The year the theater caught fire, I was eight years old.

My grandmother was a close friend of the lead actress Bai Yulan, so I was a frequent visitor to the theater.

One year, a flood struck the South, and a group of refugees fled to our village. The old man was one among them.

Bai Yulan felt sorry for him and gave him a job sweeping the theater.

The old man had once been a monk at a Taoist temple and knew some mystical tricks that amused everyone in the theater.

Until the day of the fire, I saw with my own eyes that he set the backstage curtains on fire. The backstage was right next to the performing stage, and the fire quickly spread. Bai Yulan was still on stage performing "The Locked Ornate Box."

I remember rushing onto the stage first and grabbing Bai Yulan’s sleeve, trying to save her.

But she reached out to me and used all her strength to push me out.

The main beam of the theater collapsed with a thud, and Bai Yulan, along with the entire stage, was buried instantly under the rubble.

That push saved my life.

My head was hit, and I passed out. Later, I was carried away by the adults who had come to put out the fire.

When I woke up, all I remembered was barely escaping death; the previous memories were all wiped out by that hit.

I always wondered why I was so familiar with the opera hummed by the female ghost, but couldn’t recall where I had heard it. It turns out it was sung by Bai Yulan.

I don’t have many impressions of Bai Yulan, but I am sure the female ghost haunting me these days is not the Bai Yulan who was willing to sacrifice herself to save others!

I snorted coldly and said:

“Old Wang Dao, do you want me dead because you want to help Paper Man Zhang resurrect Bai Yulan, or because I saw you start that fire?”

Both Paper Man Zhang and Old Wang Dao were taken aback, especially Paper Man Zhang, who stared in disbelief.

Old Wang Dao snapped out of it and laughed, "The little kid does have wisdom! You remembered me so quickly! But it's too late!"

He recited a spell, and the black air emanating from the gourd instantly grew several times.

That black air transformed into a beautiful female ghost in a red dress, who reached out her nails and charged straight at my chest.

It was exactly like the nightmare I had before.

I widened my eyes, and suddenly a white figure flashed in front of me. When I looked closely, it was Sun Xue.

Her consciousness was still attached to my substitute. Sun Xue lowered her head to look at her chest pierced by the female ghost, paper scraps flying around. She gave me a faint smile.

"Mo... I'm... sorry..."

She opened her mouth, then turned into a pile of wastepaper and collapsed instantly.

It was as if the curse of the substitute had come true, and she still protected me in the end...

My eyes turned sour, but the paper eyes couldn’t shed any tears.

“Lan'er? Why are you here?”

Paper Man Zhang looked at the female ghost in red, showing a confused expression: “Didn’t you swap places with Su Mo?”

The female ghost in red had empty eyes. She stared blankly at Paper Man Zhang for a moment before slowly speaking: “Zhang… Lang… Did I act well?”

Paper Man Zhang’s face turned from shock to despair, then to pale insistence.

“Wake up! She’s not your Lan'er! Bai Yulan has been dead for a long time! The one who crawled out of the gourd could be any wandering ghost!”

I mustered all my strength to shout angrily: “It was Old Wang Dao who claimed to help you resurrect Bai Yulan. He was the one who personally set the fire that killed Bai Yulan!”

Paper Man Zhang turned to Old Wang Dao, trembling: “Is what she said true?”

Old Wang Dao cursed “Troublesome” and immediately commanded the female ghost to knock Paper Man Zhang unconscious.