CH 19.2

14-17 minutes

After Zhu Shuangshuang nodded blankly, Ning Su covered the lid of the barrel, lifted it up, and vertically placed it into the incinerator. He pushed it forward and took a step back.

Su Wangsheng saw Ning Su’s hands grasping the walls of the incinerator, and the black veins on his smooth and slender arms were faintly visible. He kicked the iron bucket with his straight and long legs.

The iron bucket disappeared into the incinerator at a speed so fast that even its shadow couldn’t be seen.

Su Wangsheng: “...”

He looked at Ning Su and asked, “Stamina value of 32?”

Ning Su immediately hung his head and said, “I’m so tired.”

Su Wangsheng: “...”

He took a flashlight and took two steps inside. A minute later, he came out with a pale face and said, “Um, can you wait a bit before getting tired again? Let me go check the garbage can for another iron bucket.”

Ning Su replied, “I’ve checked all the garbage cans on the way, and there are no more iron buckets.”

Su Wangsheng said, “It’s okay. I can move the garbage can. I saw a small one in there, which is quite suitable.”

Ning Su remained silent.

After kicking Su Wangsheng into the other world, Ning Su went to the warehouse and pulled out the ghost child. The expressionless child looked a little unhappy.

After putting the child into the incinerator, the hideous and wailing ghost faces on the walls immediately became expressionless, and the little hands that were about to stretch out “swooshed” back.

Ning Su had already guessed this.

The first time the butcher threw him into the incinerator and climbed into the other world, there were no ghost hands. At that time, the child followed him and even pulled him back.

The reason for preparing an iron bucket for Zhu Shuangshuang was because her sensitivity was too high. If those ghost hands caught her, she would definitely faint and things would just become more troublesome.

Unexpectedly, Su Wangsheng actually voluntarily climbed into the garbage can.

Ning Su crawled unobstructed in the incinerator aisle. After crawling two steps, he said to the child, “I just threw two people inside. I’m so tired.”

“...”

After Zhu Shuangshuang and Su Wangsheng were kicked into the other world, they crawled out of the bucket in a dazed state.

Zhu Shuangshuang was okay because she had a pillow to protect her.

Su Wangsheng, on the other hand, banged his forehead in the smelly trash can, and his hair was in a mess. He had lost his elegant and refined demeanor.

As soon as they stood up and surveyed the slaughterhouse, they heard a noise coming from the incinerator.

They first saw a small figure.

The small figure looked skinny and small, and it was unknown whether it was a human child or not, but it was dragging the hand of a man over 180cm tall and pulling him slowly outward.

“...”

At this moment, neither of them felt scared of this ghost child.

They only felt a little pity.

After Ning Su came out of the incinerator, he looked at the child, who was still not very happy despite having eaten, and asked him, “Are you afraid that I will leave here forever after I know the answer to the mystery?”

The child lowered his head slightly and took a step back with his small feet.

Ning Su bent over and whispered something in his gray-white little ear.

The child suddenly looked up at him, and there were sparkling little stars in his two pitch-black eyes.

He jumped onto Ning Su and hugged him, licking his neck.

“Why are you acting like a little dog?” Ning Su squinted his eyes.

If he was really a little dog, his tail would have wagged at this moment.

This was the liveliest he had ever seen the child.

After comforting his little laborer, Ning Su, Zhu Shuangshuang, and Su Wangsheng walked outside together.

As they passed by the butcher, they saw him starting a fire.

Zhu Shuangshuang said, “When I heard the things said about the butcher, I thought he was strange and scary, but it’s different now.”

Those red bone ash boxes contained the ashes of young girls and boys that were stolen or bought.

The butcher scattered their ashes into the clear river water, allowing those poor children to regain their freedom and flow out of that dark and disgusting village with the river.

Su Wangsheng said, “Wait, the butcher switched out the bone ash of the girl the dead groom was going to marry with animal bone ash, so...”

Zhu Shuangshuang said, “Wait, Ning Su said that the Bai Xiangning is going to marry again soon, so he won’t have a bride anymore, right?”

Ning Su remained silent.

“Let’s go check it out.”

Ning Su spent an hour bringing the two back. He left while someone was announcing the next couple to get married. The next bride and groom were not yet determined. The date of the wedding would probably have been decided once he returned.

Zhu Shuangshuang and Su Wangsheng were shocked at the “ghosts” in the small square.

Zhu Shuangshuang rubbed her eyes, making them even redder.

Chen Qing asked her, “What’s wrong... did you cry?”

Zhu Shuangshuang embarrassedly said, “It’s a bit embarrassing.”

Chen Qing smiled and said, “Not embarrassing at all. A brave girl who dares to enter a newly opened dungeon instance is worthy of respect.”

Zhu Shuangshuang asked, “Is there a big difference between a newly opened instance and a normal instance?”

In fact, they didn’t really know anything much when they entered this instance, because they just went straight in.

The wedding procession had not yet left, so Chen Qing took the opportunity to educate the newcomers about the game and the current situation of the base.

“There is a big difference. For example, in this instance, if players have already understood the true meaning of ‘all living beings are equal’ and know who the Ghost Master is and what the instance is about, do you think the difficulty can be reduced by a few percentage points?”

“Of course, the instance changes every time, such as the passage between the surface world and the inner world, but the overall difficulty doesn’t change much.”

“Especially for decryption instances, it’s just a matter of following a process.”

Zhu Shuangshuang was surprised but agreed.

If someone wanted to be a player who only tackled instances that had been played many times, and just used the world map to survive, it wouldn’t be very difficult.

Zhu Shuangshuang asked, “Is that the reason why so many people want to join the big clubs?”

Chen Qing nodded, “Big clubs have many instance maps, so it’s not a problem to survive for ten or more years. There are also many experts who explore new instances and constantly bring in new maps, so members can continue to survive.”

As a scriptwriter, Zhu Shuangshuang quickly understood the relationship here.

“Then the players who explore new instances and those who survive by relying on old instances have vastly different status, right?”

Chen Qing nodded approvingly, “Their lives are given by the guild’s high-level members. In this terrifying and distorted world, you can understand their relationship as that of masters and slaves.”

“People will do anything to survive, and are willing to pay any price.”

“Those who cannot face death and only want to survive, except for those who are extremely intelligent and can help manage the club, most of them become experimental subjects, slaves, and playthings of the club’s high-level members and experts.”

“I’ll give you an example to get a feel for it,” said Chen Qing.

“There’s a club called ‘Yongming’ in the game base that’s neck and neck with the ‘Yinhua’ club. Last quarter, the ‘Yongming’ club narrowly defeated ‘Yinhua’ in the public ranking competition, and ranked first in this quarter. There’s a person named ‘Teacher Pupa’ in that club.”

“She conducts pupa experiments using the lower-level members of the club. She has a pupa tank that holds ten pupae without arms, legs or eyes.”

“That’s her weapon. During battles, these pupae stretch out their heads like snakes and bite the opponent from various exits of the pupa tank.”

Zhu Shuangshuang’s face turned pale and a nauseating feeling surged up in her heart.

She once again realized what kind of world this was.

In this distorted world, the strong were respected, and to be respected meant one could do whatever they pleased.

“Many newcomers first look for a club, offering various things to get a level-one old dungeon instance map. However, you three entered a dungeon that had just been opened, and it’s even a level-two dungeon, which is impressive,” said Chen Qing.

Zhu Shuangshuang felt very embarrassed as they had no idea about all this when they first entered.

Chen Qing encouraged her: “A newly opened instance is indeed dangerous, but weapons and skills are usually dropped on the first three times after a new dungeon had just been opened with the first one having the highest probability and grade.”

The groom came out, and Ning Su and Su Wangsheng looked over.

Chen Qing whispered some gossip between the girls to Zhu Shuangshuang: “I heard that the assistant of the black-robed man, named Lin Liang, used to be a member of the ‘Yongming’ club. He won the favor of the black-robed man, and after the black-robed man got the soul-locking rope, he gave him his original weapon, the poisonous flying knife, and took him to a new instance after another. That’s how he climbed up step by step.”

Zhu Shuangshuang was shocked, “Wow!”

Ning Su: “...”

After sharing this little piece of gossip, the two girls began to focus on what’s happening.

Zhu Shuangshuang asked, “When are the two grooms that Ning Su mentioned getting married?”

Chen Qing: “It’s today.”

Zhu Shuangshuang: “?”

Ning Su and Su Wangsheng immediately looked at Chen Qing.

Chen Qing was confused, “What’s wrong? Not long after Ning Su left, when the long-haired ghost was about to announce today’s groom, he said that there was an accident with Bai Xiangning’s wedding and the bride was changed at the last minute.”

“The other four big ghosts said, ‘This is so interesting, why don’t we all celebrate this wedding together while there are guests around?’”

Zhu Shuangshuang: “...”

“I think I was the bride who was replaced.”

Chen Tian and Chen Qing: “?”

The news was exchanged on both sides.

Chen Tian: “No, if the one standing next to Bai Xiangning is the bride, it proves that she is the woman who is marrying him for the first time. The one who is going to marry now and replaced Shuangshuang cannot be the bride, so who is she?”

Su Wangsheng: “We’ll know when we see her.”

At ten o’clock, the sunlight became increasingly fierce.

Here, it was becoming more and more pale yellow.

The ghost faces became even more eerie, with only the paint-like color on their bodies being the same. They stood silently in two rows and walked out of the thin fog.

The first ones were two grooms, dressed in red wedding attire and full of fear and resistance on their faces, but they had to step forward step by step.

The five people followed them.

It was their first time attending a wedding, and they were extremely nervous, especially when they realized that ghosts surrounded them.

They followed the main procession in silence, occasionally passing by an animal cub standing quietly in the mist.

Every incomprehensible aspect of this world weighed heavily on them.

They passed by the slaughterhouse, the place where the bride was to be greeted was at the funeral parlor in Huaiyang Village.

It was truly a hair-raising place.

“Please welcome the bride into the sedan!” spoke a crow with its characteristic hoarse voice, which set off the commotion of the wedding.

Ghosts appeared from who knows where, swaying as they played suonas and flutes.

Their bodies were filled with a strong sense of death, perhaps due to their incorrect skin color. They had specially dressed up for the wedding, applying a layer of powder that gave their faces a lime-like feeling.

They had a red dot on their foreheads and a swipe of rouge on their cheeks.

They played cheerful music mechanically and lifelessly, but with an eerie melody.

They played their instruments with great force, causing the fluctuations on their gray-white faces to create a festive atmosphere. However, it only raised goosebumps and made people’s eardrums ache.

The first wedding sedan came out of the funeral parlor.

The groom on the left was pushed forward and, amidst even louder wedding music, he trembled and walked unsteadily to the front of the sedan, knocking his head three times before standing on the side of the sedan.

The second wedding sedan came out of the funeral parlor.

Bai Xiangning walked stiffly to the front of the sedan, knocking his head repeatedly and murmuring, “Madam, please calm down, Madam, please calm down.”

“...”

Suddenly, it seemed that the ghost might have really suffered from domestic violence.

There were some bizarre worldviews in this world.

On the way back to the ceremony hall to worship, Bai Xiangning kept bowing and apologizing through the window of the sedan chair.

Although it was a bit inappropriate, it was actually quite funny.

The wedding procession ultimately stopped in front of a villa that was all too familiar to them.

The villa was covered in blood-red lily flowers, and thick, crimson vines twisted around it like pulsating veins. It was the only place that hadn’t been changed even slightly in color by the wax-yellow sunlight.

“Please groom, escort the bride out of the sedan chair.”

First, the groom on the left walked up to the wedding sedan, took a deep breath, and gently lifted the curtain.

Inside the blood-red sedan chair, a pure black cow was staring at him intently, with gleaming round eyes and sharp horns dripping with blood.

The groom immediately fell to the ground.

On the other side, Bai Xiangning walked up to the wedding sedan and gritted his teeth before lifting the curtain with force.

The bride was wearing a gorgeous showy dress, with her feet hidden beneath the skirt.

As her gaze moved upward, her waist was still slender.

Continuing upward, her chest was broad and flat, with a few drops of blood on her shirt collar.

Further up was a hideous face.

That face had a scar that ran from the right eyebrow to the left eye corner, which should have been terrifying, but in contrast to the bloody cheeks, it was rather ordinary.

The ‘bride’s’ eyes were filled with endless anger and madness.

All five players widened their eyes at the same time.

Unexpectedly, this bride was the scarred man from the black-robed man’s team.

Bai Xiangning was so frightened by his appearance that she took a step back.

The hoarse voice of a crow sounded like a bad omen, “Please groom, carry the bride on your back into the wedding hall.”