Chapter 13: The Bride of the Throne

It didn't take Mo Ran long to spot it, but Chu Wanning did too.

Those who talked and laughed, but their voices drifted out of nowhere, and those who sat or stood, paddling and toasting, one by one, their faces were blank, as if they were made of papier-mâché.

"What do we do? Do we have to go in and drink with them?"

Chu Wanning is not amused by Mo Ran's ill-timed joke and looks down in contemplation.

At that moment, there was a sudden rustling of footsteps in the distance and two long lines of people appeared out of the hazy mist, coming slowly towards this main building from a distance.

Chu Wanning and Mo Ran subconsciously ducked behind the rockery as the two groups approached, led by a pair of smiling golden boys and girls, both of whom had facial features that were so well defined and heavily coloured that in the night they looked like the kind of paper figures of boys and girls that are burned for the dead.

As the candle burned, the rich fragrance of the dragon phoenixes came to his nose, and Mo Ran nearly passed out again.

Chu Wanning gave him a look.

Mo Ran: "Ahem, that worked pretty well."

After a pause, he wondered again, "Master, how come you don't need to put holes in your body to stay awake"

Chu Wanning: "The scent doesn't work for me."

"Ah why."

Chu Wanning coldly: "Good fixation."

Mo Ran :""

As the two groups, led by the golden girl, picked their way up the stairs, Chu Wanning shifted his gaze back to look at them for a moment and then suddenly let out a low "hmm".

He is rarely surprised, so Mo Ran, intrigued, followed his line of sight and was also taken aback.

They were all dead bodies with their eyes closed, their skin pale, keeping the same appearance as when they were alive, and most of those people were young, under twenty, of both sexes, and one of the figures looked particularly familiar

The Grand Duke Chen family, whom I had seen in the coffin before, had appeared in this procession again at some point, and was slowly moving forward with his eyes closed, following the strange fragrance wafting from the candle. Unlike the others, who have another corpse next to them, he is the only one with a papier-mâché ghost bride dangling next to him.

If Grand Duke Chen was nothing, Mo Ran's face was bloodless when he reached the end of the line and saw the people at the bottom of each of the two lines.

Shi Mei and Chen Yao were following the dead bodies with their faces downcast, both of them with their eyes closed and their faces as white as snow, walking in the same manner as the dead people in front of them, not knowing if they were still alive or not.

Mo Ran's scalp exploded and he jumped up and tried to rush, but Chu Wanning grabbed him by the shoulder: "Hold on."

"But Shi Mei"

"I know." Chu Wanning stared at the slowly moving procession and whispered, "Don't make a move. If you barge through, that boundary will whistle, and I'm afraid the courtyard will be full of faceless ghosts coming at you, and the scene will be uncontrollable."

Chu Wanning is a master of boundaries, and he is a master of making boundaries and has poisonous eyes. Mo Ran looks over and sees a nearly transparent film at the entrance to the drinking courtyard.

The golden boy and girl walked to the front of the courtyard, blew gently on the cupped candle flame, stirring up the tongues of fire, and then slowly walked through the layer of knots and into the courtyard.

The men and women who followed behind them followed them one by one, passing through the transparent boundary unhindered. The faceless people drinking the wedding wine in the courtyard turned their heads at this point and began to laugh and applaud as they looked at the men and women entering one after the other.

Chu Wanning says, "Go and follow them. Remember not to breathe when you go through the boundary and keep your eyes closed. Also, whatever happens, do as those bodies do and never speak."

Without further ado, Mo Ran, desperate to save the lives of others, follows Chu Wanning and immediately blends in with the corpses.

The two groups of corpses were equal in number, Chu Wanning stood behind Shi Mei, Mo Ran had to stand behind Chen Yao's. The group moved slowly, Mo Ran looked over at Shi Mei several times, but all he saw was a pale face and a snow-white neck drooping helplessly.

The two of them followed through to the courtyard, holding their breath. Apart from the three-storey main building, the courtyard was lined with a hundred or so small rooms, each with a red Chinese character and a red lantern on the window.

The hall full of faceless guests suddenly rose to their feet, salutes were fired and suona was sounded.

A faceless praetor in front of the building sang in a wave, "The auspicious time has come, the bride and groom have entered the garden"

Mo Ran was stunned, what? They were two rows of dead bodies, the bride and groom!

He turned to Chu Wanning for help, but Beidou was too engrossed in his own thoughts to look at Mo Ran.

Mo Ran felt that his uncle's painstaking efforts were really in vain. Going down to the mountains for training with such a master was really more of a blow to self-esteem than not having one.

Suddenly out of the courtyard rushed a group of laughing, drooping children, dressed in red and bright clothes but with white headbands tied in pigtails, who flocked like fish to either side of the procession and began to pull one person each, guiding them to the two side chambers.

Mo Ran didn't know what to do and made a gesture to Chu Wanning: "Master, what should we do?

Chu Wanning shook his head and gestured to the tide of dead bodies that had scattered ahead of him, following them like a tide of boys and girls, which meant to follow them.

As soon as he entered, the boy waved his sleeve in the air and the door closed with a bang.

Mo Ran stared at the little man and wondered what the faceless brat was trying to do to himself.

In his previous life, Chu Wanning had first rescued Shi Mei, then broken the illusion, and had done nothing to get rid of the demon himself, and then he had been so absorbed in the afterglow of kissing Shi Mei that he hadn't really listened to much of Chu Wanning's explanation afterwards.

So now that the situation has changed, he is completely unsure of what he will encounter down there and has to come to grips with it.

The room is furnished with a dressing table, standing on a bronze mirror, and a black and red auspicious dress embroidered with ruyi on a wooden stand supported on end.

The child pats the stool and motions for Mo Ran to sit over.

Mo Ran realised that the ghosts here were not very clever, they were so stupid that they could not tell the dead from the living as long as they did not speak, so he sat down at the dressing table as the boy had told him to. The child rustled around and began to wash him and dress him.

Suddenly, a begonia drifted in through the window and landed lazily in the water held in the copper basin.

Mo Ran's eyes lit up with the name of the begonia called Evening Yu Heng, which Chu Wanning used specifically for silent messaging.

He lifted the begonia from the water and it instantly stretched and bloomed in his palm, revealing a glint of pale gold in its stamen.

He twisted the glint of gold in his fingertips and put it in his ear. Chu Wanning's voice then rang in his ears.

"Mo Ran, I have confirmed with my heavenly question that this is an illusion created by the ghostly master of Butterfly Town. It has been worshipped by the villagers for a hundred years and has gradually come into being. As long as there are more people in the meditation ceremony, its power will increase, so it is very fond of organising meditation ceremonies. Those corpses lined up in two lines should be the ghost couples formed by Butterfly Town over the centuries under its witness. It likes this kind of hilarity, and every night it will summon those corpses to the illusionary realm to hold another underworld wedding, and each time it does so, its power will get stronger."

Mo Ran, thinking sick

Other gods, when they have time to spare, will at most match up young boys and girls, but this ghost master of ceremonies, who is said to be an immortal body, but his brain has not yet grown out, his only hobby is to match up male and female corpses, and even if he does it once, he still summons those corpses from their graves every night to do it again, and again, and again, and again.

Corpse group sex is so good

This light-hearted god is heartless enough.

Chu Wanning said, "Its real body is not here, so don't act rashly, follow the Golden Girl's instructions later, as it will inevitably reveal its original form in the end, since it wants to draw on the power of a man and woman's meditative marriage."

Mo Ran wants to ask, "What about Shi Mei? How is Shi Mei?

"There is no need to worry Shi Mei, he is temporarily unconscious, as is Madam Chen, under the spell of the incense powder." Chu Wanning was thoughtful and made clear what Mo Ran might account for, "Mind your own business, I've got everything."

After saying this, the voice disappeared.

At the same time, the boy had finished dressing Mo Ran, and when he looked in the mirror, he saw a handsome man with naturally raised lips, clean and fresh eyebrows, a folded collar, a red suit, and long hair tied back with a white hairband.

The boy made a gesture of "please" and the door to the closed compartment creaked open.

Under the corridor stood a row of corpses in auspicious clothes, both male and female. It seemed that the head of this ghost master of ceremonies made of clay was really not enlightened, as long as it grabbed a pair to pay respect to the marriage, it didn't matter whether it was a man and a woman worshipping each other, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.

There was only one column of dead bodies standing on this side of the corridor, the other was on the opposite side, too far away for him to see if Chu Wanning and Shi Mei had come out.

The procession is slowly moving forward and every now and then the sound of the chanting of the chanters in the building can be heard as pair after pair of meditation marriages, are slowly being completed.

Mo Ran took a look at Chen Yao in front of him and felt that something was not right. After pondering for a while, just as the line was shortening and the last few pairs were about to take their turn, the brainless rascal finally got the hang of it

If we follow the line, the woman in front of me will be married to Shi Mei, and I will be paired with that bitch Chu Wanning.

Immediately, the former human emperor was not pleased, and with a grimace, he nonchalantly pulled Chen Yao out of the way and inserted himself into the queue, ahead of the others.

The little boy who followed next to him was stunned, but Mo Ran soon assumed the appearance of a hanging ghost with his head bowed and face half-dead, drooping and mixed in with the corpses. Those golden girls with low cultivation level were dumbfounded for a while and probably did not understand what had gone wrong, so they were also dumbfounded and actually did not react.

Now Mo Ran is happy. He followed the group with great enthusiasm, ready to meet Shi Mei on the other side of the corridor when he reached the end.

In the meantime.

Chu Wanning glanced at Shi Mei standing in front of him and thought for a moment, wondering what perils lay ahead.

He has always been a hard-talker and soft-hearted, though harsh to the point of disgust, but in fact, as long as he is around, he will not let his pupil take any risks whatsoever.

So, with a tug on Shi Mei, he too pulled the groggy little one to the back, while he himself stood in Shi Mei's original position.

It was his turn.

The ghostly bridesmaid, standing at the end of the corridor holding a black and red tray, sees Chu Wanning approaching and smiles softly, her featureless face making a girlish sound.

"Congratulations to your mother, congratulations to your mother, pouring out your cover like your old self, and your red face is white."

Chu Wanning's face instantly darkened.

Mother, Mother, have you lost your eyes?

One more look at the blank face of the ghost bridesmaid and held back.

And really fucking no eyes.

The ghostly bridesmaid smilingly picked up the red veil cover from the tray and raised her jade arms and pasty hands to cover Chu Wanning's face. Then her cold hand came up and gently held Chu Wanning, smiling delicately, "Please, my lady."