Chapter Forty-Four: The Real Performance

“Report, Deputy Leader! We’ve lost contact with Warmth and Mask!”
Just a few streets away from the Grand Concert Hall, inside a command vehicle disguised as a delivery truck, the voice of an intelligence analyst rang out, tinged with anxiety.
Fu Ying immediately stood up and moved closer. “Any detection of abnormal psychic activity?”
“None. According to the data, there’s nothing unusual at all inside the Grand Concert Hall, but we just can’t establish contact with anyone inside.”
“How long has it been since we lost contact?”
The intelligence officer quickly brought up a timeline, pinpointing the exact moment they lost connection with Qi Chen and Warmth.
Fu Ying closed her eyes, thinking deeply. “That’s exactly when the concert hall is on break, isn’t it?”
Anomalies had occurred, confirming that the intelligence analysis wasn’t far off; even if the concert hall wasn’t an enemy stronghold, there was definitely something suspicious about it.
Her first instinct was to call for the Special Operations Team, but she quickly suppressed the thought.
If there were traitors inside, there could very well be spies within the task force as well. In fact, the very public establishment of this task force was part of Fu Ying’s plan to lure the enemy into the open.
After all, the times for the Confessional Guillotine and the East City Warehouse events had been made public. If she hadn’t staged these maneuvers, that would have been more suspicious.
She stepped out of the command vehicle alone, switching her comms to a more heavily encrypted channel.
“Old Monarch, how’s your mission going on your end?”
“All smooth!” A man’s voice, brimming with confidence, boomed in her earpiece, his tone deliberately loud, as if volume could guarantee success.
“Then come here immediately. Alone.”
With that, Fu Ying ended the call without a second thought.
Despite his obvious personality flaws, Old Monarch was a reliable operative during missions.
At times, he alone could be an army.
...
...
Hoo—
A chill wind swept ceaselessly through the ventilation ducts. Crawling forward, Qi Chen pressed on, his body protesting every inch. Though he was an Eerie Walker with formidable psychic strength, that didn’t mean his physical body was anything special.
After being buffeted by the cold air for so long, he could feel his nose starting to clog, but he couldn’t afford to stop.

“This direction... leads to the sealed-off recital hall?”
Inside the pitch-black duct, Qi Chen could only tell his location by peering through the vent grilles every few meters. Even so, by piecing together glimpses of the outside, he managed to determine the direction in which Warmth had been taken.
It turned out to be the very recital hall they had suspected.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed on through the biting wind, resolving that, once this mission was over, he would have to start training his body—he couldn’t let his physical fitness lag behind.
Meanwhile, on the second-floor corridor, Warmth—now wearing a work jacket—walked expressionlessly among a group of staff, moving with mechanical precision as though he belonged among them.
Yet, when they finally arrived at their destination, his heart skipped a beat.
Creak!
The staff member in front of him raised a stiff arm and pushed open the recital hall door. There were no lights inside, but he could see dense clusters of black shapes filling the audience seats.
Warmth entered as well, but the moment he stepped inside, the strange staff who’d led him there abruptly lost interest in him and scattered in all directions.
Standing where he was, Warmth wondered what he should do next.
“Blend in with these people first. Let’s see what’s going on.” Surrounded on all sides by a sinister aura, he kept up the disguise, heading straight for an empty seat in the audience.
Yet, the instant he set foot in the seating area, everyone around him suddenly snapped their heads in unison, wide eyes staring fixedly at him.
A chill crept up his spine. With the night vision innate to an Eerie Walker, Warmth could clearly see every hostile gaze, taking in the full horror of the scene.
“A work uniform?”
Suddenly, realization dawned. He feigned a stiff posture, slowly backing out of the row of seats, all the while scanning the hall. He soon noticed that the others in work uniforms all stood at the edges of the hall.
He understood his role now.
...
...
Watching as Warmth safely retreated from the audience, Qi Chen finally let out a silent breath of relief, then turned his full attention to observing the recital hall from within the ventilation duct.
He was now positioned high up on the side wall, with a broad vantage point—he could see far more than Warmth could from inside the hall itself.
And he was far more shaken by what he saw.
Each of the Grand Concert Hall’s recital rooms could seat nearly a thousand. At this moment, not only were the audience seats completely filled, but both side aisles were packed with staff as well.
Adding up everyone present, the number was easily over a thousand.

On weekends, the crowd at the concert hall was the largest of the week—not only making it easier for them to sneak in, but also for whoever was behind this to trap all these audience members inside. Qi Chen’s mind raced, quickly realizing that what he was witnessing was no accident.
Throughout the day, the concert hall held multiple performances. If a few people were kept behind after each session, by the end of the day, the numbers would swell to what he was seeing now.
And with the sheer density of the crowd, it would be almost impossible to notice if some audience members hadn’t left.
But why keep all these people here?
Qi Chen’s expression grew grave as he observed the rows of people below, each as lifeless as a puppet. With all the knowledge he’d gained about the eerie, he could guess that everyone in the hall was under some sort of psychic distortion.
Put simply, their thoughts and consciousness were controlled by some eerie entity—or perhaps by someone.
“Can an Eerie Walker really possess such overwhelming psychic strength?”
Qi Chen was skeptical. He refused to believe that a single person could bend the minds of over a thousand people at once.
Suddenly, the entire recital hall fell silent as death. The seated audience and standing staff alike were frozen, as if time itself had stopped.
Whoosh!
A blinding white spotlight hit the stage. The tightly closed curtains began to draw back, accompanied by the sound of a zipper, revealing an old-fashioned grand piano.
Clap, clap, clap!
A thunderous applause exploded without warning. A thousand people clapped in perfect unison, as if each movement belonged to a single body.
The audience rose as one, their hollow eyes locked on the grand piano on stage, hands clapping endlessly, with no sign of stopping.
Then, all at once, the sound vanished.
Bang!
A deep, powerful note rang from the piano keys.
Goosebumps prickled over both Qi Chen and Warmth in the hall.
They could both feel an overwhelming, sinister presence.
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