"Damn it!" Chu Yuan slammed his fist into a pillar, sending dust flying.
"These damn bastards are really troublesome."
"Tsk, what can I do?" Lu Jing leaned against the railing of the pavilion, tossing an apple he'd somehow acquired in his hand.
Bai Yang looked somewhat familiar; it seemed to be... from the offering table in the ancestral hall?
Lu Jing: "Who told us to be on their turf! When you're under someone else's roof, you have to bow your head!"
Meanwhile, Zhan Wenzhen pushed up his glasses and solemnly counted the number of people: "One, two... seven, eight... nine, ten?" His voice suddenly turned deep.
"No, one is missing."
"Um?"
Everyone's hearts skipped a beat, and they quickly looked around—Xiao Jin, Wen Baiqiu, Chu Yuan, Lu Jing, Zhan Wenchen, Liu Man, Lin Xia, Bai Yang, the young couple… Sure enough, one person was missing!
The bald man with the thick gold chain has disappeared!
"It's Hu Junyuan!" Lin Xia suddenly gripped his hand tightly: "I remember now, he didn't go back to the bridal chamber at all, so he didn't go to the ancestral hall with us either."
An extremely ominous premonition arose in everyone's hearts at the same time!
Zhan Wenzhen frowned slightly. The bald man was reckless and impulsive, and had previously expressed extreme dissatisfaction with being a live-in son-in-law.
Having disappeared for so long, could it be that...?
"boom--!!!"
As if to confirm this worst-case scenario, a muffled yet extremely penetrating explosion suddenly came from the direction of the old house's front courtyard.
Immediately following was the crackling and popping sound of the wood burning intensely!
Everyone's expression changed drastically!
"Damn it! That idiot!" Chu Yuan cursed, but then caught a glimpse of a dark figure out of the corner of his eye.
Xiao Jin was the first to rush out, and the others quickly followed suit!
Rushing toward the moon gate leading from the West Garden to the Central Courtyard, they could see flames soaring into the sky from the direction of the Front Courtyard.
Thick smoke billowed and rose, making the already dim sky even darker.
Hu Junyuan wasn't completely stupid. The fire was mainly concentrated in the main hall where the wedding ceremony was held. The raging flames greedily devoured the ancient beams, pillars, doors, and windows, turning half the sky red.
The scorching heat, mixed with the acrid smell of burning wood and some indescribable burnt odor, hit us.
At least Xiao Jin stopped abruptly when he smelled the scent.
A flash of inspiration crossed her mind, but it vanished in an instant, and she could no longer find it when she tried to look for it again!
However, just as the players were about to rush out of the West Garden area—
The butler's stiff figure seemed to emerge from the ground, and once again blocked the moon gate without warning!
His dark blue robe remained motionless in the hot wind, and the unchanging eerie smile on his white-painted face vanished, replaced by an extreme chill and resentment.
Good heavens... He wasn't like this when they all saw the steward in the ancestral hall back then.
The butler's lips curled downwards, and his turbid eyes stared intently at the oncoming crowd, filled with a thick, viscous, almost tangible black resentment!
"Distinguished guest..." That dry voice rang in everyone's ears, no longer flat, but filled with a bone-chilling coldness and a kind of chilling...excitement?
"Due to a fire in the foyer... the auspicious time for the wedding will be postponed..."
Postponed? A sense of absurdity had barely crossed everyone's minds—they hadn't expected it to actually happen.
The butler's voice suddenly rose, becoming shrill and piercing: "But my lord is furious! The arsonist must pay the price!!!"
With that venomous shriek, the butler abruptly turned sideways, revealing the scene outside the moon gate, near the edge of the burning courtyard—
A dark wooden stick, as thick as an adult's arm and sharpened at the tip, was deeply embedded in the scorched earth. At the very top of the stick, something was prominently displayed!
Look closely, and it's a... human skin... still dripping with a dark red, viscous liquid, with charred and curled edges, and the outline of facial features still faintly discernible!
"Ah!" Wang Yuqing trembled in fright, and Lü Yiming quickly hugged his girlfriend to his chest, his own face turning pale.
That skin was actually the bald man's face!
Twisted and frozen in extreme fear and pain, his eye sockets became two dark holes, his mouth was wide open, as if he was still emitting a silent scream before death.
Beneath the wooden stick, a large pool of dark reddish-black blood, not yet fully congealed, reflected an eerie glow in the firelight.
The intense stench of blood mixed with the stench of burning flesh struck everyone's olfactory nerves like a giant hammer!
Lin Xia reacted even more violently, instantly bending over and vomiting. Bai Yang and Liu Man's faces were ashen, they covered their mouths tightly, their bodies trembling like leaves in the autumn wind.
Chu Yuan's pupils contracted sharply, and his facial muscles tensed. Wen Baiqiu frowned, and Zhan Wenzhen's hand, which was pushing up his glasses, froze in mid-air, his eyes behind the lenses icy cold.
Lu Jing, however, seemed somewhat disdainful of the butler's crude methods.
Only Xiao Jin.
She stood at the boundary between firelight and darkness, her dazzling red robe appearing as if bathed in blood by the heat and firelight.
In the shadows, those deep, abyss-like eyes stared intently at the wooden stick with the human skin stuck in it and the glaring pool of blood on the ground, cold, sharp, and devoid of any emotion.
She turned her head and met the butler's venomous face, which looked like a demon from hell in the flickering firelight.
………………
The courtyard outside the side room was deathly silent, like a tomb.
The firelight in the front hall shone through the window lattices, casting distorted and flickering dark red shadows on the walls in the distance, like the panting of a dying beast.
Even from a distance, people could still smell the pungent smoky smell of burning wood lingering in the air.
But even stronger was the lingering stench at the tip of my nose, a mixture of burnt flesh and the stench of human blood.
The butler's venomous words, "the price," were like icicles, piercing deep into everyone's bones.
"Fuck him..." Chu Yuan cursed in a low, hoarse voice, slamming his fist hard against the cold wall, leaving a shallow dent and a flurry of dust.
He furiously yanked at the collar of his glaring red robe, as if trying to break free of invisible shackles. "That idiot! If you want to die, don't drag us down with you!"
Liu Man huddled in a chair in the corner, her face still deathly pale. Her hands nervously twisted the hem of her clothes, and her eyes stared blankly at the ground, as if the pool of dark red blood was still shimmering before her eyes.
Lin Xia and the young couple slumped on the ground on the other side, their bodies still trembling slightly uncontrollably, their eyes unfocused.
"Stupid?" Lu Jing's voice carried a lazy malice. He had already slipped back into his room at some point, and his voice drifted out through the curtain, carrying an indifferent tone as if it were none of his business.
"It's a bit stupid, but at least... it saved us trouble, right?"
The auspicious time has been postponed, that old ghost said it himself. Weren't you guys thinking about how to 'create an accident'? Well, here comes a ready-made 'accident'." He yawned, and the cracking sound of the bone whip rubbing together could be faintly heard.
"Save your energy, let's go to sleep. This godforsaken place is probably more lively at night."
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