Chapter 1

May, Guangzhou—10 p.m. in a large art exhibition hall.

After the year’s biggest art exhibition concluded, the gallery gradually shut off its main lights. Vest-clad staff moved quietly through the hall, carefully packing and loading the artworks onto trucks.

The pieces varied in material and form—some consisted of just plastic sheets thin as cicada wings and cotton thread, while others stood taller than a person, heavy as iron castings.

Zhang Yuan, a 19-year-old security guard hired from an outsourced company, was supposed to do security but often did manual labor too. Just as he leaned against the wall to rest after moving one exhibit, the team leader barked:

"Ah Lai, go help Mingze with Exhibit 412—it's heavy. Hey, Zhang Yuan, get the packing crates ready for them first."

The security team leader in Hall C was around 35, with a walkie-talkie clipped to his uniform shoulder. Holding a tablet, the black metal piece behind his right ear marked him as an alpha—a rank above standard guards.

Zhang Yuan had no choice but to push himself up again. Along with two other young men, he muttered acknowledgment in the dim light and moved according to their training.

Zhang Yuan first shifted the wooden crate base next to Exhibit 412, waiting for the other two to carefully lift the humanoid sculpture onto it from opposite sides.

While his colleagues strained to move the sculpture, Zhang Yuan—still more of a kid—hunkered beside the display platform and idly read the description aloud, word by word: *No. 12, ‘Fear,’ by The Ten, March 2022, Guangzhou, modern art sculpture...*

In the unnervingly quiet hall, only their area had faint lighting. The other exhibition spaces had already been cleared out, leaving the entire five-story gallery eerily still. Occasionally, the tap of patrolling guards’ leather shoes echoing drifted through the air.

The sculpture Ah Lai and Mingze were carrying depicted a screaming woman, her face plaster-pale yet unnervingly lifelike, exuding an inexplicable sense of life—and an unsettling eeriness.

But the most bizarre aspect was the pose. The emaciated, naked woman curled in on herself as if in agony, yet her arms stretched high behind her like bird wings, her raised head and neck creating a bizarre visual tension.

Zhang Yuan hunkered down and tried mimicking the pose, only to realize it was impossible for an ordinary person.

"Yuan, knock it off. You’ll pop your shoulder trying that. Hurry up and help us steady it," Ah Lai chuckled, urging him in Cantonese.

The young man grinned, clapped his hands, and stood up. Finding an angle, he gripped the sculpture’s thigh. "Whoa, from this angle, it looks like I'm holding her, about to kiss her or something."

"Roll it back, or the team leader’ll rip into you. Ready? On three."

At the leader’s count, the three lifted together. The moment they raised it, a fleeting thought crossed Zhang Yuan's mind: *Why is this thing so light?*

Then his colleagues yelled: "Watch out! Ah Yuan!"

Zhang Yuan looked up just as the world spun violently—the twisted, screaming face lunged at him, the sculpture’s gaping mouth like a black hole ready to swallow and tear him apart. He yelped—then his foot hit a loose board, sending him crashing backward onto the floor.

"Shit—it’s broken!"

Zhang Yuan's first thought was the cost. He made barely a hundred yuan a day. How could he possibly afford this?

Scrambling up from the shattered fragments, clutching the sculpture’s detached hand and head, he ignored the pain, his mind racing about lost wages.

"Team leader, it was way too light! I didn’t mean to—I had no idea it was this light!"

Zhang Yuan turned desperately to the white-shirted team leader, hoping to shift some blame, only to see sheer terror twist the man’s face.

"Ah Lai, how—how did you guys drop it? What do I..." Zhang Yuan stammered, glancing at his colleagues, but their faces mirrored the same frozen terror—

They stood petrified, masks of dread in the night, eerily mirroring the sculpture’s own expression.

Primal terror shot through Zhang Yuan. He didn’t dare move.

"Yuan... something's wrong."

After a full ten seconds, the alpha team leader's face finally twitched. He struggled to speak, his voice trembling uncontrollably. "Drop it. Now."

At that moment, other security personnel who had heard the loud noise nearby also walked over.

One colleague, a lower-ranking employee always eager for gossip, approached curiously. He leaned in to examine the shards on the ground and then glanced at the sculpture head Zhang Yuan was holding—before his face suddenly twisted in horror, and he let out a piercing shriek!

“How is this a living person?!”

Zhang Yuan felt as if he’d been dumped in freezing water. Only then did he seem to notice the eerie texture in his hands. His body shook violently as he shakily lowered his gaze—

The head in his grasp had shattered most of its plaster coating, revealing mummified, sallow human skin beneath. Strands of black human hair were scattered across the face still partially encased in plaster, and one human eye was now exposed.

It was a lifeless, deflated and wrinkled eyeball—wedged into a face that was little more than a layer of skin. At that very moment, it stared directly back at him.

*Thud.* The head slipped from Zhang Yuan’s grip, hitting the ground before bouncing and rolling into the crowd.