The mist swirling around Zhang Lexuan left her head heavy and her mind dazed, while waves of stabbing pain kept shooting through her temples.
Enveloped in the mist, she felt as though a thin veil had been drawn over her eyes, distorting her perception of the entire world.
She finally understood.
As elites of Shrek Inner Court, they had carried out many Inspection Corps missions. No matter how poor their mental fortitude was, their surroundings could not possibly have frightened them into a breakdown, yet they had still fallen into uncontrollable madness in the end.
The attack had begun the moment they learned they had walked into a trap.
The mental attack, impossible to guard against, had slowly invaded their minds and shattered their reason, gradually driving them into a frenzy of self-destruction.
Was this... an Evil Soul Master, with cruel and bizarre methods, who had killed countless people throughout their life?
"Save them, I have to save them!" Zhang Lexuan bit down hard on the tip of her tongue.
She too had fallen victim without realizing it. Though she had not lost control and gone mad like the others, her thinking had grown sluggish. She should have knocked her other teammates out immediately, yet she had failed to think of it quickly.
She brought her hands down in knife-hand strikes, and two muffled thuds rang out. The two students Zhang Lexuan had been holding with her left and right hands were forcibly shut down by physical means, their eyes rolling back as they fell to the ground.
She had no time to think or hesitate. After knocking out the two teammates, she quickly turned and knocked out two more with knife-hand strikes.
But when Zhang Lexuan tried to continue, the mist around her changed.
The grayish-white mist faded somewhat. The other seven Inner Court disciples, who had not yet been knocked out by Zhang Lexuan but had already suffered serious injuries from attacking one another, recovered some clarity and used what little reason they had left to stop attacking.
The jungle fell deathly silent again, with only the sound of their breathing growing heavier and more hurried.
"Ah~ ah..."
"Ah-"
A mournful, lilting chant, full of sorrow and resentment, rose without warning from deep in the jungle.
The Inner Court disciples, who already saw enemies in every blade of grass and tree, were like birds startled by the mere twang of a bowstring. They instinctively looked toward the chanting, their faces guarded and their eyes tense and fearful, not even daring to wipe the cold sweat from their foreheads and faces.
Even Zhang Lexuan was no exception, staring fixedly into the depths of the jungle.
The chanting gradually grew louder, as though drawing nearer from afar, lingering in the air with eerie stresses and echoes.
Zhang Lexuan and the others finally heard clearly what the sound was.
How was this chanting?
It was plainly the wailing at a funeral, carrying grief and pain for the departed, pouring out longing for the dead in the most heart-rending cries!
Deep along the mountain path, in the direction of the wailing, the mist grew thicker and thicker until it formed a great cloud of dense vapor. An eerie, deathly white light glowed within it, and figures moving in strange, uneven steps grew clearer in the vapor, slowly emerging in two rows.
Zhang Lexuan's pupils abruptly shrank to the size of pinpoints, and the fear in her eyes nearly drowned out her reason.
At that moment, her instincts as a powerhouse stabbed frantically at her mind.
Run!
If we don't run now, we'll definitely die!
She spun around and was just about to shout for everyone to flee when she saw that the path they had taken, behind the others, was also blocked by a cloud of thick mist.
But the light glowing in the mist behind them was not deathly white. It was red, with a hint of festivity.
Just then, the intertwined sounds of various instruments finally reached them as well.
The muffled beat of drums, with their distinctive rhythm.
The loud, piercing blare of suonas.
The shrill, mournful, lilting notes of erhus.
The sounds of gongs, bamboo flutes, clappers...
In these remote mountains and ancient forests, in this desolate wilderness where it was too dark to see one's hand and everything around them lay deathly silent, there was wailing and funeral music ahead, and loud singing and jubilation behind.
Red and white, celebration and mourning.
The strangely behaving shadows in the thick mist finally emerged, revealing their true forms.
The figures coming out of the white mist ahead wore pale hemp garments and straw rain hats, with reed-and-thatch rain capes tied at their shoulders and waists. With every step they took, murky, foul-smelling water dripped beside them and beneath their feet.
The figures at the front moved with light but eerie steps, as though controlled like puppets. Their hands swung stiffly from side to side as they hopped and "floated" forward, scattering a great handful of withered yellow paper money with each swing.
The female student who had first lost control screamed again. Her eyes rolled upward uncontrollably, and she opened her mouth wide, stuck out her tongue, and retched repeatedly. Tears, snot, and drool streamed out uncontrollably as she fell to the ground convulsing.
She had seen clearly...
The figures emerging from the white mist were not "people," but paper figures fashioned from straw and yellow paper. Stiff features, neither quite crying nor smiling, were painted on the faces beneath their straw hats. Their lifeless eyes held not the slightest emotion, so hollow they seemed ready to swallow her whole.
The two rows of paper figures emerged completely from the white mist.
The paper figures at the front moved in eerie dance steps, swinging their arms and scattering paper money.
Immediately behind them came the paper musicians, holding instruments and playing funeral music as they walked with steady, stiff steps.
The six paper figures in the middle each stood in a different position, carrying a pitch-black coffin. On its very front, the character "奠" was written in square strokes of gold paint.
The paper figures at the rear kowtowed every three steps as they followed at the very back of the procession, letting out mournful, piercing cries of grief.
Besides these paper figures, a colorless figure sat upright atop the coffin. She was not a paper figure; her body was full and solid, but her skin had an eerie, deathly pallor. She wore a soaking wet white dress, which steadily dripped the same foul-smelling water as the paper figures onto the ground below the coffin.
Her hollow, grayish-white eyes were wide open, and her beautiful features constantly betrayed a trace of despair and resentment. Her fingers were interlaced in front of her, and her sharp nails, almost as long as her fingers, were painted a purple-red that looked as though it had been steeped in poison.
The female student who had collapsed in convulsions had suffered an instant mental breakdown precisely because she had seen the woman's true face.
She was not the only one. A male student who had seen the figures in the red mist behind them likewise fell to the ground convulsing. His face twisted, he gripped his own throat and let out a soundless wail.
Slender figures in long red dresses emerged from the red mist. Their bodies were shapely and graceful, but each wore a large red hat that concealed half her face, leaving only thin lips painted with blood-red lipstick exposed.
Like the paper figures, the women in red at the front moved in stiff dance steps, scattering red paper petals from their hands. Behind the dancers were female musicians playing wedding music. In the middle, six women in red carried a red bridal sedan chair, while the women in red at the rear each held a wooden tray bearing bloody livestock heads from different species.
Inside the bridal sedan chair, the bride sat upright in bright red wedding robes. Beneath her tasseled veil, her pretty face bore exquisite makeup. Her wide-open eyes were bloodshot, thick blood flowed from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and her rigid features were vacant and numb.
Red and white, celebration and mourning.
A wedding and funeral collided; a hundred ghosts walked the night.