The sweet aroma of rice wine filled the He Family Courtyard, where tables and chairs stood in neat rows. The sound of qin and se instruments played in harmony, drawing closer and closer, as though a heavy hammer were pounding at Ning Zhe's skull.
The guests invited here thought they were raising their cups to the Snake God. In truth, they were toasting him. In that instant, Ghost's Rule was triggered hundreds of times over. Their mistaken beliefs formed a medium for Stealing Identity, and the Snake God's vast, tangled memories flooded into Ning Zhe's mind.
But there was no time to slowly sort through all this information. With such a commotion, Ghost couldn't possibly have failed to notice.
"No. Maybe it noticed me long ago, when I stood by and did nothing about Lin Zhiyuan's death..."
Because, in a sense, Ghost was the Snake God.
Ning Zhe had found two mysteries in He Family Village:
[1: Why did the Snake God go mad?]
[2: How could Ghost steal another's identity?]
Ning Zhe had already solved the mystery of Ghost. And as he stole more and more of the Snake God's identity, he finally confirmed that both mysteries had the same answer.
"The Snake God went mad because Ghost had stolen its identity before I ever made a move."
Ning Zhe curled up inside the Snake God's throat, his small body trembling faintly.
As the vast flood of the Snake God's memories swept against his consciousness, Ning Zhe felt dazedly as though he were the Azure Jade Serpent itself, horns growing from its head. Its long body had become a winding waterway, lying beneath this tranquil village as it passed an immeasurably long stretch of time. Then, one day, an unknown Wandering Ghost drifted in, and the peaceful days began to crumble.
The formless Ghost wandered among the houses of He Family Village, gradually twisting the villagers' perceptions, bit by bit stealing the Snake God's identity. As it was supplanted, the Snake God's long body withered, until everyone who knew of its existence mistook Ghost for the Snake God... And so the real Snake God went mad.
The Snake God's long memories gradually faded, until at last they drifted away like a dream.
The time Ning Zhe experienced in the Snake God's memories had been so long that it felt as though the brief eighteen years he had lived as "Ning Zhe" were the dream.
"So dangerous..." Ning Zhe snapped his eyes open, as if waking from a dream.
Using Ghost's Rule to steal another person's identity and life experiences might sound intriguing, but it was perilous in the extreme. His earlier attempts had been little more than child's play. The Snake God was different. Its immense memories and long life had surged down like a raging flood, washing away Ning Zhe's own memories and personality.
Sorrow, rage, fear, joy, madness... The Snake God's emotions churned through Ning Zhe's mind. He had come within a hair's breadth of forgetting who he was.
Ning Zhe quickly repeated Ghost's Rule to himself, steadying his mind:
[When someone mistakes Ghost for a person they know, Ghost can use this "mistaken belief" as a medium to steal that person's identity, along with all the information connected to it.]
Once the stolen identity was complete enough, it could even fool the Snake God, transferring the punishment for violating a taboo onto the person whose identity had been stolen.
That was how Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu had died. Ning Zhe himself had nearly been fooled, too, losing himself in those long memories and mistaking himself for the Snake God.
"But this stolen identity almost fooled even me. Could it fool the Snake God?" Ning Zhe murmured to himself.
But then he felt a sense of relief. "...Who knows? Come on, then. It all comes down to this..."
Ning Zhe struggled to crawl out of the Snake God's mouth. Blood streaked his black-and-white wings, and his feathers were grimy and greasy, covered in dark mold.
Under the watchful eyes of hundreds of guests in the He Family Courtyard, the Magpie that emerged from the Snake God's mouth shed its dark feathers and transformed into a handsome young man, battered and wounded from head to toe.
In the main hall of the residence where the Lotus Platform stood, two richly dressed nobles sat on either side—a man and a woman, the master and mistress of the manor.
The strange music continued. The headless servant still swayed as he played his suona, while every wine cup remained suspended in midair.
Below the Lotus Platform, two maids in brocade skirts led a graceful woman dressed in finery forward. She walked in dainty Cloud Steps. Her petite, delicate figure was primly enveloped in a loose crimson gown. A faint red plum adorned her pale, snow-white face, and her vivid lips held a trace of elusive sorrow.
But above them, her other features were nowhere to be seen.
Jade Butterfly and Dark Green, graceful and radiant, the faceless girl dressed in finery bowed slowly with the two maids supporting her, then knelt before the Snake God. Her cherry lips parted, and a mournful voice drifted from her throat:
[You ask only of my coming, never of my return...]
"I don't know why you wanted to marry a female snake. If the Snake God had been male, I could've understood at least a little." Ning Zhe said it casually, then knelt, panting, before the Lotus Platform. He silently reached toward the shattered pieces of the Snake God's corpse.
In the deathly silence of the hall, Ning Zhe's fingertips pinched the edge of the Almanac. The mournful song lingered around them.
"I have three important identities now... The Snake God, Ghost, and Ning Zhe..." Ning Zhe murmured to himself. He closed his eyes and flipped open the yellowed page. The Almanac turned to tomorrow.
The next moment, Ning Zhe opened his eyes. "Then which identity will bear the punishment for violating the Death Taboo?"
Ning Zhe's question went unanswered.
The moment he opened the Almanac and lowered his gaze, everything before him shattered.
It was as if someone had punched through a mirror on a bathroom wall. Fine cracks spread through the air all around him.
Two rules that had previously operated independently and without interference had now come into deadly conflict because of Ning Zhe's actions. Like two misaligned gears grinding together, they tore apart this world built upon rules.
Just before he lost sight of everything, Ning Zhe thought he heard someone scream, and someone else sob in grief. But he couldn't tell who was who, or even whether the sobbing came from someone else or from himself.
When Ning Zhe's consciousness cleared again, soft sunlight, gentle as cotton, came into view. He froze for a moment.
Looking down, Ning Zhe saw that he was standing on a wooden threshold worn uneven by years of use. In his hand, he clutched an old door knocker inlaid with copper. The heavy, antiquated red-lacquered gate in front of him had just been pushed open.
Ning Zhe walked inside, instinctively glancing to the right of the gate. There stood the old camphor tree he used to climb as a child with the neighbor's younger siblings. A plain wooden table sat beneath its shade, its surface piled with red and yellow leaves that seemed not to have been swept away for a long time.
Ning Zhe breathed in the familiar air and walked along the weed-choked path.
"I'm home."
At that moment, he was opening the gate to his family's old house and entering He Family Village.
Since he hadn't died after returning to reality, at least one of Ghost and the Snake God had clearly perished.
Or had they both died?
The Weird World where He Family Village lay had completely shattered when its rules locked up. But that didn't mean the Snake God and Ghost were both dead. Either of them was incredibly dangerous. No matter what, he had to find a way to confirm their state...
Suddenly, a spark of inspiration flashed. Ning Zhe stopped and raised his head slightly, deep in thought.
The next instant, a Magpie flapped up into the crown of the camphor tree.
At the same time, a word of unclear meaning surfaced in Ning Zhe's mind. No one had ever explained it to him, yet he instinctively felt that it was a name.
The name of the Ghost that had once stolen the Snake God's identity:
"Its name is... [Taiyi]."
The Snake God was named [Zhaoyou], and Ghost was called [Taiyi].
Did their names have some special meaning?
Before you continue