled with dissonance and intricate variations.

If there were a piano in front of him now, even though Lu Ban had no idea how to play one, he could still perform by following his instincts.

Rather than amazement, the sensation was somewhat frightening.

Having gained knowledge out of nowhere that he had never encountered before, Lu Ban felt an uncomfortable sensation, as though his mind had been peered into.

And this melody—

Although he had not tested it, the knowledge in Lu Ban's mind told him that the melody possessed a certain resistance against unclean things. In other words, it was an exorcising tune.

Perhaps playing it with his suona would double its effects?

Lu Ban wondered.

He set down his phone, closed his eyes, and recalled what he had seen and heard the previous night.

When he had witnessed the dark yellow planet and Aldebaran's wondrous radiance, Lu Ban had clearly understood that certain knowledge he should never have obtained had flowed into his mind along with the melody.

But that knowledge was fragmented and lacked any system. He could only vaguely determine that the two indescribable Great Beings were currently inactive, and could only influence or interfere with the outside world under certain extraordinarily extreme circumstances.

At this thought, Lu Ban manifested the silver revolver in his right hand.

He saw that one of the six chambers contained a dark yellow Speech Bullet.

"It recorded it?"

Lu Ban was somewhat surprised. At the time, he had merely instinctively filled the last empty chamber of the Speech Bullet cylinder with the muttering. In reality, he had no memory of what he had done.

He had not expected it to be recorded successfully.

Lu Ban raised the Last Words and pressed the barrel against his temple before pulling the trigger.

Then he opened his mouth and tried to make a sound.

"■■■■■■"

A sound that did not belong to this world rang out. No living creature on Earth could—or should—make such a sound. A grand, indifferent, distant muttering from another realm echoed through the theater hall.

The instant he heard the sound, Lu Ban's own mind exploded with a boom. The sensation of a red-hot iron rod churning through his brain surged back, but the feeling quickly subsided. Lu Ban began to find the sound as pleasing and melodious as heavenly music, even wanting to join in with a verse set to the tune of a Christmas carol.

Lu Ban closed his mouth and stopped the playback.

"...Terrifying. Just listening to this makes it feel like my sanity is draining away. Right."

Although he said it was terrifying, Lu Ban's face remained completely expressionless. He suddenly remembered that after everything he had experienced the previous night, he should have lost a great deal of sanity. He wondered what his current condition was.

He opened his personal panel.

Name: Lu Ban

Occupation: Director

Education: University undergraduate

Strength: 55

Constitution: 65

Build: 60

Agility: 70

Appearance: 90

Intelligence: 65

Willpower: 80

Education: 70

Luck: 20

Sanity: 0

*

It's a new month, so I can ask for monthly votes and recommendation votes now!

Thank you all for your votes, collections, tips, and comments. This newbie is deeply grateful for your support!

Also, I'm really not some big shot. I used to spend my time slacking off in all sorts of ways. Now that I've finally signed a contract, I need everyone's support!

Thanks to "Universe-Invincible Little Cleaver" for the 5,000-coin tip!

Thanks to "The Top Student's Deadbeat Father," "Sage of the Nether Night," "I Was Once an Anonymous Nobody Who Brandished a Blade and Rode into Battle," and "God of Aries" for the 500-coin tips. Thanks to "Why So Outstanding," "The Stranger Returns Beneath the Moon," "Laughing Black Ice," and "Only I Rule the Martial World" for the 100-coin tips!