"The monster in the wine jar said Zhang Mingli was taboo, but the Night Watchman got along fairly well with him. Besides, I never sensed anything frightening about Zhang Mingli. My heart felt no threat when I approached him. Could the man I saw have been nothing but a human skin wearing his face?" Gao Ming slowed his pace amid the crowd as a possibility occurred to him.
Could those Taboo Gods be suppressing Zhang Mingli's true body? Was that old bastard really that powerful?
The monster soaking in wedding wine in the side room began secretly eating people. It had already revealed that part of its body could leave the wine jar, and it would surely suffer when Madam Xi returned. With no time to spare chasing Gao Ming, it simply took the opportunity to devour more people, hoping to break free of its seal.
Having slipped into the Xi Banquet, Gao Ming hid his butcher's knife and held a wine cup, offering auspicious wishes as he edged along. Swaying as though drunk, he made his way to the main hall.
He stepped forward, but before his shoe touched the floor, an icy chill struck the back of his neck. It traveled up his spine into his head, as if to freeze his soul.
He glanced up into the main hall. Twenty-four pairs of chopsticks lay on the eight immortals table, each chopstick bound with a red cord and strung with a copper coin, its tip resting in a bowl of congee.
Behind the table, a mural of heavenly palaces and immortal paradise covered the entire wall. Clouds and mist drifted through it, with immortal cranes and spirit beasts appearing here and there among the palaces.
The painting was called the Twenty-Four Auspicious Omens of the Joy Immortals, yet