Chapter 17: Ghost Animal (14)

In the yard of the villa, a group of people were watching them.

Su Wangsheng said: “We can’t escape from this situation even if we want to.”

Zhu Shuangshuang replied, “Yes.”

However, she didn’t understand why the villagers, who had always been hospitable to them and had a decent relationship, suddenly set up a trap to catch them.

The elder brother of the village was still as gentle as ever. “As long as you cooperate, we will not harm you.”

Zhu Shuangshuang asked, “Cooperate with what?”

The village elder replied, “To get married.”

Su Wangsheng immediately waved his hands and said, “Don’t get us wrong, we are not in that kind of relationship at all!”

Zhu Shuangshuang was confused, “What?”

The village elder laughed and said, “Not with you, but with the groom.”

Hearing this, both of them were stunned.

The bride had just died, and now they were forcing someone to marry the groom. What did this mean?

It was too absurd.

Zhu Shuangshuang naturally refused, “It’s impossible!”

The once-friendly villagers suddenly changed their faces, surrounding Su Wangsheng on one side and pulling Zhu Shuangshuang on the other.

Su Wangsheng was thin but had good physical strength and some combat skills. In the beginning, he was able to protect Zhu Shuangshuang behind him.

However, more and more villagers came up, and Su Wangsheng was powerless. He could only watch as Zhu Shuangshuang was dragged into the house.

They forced Zhu Shuangshuang to wear a bright red Xiuhe gown, and they pinned the heavy phoenix crown to her head.

At first, her struggle was not so fierce, because she knew that the two of them could not deal with the entire village.

She still had a glimmer of hope for the black-robed man. Perhaps he would help them out since they were all players and could help him solve the decryption together.

These ordinary villagers would probably be no match for the black-robed man.

At worst, when Chen Tian, Chen Qing and the others return at night, they would surely save her.

But when Zhu Shuangshuang saw the large copper basin collecting money in the wedding hall, as well as the black-robed man calmly watching the ceremony among the guests, she broke down.

“Let me go! I won’t kneel!” Zhu Shuangshuang struggled desperately. “I won’t kowtow!”

Trapped, Su Wangsheng loudly questioned the black-robed man, “Is this your doing? What are you trying to do?”

The black-robed man said coldly, “This is for our own good.”

Someone had already pushed down Zhu Shuangshuang in front of the copper basin. Her face turned white the moment she hit the ground.

An inexplicable fear and strong discomfort swept over her.

Su Wangsheng was extremely anxious. He looked at the cold faces of everyone in the room.

The old man, who had excitedly clapped his hands and said that fainting would ensure a smooth wedding, looked over expectantly, murmuring, “Kowtow, kowtow, kowtow... if you kowtow until you bleed and faint, everything will go smoothly.”

Su Wangsheng paused for a moment, then shouted, “She can’t marry the groom. She has slept with six men!”

The faces of the villagers in the room immediately stiffened, and the woman holding Zhu Shuangshuang’s neck suddenly let go.

“...” Zhu Shuangshuang, with a pale face, shouted at Su Wangsheng, “You smelly Taoist, what nonsense are you talking about?”

“I earn millions of dollars a year, and I have a family fund. I have supported eight primary school brothers this year alone! If you say that, I will lose face in front of my sisters!”

As soon as Su Wangsheng spoke, she understood what he meant.

They all knew that the bride had just died, and the villagers had asked Zhu Shuangshuang to take her place. It must be some kind of feudal nonsense.

Su Wangsheng may have said it from a traditional feudal perspective, while Zhu Shuangshuang thought of her conversation with the bride at the time. The bride had said that the groom respected her and had never touched her.

At this time, the villagers’ reaction only strengthened her idea: “At least six times a year, you cannot erase my record.”

“...”

The villagers’ faces were extremely unpleasant.

They had never seen such a woman who took pride in sleeping with men.

“Don’t listen to their nonsense. She’s only 20 years old and currently attending university. She doesn’t make millions a year to keep men.”

Having been through countless experiences, they did not fool the black-robed man. He said lightly, “If you don’t believe me, you can check whether she is a virgin or not.”

The black-robed man looked at Zhu Shuangshuang and said, “Little girl, do you know how the village verifies whether a girl is a virgin or not? Don’t ask for trouble.”

Zhu Shuangshuang’s face turned even paler.

Since she knelt down here, her heart had been in a panic, and she was sweating all over.

The black-robed man continued, “I know that Chen Tian, Chen Qing, and Ning Su climbed into the incinerator. I know where the incinerator leads.”

At this moment, the two of them only realized that the black-robed man could become a high-level member of the Yinhua Club, not just because of his perverted weapon, the Soul-Locking Rope.

The black-robed man smiled and said, “But have you ever thought about the obvious answer hidden there? How could it be so easy to get through?”

Zhu Shuangshuang raised her head suddenly and asked, “What do you mean?”

The black-robed man said, “We’ve already investigated it. Countless evil spirits and monsters that were burned alive are sealed in the incinerator. Even I cannot handle them. When I went in, all I saw were piles of bones and flames.”

“That’s impossible! That’s impossible!” Zhu Shuangshuang shook her head immediately.

The black-robed man’s assistant said, “There’s no need to lie to you. I have already locked the gatekeeper, Wang Ming, up in the villa. If you go there and take a look, you’ll see that we’re not lying.”

The black-robed man said with a deep voice, “Little girl, they’re all dead. We can’t go over there, so we can only stay here. It’s been three days already. I hope you can understand my efforts.”

Su Wangsheng and Zhu Shuangshuang were not fools, of course they “understood” the black-robed man’s “efforts.”

The most important clue at the moment was the “bride” line.

What else could be clearer than a player personally acting as a bride to know what the villagers were up to, and what Yin Daijun had been through?

Zhu Shuangshuang’s eyes were red and she couldn’t accept the fact that Ning Su was already dead.

He was the only boy who stood up for her when she was most desperate and helpless.

“Little girl, stay awake. This is not the world you lived in.”

The black-robed man’s words echoed in her ears.

Indeed, this was not the world she lived in. In that world, her parents and older brother had pampered her since childhood.

Her parents gave her unlimited money and immeasurable love.

In school, if a boy tugged at her braid, her brother would rush over to beat him up.

This was a terrifying game of life and death.

No one could truly pamper her and make her dependent. She had to stand up on her own and bravely explore.

Zhu Shuangshuang bit her lip hard and said in a hoarse voice, “I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

A light red envelope fell in front of her, and a rough hand on her neck made her bow her head for the first time, the dull sound echoing in the wedding hall.

Su Wangsheng was furious and desperately pushed the surrounding people. “Zhu Shuangshuang, don’t bow! Aren’t you supposed to have some backbone?”

The groom’s father said, “We don’t have time. Bow lightly, and then a little harder.”

The strong woman immediately pressed down on Zhu Shuangshuang’s head with force, and slammed it onto the floor.

With a loud “bang,” Zhu Shuangshuang’s delicate forehead started bleeding, and her lips were also bleeding from being bitten.

The old man beside them immediately slapped his thigh and exclaimed, “Oh, this is great! She’s bleeding, she’s bleeding!”

Seeing Zhu Shuangshuang’s pale face, trembling body, labored breathing, and sweat pouring down her cheeks and forehead, Su Wangsheng realized that it was not just pain causing her distress, but rather her high sensitivity...

In Su Wangsheng’s muddled mind, something that had been vaguely emerging suddenly became clear.

“I know, I know what’s going on!” Su Wangsheng said to the black-robed man. “I know everything now. Don’t let her bow down anymore!”

The pampered and delicate young lady couldn’t bear to see anyone else bowing down, feeling it was a kind of insult. How could she keep bowing down just for a hundred or so dollars?

The black-robed man walked over to him and said to the surrounding villagers, “Let me talk to him for a moment.”

For some reason, the villager listened to him and let go of Su Wangsheng’s arm, making way for him.

Su Wangsheng immediately said, “We’re in a tomb right now!”

The black-robed man frowned and asked, “Tell me more.”

Zhu Shuangshuang was pressed down again to bow, and Su Wangsheng spoke quickly. “Have you heard the legend that’s common in many places? Don’t pick up red envelopes around graves, or you’ll be accepting the ghosts’ invitation to marriage.”

The black-robed man, experienced and smart, immediately thought of the second group of people who came to the wedding yesterday and gave the bride those overly blood-red envelopes. He understood why they made the bride pick them up herself.

Su Wangsheng said, “The bride is not marrying the groom, but a dead person.”

Therefore, the groom only treated the bride well and did not have intimate contact with her. The bride thought it was out of respect.

So, there were two days of wedding.

The first day was the so-called Western-style wedding. The few words from the so-called priest, in a village that believed in feudal superstition, meant nothing. They were just there to make the bride believe.

The second day was the real wedding, and the groom almost didn’t need to show up. There was no exchange of vows between the bride and groom, only the bride repeatedly kowtowed to a copper basin, with blood flowing into the floor.

Su Wangsheng pointed to the piece of floor where Zhu Shuangshuang had kowtowed, “The dead person she is marrying is right there. That piece of floor is a coffin board. Kowtowing to the floor is like paying respects to the dead person in the coffin.”

The wedding hall was decorated with joyous colors, but the floor was a depressing black, and each piece was wide and long.

That day, Ning Su stared at the piece of floor where the bride kowtowed, saying that it smelled familiar.

Su Wangsheng didn’t know why Ning Su was familiar with the smell of the dead, but he guessed that Ning Su probably knew there was a dead person beneath the floor.

He should have asked that guy more clearly when he heard him say that. When the villagers invited them to the wedding banquet, he thought the smell that the foodie was referring to was the smell of meat.

Su Wangsheng said, “The second batch of people who came were not the groom’s godparents, but the dead person’s parents.”

They just wanted the bride to call them “mom and dad” and for her to collect their red envelopes.

Su Wangsheng said, “They are performing a live-person ghost marriage.”

Previously, they couldn’t connect the biological line and the bride’s line, but they were connected.

Ning Su and Chen Qing followed the butcher to the funeral home and saw him replacing the human ashes in the red ash box with animal ashes. The human ashes in the red ash box were prepared for use in the ghost marriage.

Live-person ghost marriage and ash ghost marriage.

Su Wangsheng said, “Huaiyang Village is secretly involved in this series of dark transactions.”

Su Wangsheng had encountered this kind of thing in the real world. The price of a live-person ghost marriage was exorbitant because they needed a live person with a suitable birthdate and eight-character horoscope to be bound with the dead person through different methods in different regions.

Relatively cheap was an ash ghost marriage. As long as you stole the ashes of a person with good conditions when they pass away, they could proceed with the wedding.

Perhaps, besides the live-person ghost weddings and the ash ghost marriage, there are other forms that he didn’t know about in this Huaiyang Village.

They had built a small but complete dark industry chain in this remote and underdeveloped area, and who knew how many living people and how many ghosts were deceived into becoming commodities here?

The thick black fog at night in Huaiyang Village may be the endless wailing of those who were cheated.

The villagers heard what he said and tore off their hypocritical masks, saying coldly, “Since you know, you can’t leave alive.”

Su Wangsheng urgently said to the black-robed man, “See, I was right. Since you know, don’t let Zhu Shuangshuang kowtow!”

Black-robed man: “No, that’s just the surface. We also need to know what Yin Daijun experienced before she died, and we need to see the complete process.”

“You!”

The villagers heard what Su Wangsheng said, and of course Zhu Shuangshuang heard it too.

She knew why she couldn’t breathe and felt overwhelmed with fear as soon as she knelt down on the ground.

She seemed to see the dead person under the floor, whose gray face was covered with corpse spots.

Every time she was forced to kowtow, she was pressing her face against the corpse.

Under her high sensitivity, Zhu Shuangshuang was on the brink of collapse.

She struggled frantically. “No! I won’t kowtow. I don’t want to worship it!!!”

But her strength was no match for the middle-aged woman. She struggled to break free from her grasp and had just taken two steps when she was immediately dragged back.

The carefully nurtured nails made a sharp and desperate sound on the black floor.

No matter how she struggled, it was useless.

Another strong man came up and, together with the woman, held down her head and neck, one on each side. “There’s still a lot of blood left, hurry up and do it!”

Zhu Shuangshuang was soaked in sweat, gasping for breath as if she was about to faint. She closed her eyes in despair as the floor came closer and closer.

At that moment, she heard a loud noise.

The large copper basin filled with red envelopes in front of her was kicked away, and before it even hit the wall, it shattered into powder.

Then, the young man grabbed the necks of the two people holding Zhu Shuangshuang, and threw them out of the door one by one.

When she saw the familiar figure, tears flowed from Zhu Shuangshuang’s eyes.

As Ning Su was about to help Zhu Shuangshuang, a thick, black, and cold rope caught his neck.

He turned to the black-robed man and said seriously and politely, “Black-robed boss, I don’t like being tied up like a dog with a rope.”

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