Beneath the Strings

Lin Xizhao transmigrated. No System, no panel, nothing at all. He was mistaken for a "playwright" and tossed into an underground theater. Every midnight, hundreds of residents gathered there to stage a funeral for an empty coffin. No one knew who the deceased was or why they had to put on the show. They only knew that if they didn't, something far more terrifying would happen. Shen Duan, the theater's manager, kept a notebook. It recorded every word Lin Xizhao said and every move he made. The first line had been written before he pushed open the door. "Your script has already begun," Shen Duan said. Lin Xizhao looked down and saw a transparent thread emerging from deep within the lines of his palm. Its other end passed through the dome and vanished into the darkness. Someone was watching him from beyond the curtain. He smiled and asked his first line since transmigrating: "Then who's the star of this funeral?" The silk inside the coffin suddenly billowed, revealing two words: "You."