Chapter 132 The sound of the suona brings joy and sorrow, but Xue Chao is nowhere to be seen, in the ancestral hall...
This family originally lived in the east. Their daughter, Xiangping, was the most educated girl in the village. She taught many children to read and write, so despite her young age, she was quite famous.
She was quite beautiful and possessed a rare scholarly air for someone from the countryside. Many families in the village sought matchmakers to find a suitable match for her.
Her parents were very proud, and their standards became increasingly high. They were no longer satisfied with her marrying into a family in the village; they wanted to marry her off to a wealthy man in the town.
The village matchmaker was quite capable; she actually managed to arrange a marriage between the man and the third son of a wealthy man in town. The betrothal gifts were delivered to their home the very next day.
But Xiangping didn't want to get married and wanted to take back her birth certificate. The matchmaker's son found out and told her parents. She was taken home and never left the house again. Her parents told everyone that they were preparing for the wedding.
Her parents were overjoyed and eagerly awaited their daughter's wedding, but on the auspicious day they had set, something went wrong.
Someone caught Xiangping having a late-night rendezvous with a strange man, and the commotion attracted nearby villagers.
The matchmaker's son was present. It is said that Xiangping was under an inconspicuous tree behind the courtyard, wearing only a thin jacket over her inner garment, and her hair was still messy. The other person was a beggar, who was carrying her bracelet in his pocket.
The bracelet was bought in town last year for her birthday. She liked it very much and has been wearing it ever since.
This is a token of our love!
Caught red-handed, Xiangping denied everything, saying that she heard a faint cry for help outside the courtyard. She mustered her courage and went out, only to find the beggar frozen unconscious in the snow. Just as she was about to ask for help, she ran into the villager who was returning from drinking. Before she could ask for help, he accused her of having an affair.
When the villagers questioned her about the bracelet, she said she hadn't given it to the beggar.
If she didn't give it to him, then it was the beggar who stole it, and one person can't explain it clearly.
The beggar who tried to escape was subdued by the villagers. Under the watchful eyes of everyone, he hesitated for a while before saying that it was Xiangping who gave him the gift. He said that he was here today because Xiangping had invited him. She didn't want to marry the rich man's son and wanted to escape from the village overnight.
Others may not know, but the matchmaker's son knows that she really doesn't want to get married. Once he mentioned that she wanted to withdraw her birthday plaque, everyone's gaze towards Xiangping changed.
This has blown up.
When the news reached the wealthy family, the engagement was immediately called off, the betrothal gifts were taken away, and they boasted that "unclean people dare to climb the social ladder," cursing the family for being shameless.
The parents dared not utter a word and were unable to save the marriage. Feeling utterly humiliated, they turned around and locked Xiangping at home.
They just wanted to marry off their daughter as soon as possible. But they couldn't find a husband in town, so they remembered the families they had rejected before. However, fortunes change, and this time it was their turn to be turned away.
Who doesn't know that their daughter is "not clean"?
With the goods stuck in her hands, her parents were really anxious. They locked her in the ancestral hall of the old house in front of the West Gate, ostensibly to apologize to the gods of the underworld and wash away her "filth".
Huang Haitao: "Lock her up alone in that dilapidated ancestral hall? What will she eat and drink?"
The parents dared not go to the ancestral hall, fearing they would offend the spirits. The servants in the courtyard stood like paper figures as punishment. The house had been abandoned for a long time, with no food stored and no one coming or going. Could a person survive being locked up for four or five days?
He felt a chill run down his spine. Wasn't this murder?
The three of them climbed over the wall and landed in the second courtyard.
God's servants are all in the outer courtyard; the closer one is to God, the quieter it is.
The talisman was soaked by the snow and did not shake when the wind blew, like a layer of oily yellow paper pasted on an ink brick. The red of cinnabar stretched along the rough texture of the paper, looking from a distance like a bloodstain spreading out.
Zhuo Yi listened intently, but there was not a sound in the courtyard, as if it were covered by a glass dome.
This actually makes their exploration easier.
He pushed the door of the ancestral hall: "It's solid."
Both ancestral halls are solid, so it's hard to say which one is real and which is fake. It's more likely that they are both real or both are fake, which is much more difficult to determine than one being real and the other fake.
Huang Haitao opened the door to the west wing and beckoned them over. Xue Chao, who had been leaning against the ancestral hall door, was a step behind Zhuo Yi. Just as his arm was about to leave the door, he felt something inside the door nudge him.
He paused, then pressed his upper arm back against the door, as if it were solid, or perhaps it was just his imagination.
Huang Haitao entered the west wing. The stale smell of ink mixed with a hint of blood was more pungent than ash. There were many sheets of Xuan paper spread on the walls and tables. It is said that one's handwriting reflects one's character. Although he did not see the person, the soft and beautiful characters must have borrowed some of the person's spirit. The hazy and hesitant beauty made him subconsciously slow his steps.
The wastebasket was filled with wads of white paper stained red; he knew it was blood without even unfolding them.
The blood-written letter is filled with rain-like dreams, ending with "Waiting to beat and gather a piece of fragrant soul, in the rainy plum season, to meet again at the plum root," as if someone is singing a long, drawn-out opera tune in my ear. [1]
However, when Huang Haitao looked out of the black brick wall, there was no misty rain of Jiangnan, but only a stark white snow that blurred the red curse on the wall.
Although snow can melt into water, it is different from rain when it falls to the ground. It doesn't give people a damp feeling, but rather reminds them of the pain of being hit on the face, like a cold pebble.
He waited for a while, but the keeper of the secret did not give him any inspiration. Xue Chaochi stepped into the room, took the Xuan paper from his hand, glanced at it a few times, and then put it aside. He searched around the room and finally found some books and scripts in a rosewood cabinet inlaid with silver wire carvings. The yellowed paper was as old as the words, and the edges were already curled.
Xiangping had been locked up for less than a week, but some of the books had been sitting there for years. She took out a few of them and copied them to pass the time.
But what was written in blood later showed madness.
The hourglass was filled with snow again, and it was past dusk. Zhuo Yi went back, planning to explore the village chief's ancestral hall again at midnight. Xue Chao and Huang Haitao stayed behind.
To avoid being discovered by the attendants on the other side of the wall, they did not light any lamps. When it was completely dark, they sat in the darkness and waited quietly.
At midnight, they returned to the ancestral hall and pushed the door. The door swayed slightly, and Huang Haitao exclaimed with delight, "I've got it!"
Moreover, there was nothing blocking the door from the inside; the only barrier was a lock—simple.
But as soon as Huang Haitao inserted the steel needle into the keyhole, his expression became somewhat subtle. He carefully withdrew the needle, twisting and pulling it left and right, and pulled out a clump of broken talismans. He managed to unfold and piece them together, and it was clear that they were the same as the talismans all over the courtyard.
His intuition warned: "...Do we really have to open this door?"
However, he had no room to back down. After the talisman was pulled out, the long golden lock slid open with a soft, metallic sound. The tight fit during the day was not due to the quality of the lock itself, but rather to the talisman blocking it tightly.
At this point, they had no choice but to proceed. While Huang Haitao was still having second thoughts, Xue Chao had already pushed open the vermilion gate.
Squeak—
This was the loudest sound they'd heard since they climbed into the yard, as if an invisible barrier had been shattered.
First, there was a dark slit, revealing a pair of round eyes. The black pupils looked like two holes dug out of the whites of the eyes, without a trace of light. The slit opened to both sides, revealing more eyes, like swarms of insects emerging from a stone.
Insects crawled on the white faces, which were lined up and looked down at them.
Huang Haitao was startled and stepped back. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was a bronze mirror!
—Behind them!
He turned around and saw the servants crouching on the high wall between the two courtyards, staring at them like paper figures, with a continuous, lingering dark cloud behind them.
Huang Haitao made a quick decision and told Xue Chao to climb over the wall and leave. When he turned around, Xue Chao was gone, and the door of the ancestral hall was closed.
Had they been swallowed up by the ancestral hall?! Huang Haitao couldn't care less about his unreliable teammates. The courtyard wall was too high for him to climb alone, so he rushed towards the gate and forced his way out.
"Guardian of the Secrets, Empower!"
The sound of mahjong tiles being rubbed came as expected: ["Strength" check result: 55/65, success]
He kicked open the courtyard gate, and in the gray courtyard, a plum tree, red to purple, lay crookedly beside the veranda, catching his eye and floating darkly in his field of vision.
Even when he looked away, the somber color followed him like a shadow, affecting his sense of direction.
The keeper whispered in his ear, and whether he was out of his mind or not, Xue Chao's voice was low and deep, as if he was suppressing something.
“…inspiration.” Then it stopped abruptly.
[Inspiration check result: 31/60, successful]
The intense aroma of the wine, like an avalanche, enveloped him.
“San… um.”
Xue Chao was bound by a red embroidered ball and lay slumped on the cold ground, his back against the door of the ancestral hall.
The red embroidered ball was thrown out from the ancestral hall. They tied him up and brought him in, then closed the door, but the ancestral hall was empty.
There were no talismans in the ancestral hall, but it was covered with locks, gold, silver, and copper, long and short, new and old, oddly shaped, clanging and jingling, but not noisy. The many sounds overlapped, like separate parts of a symphony, resounding in their own worlds, chaotic yet lonely.
Besides the bronze mirror, there was indeed a shrine on the altar, but it was locked with the largest lock.
He looked up and gazed at the shrine above him.
He was right; the ancestral hall was not for worshipping the mountain god, but for sealing him away.
The red silk slid up and covered his eyes, making his vision appear blood-red and amplifying his other senses.
The silk seeped into his clothes, subtly changing its texture. It felt like the scaly belly of a reptile, and its temperature was like cold metal, crawling across every inch of his skin and making him tremble.
He didn't have a dice system, so he couldn't make the check, but he thought he must have "successfully made an inspiration check" at this moment.
Because he suddenly felt that it was like a caress.
A subtle pleasure rose within him from the dangerous yet ambiguous caress, echoing the rapid beating of his heart, which stirred coldly within him.
His mind was separated from his body, and thus murderous intent arose. The moment he moved his wrist, the door behind him was pushed against him.
Then came Zhuo Yi's voice: "...There is indeed something blocking the door, just like last night. Is it strong enough?"
A part of Xue Chao's consciousness was drawn again, but the other end of the red silk peeked out from his collar and covered his ears.
The conversation between Qi Sha suddenly faded away from him, and a soft "shh" rolled over with laughter and entered his ears, as if someone had teasingly blew a breath in his ear.
In a daze, he smelled the aroma of wine. Suddenly, a cold wind embraced him from behind, bringing with it a sliver of white and gray light. He snapped back to reality, jerked his head back, bit off the misplaced red silk, and looked back with his blue eyes. The door to the ancestral hall had been opened at some point.
Outside is still the courtyard in front of the West Gate.
Xue Chao untied the red embroidered ball, lowered his eyes, and looked around the ancestral hall again. The wind howled, and the locks rattled, making it noisier than before, as if urging him to leave.
...So after all that fuss, you just wanted to take advantage of him?
Upon closer inspection, some of the locks were already open.
That guy keeps luring people to explore, weakening the seal.
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