bookbashuk Chapter 22 The Actor's Obsession
Chapter 22 The Actor's Obsession
On the tenth day of the seventh lunar month, there were only five days left until the actor's spirit was put to rest.
Chen Mo sat at the octagonal table in the old house, with the "deadly" book "The Record of Obsession" spread out on the table.
On the new page, the ink slowly emerged, its color deeper than before.
[Registration of Obsessions: Incomplete]
Name: Liu Fengchun (Stage Name)
[Identity: Actor/Actress in the Late Republican Era]
[Core obsession: To sing the final section of "The Peony Pavilion: The Soul's Departure" at the former site of the Qingyun Theater at midnight on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month]
[Special Warning: This obsession involves a time cycle. If it is not completed within the time limit, the obsession will reset and backfire on the landlord. Each reset increases the difficulty.]
[Remaining time: 5 days, 0 hours, and 12 minutes]
Liu Xiaoyu came over to take a look. She was wearing a light gray sweatshirt today, her ponytail was tied high, and her eyes were both nervous and excited.
Two days ago, after her father, Liu Jianjun, formally entrusted her to Chen Mo for his studies, the girl practically lived in the old house.
"What does the cycle of time mean?" Liu Xiaoyu asked softly.
Chen Mo rubbed his temples. He had done a lot of research in the past two days and tried to communicate with the old house itself using the tenant resonance method. All the fragments of information he obtained pointed in the same direction.
"Simply put, Liu Fengchun's time is forever frozen at the last moment before his death, when he was singing 'The Soul Leaves the Stage' on the opera stage," Chen Mo pointed to the words on the Record of Obsession. "Every year on the fifteenth of July, this frozen time will reappear. What we need to do is to let him finish singing that part of the opera at the right time and in the right place so that his time can continue to move forward."
"What if we can't push it over?"
"Then everything will start over, but starting over requires energy," Chen Mo paused, "which will be drawn from me, the landlord."
Liu Xiaoyu's face paled: "What are you smoking?"
"Lifespan, or worse."
Chen Mo didn't elaborate, but he could sense that Liu Fengchun's obsession was dangerous, and there seemed to be a trap behind it.
The earth spirit from the corner of the main room drifted over. The clay figure was unusually quiet today. It squatted on the corner of the table and whispered in a voice only Chen Mo could hear: "Landlord, this job is hard to take. There's something buried under the stage."
"What is it?"
"I don't know, but it's very heavy, like there's a coffin buried underneath," the earth spirit's body seemed to stiffen a bit. "And... the energy field there is strange. The Yao Guang position in the Seven Stars is nearby."
Chen Mo's breath hitched for a moment.
The seven anchor points of the Seven Star Dragon Locking Formation are: Tian Shu, Tian Xuan, Tian Ji, Tian Quan, Yu Heng, Kai Yang, and Yao Guang.
The old house is located in the central Tianquan area, while the Yaoguang position, according to fragments of Shen Mo's remnant soul's memories, should be in the area of the old theater in the west of the city.
What a coincidence!
"Let's ignore the formation for now," Chen Mo closed the Book of Obsessions. "The important thing now is to figure out what Liu Fengchun really wants. Xiaoyu, can your ability allow you to talk directly to ghosts?"
Liu Xiaoyu nodded, then shook her head: "I can see them and feel their emotions, but to really have a proper conversation, there needs to be something to act as a medium, or they need to be willing to come out on their own."
"medium?"
Chen Mo recalled Lin Xiulan's ring and Su Wanqing's apology video; every obsession had its key.
What is Liu Fengchun's key? Is it a theatrical costume, a erhu, or a specific person?
"Where is the former site of Qingyun Theater now?" Liu Xiaoyu asked.
"It was demolished in the 1980s, and the New City Department Store was built on the site. The department store went out of business five years ago, and now it's an unfinished building," Chen Mo pulled up his phone map. "But strangely, what they're obsessed with is the old site, not the building itself. In other words, even if the theater is gone, they just want to sing on that land."
"Isn't that simple? We'll sneak in in the middle of the night, and you can sing with him until the end."
"If it were that simple, it wouldn't be such a difficult obsession."
Chen Mo stood up, reached into his Yin-Yang bag and rummaged around for a bit, then took out a small cloth bag and poured a few old copper coins onto the table.
"Among the things Shen Mo left behind were a few divination coins. I tried using them to predict good or bad fortune... and the results were all very bad."
The copper coins were laid out on the table, all three with their dark sides facing up, and their edges gleaming with an unnatural black aura.
Liu Xiaoyu stared at the copper coins, her face gradually turning pale: "I...I think I heard crying, the crying of many people, coming from these copper coins."
Chen Mo frowned even more deeply; Liu Xiaoyu's psychic abilities were even more acute than he had anticipated.
"Let's scout out the location tonight," Chen Mo said, putting away the copper coins, "but not the old theater site. Let's investigate Liu Fengchun first."
The lights in the old archives in the south of the city were dim.
The administrator was a thin old man wearing reading glasses. When he heard that Chen Mo wanted to look up opera materials from the late Republican era, he muttered a few words like "Young people these days are really strange," but still took out several large booklets from the dusty storeroom.
The old man opened a yellowed performance record book.
"Qingyun Theater... Oh, I remember. It was at its peak between 1948 and 1949. The troupe leader's surname was Liu, and his name was Liu Sanyuan. He made a famous actress, his son, whose stage name was Liu Fengchun."
Chen Mo held his breath: "His son?"
The old man pushed up his glasses: "Yes, Liu Sanyuan himself was a martial arts actor, but his son was born with a good voice and a graceful figure, specializing in female roles. It's a pity that in the spring of 1949, after Liu Fengchun finished performing the last show of 'The Peony Pavilion,' he disappeared the next day. The people at the theater searched for him for three days and finally found him in the backstage dressing room... but he was already gone."
"How did it disappear?"
The old man paused, then lowered his voice: "They say she hanged herself, and she was wearing Du Liniang's complete outfit, but strangely, there were no marks on her neck, and her complexion was normal, just like... just like she was asleep."
Liu Xiaoyu's hands trembled slightly as she took notes.
"And then what happened?" Chen Mo pressed.
"Later, the theater went bankrupt, and Liu Sanyuan died of illness less than half a year later. The theater changed hands several times and was demolished in the late 1950s," the old man turned to another page. "But there is a strange thing. Every year on the fifteenth of July, people who pass by that place say they can hear opera being sung, and it is the part of 'The Peony Pavilion: The Soul Leaving the Body' that is being sung."
"How many years has this been going on?"
"It's been at least fifty or sixty years," the old man said, closing the booklet. "Young man, take my advice: that place is haunted. Don't go there."
Chen Mo thanked him and left the archives with Liu Xiaoyu.
It was late at night, and there weren't many people on the street. The streetlights cast long shadows of the people.
"Hanged but without ligature marks..." Liu Xiaoyu murmured, "Then that means..."
"His soul was taken away," Chen Mo continued. "His body is still there, but his soul is gone. So Liu Fengchun's obsession stemmed from his attachment to what was left unfinished. He didn't finish the last act of his play before he died, and his soul got stuck at that point."
"Then how are we supposed to help him finish singing? We don't know how to sing opera."
Chen Mo did not answer. He was using his spiritual vision to observe his surroundings. Since the old house was upgraded, his spiritual vision range had expanded to a radius of fifty meters, and he could see more details.
At that moment, Chen Mo noticed a middle-aged man in a gray Zhongshan suit quietly looking in their direction from the street corner.
The man was about fifty years old, looked very refined, and was holding two walnuts in his hand. Half of his body was hidden in the darkness, motionless, and there was no trace of human warmth on his body.
Seeing Chen Mo looking over, the man nodded slightly as a greeting, then turned and disappeared into the deeper alley.
"What's wrong?" Liu Xiaoyu asked.
"...It's nothing." Chen Mo looked away, but he remembered the face. He had seen this person's photo in Zhao Shouyi's antique shop, in a group photo hanging on the wall.
One of the tomb keepers, or a member of the Longevity Society?
Several clues began to connect, and Liu Fengchun's stage was likely the key to it.
It was already 11 p.m. when I got back to the old house.
Chen Mo told Liu Xiaoyu to go and rest first, while he went to the basement. The bronze door was still standing there, the seven-star pattern on the door glowing in the dim light.
He reached out and touched the door panel, the icy touch spreading from his fingertips.
Tenants' resonance.
The moment his ability was activated, no words appeared before his eyes; instead, a chaotic cacophony of sounds rushed into his mind.
Countless fragments of sound flooded his mind, giving him a severe headache.
An aged voice sighed, "...That child from the Liu family, what a pity..."
A terrified voice screamed, "...Don't dig under the stage! Don't dig!"
A calm voice analyzed: "...With one of the seven stars missing, the formation is unstable; a human sacrifice is the only solution..."
A venomous voice cursed, "...Chen Banshan knows too much! He must die!"
Chen Mo abruptly pulled his hand back, his back already covered in cold sweat.