The Disappearing Easter Egg

Old Wang is a projectionist at Happiness Cinema. He loves his job. Although he repeats the same actions every day, he feels like he's guarding the entrances to stories. Recently, the cinema has been showing "Ne Zha 2," which has been incredibly popular, with screenings packed so tightly it's almost absurd—a show every ten minutes. This means he has to spin like a top, but Old Wang remains conscientious, like a precision instrument.

This day, Old Wang was repeating his work, pressing the play button, waiting for the movie to end, and then immediately cutting it off to prepare for the next showing. But just as he pressed the stop button, a strange image appeared on the screen: not the usual credits, but a black background with a line of text in white pixel font: "What you deleted is our memories."

Old Wang thought he was seeing things. He rubbed his eyes, but the words were still there. This reminded him of what the cinema manager had said: to increase screenings, all movie post-credit scenes had to be cut. He had done it before without any issues. But this time, the words on the screen made him feel uneasy.

He played the movie again, and at the end, the black background with white text reappeared. Old Wang tried fast-forwarding, but the image remained, and it stayed longer and longer, like a black hole slowly consuming time. Old Wang panicked. He quickly switched to another movie, and everything was normal. He played "Ne Zha 2" again, and the black background with white text appeared again, and this time, the line had changed: "You stole our time."

Old Wang started to feel afraid. He felt like he had touched something forbidden. He told the projectionist in the next room, Xiao Li, about it, but Xiao Li said he must be too tired and was having hallucinations.

Unwilling to give up, Old Wang found the cinema's technician, Old Zhang. Old Zhang carefully checked the projector and the hard drive, but found nothing unusual. Old Zhang comforted him, saying, "It must be some marketing gimmick by the movie company, don't take it seriously."

Old Wang thought maybe he was right. But he couldn't shake off the unease. He felt like that black background with white text was like a curse, constantly reminding him that he had done something wrong. To ease his unease, Old Wang decided to check online for related discussions after work.

He opened his phone and searched for reviews of "Ne Zha 2," but all the reviews complained about the movie ending too abruptly, as if it had been cut off. No one mentioned the black background with white text.

Old Wang's confusion deepened. He felt like everyone was being kept in the dark, and only he had seen the truth. But what was this truth? He began to recall every detail of deleting the post-credit scenes. He remembered that he always dragged the progress bar to the end of the movie and pressed the stop button.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him: what he was deleting was not just the post-credit scenes, but perhaps part of the movie itself. He returned to the projection room and played "Ne Zha 2." This time, he didn't delete the post-credit scenes directly. Instead, he let the movie play to the very end.

On the screen, first were the familiar credits, then a post-credit scene. The scene was short, with only a few shots, but Old Wang was stunned.

The post-credit scene was an interview. The interviewee was none other than Ne Zha, a character in the film. Ne Zha said to the camera, "We know your time is precious, so we put some important things in the post-credit scenes. But if you don't even watch the post-credit scenes, then you will miss the truth."

Before Old Wang could react, a line of text appeared on the screen: "We remember, we all remember." After this line, a map appeared. The map marked countless points, and these points were all cinemas that had screened this movie.

Old Wang suddenly understood that those post-credit scenes he had deleted were not just some unimportant fragments, but some important information, a truth hidden by the movie company. Those black backgrounds with white text were the movie characters telling the audience about their experiences and their anger.

Old Wang felt a deep sense of fear. He felt like he was caught in a huge conspiracy. He realized that he, like other projectionists, had become an accomplice to this conspiracy.

The next day, Old Wang quit his job. He decided to seek the truth. He began to go to the cinemas marked on the map, to tell everyone what they had missed.

When he left, "Ne Zha 2" was still playing on the screens of Happiness Cinema. After the movie ended, the black background with white text appeared again: "We remember, everyone who deletes memories."