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The demolition orders came quietly—buried on page fourteen of a municipal report, far beneath articles on subway extensions and foreign investments. Zhongsheng Opera House, once the pride of 19th-century Shanghai, would be gone by winter. There was no press release, no televised farewell. Just a stamp, a signature, and an expiration date for the forgotten.

Most of the city didn’t even know it still existed.

But Lin Xie did.

He stood outside its crumbling facade just after sunset, his hoodie soaked through with summer rain. The sky overhead was the color of wet coal, and the street behind him was slowly disappearing into shadow as the city lit up. Towering glass buildings blinked alive, their windows filled with people already forgetting history.

He raised his camera and snapped a shot of the entrance. The building’s once-grand arch was now a skeleton of peeling gold leaf and soot-stained stone. Vines strangled the supports like veins feeding a dying heart.

Lin checked the frame. Fuzzy. The autofocus refused to settle. He frowned and stepped forward, finding a spot along the iron fence where the demolition tape had curled and torn. He scaled it silently, boots thudding against concrete on the other side.

Inside the fence, the air changed. It was heavier, dense like breath held too long. Lin paused, feeling the shift. Then he pushed forward, heading toward a broken window tucked beneath a collapsed section of roofing. He crouched, pulling his camera bag through behind him.

The opera house swallowed him whole.

Everything inside was gray and red and dust. The air was so still it felt frozen in place, as if exhaling might shatter it. His flashlight cast a cone of weak light over mosaic tiles that had cracked and lifted like ancient bones. Wallpaper curled at the seams, revealing layers beneath—floral, then crimson, then bare plaster.

And there, in the middle of it all, was silence. Deep and exacting.

Lin’s boots crunched over shattered glass as he stepped into the grand foyer. To his left was the staircase—two curved flights sweeping toward a balcony that now sagged, barely held by rusted braces. Above hung a chandelier the size of a car, suspended by a single stubborn chain. Its crystal ornaments had mostly fallen, leaving rust-streaked scars on the marble floor.

He snapped a photo.

Click.

The light flashed and vanished, momentarily painting everything in sharp relief: the cracked busts of forgotten composers, the faded banners advertising last season’s opera from over a hundred years ago.

Then darkness again. Stillness.

Lin made his way toward the main hall, passing under a rotted velvet archway. He hesitated at the edge of the theater.

Rows upon rows of once-luxurious seats stretched out before him, now sunken and devoured by mildew. The scent here was worse—moisture, mold, and something sweet and wrong underneath. Like flowers that had died crying.

He stepped forward. The old wood groaned under his feet. Each creak echoed unnaturally long, as if the space had been waiting decades to hear footsteps again.

At the far end of the theater, the stage stood untouched—raised like an altar, the red velvet curtain still drawn across its width. A faint breeze, though there was no wind, stirred the curtain’s bottom edge.

Lin raised his camera. Click.

Nothing. Just the curtain. But his fingers trembled slightly as he lowered the camera. He didn’t know why.

Backstage, things were worse. Dust was thicker here, coating everything like ash. Ropes dangled from the fly system above, knotted and frayed. A broken phonograph lay on its side, horn dented, its needle frozen mid-spin. As if it had stopped playing in the middle of a note and never resumed.

He found a corridor lined with mirrors.

Most were broken—spiderweb cracks radiating from unseen impacts. One remained intact, leaning slightly against the wall, its frame carved with roses now faded to gray. Lin approached and lifted his camera.

Click.

The mirror flashed white, and for a brief instant, he saw movement—not his own.

He looked at the preview. Froze.

There, just behind his reflection, was a woman.

She wore red.

A qipao of old silk, its thread glinting with gold embroidery. Her black hair was pinned up with delicate silver combs, and her face was painted in soft, ghostly makeup: pale white skin, crimson lips, and dark eyes lined with ancient precision. Her mouth was open, shaped into a note mid-song.

Lin looked up. The mirror was empty.

He looked down. She was still there—in the photo. Clear. Centered. Watching him.

His pulse stuttered. He glanced around. Still alone. Still silent. But the air was different now—colder, heavier, pressed tight against his ears. He backed away slowly, shoving his camera into his bag.

Something brushed past his cheek.

He spun.

Nothing.

Then a sound—soft, fragile, like a voice echoing from the bottom of a well. A hum. It rose in pitch for a single, aching second before cutting off completely.

Lin left.

He didn't run. That would be admitting something was wrong. Instead, he walked—measured steps, breath held, heartbeat thudding like a war drum in his ears. Through the theater, past the chandelier, out the broken window and back into the warm air of Shanghai night.

It wasn’t until he was two blocks away that he stopped and allowed himself to breathe.

Two hours later, he sat in a corner booth of a teahouse tucked behind an alley off Wuding Road. The owner knew him—never asked questions when Lin showed up with dirt on his jeans and dust in his hair. She brought him black tea and left him alone.

He scrolled through his camera.

The exterior shots were normal. Grainy. He’d been rushing. The foyer, too—unremarkable decay, though there was something oddly elegant about the desolation. Then the stage. The curtain.

And then the mirror.

The photo of her.

The woman was clearer now that he looked closer. Not just present—posed. As if she knew exactly when the flash would fire. Her hands were lifted, fingers curled delicately, frozen in a gesture of performance. Her mouth was partway open, but no sound could ever emerge.

The thing that struck him most wasn’t her beauty, though she was beautiful. It was her eyes.

She wasn’t looking at him in the photo.

She was looking through him.

Lin zoomed in.

And behind her—there it was again. Flames. Faint, but real. Reflected not in the mirror’s surface, but behind it, like the room she occupied was aflame. The opera house had never burned. Not officially.

He shut off the screen.

Outside, the rain had begun again. This time, heavy. The city beyond the glass blurred into wet neon. A cab hissed past. A girl laughed in the distance. Life resumed. But Lin stayed still.

He felt... marked.

Not in a physical way. But like something had seen him. Had chosen him. And that whatever he did next, it would not matter.

Because he would go back.

Not because he was brave. Not even because he was curious.

Because in the woman’s eyes—captured in a single frame—he had seen recognition.

She had been waiting.

And she had remembered him.

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