The bride's departure, part eight

Early the next morning, with daylight already streaming in, someone pounded on Yin Chao's door hard enough to make it creak.

The hooded man had left him a little jumpy yesterday.

At the noise, he shot upright in bed and stared at the wooden door.

"Yin Chao! Yin Chao, are you awake?"

It was Yang Fan calling from outside.

Yin Chao breathed a sigh of relief and got up to open the door.

But when he opened it, he found five people looking warily at him.

Mo Nan held the enormous pitch-black umbrella, while Xu Zhou held a long gun. The two stood at the front, both pointing their weapons straight at him.

Yin Chao smiled. "What's... what happened?"

"You weren't in your room last night?"

Mo Nan spoke first. There wasn't a trace of a smile on his face, a stark contrast to the fawning expression he'd worn when they first met.

Yin Chao waved his hands, then raised them with an exaggerated look on his face. "I was in my room all night!"

But none of the people before him were easy to fool.

He continued, "Yesterday, I heard something in the empty room next door. I was so scared that I crawled under the bed and slept there all night. I heard someone open my door at one point. So that was you."

Some of the wariness faded from Mo Nan's eyes. He had indeed visited Yin Chao's room, but he still had his doubts.

The corners of Yin Chao's mouth dipped slightly. He really is suspicious.

Then Xu Zhou, who hadn't spoken yet, said, "Human or ghost, one shot from me will settle it."

He said it without the slightest intention of seeking Yin Chao's consent. It sounded more like an announcement.

The dark muzzle pressed against Yin Chao's chest.

Xu Zhou pulled the trigger, and a muffled bang rang out. Yin Chao had no time to react and could only stare fixedly at the barrel.

Everyone present except Fang Tang visibly froze, not expecting Xu Zhou to act so decisively.

A few seconds later, Xu Zhou moved the barrel away.

Yin Chao stumbled back a few steps, clutching his chest and crying out in pain.

Yang Fan spotted something. "There's no blood! It's not a real gun?"

The girl with blunt bangs looked shaken, her face pale. She explained, "Of course it's a real gun. It just only hurts ghosts and monsters. It doesn't work on humans."

Yin Chao really wasn't injured. He simply loved acting and took his work seriously.

"So you suspected I was a ghost?"

He rubbed his chest as he asked.

Mo Nan nodded, his smile returning. "I heard something downstairs last night and wanted to find a teammate to investigate with me. But there was no one in your room."

Yin Chao nodded and continued asking questions he already knew the answers to. "So did you go downstairs in the end?"

Mo Nan smiled self-deprecatingly. "Maybe I'm not very popular. Only one person was willing to go with me, but he ended up getting killed."

"Huh? Killed by a ghost?"

"Yes." Mo Nan sounded regretful. "It was a ghost above B-rank. I didn't fight her. I ran back to my room. Luckily, she didn't follow."

"Above B-rank?" Puzzled, Yang Fan turned to Fang Tang.

Before Fang Tang could speak, the girl with blunt bangs, who had barely made her presence felt until now, cried out in horror, "How is that possible? Isn't this a B-rank instance? Usually, the strongest ghosts in an instance are only the same rank as the instance itself!"

Fang Tang seemed displeased that someone had stolen her chance to speak. She scoffed softly. "Surely you know perfectly well why you came to this B-rank instance, Miss Bai?"

The girl with blunt bangs stiffened and cast a guilty glance at Fang Tang.

The atmosphere between them suddenly crackled with tension.

"Oh, goodness, why are you all still here? The bride's about to leave!"

The sudden voice interrupted the undercurrents surging between them.

Yin Chao looked toward the newcomer, his pupils contracting sharply.

It was the village chief-the same village chief the hooded man had cut in half yesterday.

He'd come back to life yet again?

Personal grudges clearly mattered less than the story quest assigned by the system. They answered the village chief and prepared to follow him to the wedding feast.

The girl with blunt bangs hurried over to help Yin Chao up, then caught up with the others.

The whole way, Yin Chao feared the village chief might suddenly lash out to avenge what had happened last night.

But he had clearly worried for nothing.

The village chief was like a freshly generated string of data, diligently carrying out his duties as an NPC.

They arrived at the street where they had first started.

The village chief explained, "Today, Lotus Leaf from our village is getting married. Yesterday's bride was Jin Mei."

Everyone nodded.

Yin Chao suddenly remembered that Lotus Leaf's bridal room was next to theirs. Why hadn't he seen her come out this morning?

Before he could resolve that question, the wedding procession's festive music began.

"Bride departing, bride departing, dressed in red to wed her groom, eyes cried red and tears run dry, all because a woman is worth less than a man..."

Accompanying the festive music was the lilting voice of the bride inside the sedan chair.

Gradually, however, her singing grew increasingly shrill and mournful.

The festive music began to change its tune as well.

The girl with blunt bangs seemed to have spotted something. She pointed in panic at the swaying bridal sedan.

The others looked over, all somewhat stunned.

Beneath the sedan, which could only fit one person, a pair of feet in red embroidered shoes protruded from under the curtain.

"The bride's hanged herself! The bride's hanged herself!"

Someone shouted from the crowd.

Yet the wedding procession continued forward as though it hadn't heard.

The fog grew thicker and thicker. A gust of wind swept through, blowing sand into everyone's eyes.

When they opened their eyes again, the wedding procession was nowhere to be seen.

The red sedan and red flowers had turned into a pitch-black coffin.

Everyone was dressed in white. Amid spirit money fluttering through the sky, they gradually disappeared into the depths of the fog.

Yin Chao sighed. He couldn't help reflecting that, in a feudal society, death was the most powerful voice girls like Lotus Leaf and Jin Mei could raise.

[Beep, beep. The bride's wish: fulfilled. Instance: The bride's departure-complete.]

As the system announced the end, the world around him visibly collapsed.

In the end, he was left alone in a black void.

[Player: Yin Chao, level 1

Health: 100 + 50, stamina: 60, mental strength: 100, intelligence: 90. Items obtained: Myriad People Umbrella (rank undetectable), a strip of red silk (B-rank, used for healing, can increase health by 50).]

[Congratulations on passing the trial.]

[Note: When your health falls below 50%, the system will automatically alert you. In addition, health can be increased through special items obtained in instances. The same applies to other attributes.]

Yin Chao understood, but what intrigued him more was the Myriad People Umbrella, whose rank even the system couldn't detect.

Before he could think about it further, he opened his eyes again and found himself lying in his own bed.

He blinked at the familiar surroundings, then hurriedly sat up and rushed to Yin Rui's room.

The room was empty. Neither of his two parents was home.

In a rare panic, Yin Chao quickly picked up his phone to call them.

But as he lit up the screen, he caught sight of a letter tucked under something on the desk.

He picked up the pink envelope, a little afraid to open it.

"Honestly, why does Yin Rui love pink so much? And Shang Yi just lets her."

Yin Chao grumbled, but the smile on his face was bitter and helpless.

He sat in the room for a long time, calling Yin Rui and Shang Yi over and over. Both numbers were out of service.

In the end, he opened the envelope.