Time seemed to have its throat seized by an invisible hand. The mournful wail of suona horns around them, the rustling of the moving paper effigies, even his own drumlike heartbeat—all receded in an instant. In Mo Fei’s world, only that young profile remained, incomparably familiar beneath the ghostly green light.
It was Xiao Zhao.
D-rank investigator Zhao Wenjie, a young man who had graduated from the academy less than half a year ago, who always wore a somewhat shy smile and would snap to attention and salute whenever he saw him, calling out, “Senior Mo Fei.” Mo Fei still remembered that before they set out, the kid had sworn up and down that once this peripheral reconnaissance mission was over, he would treat him to a meal at the Bureau’s newly opened barbecue place.
And now, he was walking less than five meters ahead of him. He wore an out-of-place blue cloth outfit, and on his face hung the same eerie smile as all the other walking corpses around him. His eyes were hollow, unfocused, and with the rhythm of the procession, he shuffled forward mechanically. He was no longer Zhao Wenjie, only a component in this funeral procession called a “villager.”
A surge of magma mingled with fury and grief erupted from the depths of Mo Fei’s heart, instantly smashing through the dam of his reason. Almost on instinct, he was about to explode into action; the battle-axes at his waist gave a faint hum as his muscles tensed and swelled. He wanted to charge forward. He wanted to tear this damned, ghost-playing procession to shreds. He wanted to take Xiao Zhao… He wanted to take Xiao Zhao’s corpse back!
“Mo Fei! Calm down!”
An Mu’s voice, cold as iron, stabbed like a sharp icicle into his boiling mind. It was an order issued through the mind link.
“Don’t move! Do you want all of us to end up like him?!”
“But Captain! That’s Xiao Zhao! He’s one of ours!” Mo Fei let out a beastlike growl through the mind link. His eyes had gone blood-red from congestion, fixed fiercely on that figure moving farther and farther away.
“He no longer is.”
Bai Yu’s voice followed immediately after. It was so calm there was not the slightest ripple in it, yet it poured over Mo Fei’s head like a basin of cold water mixed with shards of ice.
“Look around you, Mo Fei. We are ‘guests’ now. We are attending a ‘wedding.’ The first rule: ‘Do not make a racket. Do not fall behind.’ Any unnecessary movement from you right now is ‘making a racket,’ and it is destroying the ‘etiquette’ of this wedding. What do you think happens to a guest who ruins the wedding?”
“To hell with its rules! To hell with being a guest!” Mo Fei’s teeth ground together with a clacking sound. “I refuse to believe that with my two axes, I can’t split apart this paper-made trash!”
“Oh, what deeply moving camaraderie.” Hei Yan’s lazy voice, tinged with playful mockery, rang out in Bai Yu’s mind. “It’s like seeing a tiny, harmless blemish on an exquisite painting and insisting on wiping it away with a crude rag, only to destroy the entire work. My dear little Bai Yu, your companion’s taste when it comes to ‘appreciating art’ is truly rather lacking.”
Bai Yu ignored Hei Yan’s commentary. His mind was focused to the extreme as he continued speaking to Mo Fei through the mind link: “Whether you can cut them apart or not, what then? The core power here isn’t these paper effigies. It’s the rules themselves. If you attack them, you are openly making an enemy of the rules. When that happens, the entire village’s ‘rules’ will regard us as hostile targets. We won’t even know how we die. Do you want Xiao Zhao to have died for nothing?”
“Bai Yu is right.” Lan Ce’s voice joined in as well, carrying the unique coldness of a data analyst. “Mo Fei, according to my preliminary scan of vital signs, the target ‘Zhao Wenjie’… no longer has any life signals. Right now, he is only a biological puppet driven by the rules. Our top priority is to survive and analyze the core of this Evil Nightmare, not to stake the lives of the entire squad for a comrade who has already been lost.”
“You…” Mo Fei’s body trembled violently. He looked at that familiar yet unfamiliar back and felt as though his heart had been gripped tight by an icy hand, even his breathing carrying the taste of blood.
He knew they were right. Reason told him he had to endure. But to watch helplessly as his own comrade turned into something neither human nor ghost—this pain and humiliation were harder for him to bear than any flesh wound.
Bai Yu gently patted Mo Fei’s shoulder, signaling for him to calm down.
In the end, Mo Fei’s hand, clenched tightly around his battle-axe, slowly loosened. He lowered his head, hiding his bloodshot eyes in shadow. Only his heavy breathing still sounded like that of a wounded beast trapped in a cage.
The procession continued forward in silence.
They walked along the village’s only bluestone road. The surface was damp and covered in moss, reflecting a slick sheen under the ghostly green lantern light. In the cracks between the stone slabs, faint dark-red traces like rust could be seen; no one knew whether it was cinnabar or blood that had long since dried.
The houses on both sides of the road were sunk in a deathly silence. Every door was tightly shut, white lanterns hung at the entrances, and red double-happiness characters were pasted on the windows. This extreme contradiction repeated again and again among the continuous rows of buildings, forming a suffocating pressure. Occasionally, out of the corner of his eye, Mo Fei could glimpse vague black shadows flickering behind those windows pasted over with white paper, as though even more paper effigies were peering at these “uninvited guests” from the darkness.
The stench of rotting corpses mingled with the smell of incense and candles grew thicker and thicker, as if the entire village had been soaked in formalin and the aura of death. The shrill suona music collided within the narrow alleys, becoming even more distorted and frenzied.
Just then, one of the “villagers” walking near the front of the procession suddenly made a small, discordant movement.
He raised his head slightly. His hollow gaze seemed to be drawn by the swaying red bridal sedan, lingering on it for a few tenths of a second longer.
It was an extremely subtle movement, almost unnoticed by anyone. But Bai Yu, and Hei Yan within him, caught it at once.
“Oh? It seems one ‘guest’ has developed an inappropriate curiosity toward the bride.” Hei Yan’s tone was full of anticipation. “Let me guess—what sort of ‘hospitality’ will a guest who violates etiquette receive?”
Bai Yu’s heart sank abruptly, and he immediately issued a warning through the mind link: “Everyone, absolutely do not look at that bridal sedan! Lower your heads. Look at your own feet!”
Almost the instant his words fell, the abnormal change occurred.
Without any warning, the body of the “villager” who had raised his head to look at the bridal sedan began to turn “soft.” Like a candle roasted by flame, his limbs and torso twisted and sank in a way that defied the laws of physics. His bones seemed to vanish in an instant, and his entire body transformed into a shapeless, writhing puddle of rotten flesh. The blue cloth garments on him collapsed along with it.
The entire process made not the slightest sound. No scream. No struggle. Just like that, silently and without warning, before everyone’s eyes, he went from being a “person” to a limp mixture of blood and flesh sprawled across the bluestone road.
Even more terrifying was that the two “villagers” beside him paid it no mind, continuing forward with stiff steps. One of them stepped directly into the puddle of rotten flesh, producing a soft plop, as though he had stepped into a mire.
And the procession behind, including An Mu and the others, could only step over the filth that was gradually merging with the ground, their faces expressionless.
Mo Fei’s stomach churned violently. He forced down the urge to vomit, his face turning deathly pale.
Only now did he finally understand, in the deepest sense, what Bai Yu had meant—the consequences of obeying these “facts” might not be something they could withstand.
“The second rule: ‘The bride is beautiful. Guests may admire her as they please, as a sign of praise.’” Lan Ce’s voice in the link carried an almost imperceptible tremor. “This isn’t permission at all. It’s a screening trap. The act of ‘admiring’ itself is the switch that triggers death.”
“No, you’re only half right,” Bai Yu corrected. “The rule itself is honest. It does indeed permit you to ‘admire’ her, but it never says what will happen afterward. In this village, the way to ‘praise’ the bride may be… to become part of her wedding. For instance, this red carpet paving the road.”
That cold deduction sent a bone-deep chill through everyone.
The procession continued forward in silence and oppression, crossing more than half the village. Finally, the suona music grew especially piercing in one place, and the procession stopped as well.
They had arrived at their destination.
It was an ancestral hall that looked grander than every building around it. Black roof tiles, mottled mud walls, enormous upturned eaves like the claws of some monstrous beast—within the blood-colored mist, it appeared hideous beyond measure.
The ancestral hall’s vermilion gates were tightly shut. On them was pasted an enormous double-happiness character written in gold powder. The strokes of that character were twisted, like two human figures struggling in agony.
On both sides of the gate hung two enormous white lanterns. Their ghostly green light cast a corpse-like hue over the entire entrance of the ancestral hall. And in stark contrast to that green glow was a long, bright-red carpet laid over the stone steps before the hall. The carpet was so red it stabbed at the eyes, as though it had been soaked in fresh blood, and red liquid was still faintly seeping downward from it.
In front of the ancestral hall’s gates, two tall paper effigies stood on each side. They were no longer the crude bailiffs and sedan bearers from before, but had been crafted with exceptional delicacy. The two on the left had the appearance of a golden boy and jade girl, their faces painted with heavy makeup, their smiles sweet, yet carrying an indescribable邪 air. The two on the right were images of ghost kings with green faces and fanged mouths, clad in armor and holding steel forks, imposing and awe-inspiring, yet making one shudder.
They were like four door gods, quietly standing guard there, utterly motionless.
The wedding procession stopped in the square before the ancestral hall. The four paper effigies carrying the bridal sedan moved in orderly steps and set that blood-red sedan steadily at the very center of the hall entrance, at the beginning of the blood-colored carpet.
Afterward, all the paper effigies, along with those puppet-like villagers, turned in perfect unison to face An Mu and the other three “foreign” guests, the smiles on their faces still unchanging.
The suona music came to an abrupt stop.
The entire world fell into absolute deathly silence.
“They… what do they want to do?” Mo Fei gripped his battle-axe nervously and asked in a low voice.
“The sixth rule: ‘Paper effigies are friendly guides. Please follow their directions,’” Bai Yu reminded softly.
As soon as the words left his mouth, the golden-boy paper effigy standing at the entrance slowly raised its stiff arm and made a gesture of “please” toward them. Its movements were so smooth they seemed somewhat eerie, as though a living person were truly hidden inside.
At the same time, the two heavy vermilion gates of the ancestral hall let out a creaking sound and slowly opened inward.
An even more cloyingly sweet, rotten stench surged out from within like a tangible wave.
“Let’s go. The ‘wedding banquet’ is about to begin.” An Mu’s tone was incomparably heavy as he took the first step forward.
The four of them had no other choice. They could only steel themselves and walk onto that sticky, slippery blood-colored carpet, pass between the four paper-effigy door gods with their strange expressions, and step, one step at a time, through the gates of the ancestral hall.
The scene inside the gates delivered an unprecedented visual and psychological impact, even to veterans of countless battles like them.
The interior of the ancestral hall was a vast open courtyard. In the very center of the courtyard, dozens of enormous round wooden tables had been arranged neatly, covered with bright-red tablecloths, forming a grand open-air wedding banquet.
However, not a single living person sat among the “guests” at the feast.
Every table was filled with paper effigies of all shapes and forms.
There were elderly paper effigies wearing long robes and mandarin jackets, with goatees; women paper effigies wearing floral cotton-padded jackets and hair buns; and even some child paper effigies wearing crotchless pants with little pigtails sticking straight up. Their faces were all painted with identical eerie smiles as they “sat” there in perfect order, motionless, forming a silent ocean of human dolls.
As for the “villager” puppets who had come in with them, including Investigator Xiao Zhao, who had already become a puppet, they consciously walked to the empty seats after entering the ancestral hall and sat down stiffly like the other paper effigies, becoming members of this bizarre banquet.
The four of them could not help but have their gazes drawn to the banquet tables.
The tables were full of “dishes,” a dazzling array that looked exceptionally “abundant.”
It was just that not a single one of those dishes was normal food.
There were plates of paste-like matter resembling sludge, with several withered yellow finger bones stuck into them, as if imitating some sort of cold dish. In a huge pottery jar scorched black, green liquid bubbled continuously, with white objects like eyeballs rising and sinking in the viscous fluid. At the center of an enormous white porcelain platter lay a “mountain of meat” piled high from countless twisted arms…
Every dish challenged the bottom line of human reason, emitting a strange odor mingled with rot and spices that made one nauseous.
“The fourth rule: ‘The wedding banquet is sumptuous. Please enjoy the food at the table to your heart’s content. Do not waste anything,’” Lan Ce said, his voice incomparably dry. He felt as though his throat had been scraped with sandpaper.
Mo Fei had already turned his head away, his face ashen, only barely restraining himself from vomiting on the spot.
There was no sound at all in the entire courtyard, yet Bai Yu seemed to hear a uniform chewing noise coming from every direction, gnawing away at his reason.
Their gazes passed over the deathly silent paper-effigy banquet and landed on the main hall of the ancestral hall at the deepest part of the courtyard.
There stood the only ornate table different from all the rest. Clearly, it was the host’s table.
Behind the host’s table hung a giant painting that occupied nearly the entire wall. The painting depicted a woman in a bright-red bridal gown. A red veil covered her head, obscuring her face; only beneath the veil could be seen a hint of lips as crimson as dripping blood, slightly curved upward.
And beneath the painting, seated side by side in the seats of honor, were two figures.
One figure wore an ancient black groom’s robe embroidered with gold thread, sitting upright there, though his body appeared somewhat stiff. His head hung limply over his chest, as if he had fallen asleep.
But the other figure seated beside him made the four of them feel as if they had plunged into an ice cellar in an instant.
It was a figure wearing a bright-red wedding dress identical to the one in the painting, with a red veil over her head as well.
She was the bride.
She sat there quietly, completely motionless. Yet everyone could feel that an icy gaze filled with endless resentment and malice was seeping out from beneath that red veil, crossing the deathly silent ocean of paper effigies to lock firmly onto the four uninvited guests.