That forceful suction flung Vivian out.
“Thud!”
She landed hard on the floor.
It hurt.
Vivian struggled to get up, rubbing her aching backside.
“Wh…where am I?” Vivian muttered softly.
She looked around. This was an enormous lecture hall.
Crimson velvet curtains hung from the walls, and the soaring domed ceiling was painted with a choir of singing angels.
In front of Vivian were rows upon rows of tiered seats arranged in a fan shape.
Every seat was filled with “people”.
They wore identical black choir robes, holding thick music scores in their hands, sitting perfectly upright.
Above their necks was only a swirl of hazy mist—there were no faces at all.
Dozens of faceless beings, dozens of unseen eyes, were all locked on the Vivian who had suddenly fallen from the ceiling.
“Uh… well…”
Vivian let out a nervous chuckle, trying to ease the suffocating social pressure.
“I’m here to fix the pipes? Or maybe deliver takeout? Looks like I came to the wrong place. Sorry to bother you all, I’ll be leaving now.”
She turned around, ready to slip away.
“Tap, tap, tap.”
A crisp tapping sound rang out.
A white conductor’s baton floated alone in mid-air, lightly knocking against the golden music stand at the front.
With those three taps, the unmoving faceless ghosts all flipped open their scores in unison.
“Rustle—”
The synchronized sound of pages turning made Vivian’s scalp tingle.
Immediately after, the floating baton suddenly pointed straight at Vivian.
High above, on the deep red curtain, a line of glowing dust-like script slowly appeared:
[Sing the most moving melody, and only then will the door to the next floor open.]
Vivian’s mouth twitched.
A moving melody?
In her entire life, she’d never sung anything even close to “moving”. She remembered all too well—in her previous life at KTV, whenever she sang, the microphone would auto-mute.
“Ha…” Vivian gave another awkward laugh, looking for an excuse.
“Well… my throat’s not feeling too good today, I think… mm, I have a cold.”
The faceless ghosts didn’t move an inch. Dozens of smooth “faces” were still fixed on her, as if they could see right through every lie.
The faceless conductor lifted the baton again. This time, it pointed at Vivian, then at the door to the side.
The door was ajar, with only darkness beyond.
The message was clear: sing, or remain here forever.
Vivian took a deep breath. Fine, I’ll sing.
She cleared her throat, doing her best to recall the annual playlist from Cloud Music.
“A moving melody”… hmm.
Vivian’s eyes suddenly lit up. She had an idea!
“Ahem, hello everyone, I’m a trainee with two and a half years of practice, specializing in singing, dancing, rap, and basketball! Music!”
She confidently cleared her throat, raised her hands slightly, and assumed what she thought was a professional starting pose.
She began.
“Jam the salt stick in my mouth, I only smoke the fifth gen! No matter how fast I puff, it never breaks—no need for a lighter, that’s real joy!”
She did a suave flick of her head, miming a cigarette held stylishly between her fingers.
One of the faceless ghosts in the front row suddenly shuddered all over.
Its heavy score “plop”—fell right to the floor.
Then, its foggy head began to violently ripple.
Encouraged, Vivian sang with even more gusto, taking a step forward and spreading her arms as if to embrace the entire stage.
“Beyond, come taste it quick, my lungs itch now!”
“You want to smoke Furongwang? You’d be better off with Xizhilang—!”
“Riiip—”
A harsh, grating noise tore through the air.
The floating baton seemed to suffer unbearable pain, splitting cleanly in two.
It clattered onto the music stand with a note of utter despair.
But Vivian didn’t hear it. She was completely caught up in her performance, unable to extricate herself from her artistic flow.
“My Rick is like a string of candies, flavors more than you can imagine!”
Her voice echoed, refracted, and overlapped in the closed rehearsal hall.
“As long as you put it to my nose and mouth, in a laugh I’ll suck dry… the Pacific Ocean!!!”
“BOOM—!!!”
The glass of the domed ceiling shattered, a flurry of shards falling like snowflakes.
At the same time, dozens of faceless ghosts below seemed to be gripped by an invisible, mighty hand.
Their bodies began to flicker wildly, their black robes turning translucent, and the mists replacing their heads simply burst apart.
They had no mouths, so they could not scream.
But the terror and collapse from the depths of their souls rippled through the air.
Mental contamination!
Absolute mental contamination!
Several ghosts in the front row fell to their knees, clutching at where their heads should be, curling up and rolling on the floor as if begging for this torture to end.
Even the “singing angels” in the murals on the wall had come alive—covering their ears, their faces twisting from warped to terrified.
“Stop dumping nuclear waste! If the devils want to drink it, let them take my stock!”
“If you can’t buy Rick, just suck it in through my mouth… it’s all the same—!!!”
Vivian drew out the last note, finishing with a perfect flourish.
She slowly opened her eyes, a few sparkling drops of sweat on her forehead.
The entire rehearsal hall was dead silent, only the faint sound of glass shards landing on the floor.
Vivian looked out at the seats.
The ghosts had collapsed all over the place, most of them now half-transparent. The few still moving were huddled and shaking in the corners—even without faces, the emotion of “fear” was palpable.
The conductor’s baton had crumbled into a pile of white powder.
And on the wall opposite Vivian, a black door hidden behind the curtain was slowly opening.
The door opened with such haste, almost as if it couldn’t wait, as if saying, “Ma’am, please, go, just don’t sing anymore.”
Vivian paused for a moment, then casually flicked her bangs, damp with sweat, and confidently smoothed her skirt.
“Looks like my artistic talent is pretty impressive.”
She glanced at the ghosts twitching on the floor, a trace of sympathy and emotion in her gaze.
“Look how moved they are—the poor things, fainted from tears.”
Vivian sighed, shaking her head with self-satisfaction.
“This must be what they call… resonance of the soul. This song really has power—even ghosts can understand the sorrow and wildness in it.”
Humming her little tune from earlier, Vivian walked lightly toward the door.
As she passed by the still-trembling ghosts, they shrank to the sides like they’d seen a plague god, forcing themselves to clear a wide path for her.
“Thank you, thank you all for your support.”
Vivian, like a superstar taking her curtain call, waved to the air.
“No need to see me off—stay, please stay.”
She stepped through the door in one stride.
The moment her figure disappeared, “BANG!”—a tremendous noise.
The door slammed shut.
“Click, click, click.”
That was the sound of locks turning, as if the ghosts were terrified she might come back for an encore.
It’s good to be alive.
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