Only someone with a screw loose would drink that!
Du Jun and Cheng Shuang both took a half step back in unison to avoid their wine glasses touching them.
The bride turned to look at the emcee, her smile unchanged but her eyes asking a question.
The emcee's wooden face began to twitch, slowly, as if a wooden figure had suddenly come to life. His lips abruptly split open, revealing eight teeth in a single, dramatic smile, the curve of which was exactly the same as the bride's.
If it weren't for their vastly different appearances and significant age gap, their identical expressions would make them seem like twins.
However, the emcee's laughter was filled with wariness, and almost instantly Cheng Shuang and Du Jun's vigilance reached its peak.
Because every tooth the emcee showed resembled the dense teeth of a piranha, finely layered and densely packed.
Suddenly, a shrill scream came from afar, but it quickly disappeared without a trace.
Only then did the two realize that it had been too quiet before, both indoors and outdoors.
Cheng Shuang pretended not to hear anything. She looked at the emcee in disbelief and gasped. No wonder he had no expression. Those teeth could provide nightmares for a whole night, not even one more!
Du Jun suddenly spoke up, "You said you made a sound."
The little girl suddenly covered her mouth, blinked innocently, and saw the emcee's smile widen, his sharp teeth grinding together with a loud clattering sound.
"I'm sorry!" Cheng Shuang apologized sincerely, "I shouldn't have called you ugly!"
"Did you say he's ugly?" Du Jun asked, turning his head to the side.
The young girl watched as the emcee revealed his bright red gums and his mouth nearly split to his ears. Realizing her mistake, she immediately shut her mouth, trembling as she made a zipping gesture. In her panic, she took the wine glass that the bride deliberately offered her and drank it all in one gulp.
"Don't drink!" Du Jun shook his head helplessly, took the other glass as if in submission, pursed his lips unhappily, and finally drank the wine.
The emcee stopped smiling and returned to his usual staring, eerie demeanor, chanting, "The wedding is complete. The young boy and girl, please guard the ancestral hall for the newlyweds for one night."
After speaking, the emcee pushed open the double doors first, and a cold wind rushed in. The bride followed, affectionately stroking the dead rooster's head with a shy smile, which made Cheng Shuang, who was watching her, shiver inexplicably.
The area outside the gate wasn't deserted. A dozen or so men and women stood in the small courtyard with the gate closed. They were wearing coarse cotton-padded coats and were smiling brightly at the ancestral hall despite the biting cold wind.
The curve is exactly the same as the bride's.
Cheng Shuang was certain she hadn't heard a single sound outside the door, meaning these people had been standing there for a long time. Even so, given her and Du Jun's heightened senses, unless they were all dead and didn't need to breathe, they would have noticed.
The ancestral hall door closed quietly, and the air was no longer as warm as spring. Even wearing a padded jacket, one could still feel the chill constantly penetrating the skin.
It was as if the emcee and the bride had taken away all the warmth, restoring the empty room to its wintery state.
Cheng Shuang exhaled a breath, instantly blowing out a puff of white smoke. She hugged her arms tightly to block the heat inside her clothes and silently raised an eyebrow at Du Jun.
Du Jun shook his head, and the little girl was completely relieved.
None of them drank the wine. Instead, they used the act of drinking to pour the wine into the storage compartment, since the compartment was full of shelves and the four legs of the shelves weren't afraid of getting wet.
The people in the courtyard didn't leave. They knew that saying too much would lead to more mistakes, so they simply shut their mouths and communicated with gestures.
That scream wasn't unfounded; something must have happened somewhere they didn't know about.
The three were holding hands at the time. Although Sun Han was behind, he shouldn't have entered the instance alone. Therefore, the instance in front of them wasn't limited to the small courtyard. It was highly likely that other players had entered the instance besides them. Whether the other party was under maintenance or was a native player was unknown.
"A newcomer?!" Cheng Shuang uttered the two words silently.
Du Jun nodded slightly. The natives often enter the dungeon and are much more familiar with the dungeon mode than they are. Those who are game over or seriously injured right away are unlikely to be maintainers. They can't get to this death zone without some survival skills, so the most likely candidates are new veterans.
Of course, there is another possibility: the game is deliberately creating suspense to force them into drinking the wine willingly out of fear.
The two didn't sit idle; they rummaged through the items in the ancestral hall, keeping things like incense burners.
Cheng Shuang was checking the memorial tablets. The tablets showed that everyone here had the surname Hu. She looked at them carefully. The bases of the tablets were movable, and the order seemed to be messed up. The little girl didn't dare to move them. She put the tablets down again and her gaze fell on the two walls of the ancestral hall, which were mostly covered by red silk.
If this is a village ancestral hall, aren't there too few ancestral tablets? Or is this just a wedding for the descendants of the Hu family, so only the ancestors of the Hu family can participate?
Regardless of the situation, it all points to one thing: there must be other rooms where memorial tablets are placed.
Du Jun frowned slightly. He bent down and smelled the offerings on the low table, then beckoned to Cheng Shuang, signaling her to come and take a look.
The little girl walked over and immediately understood the older boy's hesitation.
Previously, due to the dim lighting, they couldn't see the items on the low table clearly, but now that they've gotten closer, they realize that the offerings don't seem to be real.
Although the water droplets on the frozen pear look lifelike, they should have frozen long ago at the current temperature.
Moreover, upon closer inspection, neither the frozen pear nor the biscuit had any food aroma.
“It’s… a stone.” Du Jun relaxed his brow. The light had deceived his eyes, but a fake is a fake.
"So they don't respect their ancestors?" Cheng Shuang murmured, puzzled, then voiced her thoughts, "I suspect there are other rooms where ancestral tablets are placed."
"Let's look for it!"
The two separated and walked directly to the walls on either side. They lifted the layers of red silk and found a small door on the wall on Du Jun's side. The door had a combination lock. Although this type of lock was old, its most distinctive feature was that if the combination was wrong, it would be completely locked. To open the door, one had to smash it with a sharp tool.
On Cheng Shuang's side was a painting. In the painting, a man and a woman dressed in gray coarse cloth clothes smiled at each other in a sunny vegetable field. The vegetable field was lush and green, clearly a scene of a bountiful harvest.
They were clueless and exchanged information with each other.
I think I know the password!
"I'll go take a look at that painting."
The two spoke in unison, saying nothing more. Du Jun walked towards the painting, while Cheng Shuang rushed to the memorial tablet.
The first column has three memorial tablets, the second column has five, the third column has four, the fourth column has seven, and the fifth column has one.
If this simple arrangement is used as a password, then the iron lock will inevitably be completely locked.
Cheng Shuang carefully observed the situation and placed the person who died the longest in the fifth column at the top. Following this line of thought, she arranged all the numbers in the same column, with those who died in the same year in another column. The final number was 15446.
Du Jun walked over to the low table, picked up a pair of scissors and a burning red candle from the tray on the ground. When the little girl turned around and saw this scene, she suddenly realized and slapped her forehead.
So that's what the scroll painting meant!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
