TEG 10
Chapter 10: Inside and Out
Another courtyard in the opera troupe.
“Dream prayer?” Diao Xinsha and the legal advisor mulled over the phrase.
A tongueless ghost had stuffed a piece of burning charcoal down Little Glasses’ throat, then vanished.
Once the charcoal burned out, Little Glasses vomited it up, along with a mixture of charred, sloughed-off flesh, blood, and stomach acid. He passed out on the spot and now slumped like a corpse in the corner of the wall.
Diao Xinsha found the pool of vomit utterly disgusting. The advisor, however, sharply noticed that inside the chunk of bloody flesh and charcoal was a small yellow brass pellet.
After washing it clean, the characters “Dream Prayer” became visible on the pellet.
From the advisor’s experience, this was clearly a clue given after surviving an attack by one of the small monsters in the Nightmare Realm.
“It’s said that ‘dream prayer’ is a kind of folk custom where people pray to deities to gain knowledge of their fate through dreams,” the advisor explained.
In ancient times, people would go to places known for dream prayer. It was said that if one made a wish before a god’s statue and then went to sleep, they could receive divine revelation in their dreams.
For example, dreaming of red shoes was said to foretell death. Dreaming of a deer beneath a banana leaf was said to predict a rise in official rank.*
Of course, nowadays very few believe in such things. But given that this Nightmare Realm appears to be set at least a hundred years in the past, it’s not so strange that people here still believe.
“If we have to dream… then we gotta sleep first?” Diao Xinsha looked baffled.
“Hmm… probably not that simple in the Nightmare Realm,” the advisor said, sweating slightly. “Dream prayers are done at specific locations. Traditionally, you go to a god’s statue to pray. If you’re destined, the deity enters your dream. And this is already the second night—we might be in more danger with every minute we stay here.”
“You’re right, damn it,” Diao Xinsha muttered, scratching his head in frustration.
Two sleepless nights in a row were enough to make anyone irritable.
He picked up the brass pellet and rolled it in his hand. It was light—probably hollow. Then his eyes narrowed. “This brass ball’s material looks familiar…”
The advisor thought for a moment and recalled, “Brass bell!”
Indeed, judging by the size and shape, the pellet was just the right fit for the clappers inside the brass bells hanging all around the opera garden.
“Now that you mention it, we searched five or six courtyards earlier,” the advisor continued. “At the time, I noticed those bell strings seemed to be deliberately arranged. The courtyards seemed randomly laid out, but the bells strung between them all extended from the same general direction…”
As he spoke, Diao Xinsha suddenly noticed a hand clutching the window sill!
He whipped out his whip and lashed it with a loud snap: “Who’s there?!”
The two quickly moved in to flank the window. But when they stepped outside, they both recoiled in shock.
—There really was only a hand on the window sill.
It was severed at the arm, the stump showing jagged bone and torn flesh, blood dripping onto the ground.
Beneath the window was a body torn to pieces—clothes shredded into scraps, chest and abdomen hollowed out, covered in bloody gore. Only thigh bones remained from the lower body.
The sight was so gruesome that even the seasoned Diao Xinsha and the advisor felt sick.
“…Could there be a wild beast in the opera garden?!” Diao looked around warily.
The body looked like it had been ripped apart by a furious animal. There were no signs of decay; the blood was fresh. Whatever had done this might still be nearby.
The advisor held his head, steadied himself, then forced down the nausea to examine what little remained of the body.
His eyes narrowed. He pried open the fingers of the severed hand on the sill. “Master Diao, he’s holding something!”
It was a recording pen, disguised as a regular fountain pen. Fresh blood dripped from the cap.
The advisor frowned after inspecting it. “It’s recording.”
He stopped the recording and flipped through the files. After entering the Nightmare Realm, this person had recorded three or four logs.
Accidentally triggering one, a recording began to play. The voice was breathless, as if the speaker was walking while recording: “I—I got separated from Lady Sandie… The bald guy was already killed by the troupe master. I’m alone in the opera garden now. Something is really wrong here. Lady Sandie is even stranger. I’m afraid… she might kill me. I have to leave some kind of proof.”
Diao Xinsha and the advisor exchanged looks. “So, Sandie from Thousand-Face City is here too?”
Sandie was one of the top assassins in Thousand-Face City, a mysterious woman known for appearing and vanishing unpredictably in the Nightmare Realm. She always carried an umbrella and was often accompanied by butterflies, hence the name “Sandie.” No one knew her real name.
Those who had encountered her only knew one thing: she was ruthless and unpredictable.
Diao Xinsha and the advisor had entered the Nightmare Realm to investigate the disappearance of several people following a duel between Wushe Dao and Thousand-Face City. Since Wushe Dao had sent someone in, it was only natural for Thousand-Face City to do the same.
The advisor glanced at the recorder’s screen. “That was the first recording after entering the Realm—about two hours ago.”
Diao Xinsha sneered, “I knew it. No way Thousand-Face wouldn’t send someone. Hah—some bitch, not afraid of never making it out alive.”
The advisor assumed the recorder belonged to the body torn apart by the beast. Since the voice called Sandie “Lady,” he was likely also from Thousand-Face.
But why would he fear Sandie would kill him?
And now he’d ended up in pieces—was that Sandie’s doing too?
The first log ended and automatically switched to the second.
This time, the voice was much lower and trembling slightly.
“I found the bald guy’s body using his tracker. But his body… it looked like something had gnawed it to pieces. Just a pile of bloody bones. I also found a huge bloodstain on the wall nearby. Very fresh. Someone must’ve just died there. But the body was gone. Was it eaten too…”
Diao Xinsha frowned. “Could that be the courtyard where we caught that thief?”
He had killed the thief there, and the troupe master had dragged away the bald guy’s corpse afterward, warning them not to wander at night. Later, when they returned to investigate, the troupe master found them and they had to break through the wall to escape. At the time, he hadn’t looked closely at the bodies again.
The advisor nodded. “Should be. I glanced at the corpses—they were still there, no change. But I don’t really remember the thief’s body. Probably still there too…”
Suddenly, the voice in the recording shouted:
“Who’s there?!”
Diao and the advisor instantly became alert—but the recording abruptly cut off and moved to the next segment.
No one knew what the speaker had seen, but now his voice was disjointed and panicked: “There’s no one… but I keep feeling like something’s watching me. No—maybe not someone. Something… It feels like a predator’s gaze—primal fear… I moved the corpse. I think that thing noticed me…”
The advisor muttered, “Didn’t Little Four-Eyes say he felt like someone was watching him too?”
They glanced through the window—Little Glasses was still passed out.
The recording now had the sound of fabric rustling, accompanied by increasingly heavy breathing. The man seemed to be fleeing.
Huff… huff…
There was a brief pause in the audio—he seemed to glance behind him.
Then a sharp gasp.
Footsteps became chaotic.
Huff… huff… huff…
His terrified panting filled the recording.
The sound of stumbling footsteps, bricks and debris clattering, and clothes brushing against tight passageways. He was scrambling between two courtyards, breathing more and more heavily.
At last, he escaped the narrow alley and slipped on the dusty ground with a gritty noise.
A faint creak—he had entered a room.
Perhaps thinking it was safe, the background noise quieted, leaving only his heavy breathing.
A gulp.
“That thing followed me…” his voice trembled. “It looked like a dog? Or a wolf? But how could it be so big…”
“No, no—I shouldn’t be thinking of real-world wolves. This is the Nightmare Realm. A man-eating monster isn’t surprising… I still can’t find Sandie. Where the hell did that damn woman go? Don’t tell me she’s already been eaten…”
His voice was full of hatred but hushed, like he was afraid the thing might hear.
Just then, the faint sound of bells rang out.
Ding-ling-ling.
The speaker abruptly stopped breathing.
Ding-ling-ling, ding-ling-ling.
The bells grew closer, as if something was passing right outside the wall.
The surroundings were dead silent, making the bells sound even sharper and more piercing. There were no footsteps—whatever it was moved in complete silence.
Luckily, the bell sounds slowly faded.
After a long pause, the man sighed in relief. “It’s probably gone…”
Before he finished—
Ding-ling-ling.
The bell sounded right behind him.
A scream erupted from the recording, so sharp it twisted into a shriek: “Help! Help me—!”
“Ah! Aaaah—!!”
Ding-ling-ling, ding-ling-ling!
The chaotic bell sounds were swallowed by blood-curdling screams and the wet, tearing sound of flesh being ripped apart. Then… it all slowly faded.
Silence returned, until the voices of Diao Xinsha and the advisor were recorded as they entered.
The blank interval was only a few minutes.
By the time the recording ended, both Diao and the advisor’s faces had changed.
There was a man-eating beast lurking in this seemingly peaceful opera troupe.
Fortunately, they were both seasoned Nightmare Realm veterans, and Diao Xinsha had several reliable weapons. If the beast did appear, it likely wouldn’t be stronger than the troupe master—who openly hunted at night. This beast, by contrast, moved entirely in the shadows.
They had survived the troupe master’s pursuit—surely they could handle a beast too.
Still, they decided to play it safe and leave immediately. They would follow the direction in which the brass bells were strung across the courtyards and trace them to the source.
Just as they turned to go, a knock came at the window behind them.
Thump thump thump!
It startled them.
They looked up and saw Little Glasses awake, leaning against the inside of the window, hands gripping the sill, trembling all over, panic written all over his face: “Master Diao—please, don’t leave me…”
His throat had been burned. His voice was hoarse and low, with an eerie tone.
Diao Xinsha waved irritably. “Then stop whining like a damn ghost. If you can still move, then move. Otherwise, stay the hell here.”
Little Glasses trembled from head to toe. He hastily stuffed his scattered binoculars and gear into his backpack and stumbled out of the room, trailing behind them.
Diao Xinsha strode out of the eerie courtyard, with the advisor right behind him. Little Glasses lagged in the rear, stumbling along.
As he stepped out of the courtyard, the dark red moonlight lit up the eyes behind his thin-rimmed glasses—briefly revealing a flash of madness and hatred.
