4: Dinglou

Over the next week, Lin Feng and Wang Dalong went straight into seclusion mode.

The rented room, less than thirty square meters, became their battlefield, piled high with instant noodle cups and takeout boxes.

Wang Dalong's high-spec computer hummed twenty-four hours a day, the screen filled with dense software timelines.

Meanwhile, Lin Feng dove headfirst into piles of old papers.

The historical materials from the late Ming Dynasty he downloaded from the National Library database filled an entire hard drive, and he even managed to find several unofficial history notebooks with covers that were practically crumbling.

Simply recount the hallucination?

Not enough, far from enough.

He wanted to build a realistic skeleton and flesh for that tragic story.

Like a paranoid madman, he obsessed over the patterns on the rank patches of late Ming Dynasty capital officials, researched the architectural regulations of princely mansions of that period, and even scoured the records of that year to find the weather on the day Zheng Wenzhao died for his country—overcast, with a north wind.

This level of research was rigorous to a pathological degree.

Several times when Wang Dalong got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, he saw Lin Feng standing before the computer like a man possessed, eyes as red as a rabbit's, muttering to himself.

"No, the color of this court robe is wrong..."

"Fatty, come quick! I found it! The location of the Zheng family estate was near Xuanwumen Street back then. It all matches up!"

Lin Feng revised the script a total of sixteen times.

The final draft was three thousand words long, essentially a miniature movie script.

Looking at the dense document, Wang Dalong took a deep breath. "Brother Feng... this isn't a short video script; it's an epic screenplay!"

Lin Feng pushed up his glasses, which had slipped due to the late night. His eyes behind the lenses were bloodshot, yet they shone with a terrifying brightness.

"Fatty, this is more than just a story."

His voice was hoarse, but his tone was resolute.

"I want to bring that era, exactly as it was, before the eyes of every viewer. Not a single punctuation mark, not a single detail can be wrong!"

Lin Feng's obsession made Wang Dalong shiver, but then his blood began to boil. He slapped his chest hard. "Fine! I'll risk my life to accompany a gentleman!"

The video production officially began.

With no real sets or actors, Wang Dalong pushed AI technology to its absolute limit.

To show the past prosperity of the Zheng Estate?

He used AI models, inputting vast amounts of Ming Dynasty architectural data to generate magnificent landscape shots. Upturned eaves, carved beams, and painted rafters, paired with the melodious sounds of the guqin—the weight of an era came rushing forth.

To show the chaos when the rebel soldiers broke in?

He used AI to generate a large number of violently shaking shots, showing distorted alleys and collapsing stone walls. In post-production, Lin Feng added sounds of gunfire, screams, and breaking objects... When these images and sound effects were cut together rapidly, a suffocating sense of impending doom instantly enveloped the screen.

Even Wang Dalong felt a chill down his spine while rendering. "Holy shit, Brother Feng, I'm getting creeped out just watching this! It's too real!"

But the hardest part was depicting the tragedy of the family's massacre.

Wang Dalong initially suggested buying pig blood from the market, but Lin Feng rejected it on the spot.

"No, we can't film blood."

Lin Feng's face was as white as paper in the glow of the screen.

"True horror is invisible; true sadness is silent. We'll use negative space."

Wang Dalong was stunned. "Negative space?"

"Use sound and imagery to give the imaginative space back to the audience. That's called being sophisticated."

Ultimately, at Lin Feng's insistence, the frame froze on a closed window covered in white paper.

Outside the window was a thick, lingering sunset, as red as blood.

The image was still.

Sound, however, began to seep out from inside the window bit by bit.

First came suppressed weeping.

Immediately followed by the loud bang of a door being kicked open!

A man's roar! A woman's scream! A child's cry!

Then, a dull thud of a blade entering flesh... thwack.

The crying and screaming stopped abruptly.

The world fell into instant silence.

Dead silence.

After a heart-stopping ten seconds of dead silence, the scene suddenly shifted.

In the courtyard stood a withered, yellowing old locust tree.

On the tip of a leaf, a drop of bright red "dew" was taking shape.

Then, it dripped.

Drip.

On the moss-covered stone slab, a small patch of red bloomed.

Finally, it was time to record the voiceover.

Facing the professional microphone, Lin Feng's stage fright kicked in again.

Wang Dalong handed him a glass of ice water and said solemnly, "Forget about the audience. Just pretend... you're telling me, your best brother, a story that makes your heart feel heavy and hurts like hell. Say it out loud, and you'll feel better!"

Telling a story to a friend... Lin Feng closed his eyes and took a deep breath. That blood-colored hallucination flooded him again, and Zheng Wenzhao's face, covered in blood and grime, a mix of grief, indignation, and resolve, clearly occupied his mind.

He opened his eyes again and spoke into the microphone.

This time, his voice was hoarse from several sleepless nights, but his articulation was incredibly clear, each word carrying heavy weight.

"When the wheels of history roll by, they never care whether those standing in their path are heroes trying to stop a carriage with their arms, or martyrs who cannot turn back..."

In a calm tone, he recounted a forgotten past; beneath that calmness, however, was a suppressed, overwhelming sorrow.

At the end of the video, the scene cut to a display case in the Cultural Relics Bureau.

Under the spotlight, that 'ding lou jade pendant' was quietly on display.

Lin Feng's final narration sounded:

"It was once the glory of a family that lasted for a hundred years, and it also witnessed the irreversible end of a dynasty. Now, it no longer belongs to any one person, but to our nation, as a collective memory."

The voice faded, and the screen turned dark.

On the black screen, two lines of small white text appeared.

[Short Film: "Ding Lou"]

[This story is an artistic creation based on historical artifacts. The content is purely fictional. Thank you for watching.]

As the last character disappeared, the rented room fell into dead silence.

Wang Dalong stared blankly at the black screen, his eyes having turned completely red without him realizing it. He took a sharp sniff, turned his head, and said in a trembling voice, "Brother Feng... that was incredible..."

This had already surpassed the scope of a short video; it was a tragic epic about home and country, written with light, shadow, and sound!

That night, at two in the morning.

Wang Dalong solemnly uploaded this eight-minute and seven-second short film, which embodied countless hours of their hard work, to their half-dead "Feng-Long Exploration" channel.

Click, upload.

The progress bar finished.

Upload successful.

Wang Dalong let out a long breath, looked at Lin Feng, and grinned. "Brother Feng, do you think... it'll go viral this time?"

Lin Feng's gaze fell on the pitch-black night outside the window.

He didn't answer.

Whether it went viral or not was no longer important. He had told a story that had to be told; the rest he would leave to everyone who would see it.