"Don't get too close," the scholar warned. Yet his feet remained rooted where he stood, and he did not follow the Players.
According to Poplar Blossom Town's rules, as a townsman, he had to avoid the funeral procession while the mourners carried the deceased out of town.
Only the Players could follow the paper figures out of town for a look.
Four donkey-riding paper figures carried the old man's corpse, bobbing up and down in unison as they jolted along, like a ship rising and falling on the sea as it traveled down the street.
Most of Poplar Blossom Town's roads ran east to west. The Players' residence was located in the west of town, while the funeral procession headed east, away from the residence.
The group followed the procession from a distance for a stretch. Human voices and the warmth of daily life were left behind, and when they looked back, all they could see were rows upon rows of shadowy houses.
The townspeople looked like ants amid the dirt, swallowed by a greater shadow and too tiny to make out.
The paper figures remained over thirty meters ahead. Several hazy white shapes drifted through the blue-black streets, while the buildings on either side faded like an ink-wash painting, leaving only the paper figures vivid as ghostly flames.
Lin Chen walked between Qi Si and Tang Yu, lowering his voice as he asked, "Brother Lin, Brother Tang, are we really going to follow them out of town? We don't know this place at all. I just feel like something bad is going to happen..."
Tang Yu held a lantern in one hand and rested the other on his sword hilt, completely unconcerned. "Fortune favors the bold. Someone died, and there's a funeral—it's obviously an important plot point with crucial