Chapter 180 - 166: The Box Hiding a Secret

Liu Hua didn’t know when Yin Zhen had appeared. Was it when she told Zhang Hai that Yin Zhen was acting suspiciously, or just now?

If it was just now, Yin Zhen had already finished eating an entire piece of bread!

But if she had been there for a while, why hadn’t the Puppet Ghost attacked her? When they first entered the theater, the Puppet Ghost’s primary target had clearly been Yin Zhen. This proved that her scent was far more attractive to the Puppet Ghost than the two of them.

Liu Hua wondered if she had suspected wrongly, or if Qiao Yun had some method to mask her scent. For a moment, her mind was in utter chaos, and she didn’t dare make any rash moves.

Zhang Hai’s subtle gaze darted between Yin Zhen and Liu Hua. Seeing that Yin Zhen had no intention of attacking them, he immediately spoke up to break the stalemate.

"You’re here just in time, girl," Zhang Hai said. "Look at this mess. The coffin got chewed up by rats, and our ’goods’ ran off on their own."

Hearing this, Yin Zhen walked over, pausing slightly as she passed Liu Hua. Liu Hua instinctively wanted to step back but forced herself to hold her ground. Fortunately, Yin Zhen only paused for a brief second before continuing forward. She inspected the dirt pit, her gaze tracing the rat hole toward the adjacent wall.

"Find it," she said. "Once we find it, we seal it again."

The three of them left the storage room beneath the stage. Behind the stage was a backstage corridor that branched off to the left and right. To the left was the instrument storage room, which had a small door leading to the backyard. To the right was the makeup room, which also had a small door leading to the backyard, where the puppet-carving workshop was located.

"Zhang Hai and I will check the storage room," Liu Hua said. "Let’s meet up in the backyard."

Yin Zhen didn’t object. She stood there, watching Liu Hua and Zhang Hai quickly walk away. When the two of them reached the storage room door, Liu Hua suddenly turned her head.

"Did you hear that? It sounded like that girl called my name and said something," she asked.

"I didn’t hear a thing," Zhang Hai replied. "Hurry up, let’s find the item and get out of here!"

With that, Zhang Hai raised his flashlight and pushed open the storage room door.

Meanwhile, Yin Zhen had indeed called out to Liu Hua. To be precise, she had yelled, "Liu Hua, take the heat!" and used Item: Scapegoat Pot.

She wasn’t going to let the two of them leave this place alive, but she needed to add a layer of insurance first. She wanted to delay a complete fallout with the incense master for as long as possible, as she hadn’t gathered enough intelligence on him yet. Initially, she had planned to make Zhang Hai take the fall. However, in the split second she threw the pot, her intuition kicked in, telling her it would be better to make Liu Hua the scapegoat. Liu Hua’s ulterior motives were much more obvious, which would make the incense master believe the setup more easily.

Since Liu Hua and Zhang Hai had decent skills, she decided to let them deal with that ghost for now. Once she found the right opportunity, she would trap and eliminate them all in one fell swoop.

She had planted a Mind Beacon on both of them. Currently, the beacon’s signal was still crystal clear, which also served as a perfect test to see to what extent the Mind Beacon’s tracking would be disrupted by supernatural power.

Yin Zhen bought another Emotion Suppressor from the store, planning to time its usage perfectly. Earlier, she had managed to hide in the storage room and silently watch Liu Hua and Zhang Hai fight the Puppet Ghost without being discovered, all thanks to the Emotion Suppressor.

She had noticed it herself: the Puppet Ghost in the theater was highly intrigued by the aura of her Inheritance. Combined with what the people outside had said, this Puppet Ghost had undoubtedly died harboring immense resentment. After being ritually sealed beneath the stage by the incense master, and being trampled over by thousands of people for so many years, its resentment was bound to be incredibly powerful.

At the right end of the backstage corridor, the makeup room door was left slightly ajar. A dark red light seeped through the crack. Yin Zhen stopped in her tracks, staring at this glaringly abnormal scene.

SLAM!

The door violently slammed shut on its own, completely cutting off the red light from within. Yin Zhen paused. This was clearly an attempt to scare her away.

However, the Effect of the Emotion Suppressor kept Yin Zhen’s mind as calm as still water. She walked straight forward and pushed the door open. Total darkness greeted her, and the air was thick with the heavy scent of dust and the musty stench of rotting wood.

Yin Zhen raised her flashlight and swept the beam around. Everything in the makeup room was draped in thick white dust sheets. Dressing tables, chairs, shelving units... In the corners stood several human-shaped silhouettes. They looked like performance puppets and costume racks, but covered in white sheets, they gave off a distinctly eerie vibe.

Standing at the entrance, Yin Zhen did a full sweep with her flashlight but didn’t spot anything unusual. The beam of light eventually settled on a small door inside the makeup room, which likely led to the backyard and the puppet-carving workshop. Clutching the antique dagger, Yin Zhen walked inside, weaving her way past the sheet-covered obstacles.

Just as she was a few steps away from the small door, the flashlight flickered a few times and suddenly died. Plunged into pitch blackness where she couldn’t see a thing, Yin Zhen shook the flashlight a few times until the light flickered back to life.

At that exact moment, the puppets and clothing racks that had previously been in the corners were now entirely surrounding her, looking like sheet-covered ghosts! The stiff silhouettes beneath the white cloth were practically pressed against her, and an icy, deathly aura washed over her face.

Even with Yin Zhen’s feelings numbed by the Emotion Suppressor, this sudden jump scare still caused her to instinctively step backward. Her legs bumped into the edge of a dressing table behind her. The table rocked violently, and the large white sheet draped over it slipped off, revealing a vanity mirror.

Inside the mirror, a woman wearing a blue opera costume was combing her hair. Her thick, jet-black hair obscured most of her face as she brushed it with agonizing slowness, stroke by stroke.

The moment their eyes met, the combing woman in the mirror abruptly stopped her movements. A hand with bruised, blackish fingernails pierced through the glass and clamped around Yin Zhen’s neck with lightning speed.

Yin Zhen’s eyes turned sharp. Without a hint of hesitation, she used the antique dagger to stab completely through her own right arm.

A blood-curdling shriek erupted from the mirror the exact moment Yin Zhen harmed herself. On the right arm of the Ghost Hand strangling her, an identical puncture wound appeared out of thin air. The edges of the wound sizzled and smoked, and the hand violently spasmed as it retracted.

CRACK!

The mirror on the dressing table shattered into pieces, and everything returned to normal. There was no female ghost in the mirror, nor were there any sheet-covered objects behind Yin Zhen. They were all standing perfectly still in the corners of the makeup room.

Gritting her teeth, Yin Zhen pulled out the dagger and quickly used Structural Repair to heal the puncture wound on her arm. The incense master’s antique dagger was extremely useful, although it hurt quite a bit to use. But to Yin Zhen, that was no problem at all.

Once her arm was fully healed, Yin Zhen simply used the white cloth that had covered the mirror to wipe up the blood she had spilled, planning to find a place to burn it later.

After a moment of thought, Yin Zhen yanked the white sheets off everything in the makeup room. She smashed every single vanity mirror she could find. She also thoroughly inspected the dressing table drawers and wardrobe trunks, but she didn’t find anything of value.

Yin Zhen stood there and pondered for a moment before suddenly raising her flashlight to look at the ceiling. She looked closely and indeed spotted a somewhat loose access panel in the ceiling. The roofs of the buildings here were pitched, while the ceilings were flat, leaving a certain amount of empty space in between.

Yin Zhen put away her flashlight and transformed into a cat. Hooking her claws into a wooden pillar, she easily scrambled up. She pushed open the ceiling access panel with her head and popped out her feline face to scan the attic space.

A cat’s eyes had excellent night vision, and Yin Zhen immediately spotted a large, old trunk sitting in the corner. Her cat ears twitched. Kitty Yin Zhen climbed into the attic, walking gracefully along the wooden crossbeams. Only after she found a sturdy place to stand did she transform back into a human.

The flashlight’s beam illuminated the large wooden trunk. Yin Zhen brushed away the layer of dust on top and saw a row of crooked handwriting.

At the very top, it read "Huandi" (Exchange for Brother) and "Jiannv" (Welcome Daughter)—using the character for "welcome/see" rather than the homophone for "cheap/worthless." However, these names had been forcefully crossed out. Below them, new names were carved into the wood, clearly in a different person’s handwriting:

Chunmiao and Chunhua.

Yin Zhen opened the trunk. Inside were all sorts of miscellaneous items—a cherished collection of childhood dreams and treasures. There were empty greasepaint tins, damaged hairpieces, roughly crafted homemade jewelry, and a few wooden carved dolls.

Compared to the homemade jewelry, the craftsmanship of the wooden dolls was much more exquisite. One could easily see the creator’s Talent and skill in this area. There were many wooden dolls, all with greasepaint applied to their faces and clothes fashioned out of fabric scraps. They represented the standard opera roles: male, female, painted face, old male, and clown.

At the very bottom of the trunk was a long wooden box. When Yin Zhen opened it, she saw a scorched wooden puppet doll—the kind of small puppet that could be used in formal performances. Even though it was burned beyond recognition, the creator’s superb craftsmanship was still evident. Furthermore, the puppet doll looked very familiar.

Yin Zhen took out her phone and pulled up the old photograph. After zooming in and comparing them, it was indeed Chen Chunmiao.

When the flashlight’s beam hit the lid of the box, Yin Zhen shuddered slightly. The inside of the lid was densely covered with writing, all of it reading...

"I’m sorry!"

The handwriting varied in size, and some spots were stained with blood, as if they had been repeatedly carved in with fingernails or a sharp object. It exuded a near-collapsing sense of guilt and self-torment.

Just as Yin Zhen was being hit by the intense emotion contained within this page full of apologies, a faint sound echoed behind her ear.

CLICK! CLACK, CLACK!

It was the sound of a puppet moving its joints.

Every nerve in Yin Zhen’s body instantly pulled taut to the absolute limit. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a puppet face painted with mottled greasepaint appearing right behind her right shoulder. She could only see half of the face in her peripheral vision, and it was blurry, but that blurry half-face perfectly matched the girl standing next to Chen Chunmiao in the old photo on her phone!