Chapter Ten: The Eerie Incident at the Circus

Inside a massive tent, wild beasts were everywhere, each confined in its own iron cage. Yet none of them displayed their usual ferocity; instead, every creature cowered in the corners, trembling with a terror almost human, their eyes fixed upon the boss, who stood at the center of all the cages.

At this moment, the boss had a cigar clamped between his teeth, exuding an air of arrogance.

“Boss, should we take out the goods now?”

“Look at the state of this lot. If we drug them now, who knows if they’ll even be able to perform later. Wait until after the show, then kill them all and cut the goods straight from their bodies.”

He exhaled a cloud of smoke, grinning, “After all, I’m not exactly a devil, am I? Hahaha!”

Qianyou Town was a poor, backward little place, so the people here remained intensely curious about things like circuses. Even the boss himself hadn’t expected that the circus, which he’d put together as a cover, would sell so many tickets.

But who would ever complain about too much money?

As night fell, the circus performance began as scheduled. The trainer was a professional, so there was nothing to worry about on that front. Even these nearly lifeless animals were forced to perform tricks under his hand, winning rounds of applause from the audience.

But what the crowd didn’t know was that behind the scenes, things looked very different.

The boss was counting cash while urging his men on.

“Get a move on.”

“All right, all right.”

Around him, a man was slicing open a bear with a knife, and scattered all about were the corpses of slaughtered animals.

It turned out that right after each animal finished its act, it was brought here and killed by a designated hand, the goods then extracted and sold off.

By now, the show was nearly over. Most of the animals had already performed and been put down, just waiting for the last few on stage.

But then, the man butchering the animals suddenly stopped, standing frozen, staring blankly ahead as if transfixed.

The boss noticed and followed his gaze, but saw nothing. Annoyed, he kicked the man hard.

“Are you slacking off? Don’t tell me you’ve learned to be lazy!”

He returned to counting his money, but realized that the man he’d just kicked still hadn’t moved. His anger flared.

“What’s your problem? Am I not making myself clear? If you want to die, just say so!”

He strode over, but the man just stood there, head bowed, silent—almost as if he were dead.

For some reason, a sense of foreboding crept into the boss’s heart.

“Boss, who are you talking to?”

A sudden voice made him turn. It was his driver.

“It’s just me and Wang in here. Who else would I be talking to?”

He glanced instinctively at the man responsible for the butchery—and froze in terror.

“Where’s Wang? Where’s Wang?”

“Wang? He went to the toilet, didn’t he? He just asked me to cover for him.”

Hearing this, the boss blinked, looked again in Wang’s direction, and swallowed.

“Are you serious?”

The driver looked puzzled. “Boss, are you feeling okay?”

A cold sweat broke out on the boss’s back.

If Wang wasn’t here just now, then who had he kicked? That feeling had been so real—it couldn’t have been a hallucination.

Thinking of Wang’s bizarre, unmoving behavior just moments before, the boss grew even more frightened.

No, no, it must be a hallucination. He must be exhausted from overwork, and that’s why he’s seeing things so vividly!

He waved it off. “Maybe I am a bit out of it. Must be all the stress lately. Once this job’s done, I need a break.”

But then something else caught his attention.

“Hey, why are your eyes red?”

“Oh, I’m wearing colored contacts. Do you like them?”

The boss was speechless.

Suddenly, a shout came from outside. “Boss! Boss! Wang’s dead!”

A bald man burst in, panting, pointing outside. “He died in the toilet!”

The boss shuddered so violently that the money spilled from his hands.

“Where? Where?”

He shouted as he rushed toward the toilet.

The so-called toilet was just a shabby tent with a bucket inside. A crowd had already gathered outside, talking in hushed, excited tones.

The boss pushed through and was confronted by a grisly sight.

Wang lay on the ground, face contorted, eyes wide and bulging in terror.

“What happened?”

“Someone came to use the toilet and found him dead. Nobody dared call the police without your say-so.”

In this line of work, the less contact with the police, the better.

Thinking back to Wang’s strange behavior in the tent, the boss nearly collapsed in fear.

But he quickly pulled himself together and hurried back to his own tent.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. He had to get out of here at once.

A powerful, gut-deep instinct was urging him to leave immediately, and the more he thought about it, the more panicked he became.

Back in the tent, he had barely begun gathering up the night’s earnings when a hand landed on his back.

“Boss, where do you think you’re going?”

The voice made him nearly faint from fright.

It was Wang’s voice—the very Wang who lay dead in the toilet.

He turned, shaking violently, only to see the driver grinning at him.

Was he hearing things now?

No time to think. “Hurry up and get ready—we’re leaving right now.”

“That sudden?”

“There’s no time to explain. Do you have the car keys?”

But his words hung in the air, unanswered.

He turned to look—only to find the driver had vanished.

“This is insane!” he muttered, truly terrified now, nearly losing control of his bladder. He made a snap decision to get out of this accursed place immediately.

Frantically gathering his money, he was suddenly beset by a strange wind, swirling the bills everywhere as if it had come for his cash alone.

“Damn it! Even the wind’s against me?”

But then he realized something was terribly wrong.

This was inside a tent—how could there be wind?

And he was alone in the tent…

Or so it seemed—but perhaps, just perhaps, he was not alone at all.

That thought sent him scrambling to grab what money he could and dash for the exit.

But when he reached the tent’s entrance, a new horror awaited him.

No matter how hard he tried, the door would not open.