Zhaoyou

Inside the He Family Mansion.

With a dull thump, a clay jar perched on the windowsill fell to the ground and shattered.

"Who's there?!"

The cook carrying a serving tray whipped around, ready to scold whoever had knocked it over, but the culprit was nowhere to be seen. Only a black-and-white pair of wings flapped out through the window, flew over the eaves, and landed on a plum tree beside the courtyard wall.

"So it was just a magpie..." The cook shook her head helplessly. Since no person had knocked over the jar, there was no one to blame. She could only chalk it up to bad luck.

She set down the square wooden tray and bent to pick up the scattered shards. There were plenty of jars like this around the mansion, usually used to store preserved foods such as bitter bamboo shoots, green beans, and pickled cabbage.

One of the dishes at today's Wedding Banquet was a traditional Hakka stir-fry of pickled cabbage, bitter bamboo shoots, and cured pork. After preparing enough for dozens of tables, the kitchen was lined with empty jars of all sizes. It wasn't unusual for a stray cat or bird to knock one over.

Besides, the cook wasn't all that angry. A magpie flying into the courtyard on the day of a Wedding Banquet was a good omen, however you looked at it.

She swept the shards into a dustpan and straightened up. Looking at the magpie perched on a branch of the plum tree by the wall, she smiled beneath the yellow paper covering her face. "Joy on the Plum Blossom Twig. Miss Nian Jun really is lucky. How come I didn't get a good omen like that when I got married?"

No wonder the days after her wedding had always been a matter of quarreling by the bed and making up by the pillow.

The cook shook her head, turned, and tipped the shards from the dustpan beside the stove. Behind her came a melodious birdcall and the flapping of wings. The magpie must have flown away...

"I wonder where that kid Shun Sheng went. Things are going crazy back there, and he still hasn't come to help..." Once she had cleared away the broken pottery, the cook picked up the tray and muttered as she briskly went back to serving dishes.

Not long after she left, a staggering figure slowly rose from the thick flower bushes. His body was covered in wounds, from bleeding cuts to bruises caused by impacts. His left shoulder was dislocated, and one leg dragged as if it were broken. His jaw had split down the middle, held together only by flesh.

It was none other than the utterly unlucky Ning Zhe.

Ning Zhe wiped the blood from his face and looked up at the magpie perched on the plum tree. Suddenly, he smiled.

His lips curled slightly, and a melodious birdcall drifted from his mouth, though several of his teeth had fallen out.

Few children growing up in modern cities knew how to whistle like a bird anymore. Fortunately, Ning Zhe wasn't from the city. He had been born and raised in the countryside, a bona fide rural resident. As a child, he had even gone out to herd cattle with his grandfather.

The birdcall trailed off. The next moment, the battered boy disappeared, replaced by another magpie perched on the branch.

When the cook mistook Ning Zhe's birdcall and the flapping of his wings for a magpie, he truly became one.

Ning Zhe beat his black-and-white wings and took to the sky. Looking south, he saw a group of white-clad servants, spattered with blood, making their way toward the mansion along an empty street. They beat drums and gongs and played a lively suona.

At the center of the procession, they carried the Lotus Platform that had once housed the Snake God.

"Made it just in time..." Ning Zhe breathed a sigh of relief. Surely he couldn't keep being unlucky while flying.

The next moment, a small, swift black shadow shot from the plum tree and hurtled toward him.

"Snake God, fuck your mother!"

Ning Zhe raised his middle finger. If he had one right now.

If there were people in the world with extraordinary natural gifts, Ning Zhe was one of them. Even as a bird, he was far more combative than an ordinary magpie. After briefly getting used to a bird's vision and body, he immediately tilted himself, beat his wings, and fought the attacking magpie.

At the cost of having one eye pecked blind, Ning Zhe managed to kill the crazed magpie. Bleeding, he landed on the wall of the He Family Mansion and tilted his head, watching the procession approaching with his one good eye.

He wasn't worried about Feng Yushu's safety. Until she understood the truth—that "Ning Zhe had pretended to be a ghost and used Lin Zhiyuan's phone to call her"—and her mistaken belief was corrected, the Ghost would never kill her. Otherwise, the part of its identity Ning Zhe had stolen would be lost forever.

Feng Yushu wouldn't die, unless she learned the truth.

Standing on the wall, Ning Zhe silently watched the bloodstained procession carry the Lotus Platform toward the main gate of He Manor. Every one of them bore some kind of injury. One had a ruptured abdomen, another limped, and the suona player at the front had no head at all.

It seemed they'd been plagued by bad luck all the way here—even the Snake God hadn't been spared. Its rotting wooden body had been smashed to pieces, and both of the long horns on its head were broken. Fortunately, its head was still intact, and the Almanac remained hanging from its tongue.

The day's auspicious and inauspicious activities were still faintly visible on the Almanac:

[Suitable: Killing]

[Inauspicious: Traveling, burial, funeral procession, worship]

With one eye blind, Ning Zhe couldn't make out the extra words on the Almanac from this distance and angle. His chest heaved, and his heart pounded:

"This is the most critical moment. Whether I can successfully destroy this world depends on what happens now..."

Ning Zhe flapped his black-and-white wings and flew beneath the eaves over the mansion's main gate.

As the servants carried the heavy wooden Lotus Platform through the gate, a magpie nimbly hugged the edge, evading everyone's sight, and landed silently among the Snake God's shattered remains.

Ning Zhe folded his wings and quietly slipped into the Snake God's wide-open mouth. He curled his sleek little body deep in its throat and stayed perfectly still as the procession carried the shattered Snake God to the entrance of the main building in He Manor.

"The Snake—God—Grand—ma—has—ar—rived—"

The loud announcement and shrill suona echoed over the banquet dishes. Gongs, drums, and strings joined in with a rhythmic tune as bloodied servants in white carried the Snake God's broken remains into the main hall of He Manor.

Hidden in the Snake God's throat, Ning Zhe had no idea what was happening outside. From the servants' announcement, he picked up a few pieces of information that might or might not be useful:

"They call the Snake God 'Grandma'?"

"Is the Snake God a female deity?"

Before Ning Zhe could make sense of this, the heavy Lotus Platform was gently set down in the center of the main hall. Shouts rang out around the main building. The guests at table after table seemed not to notice that the Snake God before them had been smashed to pieces. Their faces flushed with excitement as they raised their cups toward the hall, one auspicious blessing after another spilling from their lips like rapid-fire shots.

"The first cup is to Heaven!"

"The second cup is to Earth!"

"The third cup is to our Snake God Grandma—may you live forever!"

Rice wine slid down their throats, and blessings filled the air. Curled up inside the Snake God's mouth, Ning Zhe's vision went black.

He had no idea how many people were wishing the Snake God well at that moment. He only felt that the flood of information was like a dump truck loaded with gravel and earth, slamming the gas and charging straight into his skull.

"Fuck..."

From the torrent of information that made his head throb, Ning Zhe painstakingly extracted the first useful detail:

"Today is the Wedding Banquet of the He family's third young lady, He Nianjun. She's marrying... [Zhaoyou]."

By now, Ning Zhe knew that [Zhaoyou] was the Snake God's true name.

But wasn't Snake God Grandma supposed to be female?