Chapter 49 - Moonlight

The museum's revolving doors opened precisely at nine o'clock.

Shen Mo stood behind the one-way glass of the monitoring room, his knuckles resting against his chin.

Through the glass, he could see a hostess in a suit bowing as she handed out visitor brochures at the entrance of the exhibition hall. The silver-bell-like sound of her "Welcome" was largely swallowed by the ambient noise of the crowd.

Xiao Wu’s keyboard clattered relentlessly behind him, the red light of the scanner pulsing against the lenses of his glasses. "The visitor flow peak is within the expected range, and the brainwave monitors are connected to thirty samples... Brother Shen, look at the one in the third row wearing the duckbill cap; his heart rate is fifteen beats higher than the average."

"Normal." Shen Mo’s gaze swept over the wall clock, its minute hand ticking toward the "12."

He fingered the micro-tweezers in his pocket, the cool touch of the metal handle against his skin reminding him of last night in the dissection room when he was tuning the damping fluid—that synthetic filament had emitted a faint blue glow under the electron microscope, resembling a steel needle infinitely thin. "The first twenty minutes are the safety zone; the lingering echoes need time to accumulate resonance."

Xiao Wu’s Adam’s apple bobbed as his fingers streaked across the trackpad. "But Elder Cheng said this pair of dancing shoes is a relic of a famous Republican-era diva, and her final performance ended when she broke her leg right at the curtain call..."

"That is precisely why we must let history repeat itself," Shen Mo interrupted, his eyes fixed on the largest surveillance screen.

In the center of the special exhibition hall, thirteen exhibits stood in their respective positions beneath the circular spotlights. Inside the most prominent glass display case, the satin dancing shoes lay quietly, their toes slightly upturned like a swan poised for takeoff.

Time ticked away, second by second.

Xiao Wu suddenly held his breath.

On the monitoring screens, the brainwave curves of all the subjects fluttered with subtle tremors simultaneously, like water disturbed by a falling stone.

The background music in the exhibition hall had somehow shifted to *The Dying Swan*. The sobbing of the violin, mixed with the murmurs of the audience, echoed beneath the glass dome.

Shen Mo saw a little girl in a blue dress standing on tiptoe, clinging to the display case. Her pupils were contracting—not because of the light, but because her iris sphincter muscles were twitching uncontrollably.

"Brother Shen!" Xiao Wu’s voice cracked. "The first twenty minutes... the safety zone for the first twenty minutes is gone!

"The brainwave synchronization rate has reached seventy-eight percent, and the respiratory rates have unified to twelve breaths per minute!" He grabbed a marker from the desk and drew a violently fluctuating curve on the whiteboard. "These are the characteristics of a collective shallow dream; they are sharing a visual experience!"

Goosebumps rose on the back of Shen Mo's neck.

He recalled what Su Wangying had said last night: "Lingering echoes weave obsession into rituals, and rituals require a host."

The surveillance screen abruptly switched to a panoramic view of the exhibition hall.

Su Wangying stood in the center, the hem of her beige knit sweater fluttering in the draft.

Her fingertips pressed against her temples, and her eyelashes fluttered violently, as if she were wrestling with something.

The next second, her pupils completely lost focus, yet the corners of her mouth slowly curled upward—a smile that did not belong to her, filled with ecstatic frenzy.

"She's been dragged in." Shen Mo's nails dug into his palms. "Xiao Wu, locate her brainwave frequency!"

"I'm routing it now!" Fine beads of sweat materialized on Xiao Wu's forehead. "But... her brainwaves are resonating with the exhibit, and the frequency is... it's the metronome tempo of *The Dying Swan*!"

Down in the exhibition hall, Su Wangying suddenly raised her hand.

Her movements were as light as a feather. She touched the ground with her toe and spun—a standard ballet curtain call movement, yet her heels were unmistakably treading on the marble floor.

The audience gradually quieted down. Some people unconsciously raised their hands, while others stood on tiptoe. Twenty pairs of eyes stared fixedly at the dancing shoes showcase, like puppets pulled by strings.

"Dream invasion has begun. Total capitulation expected in seven minutes!" Xiao Wu’s alarm sounded, blending with the static from the monitors. "Should we initiate the contingency plan?"

Shen Mo’s Adam’s apple rolled.

He remembered Su Wangying’s glowing eyes in the darkness last night: "We will turn the ritual into a corpse." He pulled out his phone, dialed a pre-saved number, and spoke with a voice as steady as a precision instrument: "Xiao Wu, play the Plan B recording."

A sharp "click" echoed from the speakers in the monitoring room.

In the exhibition hall's public broadcast system, the original *The Dying Swan* was cut short, replaced by a blurry piece of footage—on the screen, a woman in a red dress was taking her curtain call, but just as she was about to freeze in place, the screen suddenly went pitch black.

At the same time, Shen Mo pressed the remote control hidden in his sleeve. Two spotlights at the top of the exhibition hall went out with a snap, tearing a gap in the beam of light previously focused on the dancing shoes.

The catastrophe happened in the exact same second.

The dancing shoes inside the case suddenly vibrated.

The synthetic filament coated with damping fluid could not withstand the resonance and snapped with a sharp twang.

The glass display case tilted slightly. The sound of the shoelaces coming undone was as faint as a mosquito's buzz, yet it pierced everyone's nerves like a steel needle.

The audience shuddered in unison.

The man in the duckbill cap staggered and grabbed the display case; the little girl in the blue dress burst into tears; and Su Wangying, who had been spinning just a moment before, collapsed heavily to the floor, her forehead striking the display case and oozing tiny beads of blood.

The exhibition hall plunged into a dead silence.

Shen Mo stared at the monitoring screen and saw faint lights washing over the surfaces of the thirteen exhibits, like an electric current flowing across water, before they all dimmed simultaneously.

Director Lin’s camera automatically popped up the playback button. In the footage, the shadow of the dancing shoes completed one final turn on the ground, but just as it was about to freeze, the left foot suddenly slipped—the instant the shoelace loosened, the shadow stumbled half a step, ultimately failing to complete the curtain call.

Even more bizarrely, the shadows of all the exhibits slowly lowered their heads, as if they were "gazing" at that broken shoelace.

"Did... did it succeed?" Chen curator's voice came through the monitoring speaker.

Standing beside Su Wangying with his suit collar crooked, the shock on his face had not yet faded. "They... they're all awake!"

Shen Mo touched his nose, his fingertips coming away with warm liquid.

Only then did he realize he had a nosebleed, which dripped onto the floor tiles of the monitoring room like an unfolding red plum blossom.

Su Wangying staggered to her feet and glanced toward the monitoring room—through the one-way glass, he could still see the bloodshot veins in her eyes.

"It hasn't vanished." Shen Mo tore off a piece of tissue to plug his nostril, his voice muffled as if separated by a layer of fabric. "It has simply learned what it means to be 'unfinished.'"

Su Wangying seemed to hear him.

She bent down and picked up the broken shoelace from the floor. The silk curled into a ball in her palm like a dead butterfly.

The moonlight outside the window crept in at some unknown moment, casting countless silhouettes against the museum's glass curtain wall—they were all applauding, their palms clapping until they turned red, save for the single dancer's silhouette in the center, which continued to spin, and spin, and spin endlessly...

The closing bell rang in the corridor.

Xiao Wu shut down all the equipment, the light from the screens extinguishing one by one.

Shen Mo took one last look at the dancing shoes showcase—the broken shoelace swayed gently in the breeze from the ventilation duct, like a suspenseful ellipsis.

"I'll take the night shift tonight." Su Wangying's voice came from the doorway.

The tips of her hair were still stained with the dust from her fall, and she clutched the broken shoelace tightly in her hand. "I want to... keep it company a little longer."

Shen Mo said nothing.

He watched her turn and walk toward the exhibition hall. Her shadow was drawn long by the moonlight, momentarily overlapping with the shadow of the dancing shoes in the display case.

The wall clock in the monitoring room struck ten, the sound of the bell mingling with the roar of a distant subway, resembling some unknown countdown.

Outside the window, within the reflection on the glass curtain wall, the spinning dancer's silhouette suddenly stopped.

She slowly raised her head, locking eyes with Shen Mo across a distance of twenty meters.