World Occult Usage Guide

Chapter 12 The Newsstand Woman at Night

At 2 a.m., light snow began to fall in Dietrich.

The temperature difference caused everyone walking towards us to emit white steam, like steaming creatures releasing gas.

If they don't find a place to rest in time, the melting snowflakes will soak their clothes from head to toe.

This gave them a new goal when they were bored. Some flocked to underground bars, some to brothels, and no one went home—those who were still wandering around at this hour had no home.

The electronic light illuminated Lin An's face, and he pulled his hat brim down to prevent snowflakes from falling onto his phone screen.

"The World Tree Forum did not discuss the topic of late-night newsstands..."

After a moment's thought, he shifted the focus to "the area within Dietrich," scrolled through a few pages, and finally found content related to the event.

The post was made on July 19th of this year.

LoveTiffney: Has anyone been to the Simena's Pub on Lower Street in Dietrich? The lead singer is a woman from the Lower East Side, and she sells her albums through the back door of the pub every Friday night. I haven't been to a live show; I just bought a CD while traveling.

LoveTiffney: I thought it was one of those movies, but... look at this, isn't it just special effects?
LoveTiffney: [Video]
Lin An opened the video; it was a recording of the computer screen using a mobile phone.

The curtains on the bar stage slowly rose.

A woman walked onto the stage. She was not beautiful in the traditional sense; her features were rugged, her eyebrows were jet black, and her lips were blood-red. Only her eyes were exceptionally dark, making it impossible to look away.

As she scanned the audience, perhaps because it was too blurry, Lin An couldn't see any distinction between the pupils, the whites of the eyes, and the irises; her eyes were simply pure black.

The script tells the story of a wife who kills her husband so she can live with her lover.

The woman plays the wife who meticulously plans the murder, occasionally turning to the audience and recounting her wicked thoughts to them in a contemptuous tone.

The small stage was enough to trigger claustrophobia. The camera panned across the audience, who were breathing through their mouths as if it were very stuffy. Many men sat in the front row, looking at the woman performing with confused and longing eyes. A couple clung tightly to each other, as if they were about to be swept away by a flood.

In the final scene, the wife lures her husband to her bedroom, where an open suitcase sits on the bed on an oiled canvas.

This was her plan: to murder her husband, put him in a suitcase, and dispose of his body.

But before the woman could carry out her plan, her husband seized the gun and shot her dead.

He wrapped her in her own canvas and then put her in the box.

The man held the box containing the body high above his head, placed it at the edge of the stage, and muttered mockingly to himself, "See? She thought of everything!"

The audience below the stage burst into laughter.

The box was then opened, revealing a woman's sexy body, which drew wild cheers from the audience in the front row, who touched her skin with their sweaty hands.

However, just before the curtain fell, the blurry camera shook, and Lin An's eyes widened.

The woman's corpse was covered with live maggots, and her flesh had turned black and green, falling onto the stage in pieces like pieces of a cake, soft and mushy.

The cheers turned into screams and vomiting, and the video abruptly ended.

The forum users and viewers reacted in unison, on one hand criticizing the poster for not including a gore warning, and on the other hand offering large sums of money to those who hadn't seen the video, with only a handful of analyses.

HeviA: Don't worry, OP. Based on my experience with live performances, this stage effect can be achieved using on-site props—lighting and clay. However, I don't understand why. Isn't this purely a performance for underground audiences?
LoveTiffney: When I bought it, I also thought it was an underground film.

tyleraxe: Entered with a beaming smile, left cursing.

RightLeg_7483: I really threw up!

RightLeg_7483: Damn it, can you please stop letting him out and causing trouble for others? Where's the administrator? Shouldn't he be banned for ten years?

SilverTeeth: I know about this show... The audience was so disgusted that they all got refunds, and the bar said they didn't know the lead singer would do something like this. It wasn't scripted, and it was completely beyond their expectations.

SilverTeeth: I can't believe she actually recorded that performance and made a DVD. OP, you're not a local, so you probably can't get a refund. You've been ripped off.

UF0s/5: The bar should fire her.

SilverTeeth: It is said that they withheld three months' salary from her and banned her from continuing as the lead singer. Now she can only do odd jobs and serve dishes in the store.

Cupid_Dust: Good riddance.

KarolXOXO: It doesn't feel like just special effects... OP, could you reply to my private message?

"This is the last floor," Lin An raised an eyebrow.

KarolXOXO, registered in 2035, IP address in Massachusetts, historical posts and replies concentrated in Dietrich, with a record of over 200 posts in a single day, has been inactive since May of this year.

You must be Caroline.

The poster did not reply to Caroline because there were too many reports, and the system automatically sent LoveTiffney a three-month ban. The foundation, which was short-staffed, also did not pay attention to this matter of dubious authenticity.

After noting down the account number of the four who had slipped through the net, Lin An turned off his phone.

He looked ahead, the streets, still shrouded in fine snow, seemed even emptier. The alleyways, devoid of streetlights, resembled bottomless abysses, tearing at the fear and unease of those wandering the night. Yet, at the edge of the darkness, a warm incandescent light flickered, full of allure.

Lin An put his hands in his pockets and walked straight into the alley. He heard the footsteps of fat rats crawling through the sewers, and crows and bats flew around, fluttering and searching for food scraps or other small things.

The dilapidated building gradually came into view, and light poured in through the open glass doors.

The open shelves were filled with a dazzling array of films and magazines, with voluptuous and alluring women in bikinis posing provocatively on the covers. The flickering incandescent lights created a somewhat 3D effect, and the colors were as vibrant as those of modernist masters.

Most of the glass door was blocked by a shelf filled with alcohol and entertainment tools.

A woman sat backstage, leaning against the back of her chair, looking drowsy. Her curly hair was slightly damp and fell loosely down her slender neck.

Lin An coughed twice, and the woman regained consciousness.

When she turned to Lin An, he discovered that the woman was the main character in the video, except that her eyes were clear and bright.

Apart from some malnutrition, she seemed perfectly normal.

"Good evening, sir," the woman said in a husky, languid voice. "What would you like?"

"I've heard rumors about this newsstand." With no one around, Lin An cut to the chase. "The female owner of the late-night newsstand... is that you?"

The woman leaned back in her chair, sprawled out, as if she were drunk.

"Sorry, I'm not serving men during this period."

"You admit it."

“So what if I say no? You’ve already decided that the woman in the rumors is me.” The woman waved her hand impatiently. “Too bad, you’ve made a wasted trip, sir. This newsstand is Ladies Only.”

"How dare you! You dare to assume my gender."

"..."

The woman propped up her heavy head, glared fiercely at Lin An, and spoke in an unfriendly tone.

"Buy if you want, get out if you don't. I've made myself perfectly clear."

"Just kidding, I'm just asking around for one of my junior classmates. I heard you charge $500 for one of your body parts? Is it really that effective? Can you give me a discount?"

Lin An found a DVD featuring a woman, with a heavily made-up photo of her printed on the title page.

By superimposing the two faces onto the same parallel line, he keenly noticed the strangeness in the contrast between the photograph and reality.

The woman in the photo has a pair of dark eyes, but in reality, a woman's eyes are brownish-red, lively yet overly "heavy," like an industrially produced product.

It's colored contact lenses, right?

Lin An drew a conclusion.

Hearing his explanation, the woman's expression softened slightly, and she said calmly, "I assure you, no one in the world is better at it than me. As for the price... well, I have to make a living."

"It's hard for me to be convinced by just one sentence." Lin An tried to pull the glass door, and as expected, it was locked. "Do you have before and after photos? I'll take two and send them to her."

"I don't believe you have a female classmate, damn it." The woman rolled her eyes. "Don't block my way if you have nothing to do. You're interfering with my business."

It seems that pretending to be an ordinary person won't work anymore.

Consuming one "God of Agriculture" medium, Lin An used [Little Helper] to forcefully push open the door and enter, startling the woman so much that she jumped off her chair and stared at him in disbelief.

"This door can only be opened from the inside!"

“I’ll open it the same way you help people lose weight,” Lin An said with a friendly smile. “Now we can have a serious talk. My name is Rachel, Rachel Tourfer (Ranger_12).

The woman looked at Lin An suspiciously. His Western Continent bloodline from his mother was deceptive, blurring his features and making it difficult for her to tell whether the young man was lying.

“Oh, you’re the ‘Mysterious One’,” she said. “My name is Carmen.”

No one gave their real name during the conversation. Lin An had found "Carmen's" signature in the lower right corner of the underground CD he had just received, which he guessed was the woman's stage name when she sang.

"So, can I help you, Mr. Tulf?"

"I don't know when it started, but I awakened a superpower that can't be explained by science." Lin An spread his five fingers. "I can open any lock I want, with just a thought."

“At first, I thought I was going crazy. I was afraid that the world was a giant brain in a vat, and that the laws I once firmly believed in might not exist at all. As time went by, I gradually calmed down and forced myself not to think about it. Unfortunately, that was impossible.”

"My growing skepticism about reality turned me into a conspiracy theorist. I became increasingly concerned with the city's enduring urban legends, and I began to doubt their authenticity. Of all the legends I could find, the one closest to me was you, 'the newsstand woman'."

Lin An shrugged self-deprecatingly.

"So I decided to come and see if you were like me—a 'superpowered person'."

“The difference between reason and madness is narrower than the sharpness of a razor, sharper than the teeth of a hound, and more agile than a mule or deer,” the woman who called herself Carmen chuckled. “I understand, Mr. Tulford. You are a ‘free mystic’ who has wandered among the people.”

(End of this chapter)