Watching the swarms of walking corpses about to pounce, Shen Shu pulled Pei Zizhuo into the temple and tossed out a yellow talisman from his Qiankun pouch, slapping it onto the doorway to cut off their advance.
Temporarily safe, Shen Shu did not even want to grab his sleeve anymore. Pulling his hand back, he said, “Weren’t you the one talking about keeping a distance?”
Seeing that Pei Zizhuo remained silent with a furrowed brow and a gloomy expression, Shen Shu hurried to add, “What are you going to do now? You were the one who said it yourself.”
“You must be suffering terribly,” Pei Zizhuo lifted his gaze, taking in Shen Shu’s flustered appearance. Assuming the youth was struggling through intense restraint, he magnanimously offered, “Everything should be done step by step. You are allowed to touch me.”
Shen Shu finally displayed a flicker of cleverness. He took two steps back, widening the gap between them, and flatly refused, “No need.”
Fearing that three words were insufficient to make his point, he added, “I will not touch you again, lest you think I am flirting with you once more.”
Pei Zizhuo raised an eyebrow, finding it rather amusing. Is he playing hard to get? Convinced he had seen right through Danxiao’s little tricks, he curled the corner of his lips and nodded with practiced nonchalance, “Do not hold back too much and suffocate yourself.”
Shen Shu paused in his tracks, abruptly spinning around to leave him with a speechless, unfeeling back of the head as he fled to study the formation arrays.
The walking corpses were endless, instantly dissolving the moment they were slain, the result of a clone technique being employed. Yet ordinary clone techniques were merely illusions incapable of driving corpses to injure people. Presumably, within the Illusionary Realm, Ancestor Wu possessed boundless abilities and manipulated their emotions, driving them into a frenzy to attack.
These walking corpses possessed limited offensive power, but their sheer numbers made it clear they were meant to wear down their spiritual energy. At this point, Ancestor Wu did not dare expose the fact that he was still pulling off such low-tier tricks, which meant he must be wary of something.
Inside the chipped copper statue, a set of wedding garments lay neatly folded. Though the crimson fabric remained vibrant, its color had faded somewhat, looking as though it had been carefully treasured for many years.
Shen Shu picked up the bridal dress and examined it closely. The weaving and embroidery stitches were not exceptionally refined, and the texture was merely upper-middle grade; the owner of this garment undoubtedly shared an intricate, profound connection with Ancestor Wu.
Remembering that Baling had lost quite a few young maidens recently, Shen Shu inevitably connected the two matters. He patted Zuo Xiang on the shoulder, reviving the man who had passed out on the ground, and held up the bridal dress to ask, “Do you recognize this wedding gown?”
Zuo Xiang opened his eyes in a daze, shrieked the moment he recognized the dress, and scrambled away from Shen Shu on all fours, panicking so badly he nearly pissed his pants. “Don’t look for me! Don’t look for me! I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me!”
Such frantic panic meant he certainly had skeletons in his closet. Shen Shu stepped down on the hem of Zuo Xiang’s robe and said sternly, “Don’t be afraid. Speak clearly.”
Zuo Xiang shook like a sieve, terrified and whimpering endlessly, capable of doing nothing more than shaking his head.
“If you won’t speak, we will throw you outside to feed the walking corpses,” Pei Zizhuo said as he stepped into the temple. Amber eyes flashing with coldness, he spoke in a leisurely, deliberate tone that carried a bone-chilling frost. “Did you think you could walk away unscathed after failing to deliver what the Matchmaker Cult Leader wanted? Look at the things outside the door, they are all here to see you off.”
Outside the walls, the sound of heavy thumping against the doors continued nonstop, and the hoarse roars of the walking corpses grew increasingly eerie, raising goosebumps on the skin. Going out there would undoubtedly mean getting torn apart. Zuo Xiang shook his head desperately, scrambling from a crawl to his knees, and began kowtowing repeatedly to Shen Shu while crying out, “I beg the immortals to save me! I was forced into all of this! This has nothing to do with me!”
Shen Shu frowned. “Tell me everything you know from start to finish. If you dare to hide even a fraction of the truth, don’t blame me for being ruthless.”
Knowing full well he had committed wicked deeds, driven partly by a guilty conscience and partly by the terror that they might actually throw him out to the corpses, Zuo Xiang collapsed limply to the ground with a thud and spilled the entire sequence of events in one breath.
Four months ago, when the Matchmaker Cult Leader’s divine abilities had just spread throughout Baling County, many people remained skeptical, and Zuo Xiang was one of them.
He had sneaked into the Matchmaker Temple not to pray for a match, but to steal the incense offerings contributed by local villagers. The Matchmaker Cult Leader only granted wishes and never demanded offerings, but when wealthy commoners came to fulfill their vows, they usually left gold, silver, and trinkets in the temple to show their gratitude. Over time, the side chambers on both sides of the Matchmaker Temple had piled up into a treasury filled with countless pearls, jade, wild game, and exotic teas, making anyone’s eyes turn green with envy.
One day, taking advantage of approaching dusk when the petitioners had mostly trickled out, he sneaked inside, stuffed a few golden wine cups into his bosom, and fled back to Baling to squander the money on wine and women.
The money came too easily and without attracting notice. Zuo Xiang spent it lavishly, burning through the sum in less than three days. Greed getting the better of him, he decided to pull off a much bigger job. As the night grew deeper, he crept blindly back into the temple, pulled out a large hemp sack, and looted the offerings wholesale.
After emptying most of the treasures from the side chamber, his greed remained unsatisfied, and he decided to check out another side chamber. Suddenly, a chill ran down his back, and the uncanny sensation of being watched welled up from the bottom of his heart. Zuo Xiang spun around instantly, but behind him lay only a pile of clutter and empty space.
Assuming his guilty conscience was playing tricks on him, he shrugged off the thought, hoisted the sack over his shoulder, walked past the main hall, and pushed open the door to the right side chamber. However, the Eight Immortals table that previously held treasures had vanished into thin air, replaced by a shrine housing a copper statue of the Matchmaker Cult Leader.
The copper statue wore a smiling expression that looked exceptionally wicked under the moonlight, giving Zuo Xiang a genuine fright. Figuring it was just a statue, he felt no reverence whatsoever. After calming down, he slipped back into the side chamber to search for valuables.
Yet the room looked as though it had been scrubbed clean, not a single speck of dust remained. Cursing under his breath, he turned to leave, but the side chamber door suddenly clicked shut on its own without a sound, feeling as though it had been sealed with molten iron no matter how hard he hammered against it.
Only then did a belated sense of dread wash over him. Cold sweat chilled his neck as the pair of fox-like eyes on the copper statue stared intently at his back, wearing an ambiguous half-smile that was chillingly gruesome.
If he remained locked in here until morning, he would undoubtedly be discovered by the townspeople coming to offer incense. Getting caught and beaten up would be a minor issue, facing imprisonment was a major one. Zuo Xiang immediately dropped to his knees, kowtowing and begging the statue for mercy, swearing to return every single offering without fail and never commit the crime again.
The Matchmaker Cult Leader’s voice sounded ethereal and hollow. Not only did it spare him punishment, but it even permitted him to take the gold and silver away, attaching only a single condition: he must provide the names of all young girls born in July within Baling County. According to Heavenly Mandate, the Cult Leader shared a destined affinity with girls reincarnated in July, and instructed Zuo Xiang to find ways on the first and fifteenth of every month to bring a young girl up the mountain and into the Matchmaker Temple just so the Cult Leader could take a look.
Such a task was hardly difficult, especially when coupled with massive financial rewards. Zuo Xiang agreed without a second thought. Yet after more than two months, he accidentally discovered that the girls he brought up the mountain had all mysteriously vanished. The strangest part was that apart from him, no one else seemed to notice any problem, those girls seemed as though they had never existed in the first place.
Greedy though he was, Zuo Xiang possessed a bottom line, he knew taking human lives was a line he could not cross. However, because the Matchmaker Cult Leader enjoyed a pristine reputation and hardly seemed like the type to commit such acts, he managed to suppress his doubts until the number of missing girls in Baling County continued to mount, each of them disappearing precisely on the second day after visiting the temple. Tormented by guilt, after sending yet another young maiden two days ago, he stayed behind on Mount Chanshan instead of leaving, lurking near the Matchmaker Temple to see whether the Cult Leader was truly the culprit.
At midnight, under a full moon, a young maiden with vacant, hollow eyes pushed open the temple doors with her bare hands and marched straight toward the main hall. She navigated the path with practiced familiarity, stopping before the lotus throne and giving it a gentle push. Instantly, the ground beneath her feet vanished, and she dropped straight down into an underground mechanism.
Gritting his teeth, Zuo Xiang followed her down. The tunnel was bottomless, after hanging in midair for what felt like an eternity, he plummeted into the depths of the earth, plunging into pitch darkness and nearly rattling his bones apart from the impact.
When he regained consciousness, what met his eyes were neat rows of brides clad in wedding garments, standing rigidly on either side like unmoving corpses.
One, two, three… Exactly eight of them, they were precisely the young maidens he had brought up here!
Terrified out of his mind, Zuo Xiang tried to claw his way back up the tunnel, scraping his hands and knees until they were raw and bloody, yet he could not escape. The overwhelming wave of guilt and terror brought him to the brink of collapse.
“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you,” the Matchmaker Cult Leader’s ethereal voice echoed as it stepped out from the darkness. With a flick of its hand, it healed Zuo Xiang’s injuries. “You have done so much for me, I ought to properly thank you. I was just worrying about having no one to look after this place. From now on, you can eat and drink your fill down here while helping me take care of these few younger sisters.”
Zuo Xiang’s howling and wailing failed to move the Matchmaker Cult Leader in the slightest. Imprisoned underground with eight corpse-like brides for three whole days, he finally waited until today when someone drove the Cult Leader away, allowing him to claw his way out of the tunnel.
“Since you managed to escape, why would you still sell your soul to the Matchmaker Cult Leader and help him retrieve the lotus throne?” Shen Shu asked.
Zuo Xiang wiped his tears, crying miserably. “I was terrified! That entity has such terrifying powers. I hadn’t even run far before his voice echoed directly in my mind. If I didn’t go back, what would I do if he killed me on the spot?”
Pei Zizhuo exchanged a glance with Shen Shu, groping around the altar to search for the hidden tunnel entrance.
Lifting the bridal dress, Shen Shu continued pressing, “Does the style of this wedding gown match the ones worn by the girls in the underground tunnel?”
Still shaking with lingering trauma, Zuo Xiang forced himself to focus and nodded frantically. “The same! There’s no mistake!”
If Zuo Xiang’s account was true, Ancestor Wu had gone to immense lengths to scour Baling County for July-born maidens, dressing them all identically, a setup strongly resembling ghost cultivators refining souls.
Could it be that he was attempting to reshape someone’s soul, which was why he was playing this game here?
“Interesting,” Pei Zizhuo stowed away his ice halberd, which he had been using to pound the ground. Folding his arms, he lowered his gaze to look down at Zuo Xiang. “I turned this altar upside down and couldn’t find a single trace of the tunnel you mentioned.”
Zuo Xiang froze. He scrambled frantically toward the altar, beating his fists against the stone floor. “Impossible! I crawled right out of there! How can it be gone?”
“Didn’t you say the Matchmaker Cult Leader promised to let us go if he obtained the lotus throne? Could that have been a lie too?” Pei Zizhuo leaned against a pillar, cold-eyed.
“No! He really told me that! If I’m lying, let me be struck by lightning and die a horrible death!”
Pei Zizhuo used his ice halberd to hook the bridal dress, lifting it right in front of Zuo Xiang’s face. “The Cult Leader only wants the lotus throne. If he finds out the wedding dress inside has been torn open, do you think he’ll come looking for trouble? If you’re feeling merciful enough to save us, why don’t you put this on like those eight maidens and walk outside to find the Cult Leader yourself?”
Zuo Xiang turned pale as death, frantically waving his hands. “No, no, no! It’s not like that! I won’t go! I’m not going!”
The villagers, nursing a bitter grievance, stared hatefully at Zuo Xiang. If looks could kill, he would have been sliced into a thousand pieces. Someone among the crowd shouted, “Let him go!”
Voices erupted throughout the temple, hurling curses and shouts that all pointed straight at Zuo Xiang, as if failing to march outside in a bridal gown would result in him being torn apart by the raging fury inside the room anyway.
Pei Zizhuo held the bridal gown up with an amiable expression, seemingly detached as a bystander, yet his peripheral vision remained locked onto Shen Shu’s every move.
Diving this trouble onto Zuo Xiang wasn’t just a tactical choice, he also wanted to see how the righteous-sounding Dan-cultivator would react.
Would he stubbornly stand his ground and debate with them, or would he step up, put on the bridal gown himself, and take Zuo Xiang’s place?
With this thought, Pei Zizhuo cast his gaze back toward Shen Shu, picturing those slender, long fingers gripping the crimson fabric, distinct knuckles looking even fairer and more striking against the red backdrop.
Danxiao’s usual gray-blue outer robe was stiff and antiquated, completely masking his elegance. If he were actually to change into this bridal dress, what would he look like?
The youth naturally possessed delicate features, smiling eyes, rosy lips, and fair skin. Though his features were soft, they lacked any feminine air, and his snow-white complexion would undoubtedly contrast brilliantly with the vivid crimson, making him look like an incomparably handsome young master. If he wore bridal robes, there would be no sense of incongruity whatsoever, in fact…
Pei Zizhuo snapped back to his senses. What kind of bewitching soup have I drunk to let my mind wander off into such nonsense?!
He let out a soft huff, rubbed his slightly warm earlobes to clear his head, and before the heat could fade, he heard Danxiao say:
“Zuo Xiang, put it on.”