The Undead Captain Takes No Living - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

We jumped out through the pawnshop’s back window.

To be precise, Cedric picked me up and hauled me out.

He moved terrifyingly fast.

Before I could even react, I had already landed in a narrow alley.

Behind us, the shop door was smashed apart.

Those faceless people poured into the pawnshop, surging over the counter like a tide.

The shopkeeper screamed from inside.

I felt a little guilty listening to it.

Cedric grabbed my hand and ran.

His hand was very cold, but his palm was steady.

As I ran, I asked, “Will the shopkeeper die?”

“No.”

“Then what’s his name?”

“Loss.”

I looked at him, panting.

“You know how to tell jokes?”

He didn’t look at me.

“Leon taught me.”

My steps slowed for a moment.

Cedric stopped at once.

“What’s wrong?”

I shook my head.

“Nothing.”

I had just suddenly thought of my brother.

Leon was the kind of person who could lead a perfectly serious man astray wherever he went.

Being able to teach the Undead Captain deadpan jokes was a skill in itself.

Third Street was livelier than the first two streets.

Colored cloth hung along the roadside, and paper flowers were scattered across the ground.

If you ignored the fact that those paper flowers had all been cut from dead people’s clothes, it actually looked rather like a temple fair.

The Flaying Theater stood at the end of the street.

A woman who sang opera sat at its entrance.

She wore red, her face thick with makeup.

In her arms, she held a piece of skin.

That skin had no face, but it had a head of familiar black hair.

My stomach lurched.

Cedric blocked my view.

“Don’t look.”

The woman laughed.

“Captain Lu, bringing a newcomer to watch the show?”

Cedric said, “I’m looking for Leon.”

The woman stroked the skin in her arms with her crimson-stained nails.

“Today’s show hasn’t begun yet. No people for sale.”

I asked, “Then when does it start?”

The woman looked at me.

“When the lead arrives.”

“Who’s the lead?”

Her smile was very sweet.

“You are.”

The moment she finished speaking, a gong rang out from inside the theater.

All the paper flowers on the street flew up.

My vision went black.

When I opened my eyes again, I was already sitting below the stage.

The seats around me were packed with audience members.

They had no faces, but they all turned toward me at once.

A wooden placard hung on the stage.

The Melowen Daughter’s Search for Her Brother.

I: “…”

What an awful title.

Cedric sat beside me.

His hand was tied to the back of the chair with a red thread.

I looked down at myself.

I was tied up too.

The Red-clad Woman stood on the stage, her voice shrill and bright.

“Act One: The Rescue from the Well.”

The stage lights flared.

Two children were pushed out.

One wore an old dress from my childhood.

The other was covered in wounds, iron chains locked around his hands and feet.

My breath stopped.

The bottom of the well from seven years ago.

They were going to perform it for me.

The little girl lay at the mouth of the well and shouted down, “Are you still alive?”

The little boy below lifted his head.

He couldn’t speak. He could only nod.

The little girl found a rope.

Her hands were very small, and she cut at the iron chains until they were covered in blood.

As I watched the version of myself on stage, my own palms suddenly began to ache.

Cedric said in a low voice, “Don’t let it pull you in.”

“What do you mean?”

“The theater flays people through their old memories.”

“What happens if I watch it to the end?”

He looked toward the stage.

“You won’t be able to tell whether you’re the audience or someone in the play.”

I immediately stopped looking.

But the voices on stage kept drilling into my ears.

The little girl finally cut open the lock.

She dragged the little boy out and tied the Red Cord around him.

“Don’t be scared. I’ll get you out of here.”

The little boy looked at her, his eyes shining.

Beside me, Cedric suddenly went terribly quiet.

I couldn’t help looking at him.

His eyes weren’t on the stage.

He was looking at the Red Cord around his wrist.

Onstage, the little boy picked up a pebble and wrote, Don’t forget.

The Red-clad Woman smiled and asked, “Ilya, have you forgotten?”

I didn’t answer.

Then she asked Cedric, “And you?”

Cedric still said nothing.

The Red-clad Woman’s smile turned cold.

“Act Two: Leon Boards the Ship.”

The lights shifted.

A young Leon appeared onstage.

I sat up straight at once.

He stood at the bow of the Ghost Ship, soaked through, a sack of salt on his back.

The Cedric onstage looked more alive than the one beside me now.

His face was pale, but there was still a trace of color in it.

Leon threw the sack of salt onto the deck.

“I’m here to seal Ghost Port.”

Cedric said, “You’ll die.”

Leon laughed.

“My little sister’s still onshore. If I don’t die, what’s she supposed to do?”

My throat tightened.

Then the Leon onstage added, with that infuriating look of his, “Besides, whether I live or die is none of your business. You’re not my brother-in-law.”

A soundless ripple of laughter passed through the audience.

My eyes stung fiercely, and I also kind of wanted to curse him out.

At a time like this, he was still taking advantage of people.

Cedric suddenly spoke.

“He didn’t say that line.”

I froze.

There was a faint, barely noticeable stiffness at the tips of his ears.

I had been devastated.

But after he said that, I nearly laughed.

The Red-clad Woman, however, was displeased.

She lifted a finger.

Onstage, Leon suddenly dropped to his knees.

A knife burst out through his back.

I shot to my feet.

The red threads yanked me back into the chair.

“Brother!”

Cedric held me down.

“It’s fake.”

“But his pain is real.”

I didn’t know why I said that.

Maybe it was because when the Leon onstage turned his head, the look in his eyes was too much like the real him.

He looked at me below the stage.

His lips moved.

This time, I saw it clearly.

What he said was:

Don’t come.

The Red-clad Woman walked behind him and, smiling, draped a piece of skin over his shoulders.

“Act Three: Exchanging Lives.”

Cedric’s expression changed.

For the first time, he struggled against the red threads.

“Stop.”

The Red-clad Woman smiled even more happily.

“Captain Lu, aren’t you the most familiar with this act?”

Onstage, Leon collapsed to the ground as Ghost Port’s black water surged up from the cracks.

Cedric cut open his own palm with a knife.

Black blood dripped into the water.

For an instant, the water stilled.

Leon lifted his head.

“What are you doing?”

Cedric said, “The ship needs a dead man as its anchor.”

Leon struggled to get up.

“We agreed I would do it.”

“You have a little sister.”

The Cedric onstage spoke in an utterly calm voice.

“I don’t.”

I whipped my head toward the man beside me.

His eyes were lowered, his lashes hiding every emotion.

The Red-clad Woman said softly, “And so Cedric died, and Leon lived.”

“But Leon never went ashore.”

She turned to me.

“Because he discovered that the one Ghost Port was looking for wasn’t him.”

My heart sank.

The Red-clad Woman raised her hand and pointed at me.

“It was you.”

The theater doors flew open with a thunderous crash.

From behind the stage came the sound of chains dragging across the floor.

Someone was shoved out.

He wore an old blue-green robe. There was a scar over his left brow, and his face was pale, but he still smiled at me.

“Lia.”

This time, it wasn’t the Face-Stealing Ghost.

I knew it.

That was Leon.