After he finished recounting the century of resentment that had consumed the entire village, Bai Yu’s body could no longer hold out. He collapsed to the ground. The cup that had held the wine—neither metal nor jade—slipped from his limp fingers. With a crisp clang, it turned into a wisp of green smoke the instant it hit the floor and vanished without a trace.
An Mu did not hesitate in the slightest. He lunged forward in one stride, his tall frame like a solid rampart as he placed himself between Bai Yu and the silent corpse groom with its head bowed. His gaze was sharp as a blade, sweeping swiftly over Bai Yu’s paper-pale face and the blood still staining the corner of his mouth. While keeping alert for any possible movement from the host’s table, he asked in a low voice, “How are you? Has your mind been eroded?”
Mo Fei’s reaction was almost simultaneous with An Mu’s. His burly body erupted with astonishing force in an instant, like an enraged lion. He did not rush toward Bai Yu, but instead took a step in the opposite direction, firmly shielding Bai Yu and Lan Ce behind him. His hands gripped the haft of his battle-axe so tightly that his knuckles had turned white, the bulging muscles of his arms straining his combat uniform almost to the point of tearing. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on the hundreds of paper-figure guests in the courtyard, as though the moment any of them made the slightest movement, he would turn into a whirlwind of destruction and tear everything here to shreds. At this moment, he was no longer that reckless brute with more courage than wit, but an impassable shield forged from fury and loyalty.
Lan Ce crouched beside Bai Yu at once. He did not help him up, because he knew that when someone’s mind had suffered an impact, any unnecessary physical contact might worsen their confusion. He merely activated the vital-sign monitoring mode on the detector at his wrist, and a pale blue beam swept over Bai Yu’s body.
“Captain, his vital signs are extremely unstable. His heart rate and blood pressure surged and are now plummeting rapidly. Brainwave activity is exceeding the safety threshold by three hundred percent… His mental contamination index is going off the charts!” Lan Ce spoke very quickly, yet his voice still retained the analyst’s characteristic calm. “However… there are no signs of collapse in his mental core. It’s resisting on its own. His life isn’t in danger for the time being, but he needs absolute quiet to recover.”
Only when they heard the words “his life isn’t in danger” did An Mu and Mo Fei both imperceptibly let out a breath of relief.
“I’m… fine…” Bai Yu’s voice was as hoarse as if it had been scraped with sandpaper. He raised his head, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, and gasped for breath in great gulps. Every breath seemed to tear at his soul, which was already riddled with holes. Though the vast and despairing torrent of memories had already receded, the bone-piercing chill and venomous curse within it were like countless invisible needles of ice, still wreaking havoc in every corner of his mental world.
He lifted his eyes, somewhat unfocused from the intense pain, and looked at the corpse groom, who had once again resumed its “peaceful slumber.” Then he glanced at the enormous portrait of the bride hanging high in the main hall of the ancestral shrine, the one covered with a red veil. Mustering all his strength, he forced out more of those blood-soaked events, word by word.
“The plague… the sacrifice… a girl named… A Wan… She was treated as an offering and married to the so-called ‘Mountain God’…”
“The groom… his name was Lin Sheng… He never waited until his bride came… So he used his own life and his deepest hatred… to curse the entire village… He wanted every villager who witnessed this tragedy and cheered for it… to remain here forever… to wait with him for this… wedding that would never end…”
Those few fragmented sentences contained so much information that the three people present felt their scalps go numb. A century-spanning tragedy woven from love, betrayal, death, and revenge slowly unfurled before them like a bloody scroll.
An Mu’s brows knitted tightly together. As commander, he instantly stripped away the tragic story’s emotions and extracted the most crucial core of intelligence.
“In other words, the root of this Rules Horror is the resentment of the groom, Lin Sheng. He is both the initiator of the curse and one of the cores of this distorted space.” An Mu’s voice was low and forceful, quickly setting the tone for analysis amid the chaos. “But there are several key points we must clarify.”
He raised his fingers and began to break them down one by one. “First, the bride, A Wan. She was sacrificed to the ‘Mountain God,’ so where is she now? Has she been completely destroyed, or does she exist in another form? What is the relationship between her and the figure wearing the red veil at the host’s table?”
“Second, the ‘Mountain God.’” An Mu’s gaze grew deep. “The plague began because of it, and ended because of the sacrifice. It clearly exists, and its power is strong enough to influence the fate of an entire village. What role does it play in this revenge wedding banquet? Is it a bystander, or… the true mastermind behind the scenes?”
“Third, those villagers, as well as the ‘elders’ who forced Lin Sheng to give up his beloved.” A trace of cold killing intent entered An Mu’s tone. “They were the ones who pushed the tragedy forward, and they are also the main targets of the curse. Are they the paper figures in the courtyard now? Or are these paper figures merely projections of them after being bound by resentment?”
Each of An Mu’s questions was like a sharp scalpel, precisely cutting open the core conflicts of this strange tale.
Lan Ce, beside him, had already activated the recorder he carried with him, recording everything Bai Yu said as well as An Mu’s analysis. He pushed up his glasses and added, “Captain, based on the mixed model analysis of ‘collective-consciousness nightmares’ and ‘earthbound spirit curses’ in the database, I agree with your judgment. I also have a few additional points of doubt.”
“Speak.”
“First, the source of the plague is questionable. Although the villagers blamed the Mountain God, that may well have been ignorant superstition. An existence capable of causing a plague on such a large scale would possess an energy level far beyond that of an ordinary earthbound spirit. We must consider whether it is a higher-tier nightmare, or even… a projection of an origin-concept nightmare.” Lan Ce’s analysis was always built upon the worst-case scenario. “Second, the groom Lin Sheng’s curse. Although his resentment was powerful, constructing such a stable and complex rules space through his power alone would be nearly impossible. I suspect his curse may have formed some kind of ‘contract’ with the so-called Mountain God. Or rather, his resentment was used by the Mountain God and became the ‘battery’ maintaining the operation of this space.”
Lan Ce’s inference made both Mo Fei and An Mu feel a chill in their hearts. If that were true, what they had to face was not merely a deeply resentful, devoted ghost, but an even more terrifying existence hidden behind the curtain, toying with human hearts.
“We can’t just sit here and wait for death.” An Mu quickly made his decision. “Now that we have ‘taken our seats,’ we have temporarily obtained the status of ‘guests.’ This is our only chance to act. Before the next round of the ‘ritual’ begins, we must find more clues. Ideally, we need to find the breakthrough point that can shatter this curse cycle.”
He swept his gaze around the peril-ridden courtyard and rapidly issued orders. “We’ll split up. Lan Ce, come with me. We’re going to the main hall. That’s where clues directly related to the core of the curse are most likely hidden. Bai Yu, you stay here and recover on the spot. Your mental power is our final trump card. Unless absolutely necessary, you cannot expend it again.”
Finally, his gaze fell on Mo Fei. That gaze was heavy and complicated.
“Mo Fei.”
“Here!” Mo Fei immediately straightened his back. The fury and grief from before had already been forcibly pressed deep into his heart, replaced by a soldier-like resolve.
“Your mission is the most dangerous, and the greatest test of your will.” An Mu looked at him and spoke each word clearly. “Go inspect those ‘guests,’ especially… our own people. I need you to confirm whether they still have any possibility of being ‘awakened,’ or whether anything not belonging to this space has been left on them. Remember, you are going to gather intelligence, not seek revenge. Can you do that?”
Mo Fei drew a deep breath. The stench mixed with rot and blood choked his lungs until they hurt. He glanced at Bai Yu, whose face was pale as death in the corner, then at An Mu and Lan Ce, who were ready to move. At last, his gaze landed on the banquet table not far away where Investigator Xiao Zhao was seated.
“I guarantee the mission will be completed.” He squeezed those words out from between his teeth, his voice hoarse yet resounding.
This time, there was no longer only anger in his eyes. There was also something heavy called “responsibility.” He knew that now was not the time to act on impulse. Part of the entire squad’s hope was resting on his shoulders. He could not let Xiao Zhao die in vain, and even more, he could not let the brothers who were still alive fall into danger because of his recklessness.
An Mu nodded and said no more. He merely patted Mo Fei heavily on the shoulder, then turned with Lan Ce and headed toward the deeper darkness of the ancestral shrine’s main hall.
In the courtyard, only Bai Yu, recovering where he sat, and Mo Fei, walking alone toward that ocean of paper figures, remained.
Every one of Mo Fei’s steps was exceptionally heavy. He forced himself not to look at the eerie smiles on the faces of the paper figures on both sides, and not to think about the “dishes” on the tables made of minced flesh and bones. His target was very clear—the seventh table in the third row, where Xiao Zhao was.
The closer he got, the fainter that familiar aura belonging to his comrade became. Replacing it was a cold, strange smell mingled with paper and decaying corpses. When he finally stopped in front of that table, his heart felt as if it had been seized by an invisible hand, the pain so intense he could not breathe.
Xiao Zhao was “sitting” before him.
That face, which had once always carried a bit of shyness and youthful vitality, was now coated with a thick layer of white powder like lime. Two unnatural patches of rouge sat on his cheeks like two clots of congealed blood. The corners of his mouth had been pulled upward by some external force and fixed into a stiff smile. His gaze was hollow, staring straight ahead, as though his soul had long since been drawn away, leaving behind only a shell named “Zhao Wenjie” filled with rules.
Mo Fei’s eyes reddened instantly. He clenched his molars hard, barely stopping himself from making a sound. He remembered An Mu’s order. He had come to gather intelligence.
He forced himself to shift his gaze to the table. In front of Xiao Zhao sat that bowl of “rice” made from countless tiny teeth. Mo Fei’s eyes swept over it, and his stomach churned again. But suddenly, he noticed a slightly unusual color amid that expanse of stark-white teeth.
Holding his breath, he slowly reached out and carefully pinched the foreign object out of the bowl of “tooth rice” with two fingers.
It was a tooth, but not a human one. Its entire body was a dull golden color, its surface covered in dense scale-like patterns. The root was unusually sharp, more like the fang of some wild beast.
“A beast’s tooth?” A trace of confusion flashed through Mo Fei’s mind. This thing seemed completely out of place in a curse centered on humans. He immediately realized it might be an important clue and quickly placed it into an evidence bag.
His gaze returned to Xiao Zhao. He needed to inspect this body wrapped in paper and rules. To him, this was no different from torture.
He took a deep breath and spoke in a low voice, so softly that only he could hear, to the lifeless shell before him. “Xiao Zhao, Brother’s here to take you home. Hold on a little longer. When I… when I find the killer, I’ll make sure blood is paid for with blood.”
After saying that, he stretched out the hand trembling slightly from anger and gently touched Xiao Zhao’s cold “arm,” made of paper pulp and bamboo strips.
The sensation was hard and cold, as though he were touching an ancient object that had been left untouched for a hundred years. He followed the arm upward, inspecting Xiao Zhao’s entire body. He did not dare to be careless in the slightest, because he did not know whether any unnecessary movement might trigger a new rule of death.
When his hand touched Xiao Zhao’s left hand, which had been fixed into a clenched fist, his movements abruptly froze.
He felt that within the paper fist, there seemed to be a hard, angular object wrapped inside.
Mo Fei’s heart began to pound wildly. He knew that this was very likely the clue Xiao Zhao had left behind with all his strength in the final moment before being assimilated!
He had to get it out!
He looked around. The paper-figure guests still remained eerily motionless. Carefully, he used his fingernails to pry open, bit by bit, Xiao Zhao’s paper fist, which had been glued tightly shut by adhesive and resentment. The process was slow and tormenting. Every second felt as long as a century.
At last, a tiny opening was torn in the paper shell. Mo Fei immediately leaned closer. He saw that beneath the wrapping of the paper shell, Xiao Zhao’s fingers—already blue-purple and rigid—were tightly clutching a small wooden plaque about a quarter the size of a palm.
The wooden plaque was pitch-black all over, made of some unknown wood. Red silk thread was wrapped tightly around it, and through the gaps between the threads, one could faintly see distorted symbols carved with a sharp tool. They were neither writing nor drawings, and they exuded an ancient and sinister aura.
Wild joy surged in Mo Fei’s heart. He knew he had found it! This was the breakthrough!
He did not dare delay. With the fastest speed possible, he pried the talismanic plaque from the stiff fingers and gripped it tightly in his own palm. The plaque was icy cold to the touch, as though he were holding a block of ten-thousand-year-old profound ice. A chilling aura burrowed through his palm straight into his bones.
The instant he obtained the plaque, a sudden change erupted!
Across from him, Xiao Zhao’s paper body abruptly began to tremble violently without warning. The stiff smile on his face started to twist and melt, like a wax figure being roasted by fire. From his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose flowed a black, viscous liquid like ink.
“Not good!” Mo Fei thought. He immediately pulled back.
With a soft pop, Xiao Zhao’s entire paper head suddenly burst apart like a balloon inflated to its limit. Countless scraps of paper burning with eerie green flames, mixed with black slime, splattered in all directions.
This sudden change was like a bomb dropped into a calm lake. At that moment, all the paper-figure guests in the courtyard turned their heads in unison, their eerily smiling faces all aimed at Mo Fei!
At the same time, in the ancestral shrine’s main hall.
An Mu and Lan Ce had already arrived before the host’s table. Lan Ce was holding a micro environmental detector, carefully scanning the enormous portrait of the bride.
“Captain, I’ve found something.” Lan Ce’s voice was extremely low. “The composition of the paint in this portrait is extraordinarily complex. Aside from ordinary mineral pigments, I’ve also detected a high concentration of human hemoglobin and multiple trace biological tissues. This painting… was made using paint mixed with human blood and minced flesh.”
An Mu’s gaze sharpened. Painting with blood and flesh—the evil of this nightmare exceeded their imagination.
“There’s more.” Lan Ce pointed at a constantly flickering red dot on the detector’s screen. “Behind the portrait, at the position of the red veil, there is an extraordinarily powerful energy source. The energy fluctuation pattern is… very peculiar. It contains both the resentment of a nightmare and a stable structure similar to a ‘seal.’ But my detection signal is being blocked by an even stronger rules field, so I can’t analyze it in depth. It’s as if… someone deliberately doesn’t want us to see what’s inside.”
An Mu’s gaze fell on the portrait. The bride covered with a red veil, whose face could not be seen, seemed to be watching them silently from behind that blood-colored canvas.
He did not touch the painting. His intuition told him that thing was one of the core taboos of this space. If they touched it rashly, the consequences would be unimaginable. Instead, he shifted his attention to the corpse of the groom.
He circled to the side of the corpse and examined it closely. The body of the groom, Lin Sheng, was preserved exceptionally well. Apart from the absence of life, it was almost no different from a living person. But beneath the hem of that magnificent black ceremonial robe, An Mu discovered something discordant. There was a patch of fabric whose color was darker than the rest, as though it had been soaked in some liquid.
An Mu put on tactical gloves and carefully lifted the hem of the robe. He saw that on the inner lining of the ceremonial robe, there was a patch of long-dried, dark-brown stains. Upon those stains, several words seemed to have been hastily carved with some sharp object.
An Mu immediately had Lan Ce enhance the image with a multispectral scanner. Very soon, several twisted blood words filled with endless pain and regret appeared on the screen.
“She is not A Wan”
“Beware the Mountain God”
“…run”
The writing ended abruptly there, as though the writer had been forcibly interrupted by some power at the final moment.
“She is not A Wan?” An Mu looked at those words, his mind racing. If the bride in the painting and at the host’s table was not A Wan, who had been sacrificed, then who was she? The Mountain God? Or… another sacrificial victim?
“Beware the Mountain God. Run.” This was clearly the final warning the groom Lin Sheng had left for those who came after! Perhaps his curse had not been his true intention, but had instead been used and twisted by that “Mountain God”!
Just as An Mu was about to have Lan Ce record this crucial intelligence, the sound of Mo Fei’s paper figure head bursting came from outside the courtyard, followed by the suffocating pressure of hundreds of cold gazes converging at once!
“Something happened!” An Mu and Lan Ce exchanged a look, then immediately turned and rushed toward the courtyard.
When they charged out of the main hall, what they saw was Mo Fei being “watched” by hundreds of paper-figure guests. Though those paper figures had not moved, the eerie smiles on their faces now seemed to have come alive, filled with undisguised malice and hunger. The air in the entire courtyard seemed to have frozen. An invisible, enormous pressure squeezed in from all directions like the pressure of the deep sea, its target pointing straight at Mo Fei, who had violated the “rules.”
“Damn it, he triggered some kind of punishment mechanism!” Lan Ce immediately judged.
An Mu did not hesitate in the slightest. He immediately gave an order through the mental link. “Mo Fei, throw me what you’re holding! Now!”
Mo Fei was bearing tremendous pressure at that moment. He felt as if his mind were about to be shredded by those gazes. Hearing An Mu’s order, he did not hesitate. With all his strength, he hurled the icy wooden talismanic plaque clenched in his palm toward An Mu.
An Mu caught the plaque steadily. The instant the plaque left Mo Fei’s hand, the pressure on Mo Fei suddenly eased. The gazes of the paper-figure guests also shifted in unison from him to An Mu, who now held the plaque!
“So that’s it. Their hatred is directed at whoever holds this talismanic plaque!” An Mu understood at once.
He looked at the ominous plaque in his hand, then at the restless paper figures in the courtyard, his mind racing.
“Lan Ce, analyze this plaque!”
Lan Ce immediately aimed the detector at the plaque. “Extremely high energy reaction! The plaque is made of ‘yin-sunken wood,’ commonly known as blackwood. It naturally has the function of gathering yin energy. The red thread on it… is ‘soul-locking thread’ soaked in virgin blood! And those symbols… comparing them against the highest-level archives of ancient texts, this… these are runes of the ‘Substitute-Death Curse’!”
“Substitute-Death Curse?!”
“Yes!” Lan Ce spoke with astonishing speed. “An extremely vicious ancient occult art! By binding a living person’s birth date and birth hour to this talismanic plaque, under a specific ritual, the holder of the plaque can be made to endure a fatal curse or disaster in someone else’s place! Xiao Zhao… he wasn’t assimilated into a puppet. From the very beginning, he was treated as a ‘sacrifice’! A substitute used to endure the curse of this wedding in another person’s place!”
This astonishing conclusion sent chills through everyone present.
“Die in whose place?” An Mu instantly grasped the key point.
Just then, Bai Yu, who had been silently recovering, suddenly opened his eyes. His face was still pale, but clarity had returned to his gaze. He looked at the talismanic plaque in An Mu’s hand, then at the motionless figure of the mysterious bride in the red veil at the host’s table.
“In her place.”
He pointed toward the mysterious bride.
“The groom’s curse was meant to make all the villagers remain here forever, accompanying him as he endured the pain of losing his beloved. But this curse has a core requirement: there must be a ‘bride.’ This ‘bride’ is the central anchor of the curse. But the real A Wan was long ago sacrificed to the Mountain God and is not here. So the ‘Mountain God,’ or rather, the mastermind behind this village, needs to continuously find ‘substitutes’ to play the bride and maintain the stability of this cursed space.”
“That girl in the wedding dress was the previous ‘bride’ substitute. And Xiao Zhao, our missing D-rank investigator, was the scapegoat prepared for the next ‘bride,’ to transfer the curse onto!”
At that moment, all the clues were completely connected.
The groom’s warning, the substitute-death talisman, the bride who was not A Wan… The outline of the truth was now incomparably clear.
“In other words,” An Mu’s gaze became as sharp as an eagle’s, “we have two enemies. One is the groom, immersed in resentment and revenge, used without realizing it. The other is the one hiding behind the scenes, toying with everything… the ‘Mountain God’!”
He glanced at the “substitute-death talisman” in his hand, which had already begun to grow faintly hot, then looked at the eerie bride portrait in the ancestral shrine’s main hall. A bold and dangerous plan rapidly took shape in his mind.
“Since they want this talismanic plaque so badly…” An Mu said in a low voice, “then we’ll send it to the place it belongs.”
His gaze passed over the entire deathly silent banquet and locked firmly onto the enormous, blood-colored bride portrait in the ancestral shrine’s main hall.