The Kang Residence, front courtyard.
The once pitch-black courtyard was now brightly lit by red candles and hung with red silk. Large round tables filled the center, and the guests coming and going quietly took their assigned seats in an orderly fashion.
It should have been a festive scene, yet the excessive silence made it especially eerie. Neither the bright red candles nor the red silk symbolizing celebration could dispel the chill permeating the courtyard.
The players sat stiffly in their chairs, unable to settle.
All around them sat other guests who had also come to attend the wedding banquet.
Some of these guests were shopkeepers from the surrounding streets, whom many players had questioned for clues. Others were guests they had seen at the Kang Residence, with whom they had shared lunch or dinner... They still wore the clothes the players remembered, but their faces now bore identical, ambiguous smiles. Perhaps it was the moonlight, but every guest had turned deathly pale, while their features stood out in vivid colors. Their eyes looked as though they had been drawn in the darkest ink, their lips painted with the brightest rouge.
A sour, astringent smell of paper pulp hung in the air, mingled with the faint scent of burning candles, stirring the deepest unease in the players' hearts.
"Wh-why hasn't the wedding started yet...?"
One player cautiously rubbed their arms, their face filled with apprehension.
After setting up the player named Bo Yi and leaving the room, they had been escorted here by a group of servant NPCs who had suddenly appeared. At first, the players had been quite pleased, though seeing the previously pitch-black Kang Residence suddenly blaze with light had given them a fright. Judging by the decorations, however, the wedding banquet at the Kang Residence was clearly