Chapter 30-030 Sending her off to her wedding... I might... lose control...
Yun Tianjiao dared not move again, lest he be injured by the silver threads.
Just as she was slowly adjusting to the darkness, almost blending into the abyss-like silence, a long, drawn-out chant suddenly drifted from afar—
"The auspicious hour has arrived, the newlyweds shall board the sedan chair—"
The voice was high-pitched and shrill, sounding like a palace eunuch. At the same time, countless large red candles suddenly lit up, illuminating the place where Yun Tianjiao was standing.
The antique furniture was covered with red double happiness symbols, red lanterns hung high, and red silk trailed on the ground, making it look like a bridal chamber for a woman about to get married.
The wooden door creaked open from the outside, and a middle-aged couple entered. Judging from their clothes, they appeared quite wealthy.
"Zhen'er, my Zhen'er!" The woman began to weep and wail when she saw Yun Tianjiao, uttering long sighs for her beloved darling.
The man also looked distressed. "Zhen'er, don't blame your parents for being heartless. It's your fault for trying to run away from the marriage. Your parents had no choice but to use this method to send you off to get married."
Yun Tianjiao felt his blood boil. So these were the bride's parents! What deep-seated hatred could drive them to torture their own daughter like this? Was this marriage absolutely necessary?
"Sigh, it's all your own fault for being so willful!" The man stamped his foot and sighed again. "You've read a lot of useless books, yet you're always clamoring to take the imperial examinations, ruining your reputation so that no good family would want you. If it weren't for that, why would your parents have married you off to the Mountain Lord?"
The woman cried even harder, sobbing, "Why are you scolding Zhen'er! Isn't it all our fault? We've spoiled her since she was little."
She wiped away her tears with a handkerchief, her eyes red from crying, and looked at Yun Tianjiao. She said, "But Zhen'er, don't worry. After all, he is the Mountain Lord. If you serve him well after you marry him, you will definitely have a good life. Maybe if the Mountain Lord is in a good mood, he will use a little magic to cure your brother's illness!"
It turns out that the last sentence is the key point.
Amidst the bright red wedding attire, bound by countless puppet threads, and amidst the parents' earnest yet hypocritical "farewell instructions," Yun Tianjiao was, at this moment, Zhen'er herself.
An overwhelming sense of suffocation enveloped her, leaving her no escape and making her wish she could risk her life to draw the demon-slaying sword at her waist and cleave everything around her, even more terrifying than demons and monsters, into pieces.
"The time is almost here, why hasn't the puppeteer arrived yet?" The middle-aged man looked towards the door.
From Yun Tianjiao's perspective, outside the open gate, a red wedding sedan chair could be seen parked in the courtyard paved with bluestone bricks, eerily quiet in the bright moonlight.
The woman also looked anxious and prepared to call her maid to go out and inquire.
"They're here! They're here! The puppeteer is here!" A maidservant excitedly ran in to announce.
Yun Tianjiao looked up and saw Zhiwei walking in, dressed in a black long robe.
The couple were delighted to see him and quickly stuffed a silver ingot into his hand.
"We'll have to trouble the Puppet Master with our Zhen'er."
Zhiwei accepted the silver ingot, nodded slightly, then walked up to Yun Tianjiao and casually tugged at a silver thread.
This time, Yun Tianjiao was completely unharmed. Not only was he not cut by the silk threads, but he was also pulled back to the ground by Zhiwei, allowing him to stand firmly on the ground.
She tried to walk on her own, but cut her ankle on the silver thread when she took her first step.
"Don't move." Zhiwei saw a bloodstain seeping from Yun Tianjiao's white socks. His dark eyes grew even darker. He used his divine power to heal her wound and softened his voice, saying, "Please follow my guidance, Your Highness."
Zhen'er's parents came over and covered Yun Tianjiao's head with a bright red bridal veil.
Zhiwei pulled on the silver thread in her hand, like a puppeteer manipulating a puppet, using the silver thread to pull Yun Tianjiao's feet, making her assume a walking posture.
Yun Tianjiao couldn't see the road ahead; he could only stare at his feet, clad in wedding shoes, from under the bridal veil.
With the silver thread pulling at her, her feet dragged stiffly across the ground, leading her step by step toward the bridal sedan chair outside the gate.
At this moment, she could only move according to the pull of the silver thread, becoming a complete puppet, manipulated by others.
Her behavior, her life, even her dignity and decency, were all hanging by a thread at this moment, completely under Zhiwei's control.
In a daze, Yun Tianjiao seemed to have a kind of illusion.
She no longer resembled a living person; she was merely a puppet bride dressed in a bright red wedding gown, about to embark on her journey to be married off, her future uncertain and her fate unpredictable.
Finally, Yun Tianjiao successfully sat in the cramped bridal sedan chair, feeling as if she were sealed in a coffin adorned with the character for "happiness," her body bound and enveloped by countless threads, like a silkworm cocoon.
Suddenly, joyous music of gongs and drums filled the air outside the sedan chair, and with a shout of "Lift the sedan chair!", the wedding procession set off.
Zhen'er's mother's cries rang out again, this time even more heart-wrenching, but they were quickly drowned out by the cheerful tune of the suona.
Yun Tianjiao had ridden in sedan chairs countless times in his life, but never before had he felt so humiliated. He didn't know how long they had been traveling, but the surrounding noise gradually subsided, as if they had already left the city.
"Zhiwei," Yun Tianjiao tried calling out.
The person outside the sedan chair immediately replied, "Your Highness, I am here."
"What's going on? How did you become a puppeteer?"
Zhiwei said, “This is the role we need to play here. The bride-to-be escapes her wedding at the risk of her life, and her parents turn her into a puppet. The puppet threads are made with secret techniques. Only when manipulated by a puppeteer can the puppet move without being hurt. Otherwise, it will suffer the pain of being cut by the puppet threads.”
"Heh, to be able to control one's own daughter and force her to marry in such a vicious way, that mountain lord must not be a good match."
"The so-called Mountain Lord is actually a demon who rules the mountain in this area. He takes a wedding every few years, and each time there are more than a dozen brides. These brides have disappeared without a trace after their wedding. They must have been harmed or eaten by the demon."
Yun Tianjiao was horrified. "If it's a demon, why would these families marry their daughters to it?"
Zhiwei's answer this time was brief, consisting of only two words: "Dowry".
Yun Tianjiao instantly understood. Since it was a demon king who ruled the mountain, the dowry he could offer was probably more than just money. For example, for Zhen'er's parents, a good medicine that could cure their only son was enough to make them sacrifice their own daughter.
What's ridiculous is that, despite being driven by selfish motives, they insist on labeling their daughter as someone who can't get married, making it seem like everything is for her own good.
"Is this secret realm something that actually happened? Or... is it just something created by divine power?" Yun Tianjiao asked after a moment of silence.
This time, Zhiwei did not answer.
Finally, the sedan chair was lowered, the curtain was lifted again, and Yun Tianjiao, under Zhiwei's control, stepped down from the sedan chair. She lifted the bridal veil and found that the two of them were standing at the entrance of a magnificent palace. However, unlike the opulent palaces of the mortal world, this palace was predominantly black, and the eaves were covered with carvings of evil spirits, making it look sinister and terrifying.
The sedan bearers and musicians responsible for fetching the bride stood silently to one side, all with ashen faces and numb expressions, looking like they weren't alive. No wonder they hadn't made a sound along the way.
"Are we going in?" Yun Tianjiao asked.
Zhiwei glanced at the wide-open palace gates and said quietly, "Since it's a wedding procession, the bride should naturally be delivered to the groom."
As soon as he finished speaking, a sea of fire suddenly rose in front of the mountain lord's palace, more than ten zhang in length and width, resembling a giant brazier.
The shrill voice that Yun Tianjiao had heard before came again—
"The newlyweds enter the mansion, stepping over the brazier—"
Yun Tianjiao looked at Zhiwei with disbelief: "A fire basin? Even demons need to step over a fire basin to ward off evil spirits when they get married?"
Zhiwei seemed to find Yun Tianjiao's reaction quite amusing and laughed, "Yes, how can a bride not step over a fire basin when she enters the mansion?"
Looking at the towering flames, Yun Tianjiao thought to himself, "Are we sure we can get over this?"
Holding the puppet's strings, Zhiwei walked ahead of Yun Tianjiao and stepped into the sea of fire.
Yun Tianjiao had no way to resist and was about to be thrown into the raging fire, which terrified him so much that he broke out in a cold sweat.
In that instant, she suspected that Zhiwei wanted to burn her to death.
However, when the flame touched Zhiwei's clothes, there was no sign of it burning.
"Your Highness, please don't worry. This fire is the fire of desire; it won't burn anyone," Zhiwei explained, her back to Yun Tianjiao.
Yun Tianjiao had already entered the sea of fire. In her fear, she ignored the meaning of the "lust" he had just mentioned.
The temperature of the fire was not high enough to harm people, but walking through it was like entering a sweltering place, with your whole body being scorched and roasted by the heat waves.
Yun Tianjiao was controlled by the puppet strings, like a doll being manipulated at will, with no freedom of movement whatsoever. Zhiwei was also uncharacteristically different, lacking her usual gentleness and consideration; she didn't even look back once after entering the sea of fire.
Soon, Yun Tianjiao noticed something strange. Amidst the raging flames, countless dark figures seemed to have appeared. They were in pairs, one holding a silk thread in its hand, while the other was controlled by the silk thread, clearly mimicking their current state.
After realizing that Yun Tianjiao had noticed their presence, the shadows became increasingly brazen, closing in closer and closer, even emitting giggles.
"Zhiwei!" Yun Tianjiao saw that Zhiwei was still oblivious and wanted to remind her.
However, Zhiwei stopped her, "Your Highness, don't worry about it, keep going."
Clearly, Zhiwei also noticed the presence of the shadow, but for some reason, she didn't want to pay attention to it.
At first, the shadows were just imitating how two people walked, but gradually they began to make other movements. At first, Yun Tianjiao didn't react until the two shadows closest to them suddenly hugged each other.
Starting with this pair, the other shadows also struck various unspeakable poses, accompanied by layers of lewd moans and groans, staging a complete live sex show right in front of the two!
In each group of shadows, some of the ones being pulled by the puppet strings are willing to cooperate, making the scene relatively harmonious. However, some are unwilling to cooperate and are forcibly controlled by the one holding the puppet strings, forced to make various humiliating and compliant gestures.
Yun Tianjiao's face turned pale and then red as she watched, wishing she could immediately use the Ghost-Slaying Blade to cut these evil spirits into dust. However, she was completely unable to move freely at this moment, and even if she wanted to stop, she could not do so. She could only let Zhiwei do as she pleased.
A terrifying thought even crossed her mind—
If Zhiwei were to be bewitched by these ghostly shadows and try to do something to her, she would have no power to resist.
In that brief moment of distraction, Yun Tianjiao realized that she had stopped in her tracks, while Zhiwei, who was walking in front of her, remained standing with her back to him, her expression hidden.
"Your Highness."
"Wh-what's wrong?" Yun Tianjiao's throat was dry from the fire, and his lips were almost cracked. He subconsciously licked them with the tip of his tongue.
Zhiwei whispered, "I might... lose control of myself."
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