Boss Shen's Theater of Gods and Ghosts

The older generation used to say that once a performance begins, it must not be stopped midway. Even if no one in the audience is listening, the ghosts and gods are. When a play is performed onstage, listeners come from all directions: one side belongs to the living, three to ghosts, and four to gods.

The Divine and Ghostly Theater had been gone from the world for many years, when one day it suddenly appeared again.

It was a place that gods and ghosts alike flocked to. They said that watching a performance there could increase one's cultivation, and that the stories performed on its stage became mysterious objects within each listener's heart. They also said that the theater's master was someone whom every saint and patriarch under heaven longed to take as a partner.

In a desolate ancient town in the human world, Shen Conghe was born without the ability to feel emotions. As a result, no matter how skilled he was, he could not perform onstage. In the end, he had no choice but to obey his father's wishes and disband the troupe. By then, he was the only performer left, so he had to take the stage himself for their final show. As the curtain fell on the troupe's last performance, he saw the silhouettes of ghosts and gods in the empty audience.

*

Li Yuan, the ancestor of all ghosts, had been gravely injured in a war between the two realms and was forced to sleep in the Abyss of Myriad Demons. One day, his thoughts stirred, and he realized that the betrothal gift he had sent away many years ago had finally been accepted.

His partner, who had been missing for a thousand years, had finally appeared.

Li Yuan awoke, a sharp glint in his eyes. He rubbed his fingers together, the corner of his mouth curling into a cold smile.

They say the King of Hell claims a life at the third watch, and no one can keep it until the fifth. Yet the fated partner of the Ghost Lord, a being whose status is even higher than the King of Hell's, had disappeared for a thousand years.

"So you're the master of the Divine and Ghostly Theater. You've finally appeared."

*

Shen Conghe recruited famous performers from every era, and the theater's regulars grew in number. He realized that the theater needed more and more renovations, as if it were returning to the past.

Then Shen Conghe discovered that the audience's joys and sorrows were restoring the theater. As it was repaired, his own heart, once as still as a well, began to fill with emotion.

*

Ever since his troupe began performing for the gods and ghosts, Shen Conghe noticed that one of the regulars had become a clingy pest. The man had taken it upon himself to act like an employee of the troupe. He sold tickets, did makeup before the show, and even played the sanxian onstage.

Shen Conghe was happy to have such a versatile employee, until...

Regular A: "Well, look who it is. Isn't that the Ghost Lord? When did you wake up after all these years? And now you're working at this theater?"

Li Yuan: "There's no way I'd work for someone else. How could doing things for my wife count as work? I'm doing things for my own family, so how could you call it work?"

Shen Conghe: ? Who's your wife?

Screenshot saved on February 28, 2021

Theme: The fruits of hard work taste sweetest.