Xu Nian didn't know when she fell asleep. In her hazy state, she heard a lot of whispers, which grew louder and closer.
Xu Nian suddenly opened her eyes, and the surrounding environment made her momentarily confused.
Is this a wedding ceremony?
She was being carried on a man's back, surrounded by villagers who were all smiles and pointing at her, saying something.
Xu Nian wanted to get off the man's back, but her body and mind felt like two separate entities, completely out of her control.
"The bride is here!" someone shouted, and then Xu Nian saw a large group of people rush over and forcibly pull her off the man's back.
Once her feet touched the ground, Xu Nian finally saw clearly that the man carrying her was He Lin.
He was dressed as a groom, and despite his struggles, he was grabbed by several strong men and tied up with a rope.
Xu Nian was also tied up with brown rope. The people who tied them up all had smiles on their faces. Then, she and He Lin were pushed and shoved by this group of people towards the edge of the village.
Along the way, they kept throwing eggs and vegetable leaves at them, and some even grabbed handfuls of mud and threw them at them.
Xu Nian and He Lin were both in a sorry state. Neither of them wanted to leave, but the people around them kept pushing them forward.
After leaving the village, a group of people went into the woods and tied her and He Lin to a tree without saying a word.
After tying them both up, and seeing that it was almost time for dinner, they happily left.
Seeing that the villagers were all walking back and no one came to untie the ropes for them, Xu Nian and He Lin became anxious.
"Hey, come back here, let us go!"
"Don't go! Come back, do you hear me? Come back!"
No matter how much the two people shouted, the villagers acted as if they hadn't heard them and walked away chatting and laughing.
"What do we do now?" Xu Nian was able to move at this point, but what use was it if she was firmly tied to the tree?
"Sister, can you break free of the rope?" He Lin struggled a few times, but to no avail.
This kind of palm rope was originally used by villagers to carry things. It can carry things weighing over 100 kilograms. It is durable, wear-resistant, and rough, so it is not easy to break.
"No, what about you?" Xu Nian tried to use the stone plaque, but couldn't get through.
Oh, right, where's the gold ingot?
"He Lin, have you seen my gold ingot?" Xu Nian asked.
"Yuanbao? Your little black fat pig?" He Lin tried a few more times, even after rubbing the skin off his wrists, but still couldn't break free from the rope's restraints.
“Yes, that’s it.” Xu Nian nodded. If Yuanbao were here, it could bite through the rope.
"When I woke up, I was carrying you on my back. I didn't see that little fat pig." He Lin also regretted that if that little fat pig had been there, they would have been saved.
He Lin didn't see Yuanbao either, and the two of them inexplicably appeared at the wedding and became the targets of wedding pranks... This...
"What's our situation now?" Xu Nian asked, puzzled.
“Not long after you fell into a deep sleep during the day, a pack of wolves attacked the village. They ate two villagers, one named Wang Cuihua and the other named Li Shugen. After the wolves left, the village chief led people to bring their bodies to the ancestral hall. All six of us felt something was wrong, so we arranged for someone to keep watch at night. I had just changed shifts when everything went black, and when I opened my eyes again, I was at the wedding venue. What happened after that is what you saw.” He Lin’s face was very pale; he had never been so disheveled and passive before.
They were covered in rotten vegetable leaves and rotten eggs, and were also covered in mud and other things. They were really smelly and dirty.
"Have you found any other clues?" Xu Nian found it strange. He Lin said he was pulled over while on night watch, but the sun was setting now, and it had only just begun to set.
“We found a special memorial tablet in the ancestral hall, and also found a family genealogy. According to the genealogy, the person worshipped on that memorial tablet was a girl named Fu Xiang, who died at the age of twenty, and the cause of death is unknown.” He Lin’s face was no longer shy, but calm.
“The wolf pack, Fu Xiang, the dead villagers, and our current situation—these must all be connected,” Xu Nian murmured.
“Sister, I think so too. Before those two villagers died, they kept begging and apologizing to the wolves, as if they had done something that caused the wolves to retaliate against the entire village.” He Lin pondered.
After a moment, he added, "Wolf pack, wedding, bride, ancestral hall, and spirit tablet correspond exactly to the five rules of this instance game."
Let's assume the incense stick on the memorial tablet represents the bride, who died on her wedding day, and the woman seeking revenge. The villagers, fearing her retribution, enshrined her tablet in the ancestral hall, believing the hall would prevent her from harming anyone, while the wolves were her means of inflicting her revenge on the villagers.
After He Lin finished speaking, he went over his thoughts again and felt that they were reasonable, but something was still missing.
"Is it possible that what we are experiencing now is what Fu Xiang went through before she died?" Xu Nian raised her eyes and looked into the depths of the woods.
Upon hearing this, He Lin also looked up.
Deep in the woods, something was watching them.
"Sister, this is terrible! Fu Xiang was kidnapped and taken to the woods by wolves on her wedding day." He Lin suddenly understood everything, considering the current situation and the known clues.
"What? Does that mean we're going to be eaten by the wolves too?" Xu Nian gasped. She wasn't afraid of dying, but she was afraid of dying in too much pain.
“Yes, and if we die here, we really will die.” He Lin dropped another bombshell.
"He Lin, you're so smart, think of something quickly, I don't want to be eaten by the wolves." Xu Nian was on the verge of tears. If she could use the power of the stone tablet now, she would definitely smash the heads of these wolves.
"We're in an illusion right now. If we can find a way to break through it, we can return to reality," He Lin thought hard, racking his brains for a solution.
"An illusion? So our bodies are still in the ancestral hall, but our consciousness has been pulled here. If our consciousness returns, all of this will disappear?" Xu Nian immediately called out to Yuanbao in her mind, and then repeatedly asked Yuanbao to wake her up or find someone else to help her.
"Sister, what are you doing?" He Lin asked when he saw Xu Nian praying with her eyes closed.
"I'm trying to use telepathy to wake Yuanbao up," Xu Nian told He Lin directly, without hiding anything.
"Your pet is really something else; it even has a telepathic connection. Sister, you need to hurry; the sun is setting, and the wolf pack is approaching us." Even at this point, He Lin remained calm and collected, staring intently at the distant woods.
In the shadows, the wolf pack could already be seen.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
