Chapter 93 Paper Offering Ritual
Jiang Liyue flipped through the notebook again before putting it back in her pocket.
The sound of gongs and drums came from outside, like funeral music. Jiang Liyue turned to look at Feng Xuan, as if to confirm: "Has the paper offering begun?"
"Hmm." Seeing her curiosity, Feng Xuan pulled her outside.
As Jiang Liyue left the blind old man's house, she realized that it had gotten dark sometime earlier.
The dark, heavy clouds cast a terrifying atmosphere over the entire village.
It was old and decaying, and the air was filled with the smell of burning paper ash and incense.
The smell makes my chest feel uncomfortable.
Jiang Liyue and Feng Xuan followed the sound of funeral music and began the paper offering ceremony at the ancestral hall.
Outside the ancestral hall, paper coffins, paper horses, and paper figures were neatly lined up in a long queue.
Each villager held four long incense sticks and a white lantern in their hands.
In the front row, pale-faced villagers were playing funeral music, but the tunes sounded cheerful.
Everyone wore smiles, smiles that seemed to have been measured with a ruler, with even the upward curve of the smiles being exactly the same.
No one spoke; only strange, mournful melodies echoed repeatedly through the village.
Jiang Liyue's gaze was fixed on the people playing funeral music, as if she was pondering something.
"Does your wife not like them?" Feng Xuan's expression was dangerous.
Without even thinking, I know the next thing he'll say is, "I'll kill them for you."
Jiang Liyue shook her head: "No, I'm just a little hungry."
This kind of mournful music always reminded her of the rural dramas she used to film, which included scenes of feasting.
In pursuit of realism, the director at the time specifically hired a highly skilled chef to cook for the crew.
The food was authentic and delicious; she was full after filming a single scene.
Hearing funeral music now makes me miss that feeling a bit.
[Seeing funeral music made me hungry—yet another piece of proof that Yueyue's wife is eerie!]
I've gotten used to Yueyue's thought process.
[Give her some! I'll eat it too.]
[The front of the pants fell down]
Is it possible that, as the player, you're the one being eaten...?
Jiang Liyue was completely unaware that she was in a terrifying dungeon.
She looked around regretfully; there was no feasting ceremony on the paper offering day.
Bad review!
"I'll make it for you tonight," Feng Xuan whispered in her ear, his sticky gaze never leaving her face.
"Thank you, honey, you're the best." Jiang Liyue gave him a sweet kiss.
The two of them arrived last and didn't even enter the ancestral hall; they just watched from afar.
The villagers outside the ancestral hall were also focused on looking in that direction, and no one noticed their presence.
Jiang Liyue also looked into the ancestral hall.
She didn't see the banquet, but she did see familiar faces in the courtyard of the ancestral hall.
There were Wang Cuifen and Liu Yueshan, and the village chief at the front, with the players behind them.
Jiang Liyue saw the girl who had been invited to the villager's home yesterday; their faces looked much paler than yesterday.
Their eyes seemed unfocused, and they stood respectfully in a row at the back.
Beside them was a passenger who had run out of the village on the first day and returned alive. Jiang Liyue vividly remembered the scene of him going crazy back then.
But at this moment, he seemed to have completely lost the madness of that day, with a submissive smile on his face.
The smiles on the villagers' faces were exactly the same.
Jiang Liyue also saw Li Xueer and Qian Liu standing at the end. They had their heads down and their expressions were not clear, but they seemed a little scared.
I wonder what I went through in the dungeon these past two days.
Jiang Liyue had reminded Li Xueer with a small note that the villagers were all paper figures, and that they should have been prepared in advance.
Besides these, there were many unfamiliar faces.
Judging from their clothing, they were all passengers on the same bus.
These are also today's offerings.
The funeral music stopped abruptly at this point.
The village chief, standing at the front, began to chant in a strange yet devout tone: "Gods above, protect our village, guide the souls, and let them return to their homeland."
"The living weep, the dead remain silent; let paper figures serve as a medium to connect the path of our past!"
As his voice faded, everything around seemed to fall into darkness, and the rustling wind stirred the paper figures in the courtyard.
The candlelight inside the white lantern began to flicker and sway.
Everyone's face appeared pale and eerie in the candlelight rising from below.
After receiving a note from Jiang Liyue yesterday, Li Xueer and Qian Liu became extra careful around the villagers.
After learning that they were all paper figures, their behavior became increasingly bizarre.
So when the paper figure invited them to dinner, they resolutely refused to go.
What good intentions could a paper figure possibly have?
They're definitely going to harm them!
With this in mind, Li Xue'er and Qian Liu didn't even touch the food provided by the villagers.
They originally planned to survive the Paper Festival and wait for it to end so that the fog in the mountains would dissipate and they could leave the Paper Village smoothly.
Who knew that last night, the village chief personally forced them to eat white rice with incense sticks stuck in it.
If anyone resisted, they were immediately grabbed and tied up. They had no choice but to pretend to eat it and then obediently followed them to the paper offering ceremony the next day.
That's how the current situation came about.
Li Xue'er looked around cautiously, trembling.
She felt as if countless greedy gazes were fixed on her, and this time she was truly terrified.
She could fool someone like Xu Pengfei mainly because Xu Pengfei was an idiot, but she was completely powerless in front of the paper doll.
If only that female player from yesterday could have come to her rescue; it's all her fault for not being able to latch onto a powerful player back then.
Li Xue'er was sobbing inside.
Even at this point, she still seemed unaware of the importance of having strength.
It's impossible to survive in a dungeon long if you rely on others.
She, however, was always thinking about clinging to someone else's coattails.
Jiang Liyue heard the crying.
She felt Feng Xuan grip her hand tightly. Turning her head, she saw Feng Xuan looking at her with concern: "Don't be afraid, wife."
"I'm not afraid." Jiang Liyue blinked.
Because of the light from the lanterns ahead, her eyes reflected the candlelight, making them appear round and bright.
Feng Xuan seemed not to hear her, and instead reached out to touch her face: "Don't be afraid, wife, I will protect you."
Jiang Liyue: ?
Then, while everyone's attention was focused on the ancestral hall, Feng Xuan leaned down and kissed her lips: "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, it's alright."
Jiang Liyue seemed to understand.
She immediately looked at him pitifully and said, "Honey, I'm so scared!"
Ugh, I'm speechless. At first, I thought the dog ban was because they were genuinely worried about scaring their wives.
[You bastard, let go of my hand!]
[Hahahaha, I'm dying of laughter! I originally thought Feng Xuan was the honest type.]
Feng Xuan: There's a kind of fear called "I think my wife is afraid."
[Yueyue is so doting, she actually pretended to be scared.]
[Paper Dolls: So, we're just part of your lousy couple's game?]
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