Everyone had a voice echo in their hearts when the altar opened. Not many could resist the invasion of the darkness because darkness was everywhere. It hid in the most obscure memory. When people discovered it, colours had already been consumed.
“The ghost in the dark is here!” Huang Yin’s scream tore through the silence.
“Now!”
The Blood City tattoo on Gao Ming exploded. The meat fragrance spread. The blinding red pierced through the endless darkness. The torture room door opened. The souls from Han Hai charged at the figurine in the dark. The power of the three Dream Ghosts was woven together. Endless arms crawled into the Unmentionable’s figurine.
“Enter the dream!”
This was the first time a Dream Ghost went after an Unmentionable after Han Hai Blood City was annihilated. The nightmare Han Hai brought to the other Blood Cities was reenacted by Gao Ming.
…
“Cut! Cut! Cut!”
“What is this? I might as well use the money to wipe my ass!”
A thick script was rolled up and tossed at Gao Ming’s head. His blurry eyes focused. He and the ghosts from his heart fell into the darkness altar. This was the Unmentionable’s world.
“Open your eyes and look at what you’ve made!” Gao Ming was yanked by a tall middle-aged man in a black suit towards the television screen. The old television was broadcasting a PSA advertisement that requested the viewers to be silent during a movie at the cinema. On the screen, three classical cartoon characters were chased out of the cinema after making too much noise.
“This is shit! No! This is worse than shit!” The man pressed the man’s head against the television. “Look at what the others have done!” He waved his hand, and two men to the side changed the channel. A new advertisement appeared.
In the dim cinema hall, a viewer was surrounded by agents of chaos. Someone kicked the back of his seat; a kid in front of him was crying; the couple beside him loudly discussed the spoilers. The viewer tried his best to calm everyone and told them to quiet down, but no one listened to him. After a few repetitions, the man pulled out a gun from his bag, stepped onto his seat and started shooting. Blood and flesh flew everywhere. The screen was splattered with blood, and a warning appeared: “Please be quiet in the cinema.”
“Look! This is art! You’ve wasted all my money!” The script smacked Gao Ming’s face, but it did nothing to assuage the man. Two contracts were dropped on the ground. Before he could react, the two men caught Gao Ming and forced him to put down his thumbprint.
“You’ve burned through more than 90,000 of my money. If your advertisements cannot repay your debt, I’ll have to sell your organs. I have limited patience. Do you understand?”
Since Gao Ming didn’t react, he beat Gao Ming up again before he left with his people.
The recording studio’s door closed. After the people departed, three workers in cartoon character outfits walked out of the prop room that was filled with trash.
“Director Lee, are you still alive? You can’t die. You still owe us half a year of pay!” The actor in the cartoon mouse head knelt beside Gao Ming and cried. When Gao Ming was attacked, he didn’t even make a peep.
“If we follow Director Lee, we will not see our money. In fact, our internal organs might be stolen!” A woman removed her yellow duck costume and frowned at Gao Ming. “The three of us should sell the video tools here. They should be worth something.”
“What are you talking about?” The last person wore a grey bunny costume with long ears. “Since they want to sell Director Lee’s organs, we should be quick. We will sell Director Lee ourselves!”
Gao Ming felt his eyes darken when he heard the three actors. This world was special. Everyone voiced their darkest thoughts openly.
“I’m still alive.” Gao Ming gritted his teeth and stood up. His consciousness started to unite with this body’s memory. When a Dream Ghost infiltrated an altar, it would slowly consume the faith from the ground up until the God was overthrown.
The body he occupied was called Lee Sansi. He was a commercial director. He had a dream to make a movie, but before he could do that, he had already incurred a lot of debt. The person who beat him earlier was part of a gang. The movie industry, the medical industry, education and food were under the control of the big organisations. The man wasn’t just posing empty threats. His organisation had the necessary department to sell Gao Ming’s organs on the black market easily. It was highly efficient.
“Director Lee, thank God you’re still alive! When are you going to pay us? We’ve failed again. Why don’t you try to pawn your home again?”
Gao Ming felt a headache looking at the man under the mouse costume. Lee Sansi’s team had long dissolved. Only these three remained.
The thin man in the mouse costume was called Youzhi. He was the prop manager. He was extremely lazy. He was still single even though he was already fifty. He stayed with Director Lee because it was too troublesome to pack up and run.
The woman with the purple hair was called Ding Xiang. She was the only actor. Similar to Director Lee, she owed the gangs a lot of money. If she failed to earn money from the commercials, she’d be forced to join a different kind of set. Therefore, she was more anxious than Director Lee.
The bunny actor was a tomboy called Wu Wei. She was the camera person. She was scammed by the commercial’s male lead and lost her money. After the man dumped her, she stayed to harass the team that ruined her life.
“Director Lee! Are you there? You need to figure out what else you can pawn!” Jia Youzhi shed the cheap costume. He found the used bandages in the prop room.
“Don’t touch me. These are light wounds.” Gao Ming frowned. He scanned his memory and realised Lee Sansi had already pawned his home to three different gangs. If he failed to repay the debt after one week, his body would be split into three pieces.
“This is one hell of a beginning. I wonder how the others are doing?”
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