First update
Festive music, red candles, a bridal bed.
Xing Xiuyan wore a Gold Silk Veil embroidered with Dragon and Phoenix Auspiciousness, sitting alone and anxiously upon the broad Canopy Bed.
The Gold Silk Veil was enormous, almost completely covering her head and neck. Yet strangely, through its only narrow slit, every detail of the bustling Wedding Feast outside appeared before Xing Xiuyan's eyes.
As if...
She was not sitting on a wedding bed, but looking down upon everything from above.
Or perhaps...
The Wedding Feast was being held in the Nine Underworlds!
These bizarre sights filled Xing Xiuyan with dread. She wanted to lift the veil and see what was happening, but her hands refused to obey. No matter how she willed them to move, they remained properly folded over her lower abdomen.
What was going on?
Xing Xiuyan grew increasingly terrified.
Just then, someone at the wedding feast seemed to notice Xing Xiuyan's watchful gaze and looked up at her with a smile.
Their eyes met. That rugged face, those hawk-like eyes—who else could it have been but Sun Shaozong?
Then Sun Shaozong's tall, burly figure leaped out from the Wedding Feast and landed solidly before Xing Xiuyan.
The Wedding Feast that had seemed to be held in the Nine Underworlds vanished without a trace, like a reflection in a mirror or the moon in water.
The scene was no less bizarre, yet Xing Xiuyan felt inexplicably reassured. Her fear and unease were replaced by a bride's shy embarrassment.
She even began to wonder whether Second Brother Sun would first use a balance rod to lift her veil, or speak a few intimate words to her first.
"Xiuyan, Xiuyan?"
At that moment, along with two soft calls, an icy hand suddenly pressed against Xing Xiuyan's forehead. She shuddered