The next day at dusk.
The He Residence was brightly lit with lanterns and draped in red silk everywhere.
After the ritual of paying respects to Heaven and Earth, relatives and friends attending the banquet took turns stepping forward to pour wine for the groom.
Just as his uncle had said, he no longer needed to fear the touch of the living.
He had truly, in every sense, returned from the dead.
Overjoyed, He Kang drank a few extra cups with his brothers.
When he was thoroughly drunk, his companions supported him all the way into the bridal chamber.
Lifting the red veil, the bride beneath it looked at him shyly, her cheeks tinged with hesitation.
He could hear his own heart pounding wildly.
That night, Zhao’s young lady was gentle and obedient.
Before falling asleep, He Kang was still thinking that yesterday had been death, and tomorrow would be the beginning of his rebirth.
……
Midnight.
He Kang felt his breathing grow slightly stifled. He turned over and instinctively pulled his beautiful bride into his arms.
But what he touched was ice cold.
He fumbled upward along her body.
The soft warmth of the bridal chamber had turned into a mass of cold, exposed white bones beneath his hands.
Only then did he realize he was lying inside a small coffin.
From a new grave buried beneath the yellow earth came a heart-wrenching scream.
But no one heard it.
No one noticed.
“Bang!”
The entire He Residence trembled violently, and roof tiles shattered, falling right beside Wen Shuyu’s feet.
The nightmare was beginning to collapse.
Last night, Wen Shuyu had witnessed He Kang’s wedding.
In Tang Li’s eyes, red silk covered the ground and festive music filled the air. The bridal hall was crowded with guests, a lively and joyous wedding.
But from Wen Shuyu’s perspective, this was clearly a ghost marriage.
The entire He Residence was draped in plain hemp cloth. Paper money covered the ground. White lanterns and white candles hung under the eaves.
There were no distant guests at all.
The courtyard was empty, the entire estate filled with a cold, eerie atmosphere.
The main hall was not a wedding hall at all, but more like a funeral hall.
There was no bride in a wedding gown inside the hall. Instead, a red wooden coffin stood open at the center.
The Zhao family’s talented young lady, praised by neighbors and townsfolk, lay quietly inside as a skeleton.
The Zhao family daughter had long been dead.
No wonder Wang Cuihua had repeatedly tested the situation. No wonder the wealthy Zhao Family had been willing to marry their daughter into the declining Fang Family.
They were not marrying off a daughter at all. It was a ghost marriage.
“Bow to Heaven and Earth!”
The officiant in white shouted at the top of his lungs.
He Kang respectfully bowed toward the outside of the hall.
“Bow to the parents!”
He turned and bowed toward the three people seated in the hall of honor.
With his head lowered, he could not see the hidden expressions of the three above him.
The usually fierce Wang Cuihua had tears in her eyes, dabbing them carefully with a handkerchief, her expression full of reluctance.
A venomous snake seemed to lick its sharp fangs, greedily counting gold and silver with its tail.
The wealthy Zhao Family master absentmindedly stroked the fox in his arms, his face full of disdain for this new son-in-law.
The moment He Kang lifted his head, all three instantly changed expressions.
A kind and loving mother, a benevolent uncle, and an approving father-in-law.
No abnormalities at all. Everything looked perfect.
“Bow to your spouse!”
He Kang faced the red wooden coffin. He knelt beside the white bones and bowed as if paying respect to someone who did not exist.
“Send the groom to the bridal chamber!”
A faint, shy smile appeared on He Kang’s paper-like face.
He nervously touched his cheek, almost smudging the fresh paint on it. He looked like an inexperienced young man entering marriage for the first time.
Under the white funeral banners, the scene was eerily unsettling.
He Kang placed his hands on the edge of the coffin and climbed inside voluntarily.
The coffin lid slammed shut from within with a heavy thud.
Four servants rushed in, all blindfolded with white cloth, holding nails and hammers in their hands.
“Thud! Thud! Thud!”
The sound of nails being hammered into the coffin lid pierced the ears, sending chills down one’s spine.
The servants fixed countless nails around the coffin, each driven in so deeply that it could never be opened again.
“The ceremony is complete!”
The officiant screamed.
The moment the words fell, countless white paper coins in the air seemed to come alive, surging toward the red coffin like a tide.
Accompanied by mournful funeral music, they transformed into four sedan bearers.
Hastily assembled, the paper figures looked crude and poorly made.
The leftmost one even had only half a leg.
The rightmost tilted its head, its neck snapping unnaturally as yellow soil spilled out, revealing a pale paper frame beneath.
The one beside it glanced over and even let out a mocking laugh.
“Lift!”
At the command, the paper bearers crouched and lifted the red coffin, carrying it toward the gate of the He Residence.
As it brushed past Wen Shuyu, he heard something strange beneath the funeral music.
It sounded like someone inside the coffin had suddenly realized the truth and was clawing desperately at the wooden boards, trying to escape.
He could even hear nails breaking, torn off in a bloody struggle.
But it was too late. He would never get out.
White funeral banners hanging from the eaves blocked Wen Shuyu’s vision.
When they fell away, the funeral hall had already vanished.
The He Residence was still the same, yet somehow completely different.
A light rain began to fall from the sky.
If one listened carefully, there seemed to be a woman crying within it.
“He Zhong! You can’t do this!”
Wang Cuihua knelt in the courtyard, disheveled and soaked through.
In front of her stood a fat, middle-aged man, his eyes gleaming with the cold malice of a viper.
“You promised me…”
He Zhong did not even look at her. He spat on the ground.
“So what if I go back on my word?”
“What right do you, a woman, have to occupy our family’s property?”
“This residence belonged to my brother. Now that his son is dead, I decide its fate.”
“Everything here is mine now.”
“You!”
Wang Cuihua was furious all over.
Soaked by the rain, she still refused to yield, pointing at him and shouting.
“You did this on purpose!”
“You were waiting for my husband to die so you could seize everything from our orphaned mother and child.”
“You planned this all along! You killed my son!”
“Mind your words, sister-in-law.”
He Zhong smirked.
With a wave of his hand, servants brought him a chair.
“How can you blame me alone?”
“You were the one afraid someone would snatch this fortune left behind by my brother.”
“Now you play the victim?”
He sat down, stroking the gold and silver in his arms, smiling coldly.
“That Gu worm was personally fed to Kang’er by you. In truth, after taking the medicine, he only changed appearance. His senses were still intact.”
“Oh right, when you nodded and sealed the coffin, he was still alive. How does it feel to watch him die in front of your own eyes?”
“You!”
Wang Cuihua’s eyes were bloodshot, her face twisted in agony.
“It was you who said the divine medicine was limited, and that only sealing the coffin could bring him back to life!”
“You deceived me into turning my son into a monster!”
“I just wanted to make up for my past mistake. I never should have accepted your so-called divine medicine…”
She clutched her head in regret.
“I understand now. You tricked me from the beginning!”
“You and Zhao Fenghua must have planned this together!”
“You took his money and used my son to perform a ghost marriage. When the coffin was sealed, how much pain did my son endure?”
“You killed my Kang’er! You killed him!”
She kept repeating those words, her eyes burning with rage as she stood up and tried to rush forward.
Before she could even reach the steps, she was restrained by a group of servants. Clubs rained down on her like heavy rain.
“Your sister-in-law has gone mad. Lock her in the cellar so she doesn’t frighten others.”
“He Zhong! You will die a miserable death!”
With a clap of thunder, Wang Cuihua let out a blood-curdling scream.
Under the eaves, He Zhong seemed to hear the funniest joke in the world.
After hiding his true nature for so long, he finally revealed his ugly face.
“Sorry to disappoint you, I won’t die. Not only that, I’ll spend all of the Fang Family’s money on comfort.”
“As for you, just wait to see your Kang’er below.”
With a wave of his hand, the servants dragged Wang Cuihua away, leaving two long streaks of blood on the stone pavement.
Soon, rain washed it clean.
As if nothing had ever happened, everything was swallowed silently by darkness.
After Wang Cuihua was taken away, everything around them began to collapse like toppled wooden blocks.
This nightmare was coming to an end.
Wen Shuyu stood under the eaves, dodging falling bricks while thinking about how to take Tang Li out.
The system had told him the only way to leave was to find the dream owner’s most precious possession.
He had already seen everything in this nightmare and roughly understood what had happened in the He Residence.
The paper groom transformed from a frail young man into a half-human, half-paper monster because he had taken the bowl of medicine given by his mother.
Inside it was a Gu seed.
His uncle, greedy for wealth, had already arranged everything before the boy even died. He had promised him to the Zhao Family for a ghost marriage.
He used some so-called divine medicine containing a Gu seed to deceive Wang Cuihua into believing it could cure her son.
Wang Cuihua also had her own motives.
After her husband’s death, she could no longer support the vast estate alone. Everyone regarded it as a piece of fat meat, waiting to carve it up.
Though she suspected her scheming brother-in-law, she believed that only if her son recovered could he stand by her side and help protect the family fortune.
So she fed him the medicine without further investigation.
After that, the young man became something between human and paper.
He remained conscious. He could feel everything. He even tasted what it meant to be resurrected from the dead.
And so he wanted more.
He Kang not only wanted to continue living, but also to build a future for himself, to make those who once looked down on him regret it.
He was too impatient, walking straight into the hunter’s trap without even realizing it.
His uncle told him the divine medicine had saved him, and even arranged a marriage for him. With his father-in-law’s support, everything he wanted would be within reach.
He Kang believed it completely.
He thought his small cleverness could get him everything he desired.
But he never realized the bait ahead had been tailored perfectly for him. He himself was the prey.