I've Transmigrated Into This Movie Before

Chapter 157

157: The Opera House within the Fog

"The fourth act?" The village chief laughed. "There has never been a fourth act."

Was that really the case?

"Ever since I was born, the villagers have been acting in front of me," Ning Qing said by Ning Ning's ear, "they don't really like me or respect me, it was all just a facade..."

After a pause, he let out a deep laughter. "They raised me up high, so that later on I will fall further down."

The fourth act existed, it had always existed.

The three other acts were done on stage, but only the fourth act was done in reality. Day and night, acting continuously, the actors were the Ning family, it was everyone in the village.

But what was it for?

Creating such a tragicomedy onscreen was for the sake of gaining the pity and tears of the audience, but what good would it be for them to do such a thing?

"Can you imagine? Everything around me was fake. The grandmother who sent me food everyday, the playmates who grew up with me, the village chief who raised me in my father's stead... All of them suddenly changed during the ancestor worship ceremony. They hit me, scolded me and humiliated me. They even justified it, they said that they had fed me and raised me, pretended to treat me well, just for the sake of feeling less guilt when they had to do me in at the end of it." Ning Qing mocked himself. "So how can there not be a fourth act? This is the fourth act, the act the villagers put up in front of me."

Or one could say, the act they put up in front of us.

Behind the mask, Ning Ning's eyes scanned across every face which was filled with desire.

If it wasn't because grandmother had brought Mama out of the village with her to remarry an outsider on a whim, they might have continued with act four—generations upon generations, repeating the same scenario, ending up with the same outcome.

"There wasn't even enmity between us, why did they have to do that? Spending two decades, just for the sake of making fun of me? No, even if there were two people who were willing to spend that kind of time and effort, not everyone would be willing to do so, there must be some sort of reason for the villagers and outsiders to persevere." Ning Qing laughed eerily. "After thinking about it thoroughly, there can only be one reason..."

It was deliberate.

They deliberately wanted to deal a blow to Ning Qing—to make him feel stupefied, to make him feel like his life was a joke, to make him fly into a rage.

The three-act performance of the ancestor worship ceremony was completely a smokescreen, it was for the sake of covering up the fourth act, covering up the real reason.

To offer the preposterous fourth act—to offer the protagonist whose life had been played with to Life Theater.

"What are you doing?" The former grand lottery winner shouted out. After a dreary thunder rumbled, it finally started to rain, he wiped off the rain from his face as he impatiently urged, "Begin quickly!"

Rain washed over Ning Ning's body, washing over the darkness around her along with the white mask on her face.

"Don't rush," she said slowly, "decide now, which three of you will be going in later?"

The former grand lottery winner was surprised. He asked, "What do you mean three of us?"

"Life Theater will begin screening every day at exactly twelve at night. The film that will be screened is chosen at random, no one knows what movie will be screening tonight, all I know is..." Ning Ning looked around at the audience, "that only three among you could enter."