Wedding Procession, Li Sen's Suspicion

I turned to look at Xu Qiuyan.

Her face was pale, and she looked dejected.

"None of this is real. You know that. This is an illusion."

She said nothing, only bit her lip hard.

"What do you mean, fake? What illusion? Son, did that fever fry your brain? Honestly, I'm not trying to scold you, but why were you running around while sick? You're about to get married, yet you still act like a child."

I looked at the woman before me. She really did look like my mom.

My mom was Chen Fang, a nurse at the maternity hospital.

She reached out and felt my forehead, then looked at Xu Qiuyan beside me. But her eyes clearly saw nothing. "Who were you talking to just now?"

Just as I was about to answer, my hand suddenly loosened. Then I realized Xu Qiuyan had vanished.

She had simply disappeared without warning.

My heart sank. I hurriedly ran toward the courtyard gate. Could she have been unable to bear the blow and run off in anger?

But Dad grabbed me. "Where are you going now? Hurry up and get ready. The wedding procession is waiting for you. It won't do to miss the auspicious hour."

Only then did I notice that the entire courtyard was decorated with lanterns and colored streamers, filled with festivity.

They dragged me into the house, changed me into a brand-new suit, and someone even put on a little light makeup for me.

Xu Anmei, Xu Anmei.

I muttered her name in my heart, and suddenly someone came to mind.

She was a girl two years older than me, Uncle Xu's daughter from East Alley. But she had died the year before the incident at Little Ancestral Hall Entrance, drowned while playing in the Xiaoche River.

I was getting married, but my bride was a girl who had drowned to death. The thought made my skin crawl.

And where was Xu Qiuyan? She had been beside me the whole time just now. How had she suddenly vanished without a trace?

Noise filled my ears, but I felt completely out of place in this scene.

I saw Yin Wuyu. He was smiling at me.

"You're behind all this, aren't you? You're not Yin Buyu, and this isn't Little Ancestral Hall Entrance."

But he shook his head. "None of that matters. What matters is that you're about to get married. Aren't you excited at all?"

Excited my ass!

I grabbed him by the collar. "Are you that Onmyoji?"

"Xiaobai, what are you doing?" Dad shouted. He stepped forward and twisted my arm, forcing me to let go of Yin Wuyu.

I took a deep breath and told myself this was an illusion. None of it was real, not even my parents.

I said to Dad, "I'm not going through with this marriage."

After saying that, I tore the red flower from my chest and headed for the courtyard gate. As I passed Yin Wuyu, I gave him a cold look.

Mom panicked and hugged me from behind. "You can't leave."

I struggled hard, but she held on tightly.

Smack! A slap landed across my face, leaving it burning. Dad was genuinely furious.

"It was one thing when you acted recklessly before, but what time is this for you to still be so willful? If you leave like this, how am I supposed to answer to Uncle Xu? And how can you face Xiaomei?"

I touched my aching cheek. The pain felt so real.

I even started to doubt whether this really was an illusion.

But even if it was an illusion, I couldn't bring myself to hurt my parents. Yet I couldn't break free either, and I had no idea what to do.

"Chengyue, is the kid ready? It's almost the auspicious hour. Time to go pick up the bride."

I froze. The person walking toward us was Uncle Long. He held the long-stemmed pipe he loved most. Seeing Mom clutching me tightly, his expression darkened. "What's going on? Why are you throwing a tantrum? Today is your big day. Come on, don't miss the hour."

I stopped struggling. I suddenly had to admire whoever had created this illusion. They even knew about so many people from Little Ancestral Hall Entrance? Uncle Long had appeared, so would Aunt Qin appear too? Would she also show up in this illusion?

Everything I had gone through this time stemmed from Xie Xiaotang's death. Xie Xiaotang's death and Gu Song's crisis both stemmed from the Twin Fish Jade Pendant. That meant this should have had nothing to do with Little Ancestral Hall Entrance. They were completely separate cases. Yet they were plotting against me this way. Had they deliberately put so much effort into studying me, or...

Another possibility occurred to me. Could what happened at Little Ancestral Hall Entrance also have been connected to the people trying to seize the Twin Fish Jade Pendant? If this setup had been created solely because of me, it seemed like far too much trouble.

"Uncle Long, sorry to trouble you."

"Don't say that. We're neighbors. Everyone knows Long Laosi is the most famous Gift Escort at Little Ancestral Hall Entrance. Leave the door-blocking wine to me. I'll drink every last one of them under the table."

Uncle Long was the fourth among his siblings, and he always called himself Long Laosi. He could drink like a fish; practically no one at Little Ancestral Hall Entrance had ever seen him drunk.

He really was a renowned Gift Escort in the area. A Gift Escort was usually someone respected and capable of holding their liquor.

Aunt Qin appeared just as expected. "Why are you still dawdling? It's time to go."

The person following beside her was Li Sen.

Li Sen, who had already jumped to his death.

Li Sen's face was gloomy, and there was something strange in the way he looked at me. But he quickly hid it. "Jiang Xiaobai, everyone's waiting for you!"

I answered him. By then, I had calmed down. I was no longer in a hurry to leave the illusion. Since I was here, I might as well see what they could pull off.

I also had a feeling that I could find some clues in this illusion.

If my guess was right, and what happened at Little Ancestral Hall Entrance really was connected to the people trying to seize the Twin Fish Jade Pendant, then they would definitely leave some traces behind in this illusion.

The more they wanted the illusion to feel real, the more solid details they would have to put into it.

I followed Li Sen and Aunt Qin outside, where a group of people was already waiting.

Uncle Long came out right behind us and shouted, "Let's go! Time to head to Old Xu's place and pick up the bride!"

I walked numbly amid the crowd. Some of these people were familiar to me, while others left no impression at all.

But I was even more curious about Li Sen. He was supposed to have jumped off a building and died, yet here he was again.

This scene was not from my childhood. It was the present. I was already about to get married.

"You don't seem very happy."

I asked Li Sen. He looked at Uncle Long and Aunt Qin, and only after seeing that they were not paying attention to us did he say resentfully, "Why should I be happy? You're the one getting married, not me. Didn't you always like Xu Qiuyan? Why are you marrying Anmei instead?"

I paused. I could hear it now. He seemed to care deeply about Xu Anmei.

And he had mentioned Xu Qiuyan too.

But mom and dad had seemed not to know who Xu Qiuyan was just now. That was strange.

"You like Xu Anmei?" I asked him.

He nodded.

Then I said, "Maybe I remembered wrong, but I seem to recall that she drowned while playing in the Xiaoche River when she was nine. Is that true?"

His eyes widened. "What nonsense are you talking about? If she really died, how could she marry you?" But his expression suddenly became desolate again as he muttered, "Xiaoche River... Xiaoche River..."

His face slowly turned ugly, and he abruptly turned to me. "She really drowned?"

I didn't know why he was reacting like this. That was not how he had acted when he was snapping at me just now.

"Your jumping off the building had something to do with Xu Anmei too, didn't it?" I asked.

Li Sen reacted as if he had been electrocuted. "I jumped off a building? Why would I jump off a building?"

I was only testing him, trying to see how he would react.

I wanted to know whether the people in this illusion had some kind of memories, just as I did.

I nodded seriously. "That's right. Xu Qiuyan said she saw you jump from the building herself."

"No, I didn't." Li Sen lost control of his emotions. Aunt Qin looked over at us, and so did Uncle Long. Many others turned to look as well.

Uncle Long asked, "What's going on?"

I shook my head and smiled. "Nothing. We were talking about some embarrassing things from childhood. He can't take the teasing."

Only then did Uncle Long let out an "Oh." But Aunt Qin's gaze remained somewhat strange.

Li Sen gripped my arm tightly. "Don't you feel like none of this is real?"

He secretly glanced at the people around us.

I didn't answer. He continued, "Before this, I was still completely confused. How did I end up here? I clearly remember that Little Ancestral Hall Entrance had long since disappeared. Yes, disappeared. It just vanished."

He spoke the last sentence so softly it was almost inaudible, but I still heard it clearly.

Was this really an illusion?

And was Li Sen really the Li Sen I knew?

He should already have been dead, yet he was standing before me. And since entering this illusion, he was the first person besides me to question it.