"What are you looking at?" Xiao Qing noticed something was off about me.
I narrowed my eyes. "You really can't see anything?"
Xiao Qing frowned and followed my gaze toward the house. Then she said, "Let's go. This place is too strange."
I hesitated. I still wanted to get to the bottom of this. I knew it was strange, but that was all the more reason to figure out what was going on rather than just leave. If I walked away now, I'd probably have psychological trauma whenever I thought about it later.
Just as I was about to speak to her, I heard the sound of suonas and firecrackers.
A procession came toward us amid the music and clamor. Judging by the spectacle, it looked like a wedding procession.
I looked back at Xiao Qing, but she was nowhere to be seen.
And outside the house beside me, a pair of red lanterns had somehow been lit, each bearing a black "Double Happiness" character.
Very soon, the wedding procession arrived before me. The moment I saw these "people," my scalp crawled.
They were all paper effigies. There was a bright red paper sedan chair, as well as a large white horse made of paper, led by someone walking in front of it.
I could clearly tell at a glance that they were all paper offerings, yet I had the illusion that they were real—alive.
Walking at the front was a woman who looked like a matchmaker, with a beauty mark at the corner of her mouth.
"Groom, why are you here? What, were you so eager to marry a wife that you ran ahead by yourself?" The matchmaker smiled as she spoke to me, but I didn't respond.
"Oh, getting shy, are we? It's fine. Once you enter the