Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 56 Tongsheng Mirror

Chen Dingkun's spirit silently watched him erupt.

A fleeting, complex sadness seemed to flash deep within those clear eyes, but it was quickly replaced by an even deeper, inhuman calm.

Until Xu Yan's roar echoed and disappeared in the empty hall.

“Because the Abyss is within you.” The old man’s voice was as calm as ice. “Whether you admit it or not is useless. Its hunger far surpasses that of all the ghosts in the world. The camera devours your memories, only delaying its full awakening. As for fate—it never asks whether you want it or not.”

His suspended figure swayed almost imperceptibly, as if maintaining this absolute calm was itself consuming a tremendous amount of his strength.

The cold truth, like a final verdict.

Xu Yan staggered back a step, his face drained of color.

All anger and resistance were shattered in the face of this absolute and cruel "necessity".

He glanced at Chen Zhiwei, whose breathing had calmed down slightly, and then at his own hands, which were wreathed in ominous power.

Beneath that calm, lurks a madness on the verge of collapse.

Xu Yan let out a low laugh, a sound as if it had been sanded, so dry that not a drop of moisture could seep out, only pure exhaustion and a trace of madness on the verge of breaking.

“Fine…very fine…Since you say that fate does not belong to me, then I’ll see if I can take it back.”

On the offering table, Chen Dingkun's spirit, in the instant he turned around, his gaze fell on the file of the "Red Demon," and the last trace of emotion in his eyes was completely extinguished, leaving only a bottomless void.

Xu Yan suddenly turned around, seemingly wanting to escape this place completely.

However, his feet seemed nailed to the door, unable to move an inch further.

He had his back to everyone, his shoulders trembling slightly from the overwhelming emotions he was suppressing, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

He can't leave.

No matter how angry or desperate he was, Chen Zhiwei was still here; his life's anchor was still here.

A suffocating silence fell over the museum.

A Zhe stood there blankly, watching Xu Yan's back as she struggled violently, and then looked at Chen Dingkun, who was suspended in mid-air.

Just then, a barely audible groan leaked out from the light.

Chen Zhiwei's eyelids trembled, and she slowly opened them a crack.

The world remained blurry and fragmented in her eyes, but two images pierced her with a clarity that struck her deeply:

—At the doorway, that figure stood there, shoulders taut, like a bowstring about to snap, familiar yet distant.

Before the offering table, the spirit of my grandfather stood indifferent and silent.

A hoarse voice escaped her throat, weak and almost tearing her soul apart:

"Grandpa... what we're guarding day and night... is it a storefront for people to remember, or... a grave that's suppressing something?"

Chen Dingkun did not answer immediately. Silence itself was the coldest answer.

Her gaze returned to the doorway, her voice even softer and more urgent: "Senior brother...where is senior brother?"

His words were filled with fear and pleading, as if he were grasping at the last straw.

The figure froze for a moment.

After a long silence, he managed to squeeze out a sentence from deep in his throat.

His voice was hoarse and distorted, as if it had been torn apart, and no longer sounded like his own.
"...You're awake, that's good."

Before he finished speaking, a strange red light suddenly appeared outside the window, as if the night sky had been scorched by blood.

Light streamed in through the cracks in the photo studio, even staining the portrait on the wall a bright red.

Chen Zhiwei froze, tears streaming down her cheeks.

That response brought no comfort, but rather felt like a cold knife. Even he himself trembled violently the moment he finished speaking, as if he had almost been crushed.

The entire photo studio fell into a deathly silence, colder than stillness and heavier than emptiness.

Chen Dingkun's soul flickered. He looked at Xu Yan, who was on the verge of collapse, then at his granddaughter, who was on the verge of death but extremely anxious, and then at A Zhe, whose face was pale.

Finally, he seemed to have made a decision.

The silence inside the building suddenly became thick and heavy, making one's eardrums throb.

It was as if even the sound of time flowing through this place had been swallowed up, leaving only the pounding of the heart in the chest.

Xu Yan's suppressed breathing and Chen Zhiwei's faint sobs were amplified infinitely at this moment.

The suspended spirit slowly raised its hand, and the two clusters of eerie blue flames on the offering table suddenly swayed violently, as if blown by an invisible wind.

The portraits covering the entire wall seemed to emit an extremely faint, sigh-like hum at that moment.

A solemn and heavy atmosphere instantly enveloped the entire photo studio, as if some taboo was about to be touched.

An invisible force opened a hidden compartment beneath the counter, which was even more concealed and covered with sealing runes.

An object slowly rose from the hidden compartment.

It was not a modern optical instrument, but rather a solidified abyss itself, forcibly shaped into a lens.

That wasn't the lens Xu Yan usually used; it was a short-focus lens that was completely black, as if it had been forged from a solidified abyss.

Its material is neither gold nor stone, and it is icy cold to the touch. Deep inside the lens is a slowly rotating vortex.

When it floated up, what appeared in the mirror was not the reflection of the three people, but several blurry, distorted, and painfully distressed unfamiliar faces, which disappeared in a flash.

Ah Zhe even seemed to hear a very brief, overlapping wail from countless people, piercing his eardrums with pain.

It was as if countless imprisoned souls were struggling and peering out.

"This item is called the 'Mirror of Shared Life'." Chen Dingkun's voice carried a solemn weariness. "Using the soul as a guide, it can temporarily borrow another person's body to see and hear them and control their actions. At most... twelve hours."

A Zhe gasped, about to speak, when he heard Chen Dingkun suddenly say in a low voice:

"Remember, this is not a game. If you possess someone through this mirror, their breath will become the rise and fall of your chest; their heartbeat will become the roar of your eardrums. If that body is slit in the throat, you will feel the blood gushing from your own neck. If that person screams in their sleep, your soul will be dragged into the same nightmare. — If you possess their body, you will live and die with them."

After he finished speaking, the room fell into a deathly silence.

Xu Yan's breathing suddenly stopped, his knuckles clenched, as if he could already hear the suffocating sound of flesh being torn apart just by imagining it.

Ah Zhe instinctively shouted out:

"Holy crap...isn't this possession?!"

He stared intently at the camera, his eyes filled with fear and an instinctive resistance to scientific reasoning.

"This thing... is it consciousness synchronization? Or... quantum-level interference? A camera can do this? It's too... too illogical!"

Chen Dingkun's spirit trembled slightly, and he responded coldly:

"It's not possession by a ghost. That's a wild ghost forcibly taking what you want and dragging you into the underworld. But this mirror—it's your own choice to make your souls merge together."

Ah Zhe choked, his face turning pale and then flushed. In the end, he could only swallow hard, his voice trembling: "...Fine, this is worse than being possessed by a ghost."

His gaze swept over Xu Yan.

"Yan'er, the answers you seek, the doubts in your heart, the essence of that 'Abyss,' the destiny of this mansion, and the end of it all..."

Chen Dingkun's spirit became increasingly faint.

"The answer is no longer in my dying soul."

"The road ahead is shrouded in mist and an abyss; one wrong step will lead to utter destruction. If you are determined..."

His voice eventually turned into a wisp of cold embers lingering around my ear:

"Then you shall grope your way out in the darkness..."

As soon as he finished speaking, the pitch-black "Mirror of Shared Life" gently landed in Xu Yan's hand. The cold, heavy touch and the gaze from the mirror that seemed to imprison countless sorrowful souls sent a chill down his spine.

Chen Dingkun's spirit remained silent, slowly retreating back into the light of the offering table, becoming almost completely transparent, and falling into silence.

(End of this chapter)