Grand Performance (Nineteen) “Confessions”

【Flames leaped into the study, igniting the remaining manuscripts that flew in the rapidly heating air. Charlie lunged into the fire, trying to retrieve some more manuscripts, but was pushed to the ground by the departing soldiers. He never got up again, unsure if he couldn’t or wouldn’t.】

【Blazing flames scorched every inch of land. The red-eyed Puppet stood silently in the firelight, watching its creator, its eyes vacant as if it had never lived.】

【Charlie (staring at the Puppet): Ah, in the end, only you are left with me. No audience, no performance, I have nothing left. (Sighs) I once dreamed of holding a Grand Performance as a finale when I was about to bid farewell to life. Is this great fire the stage the gods have given me?】

【The Puppet remained silent, the flames causing the wood to crackle.】

【Charlie (groaning in pain): We cannot gain attention together, only head towards destruction together. What a pathetic tragedy this is, a tragedy where the Protagonist dies and the Villain triumphs…】

【A playwright who writes tragedies ending his life with a tragedy—this is not beauty, but an even greater tragedy.】

The Scarlet Theater was engulfed in raging flames, and the playwright Charlie died along with his life’s work.

Fortunately, he had a box of manuscripts that he had thrown out the window in advance, which were not burned with the theater.

Charlie, who was burned alive, harbored deep resentment, transforming into a wraith that wandered among the theater’s ruins and scattered manuscripts.

He yearned, he hoped, he persistently awaited readers from later generations.

He thought that even if, a thousand years later, just one person could find the plays he wrote, meticulously collect and organize them, to perform, to understand, to love them, then he would die without regret.

But unfortunately, Charlie was not a genius whose great talent went unrecognized; he was merely a madman with a little talent, yet stubborn and prejudiced.

His name was submerged in the long river of history, becoming unknown after his death.

Silence, silence, soundless, soundless… Perhaps this was the so-called reality: a clumsy, boring playwright who had little fame even during his lifetime, let alone after death?

Charlie waited in agony, watching helplessly as his manuscripts were covered by dust.

People came and went, yet no one ever looked down to notice those painstakingly written words. The papyri were buried deeper and deeper, and people walked on the accumulated soil, compacting the mud further.

The manuscripts and the theater were nothing more than two desolate graves that no one would ever visit again.

A thousand years was a bit short for a wraith, but too long for a playwright waiting for recognition.

Charlie fell into despair in his day-to-day waiting, gradually beginning to resent.

He resented the King who forbade his plays, the soldiers who burned down his theater, and… the common people who couldn’t understand him.

The wraith, filled with hatred, was confined to the theater, scorched black by the great fire, lingering as an old phantom around the dead building, emitting piercing wails.

His voice couldn’t travel far, not even penetrating the walls, only startling a few children playing exploration games in the theater and spreading a ghost story that few believed.

No one responded, no one witnessed; in the silence, time stretched endlessly, with only the Puppet occasionally letting out a few chilling laughs, seemingly real yet illusory, like auditory hallucinations conjured by the wind.

If nothing unexpected happened, Charlie would perish in unwilling solitude.

But on a silent night, Heaven finally seemed to hear Charlie’s plea and responded.

A golden beam of light descended from the sky, piercing through a crack in the dome and illuminating a small patch of ground in the theater.

That beam of light was so vivid that Charlie, now a phantom, felt its scorching heat and blinding intensity just by looking at it from afar.

He instinctively covered his eyes, yet involuntarily walked towards the light.

There was no reason, and he couldn’t articulate his thoughts, as if simply because… it was light.

The phantom of vines grew along the light throughout the entire theater, and a figure in black clothes and black hair gracefully emerged from the light, its golden eyes opening and closing like the sun and moon.

The moment Charlie saw that person, three words appeared in his mind—

“He is a God.”

The God said to Charlie, “I can see your desire. You wish for your plays to be staged and to receive the applause and praise of an audience.”

Charlie vaguely realized that a turning point was at hand. He desperately pressed, “Then can you grant my wish? I am willing to pay any price!”

“Price?” The God smiled. “You have nothing now, no value to offer. I am here simply to make a deal with you.”

“A deal?”

“You will sacrifice your freedom, forever confined to this theater; and I will send you an endless stream of audience members and actors.”

To Charlie, this deal seemed advantageous and harmless.

His soul was already trapped in the theater, only able to wander by clinging to manuscripts; and those manuscripts were long buried underground. In other words, even without the deal, he would never see the light of day again.

“I will, I agree!” Charlie hastily responded, afraid that the God would change his mind.

The God chuckled softly, raised a hand, and with a flick of a sleeve, bestowed the Identity Card, imbued with authority, upon Charlie.

The space of the theater was like an old, withered human skin, pulled from the charred ruins and, under the weaving and mending of golden vines, restored to its former glory.

Blinding spotlights illuminated every corner. Charlie, at some point, had changed into black clothes and a white mask, with nowhere to hide in the light and shadow.

Charlie asked the God, “What should I do after you send the audience and actors?”

The God said, “Make them suffer, fear, and commit sins.”

Charlie didn’t understand, but still followed the God’s instructions, creating layer upon layer of challenges.

Over decades, countless players with original sin were sent into the instance. The dead became the audience, and the living fled in panic.

Whether out of hypocrisy or cowardice, Charlie was never willing to personally orchestrate the feast of sin. Just as in life, he left everything to the Puppet and watched from the shadows.

As time passed, he gradually clarified the role of sin, vaguely realizing it was something akin to “power.”

He initially paid no attention until he discovered that the deceased began to cheer for his plays, and the box of manuscripts he had left outside was unearthed by an archaeological team for serious study.

He could feel the delayed praise from the public across vast spaces; his discovery was accompanied by flowers and applause, and people called his name: “Charlie! Charlie! We need Charlie!”

The accumulated resentment dissipated, replaced by an urgency. Charlie urgently wanted to meet the audience who finally understood him, urgently wanted to freely move around the world with his manuscripts.

But he couldn’t.

Due to his deal with the God, he was trapped in the theater’s consciousness space, forever losing his freedom.

In his frustration, he once again thought of the sins that, according to the agreement, were to be given to the God.

He thought, since sin meant power, if he collected enough sin, would he then possess the power to break the deal?

How to secretly extract sin outside of the deal was a question worth pondering, but it wasn’t difficult for Charlie, being a playwright.

The structure of instances and scripts had similarities. Charlie quietly modified the instance’s original design, embedding cycle after cycle, act after act, into what was originally a single play.

His small actions remained undiscovered until Qi Si appeared… “Although I don’t know why you need sin, judging from your poaching from the Main God, our positions are consistent. What I want to say is—you might as well make a deal with me.

“You give me the greatest benefit you are willing to pay, and I, as the agent of another, higher-ranking God, will continue to deceive the God for you.

“When the God behind me reclaims His divine throne, all past deals will be abolished, and you will gain the freedom you’ve always dreamed of.”

The young man calmly uttered these words, immediately following a threat, seemingly leaving no room for refusal.

Charlie, however, couldn’t help but recall the deal he made with the Main God many years ago.

It also seemed advantageous and harmless, also seemed inevitable, but who knew if it was a malicious trap?

Qi Si saw Charlie’s hesitation and sighed softly: “I’m not negotiating with you.”

He covered his Pocket Watch of Fate on his left wrist with his right hand and said with a smile, “I know the name of that entity, and with just a thought, I can draw His attention. You know, it’s very difficult to maintain not thinking of a certain word; if I drag this out any longer, I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist.”

Charlie asked coldly, “Are you threatening me?”

“I am merely objectively analyzing the pros and cons.” Qi Si’s gaze was sincere. “To be honest, I have a grudge with that entity, and if I alarm Him, I probably won’t survive either. This is something neither of us wants to see, isn’t it?”

Charlie let out a guttural laugh, saying nothing, but raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

In an instant, darkness, like twisted ghostly shadows, grew claws from cracks in the ground on all sides, surging aggressively towards Qi Si, swallowing him whole into complete darkness.

Qi Si’s hand remained on the Pocket Watch of Fate, ready to activate a rollback at the slightest sign of trouble.

In the silent stillness, time passed minute by minute, and suddenly, a faint light appeared in the darkness.

Qi Si found himself standing beneath the stage, with sheets of paper unfolding into a long path at his feet, leading to the center of the stage.

He walked along the path, stepping forward.

Countless fragments floated around him, occasionally transforming into phantoms that merged into his body, then lightly passed through it.

The fragments carried scattered words, and upon contact, they connected into scenes that he came to know… In a dilapidated wooden cabin, the stove fire, lacking kindling, flickered and died.

In the cold wind, an old man held a boy in one arm and a quill in the other, writing line after line on papyrus.

The boy quietly and laboriously read the words written by the old man.

Those stories were not beautiful, even ugly, and not as interesting as fairy tales, but the boy could always read them intently all day long.

The old man kept writing, and the boy always stayed by his side.

He watched the old man shiver from the cold and grow sluggish from fatigue, and couldn’t help but ask with concern, “Grandpa, what’s the use of you writing all this?”

The old man patted his head and said, “Perhaps it’s useless, but someone has to write these untimely words.”

…A coffin contained the old man who died of illness in winter.

People said that the famous comedy master, in his later years, was somehow bewitched and began writing boring tragedies, which led to his impoverishment.

The boy was young and could hear people’s mockery, and at the same time, sadly realized that he had no family left.

Fortunately, he learned quickly and could always make a living, so he grew into a teenager, sometimes hungry, sometimes full.

When he was free, he often took out the manuscripts left by the old man to read, and clumsily operated the worn-out Puppet to perform the plays written by the old man.

Through repeated performances, a dream began to sprout in him: he wanted to write similar plays, to make those who mocked the old man see and love them, to tell them:

“Grandpa’s plays aren’t boring.”

…The youth gradually grew into a young man, then slowly into middle age. He finally saved enough money to build a theater on flat ground.

Filled with dreams, he wrote play after play that his grandfather had taught him, wanting more people to see them.

But criticisms like “boring” and “incomprehensible” were heaped upon him, chilling his enthusiasm; accompanied by the King’s prohibition, he then realized how heinous the plays his grandfather created were.

Everyone has to live. After spending all his money, he racked his brains trying to figure out how to attract an audience.

Audiences liked comedies, light-hearted things, there was no doubt about that, but those were things he couldn’t write.

So he began to ponder how to add elements to the existing scripts that could attract an audience.

—The bizarre, the bloody.

This was the answer he arrived at after countless attempts.

He knew this was wrong.

But he wanted so badly to be seen… Qi Si reached the end of the path.

In the faint light, an old man, enveloped in white hair and a white beard, sat crookedly, clutching thick manuscripts.

Next to him lay a black card. A figure in a long black robe stood on a pile of skulls, holding a black-bound notebook, with blood flowing from its spine, converging into a stream at his feet.

【Identity Card: Despairing Playwright】

【Effect: The plays you write always evoke pain, sorrow, fear, and despair.】

The old man’s face and body were covered in charred ash, almost unrecognizable, but his hands were intact, tightly gripping a quill, writing furiously on the manuscripts.

Around him, a dozen pairs of eyes floated, their gazes all focused on the pages in his hands, much like spotlights on a stage.

Qi Si knew this was the real Charlie.

“A great playwright who fancied himself a recorder of the era, yet ended up living his life as a clown on a stage from which he couldn’t exit. What a spectacular absurd comedy.”

He scoffed, his expression a half-smile, “What’s the use of showing me all that? Do you expect me to pity you?”

Charlie didn’t answer, but calmly said, “I agree to your deal.”

Page after page of papyrus arranged themselves in the void, and a quill wrote in black ink above them.

A long crimson scroll gently unfurled, and golden vines transcribed the characters from the papyrus, outlining brief and powerful words as finely as embroidery thread.

【Contract signed. This contract is guaranteed by the rules of the world; no entity may defy it.】

…【Note】 “Confessions” records Rousseau’s life experiences for over 50 years, from birth to his forced departure from Saint-Pierre Island in 1766. He recounted the brutal treatment he suffered as a dependent child, described the abuse he endured after entering society, and the various darkness and injustices he witnessed and heard, angrily exposing the societal “law of the jungle,” “might makes right,” and the ugly corruption of the ruling class.