When they finally fought free of the illusion and stood in reality again, instinctive smiles still hung on their faces.
But those smiles no longer held a trace of warmth, only endless emptiness and madness.
From then on, they would never truly be happy again.
All that remained was an unending, false smile.
And the person they had come to find... Huang Xiaojuan, stood below the stage, clapping and cheering incessantly with a face full of fanaticism, her gaze entranced, utterly absorbed.
Yang Yong was baffled.
Was it really that good?
He looked up at the stage, where young male and female opera performers sang in lilting voices. The melody was eerie and obscure; to his ears, it wasn't even as pleasant as the opera troupes hired for village festivals before the apocalypse.
Yet everyone below the stage looked as though their souls had been stolen.
He abruptly stopped just as he was about to step inside.
A chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.
He turned to Mang Dabiao and lowered his voice. "Dabiao, what do you think?"
Mang Dabiao narrowed his small, vicious snake eyes slightly, slowly scanning the entire stage. "Everything here feels eerie. I can't see through it either," he hissed.
Yang Yong's heart sank a little. He turned to Hu Xian'er. "Hu Xian'er, what about you?"
But Hu Xian'er's seductive face was tightly furrowed. She shook her head, then nodded, her expression a jumble of conflicting feelings.
"What's going on, exactly?" Yang Yong's voice tightened.
Hu Xian'er took a deep breath, her chest heaving. "I can sense that they're all under a spell. But... I can't tell what kind of dark spell it is."
She paused, her voice growing heavy. "This stage is too eerie. In reality,