Episode 28: The True Forbidden Zone

All the way there, Bai Yujing didn't say a word. Her thoughts would not settle. She drove along the expressway, one eye on the phone showing the navigation to No. 76 Art Gallery, the other anxiously watching the livestream, repeating in her mind: “Whatever happens, nothing can go wrong there — that place eats people alive.”

In Xia Zilan's livestream, the viewer count kept climbing, and the audience kept flooding the chat:

“Zilan, this place is terrifying!”

“Run!”

“There can't be a ghost here!!!”

“I saw a ghost!!!”

“Too terrifying!!!!”

Jiang Yanzhou saw that she could not control her emotions. Watching the livestream, he saw the popularity figures climbing steadily — it could make countless fans anxious — and said softly, “Zilan, the numbers are really high!”

Bai Yujing looked at him in the rear-view mirror. His face was expressionless; there was no emotion left to show. She did not answer him.

Seeing that she did not want to talk, Jiang Yanzhou fiddled with the navigation on his phone and said in an indifferent tone, “What's wrong with you?”

Bai Yujing said coldly, “I'm annoyed!”

Jiang Yanzhou gazed out of the window at the lanes of traffic, resting his chin on his hand as he scrolled through the news on his phone, and said quietly, “After all these years, do you still hold it against me?”

Bai Yujing saw the red light and pulled over to the left and stopped. She took a thick stack of documents from the back seat, turned to look at him, and said with a straight face, “You did all of this, didn't you!” Still keeping her composure, she added, “I was going to deal with Tian Sirong's matter, yet you still stop at nothing.”

Jiang Yanzhou took the stack of documents from her hand, flipped through a few pages, and the corners of his mouth lifted into a faint smile. “Tian Sirong really is annoying. All of this is true!”

Bai Yujing stared ahead, her eyes unblinking, a wry feeling rising in her chest, and she laughed. “Jiang Yanzhou, you don't need to worry about Xia Zilan's affairs!”

Jiang Yanzhou opened the window, stretched out his hand, and breathed in the smell of petrol in the air. He closed his eyes, a graceful smile on his face. “No. 76 Art Gallery? Just what is in there?”

He threw all the documents out of the window. In that instant, his expression turned ferocious, but he quickly reined it back in and kept smiling. “Xia Zilan will have a better future.”

Bai Yujing's expression changed. She turned to look at him, gripping the steering wheel tightly, and said softly, “That place is the root of all evil.”

Her face turned pale, but she added, in a firmer tone, “This is no coincidence — it is the same fate.”

Jiang Yanzhou pressed his lips together in a smile, still holding his elegant posture, and said in a low voice, “A ‘murder party’ — that place is full of evil.”

Bai Yujing laughed out loud several times. “You and I are really the same — both people who stop at nothing.”

Just then, the light turned green. Bai Yujing started the car again, turned left straight onto the expressway, and after that, neither of them said another word.

Meanwhile, on the third basement level of No. 76 Art Gallery, darkness cloaked everything, and the road ahead could not be seen clearly. The gallery had closed before nine o'clock, and inside it was very quiet — quiet in a frightening way.

Situ Hengyi and Qin Shaohua took a deep breath. They looked at each other, gathered their courage, determined to seek out the truth, and walked down along the passage of the huge red ritual circle at the centre of the underground ritual chamber.

With every step, the stone slabs underfoot seemed to groan, as if telling of the sorrow that had happened here in the past. Situ Hengyi felt deeply that much painful suffering had taken place here. He shone his torch down the passage ahead — it was bottomless, like a road leading to hell.

“This place… is even more wrong than the third basement level…”

Qin Shaohua said in a low voice, his voice sounding half swallowed by the darkness. He calmly anticipated the danger about to appear. Ahead of them was a dark passage; beneath the gallery there seemed to be a very large space — the gates of hell.

At the end of the passage, a heavy iron door stood silently, exuding a sinister air. The rust-covered iron door was engraved with ancient runes, faintly glimmering with a blood-red light.

Situ Hengyi reached out, and the moment he touched the handle, cold shot straight into his bones — as if an invisible force were barring the way.

He pushed the door open hard, and with a creak, the iron door let out a low groan. Inside was a spacious dark chamber. Its walls and floor were covered in blood-red symbols, and broken mirrors hung from the ceiling, like countless eyes watching whoever stepped in.

In the centre stood a huge device — like a ‘livestream desk’ blending the ancient and the modern, with Yu Mengge's name carved into it.

Qin Shaohua took out a disc of audio and video, pressed play, and the screen lit up with static. Then a figure sat down. He adjusted the camera, straightened his clothes, and the screen brightened, playing the last footage Yu Mengge had recorded:

Yu Mengge's face was pale, and he wore a smile — a very stiff smile, as if he were deliberately forcing it. His voice trembled. “If you are seeing this… they… are not human… every death here is watched by someone… don't let them find you… don't…”

The picture suddenly jumped, revealing a blurred, shadowy human figure flashing quickly past the lens, shrill laughter echoing as if it pierced through the walls, followed by a burst of screams —

Situ Hengyi clenched his fists, looked up at the screen, and said calmly, “So this is… the origin of the ‘Judgement Livestream’.”

Qin Shaohua said calmly, “The Judge has been imitating their crimes all along.”

He took a deep breath, but his calm mind could not settle his emotions at that moment. “No. 76 Art Gallery doesn't exhibit art — it shows off their evil.”

Situ Hengyi said, his voice trembling, “Everyone… is treated as an audience… watching death…”

He shone his torch around. The walls were hung with bloody, ritualistic canvases, and the dim space was chillingly cold. “Yu Mengge was treated here as a ‘sacrifice’. Then what about the ‘livestreamed death’ — where is the video?”

Qin Shaohua instantly felt a chill, his face expressionless, muttering to himself, “They didn't just kill Yu Mengge — they killed others too, and even turned it into a kind of art.”

They made their way around the corner of the dark chamber, and in a room around the bend, they found row after row of sealed crates. Situ Hengyi shone his torch on them; the crates bore labels from ten years ago — the private collection of the founder, Li Xichen.

Inside the crates were:

Several corpses that had been mummified.

Belongings left behind by victims.

Various religious ritual implements.

Canvases and sculptures stained with blood.

And set after set of photography and livestreaming equipment.

Situ Hengyi stared at the items, his brow furrowed. “Li Xichen… from the very beginning, he treated this place as… a hunting ground.”

Qin Shaohua turned to look at the broken mirrors hanging from the ceiling, unusually calm. “This is not an art gallery. It is his experiment — on death, on audiences, on the human heart.”

Situ Hengyi shone his torch over the whole arrangement of the place — eerie and sinister at once — and a chill ran through him. He said in a low voice, “What kind of person is Li Xichen?”

Qin Shaohua scrolled through the information on his tablet, his expression focused, and said calmly, “The director of No. 76 Art Gallery.”

He flipped through a few more pages, his brow furrowing, and handed the tablet to Situ Hengyi. When Situ Hengyi took it and read what was on it, the information was startling: it turned out that Li Xichen was the organiser of the ‘Blood-Red Celebration’, using livestreamed ‘murder parties’ for the participants to watch, taking bets, and carrying out killings in the manner the buyers demanded.

And the works exhibited at No. 76 Art Gallery were extremely strange — all of them works shaped by the suffering the victims showed before they died, becoming a kind of death art.

Just then, the entire fourth basement level suddenly shook. The red light on the mirrors flashed all at once, projecting twisted faces, as if some force were pushing toward them — and as if it were mocking them.

It was as if someone were reaching out from the mirrors to seize whoever had stepped in.

Upstairs, the livestream signal strangely flowed back, and the fans' bullet comments exploded once more:

“Is Zilan still there?”

“There's a figure there!!!”

“Get out of there!”

“He was just snatched!!!”

“Let's call the police!”

“The police can't be trusted!!!”

“The smiling face in the footage… is moving!!!”

And what the livestream replay captured was precisely the instant of that strange face on the third basement level, as if it were reflected straight into the phone camera. Luckily, Lin Fan reacted quickly, dragging Xia Zilan's exhausted body so that the darkness did not pull him in. She comforted his frightened mind: “A top star, scared into this state.”

Xia Zilan was scared out of his wits. His hands would not stop trembling, his legs went weak, and he sat down against the wall, trying to soothe his own unease. He looked down and saw that his phone was still livestreaming, and said in a trembling voice, “Officer Lin, let's call the police!”

Lin Fan took a breath, shaken by the danger just now, and sighed. “I am the police — who else are you going to call!”

Xia Zilan picked up his phone, turned the camera toward the livestream, and shouted, “We're fine! This place is too dangerous. We'll keep moving forward to take a look. If anything seems wrong, you call the police!”

Lin Fan got up, grabbed Xia Zilan by the wrist, and said in a low voice, “You really aren't afraid of dying!”

Xia Zilan replied, “Officer Situ told us to divert their attention!”

He dragged his trembling legs onward, his heart full of fear, but he absolutely refused to give in, and he stepped forward again.

Downstairs, Situ Hengyi felt a chill run down his spine — this was not simply livestreamed death, but a physical presence left behind by the dead, by images from the ritual.

Situ Hengyi lowered his voice and pulled Qin Shaohua back. “These people dragged Yu Mengge in here and made him prey, and now… the ‘audience’ here is waiting for us.”

Qin Shaohua looked at the livestream device in the centre of the dark chamber, his face deathly pale. “You mean we will be watched and judged too?”

Just as the two of them decided to retreat, the ritual circle in the corner of the basement suddenly lit up. Red lines climbed up from the floor, wrapping around their ankles.

A low whisper sounded in the air — every word like a needle piercing the mind:

“You… should not have come…”

Darkness swallowed their figures, leaving only red light dancing on the screen —

As if the true secret of No. 76 Art Gallery had only just begun.

The red ritual circle was like a living net, swiftly climbing up Situ Hengyi's and Qin Shaohua's ankles, cold as if steeped in poison, spreading like a spider spinning its web.

The two of them were dragged at once toward the depths of the dark chamber.

Everything around them began to warp —

It was like the sound of mirrors shattering exploding inside their minds. The faces on the walls opened their eyes one by one, like shattered souls.

Qin Shaohua was pressed so hard he could barely breathe. “Situ, this place feels like it's — sucking us in!”

Situ Hengyi gritted his teeth, forcing his awareness to hold steady. “Don't sink into it! This is a ‘collective consciousness’ domain formed from the trapped thoughts of the dead… It's not reality!”

But the next second —

A razor-thin beam of light lit up in the dim space.

Like a projection.

It was a piece of footage.

In the footage, Yu Mengge was curled up in a corner, his eyes full of calm, his arms covered in scratches, as if he had struggled with someone invisible. He raised his head and looked up at the ceiling.

In that moment, he used his last strength to record:

“They made me perform… if I didn't perform… I would die here… Li… Li Xichen… he's not human… he wants me… to be a sacrifice…”

The picture suddenly jumped —

Yu Mengge's figure vanished.

A red figure drifted past the lens.

Only twisted symbols were left all over the floor.

Qin Shaohua's face instantly turned pale, and he said coldly, “So Yu Mengge was chosen by them, made into a stake in the ‘murder party’.”

Situ Hengyi's eyes darkened, tears in them, and he choked out, “No — for profit, they had to kill him. This ritual was only to make offerings to the evil spirit of their crimes.”

Qin Shaohua suddenly looked up at the mirror on the ceiling, where that eerie smiling face seemed to be hiding in the mirror, and he mocked, “Murder party!”

Situ Hengyi glanced sideways at a huge abstract face on the wall — a red background, black eyeballs — seeming to stare at anyone who stepped in.

Painted on it was a human figure —

Faceless, mouthless, soundless.

Its eerie smile stared at every person who stepped in.

Yet it was wearing the coat Yu Mengge had worn on the day he died.

The canvas trembled slightly.

As if it were breathing.

As if it were mocking them.

Suddenly, a pale white light came on in the basement room.

An electronic voice sounded from all directions, mechanical — like an echo from a thousand mirrors:

“— The prey has entered.”

“— The death livestream officially begins.”

“— Audience access: enabled.”

Situ Hengyi's spine suddenly tensed. “I see.”

Qin Shaohua said calmly, “A death game!”

Situ Hengyi said in a low voice, “This is not the supernatural… not simply murder… this is a livestream ritual in which ‘the audience controls the acts of death’.”

As he spoke, he looked up at the camera lens, his whole body trembling, a chill running down his back, his fists clenched. He felt how helpless, hopeless, sad and angry Yu Mengge had been in these circumstances…

He cried out desperately for help, but no one came to save him, and his death became a forbidden zone — his existence erased, and the truth covered up by the police, until he could barely breathe —

Qin Shaohua's pupils widened, but he kept his mind calm, and said with a cold laugh, “A ‘murder game’ — treating murder as art.”

Situ Hengyi spoke as he looked at the mirrors flashing with beams of red light, and said coldly, “Li Xichen believes that the collective will of the audience can form ‘death art’, making watching an accomplice to art. Appreciating death can also be art.”

“Every murder here is whatever the audience ‘wants to see’ — and the prey is made to ‘perform’ exactly that.”

His voice was trembling, but he was doing his best to control his emotions; he could no longer keep his runaway feelings in check.

Qin Shaohua froze, but quickly recovered his calm. “Death can also be art!”

“He was ‘demanded’ by the audience, made into the embodiment of fear,” Situ Hengyi said, pointing at the living painting. “So he was stripped of his face, his voice, and his form.”

And at the other end of the camera, Li Xichen sat on a sofa with his legs crossed, admiring their every move. No one had ever managed to break into his forbidden zone. In his hand he held a treasured work of art — a doll made from a performer's hair and skin — which he could not put down. His observation room was filled with the works of art he had collected. He wandered about dancing, playing death music, completely lost in the creation of his new work.