In May, at a large art gallery in Guangzhou, at 10 PM.
After the conclusion of this year’s largest art exhibition, the galleries located in the bustling city center gradually turned off their main lights. Staff members in vests quietly moved through the halls, carefully sealing each exhibit and loading them onto trucks.
These artworks varied in material and form. Some were made of nothing more than a few sheets of plastic as thin as cicada wings and cotton threads, while others stood taller than a person, as heavy as if cast in iron.
Zhang Yuan, a 19-year-old security guard from an outsourcing company, was not just responsible for security but also for handling and moving exhibits. Just as he had finished moving one exhibit and was squatting by the wall to rest, he heard the team leader speak up:
“Ali, go help Mingze with exhibit number 412 over there; it’s quite heavy. Hey, Zhang Yuan, take the packing boxes over to them in advance.”
The team leader of Hall C, around 35 years old, wore a uniform with a walkie-talkie pinned to his shoulder. Holding a tablet, the black metal piece behind his right ear marked him as an alpha, distinguishing him from ordinary security personnel.
Zhang Yuan had to get up again. Along with two other young men, he responded in the dim light and began to act according to the pre-trained procedures.
Zhang Yuan first moved the wooden crate base next to exhibit 412, waiting for the other two to carefully lift the human sculpture onto it.
While his colleagues were strenuously moving the sculpture, Zhang Yuan, still a half-grown boy, squatted by the exhibit stand, bored and reading the description word by word: “No. 12, ‘Fear’, by The Ten, March 2022, Yangcheng, modern art sculpture…”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Pc atf vlwis ila tjii, bcis atflg jgfj kjr ojlcais liiewlcjafv. Sztlylar ogbw batfg ujiifglfr tjv jigfjvs yffc qjmxfv jcv rtlqqfv jkjs, rb atf fcalgf olnf-rabgs jga ujiifgs kjr njra jcv rlifca, bmmjrlbcjiis lcafggeqafv ys atf mijmxlcu rbecv bo qjagbi uejgvr’ ifjatfg rtbfr rafqqlcu bc atf rajlgr jr atfs kjlafv ab mibrf eq.
The sculpture that Ali and Mingze were carrying together depicted a woman screaming in silence, her face a pale plaster color, yet strikingly vivid, exuding an inexplicable sense of life and an uncomfortable eeriness.
But the most bizarre aspect was the posture of the exhibit. The thin, naked woman curled her body as if unable to straighten up due to pain, but her hands were raised high like bird wings, creating an indescribable visual tension with her tilted head and neck.
Squatting, Zhang Yuan tried to mimic the pose and found it impossible for an ordinary person to replicate.
“Yuan, stop fooling around. You couldn’t do it even if your shoulder dislocated. Hurry up and help us hold it,” Ali chuckled, urging in Cantonese.
The young man grinned, stood up, and clapped his hands. He found an angle to hold the sculpture’s thigh. “Wow, from this angle, it looks like I’m holding her, about to kiss her.”
“Get lost, careful the leader scolds you. Alright, on the count of three.”
At the command, the three young men exerted their strength together. As they lifted, a sudden thought flashed through Zhang Yuan’s mind: “Why is this thing so light?”
The next moment, he heard his colleagues’ exclamations: “Careful! Yuan!”
Zhang Yuan looked up. In a whirl, the agonized, ferocious face lunged toward him. The statue’s gaping mouth was like a black hole ready to suck him in and tear him apart. He gasped, but unfortunately, his foot slipped on the packaging board, and he fell backward heavily.
“Damn it, it’s broken!”
The first thought that crossed Zhang Yuan’s mind was the cost of compensation. He was just a small-time security guard from an outsourcing company, earning barely over a hundred yuan a day. How could he afford to pay for this!
Falling amidst the scattered fragments, Zhang Yuan quickly got up, clutching a hand and a head. Ignoring the pain, his mind was filled with the thought of his lost wages and the unexpected compensation cost.
“Leader, it was too light. I really didn’t mean to. I didn’t know it was this light.”
Zhang Yuan, flustered, looked toward the white-shirted leader standing aside, instinctively hoping to shift some blame. But he saw an expression of extreme terror and eeriness suddenly appear on the leader’s face.
“Ali, why didn’t you hold it? How am I…” Zhang Yuan stammered, turning to his colleagues, only to see the same expression on their faces—stunned, with hysterical fear etched like masks in the night, eerily resembling the expression on the sculpture’s face.
This brought an instinctual horror to Zhang Yuan’s heart, and he dared not move.
“Yuan, something’s wrong.”
After a full ten seconds, the alpha leader’s facial muscles finally twitched. He struggled to open his mouth, his voice trembling uncontrollably, “Put it down first.”
At this moment, other security guards who had heard the commotion approached.
One beta colleague, who always loved to watch the excitement, stepped closer. Curiously, he peeked at the fragments on the ground and then at the sculpture’s head Zhang Yuan was holding. Suddenly, his face changed drastically, and he let out a heart-wrenching scream!
“How could this be a living person—”
Zhang Yuan felt as if he were in an ice cellar. It seemed only then that he noticed the bizarre sensation in his hands. He couldn’t control his trembling, shakily looking down—
The head in his hand had cracked open, revealing dried, yellowed human skin beneath the plaster. Strands of human black hair lay scattered across the plaster-covered face, and a human eye was exposed.
It was a lifeless, shriveled eyeball, like a trampled ping-pong ball, nestled in a face that was almost just a layer of skin, now staring directly at him.
“Plop,” the head in Zhang Yuan’s hand fell to the ground, bouncing and rolling into the crowd.
Starting off good. What a nightmare find 😨
Excited to read this with you!
Thank you for translating!
damn what a thrilling introduction ILOVE IT~~
Super excited !!!!! Camping ⛺️ I’m actually afraid of horror movies … but not novels 🤣