That evening, the lights blazed brightly outside Đào Hoa Residence, where twenty players had gathered. Tạ Đường and the fake Lý Khả Ái were confessing their feelings, lost in love. As for me, I’d found a chance to survive.
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, I threw the embroidered ball to Thư Du Nhiên.
The comments were full of confusion:
[Why’d she throw it to her?]
[Throw it to anyone you want, just don’t throw it to God Tạ. He’s taken now!]
[Wow, two gorgeous people in love! Just imagine how beautiful their child will be!]
[Tsk, tsk. You up there, they haven’t even kissed yet and you’re already having them make a baby? Are you some kind of prophet?]
Thư Du Nhiên held my embroidered ball, her face a study in confusion. Tạ Đường looked relieved; he wouldn’t have to use an item against me after all. But the fake Lý Khả Ái wasn’t so comfortable. Her eyes darted between me and Thư Du Nhiên, her pupils trembling as if she were a little panicked.
By accepting the embroidered ball, Thư Du Nhiên had agreed to a ghost marriage with me. That meant… tonight, at midnight, she had to come to Đào Hoa Residence and consummate the marriage with me. We could skip the rites of bowing to Heaven and Earth and to our parents, but the wedding night was nonnegotiable. She had to stay with me all night, and I had to stay with her all night!
Over the course of a long night, I could drop more hints and recount what we’d been through together in veiled language. She was a top student at Thanh Hoa; she’d definitely pick up on the clues!
That night, in the bridal chamber, gauze curtains fluttered and red candles burned tall as I waited quietly for her.
Thư Du Nhiên accepted my embroidered ball, and her temple throbbed. Everything had happened in a whirlwind, leaving her no time to react. As soon as she entered the instance, she hurried to Đăng Lung. According to the system’s instructions, to clear the instance she had to kill the ghost bride, Peach-Blossom Face.
On the way, she’d also heard some things about Peach-Blossom Face: the ghost bride threw an embroidered ball to choose her husband, and whoever caught it had to enter into a ghost marriage with her. But she hadn’t expected the ghost bride to choose her!
She’d just arrived in town and hadn’t even caught her breath before she had to get married? To a female ghost?
What unsettled and confused her even more was that this ghost bride was strange! Why had she suddenly brought up the moon in the middle of the street?
“I’ll always choose the moon.” Thư Du Nhiên knew those words well. They were clearly something she’d once said to Lý Khả Ái. What was the ghost bride hinting at?
It wasn’t just the ghost bride who was strange. That girl Lý Khả Ái was strange, too! Why was Lý Khả Ái so intimate with Tạ Đường? Were they in love? Since when?
Countless questions tangled together, and a thick cloud of suspicion hung over Đăng Lung. Thư Du Nhiên wearily closed her eyes. The strangest thing of all was that the ghost bride’s gaze felt so familiar, so close to her.
Still puzzled, Thư Du Nhiên opened the brocade pouch the monster had given her. It was empty.
“You’ll only see what’s inside when you completely trust me,” the monster had said.
Thư Du Nhiên activated her skill. “System, give me a clue about the ghost bride.”
[Ding!!!]
The system’s mechanical voice rang out: “Flowers are not flowers, mist is not mist. Before the lamp, a warm smile as before; beneath the flesh, the bones have changed.”
What the hell was that?
Thư Du Nhiên clutched her head. She studied math and hated this kind of cryptic, literary nonsense and mysterious riddles!
“Flowers are not flowers, mist is not mist.”
Did it mean that everything was just a façade, and what she saw wasn’t real?
“Before the lamp, a warm smile as before; beneath the flesh, the bones have changed”—what did that mean?
Before she could solve the riddle, the ghost bride’s tear-filled gaze flashed through her mind. Th-that was Lý Khả Ái’s gaze!
The ghost bride was Lý Khả Ái? The ghost bride was Lý Khả Ái!!!
Boom! The thought struck her like a bolt of lightning, exploding in her head and nearly making her pass out. She had to see her right away!
Just then, midnight—the time for the wedding night—was approaching. She had to get to Đào Hoa Residence immediately!
Knock, knock, knock…
A knock sounded at the door. “Who is it?”
When the door opened, Lý Khả Ái stood outside, her eyes crinkling with a smile.
After waiting and waiting for Thư Du Nhiên to show up, I finally went to Longmen Inn to look for her. It was pitch-dark, and fog had rolled in, shrouding everything around me. The lantern illuminated only three meters ahead.
Suddenly, the loud sound of horns and drums rang out in the distance. I knew they were coming for me. I couldn’t go to Longmen Inn anymore, so I turned and ran back. But behind me, funeral music began to play.
A bridal sedan chair was ahead, and a coffin behind. The horns blared, and spirit money fluttered through the air. I remembered the comment:
[Buy the bridal sedan chair in the East District, the coffin in the West District, the character for “joy” in the South District, and spirit money in the North District.]
They’d come to sacrifice me. Players really were so obedient~
I hadn’t ordered them around, yet they’d volunteered to be my servants. Without them organizing the ritual, how could I meet the evil god?
They didn’t know… I was the one who’d spread that information! In the 3S instance “Xuân Phỉ Tiên Cư,” I’d obtained the item “Fake God’s Edict,” which could impersonate the system and issue an announcement.
I was the one who’d issued the announcement that the only way to kill the ghost bride was to sacrifice her. It wasn’t a real system announcement.
The way to kill me was to stab me or burn me—not sacrifice me! I’d only done this because I wanted to go to the Evil God’s Temple.
Caught between joy and sorrow, amid the bridal sedan chair and the coffin, I fell into the Evil God’s Temple. Everything disappeared, leaving only me, the towering temple, the ruined idol, and the endless wilderness.
Now that things had come this far, I should explain why.
First, the players… They had to kill me to leave the game, but I couldn’t fight them off. So I spread a false rumor to make them think I was immortal and that they shouldn’t use their killing moves on me.
Of course, I could have lied and told them that killing the ghost bride wouldn’t clear the instance. But the system had just announced that killing me would clear it, so if I suddenly changed my story, the players might get suspicious, and I’d waste my divine-grade item.
More importantly, I really, really, really wanted to meet the evil god! So if I was going to do it, I might as well go all the way and let the players take me there.
Why did I want to meet the evil god? Like a crafty rabbit with three burrows, the evil god was the second burrow I’d dug. The first was Tạ Đường, but he couldn’t save me. The third was Thư Du Nhiên, but she’d be too late, and I couldn’t be sure she’d succeed. The second burrow was the evil god.
I don’t want to die, much less be replaced! I have to do everything I can to save myself! If I can find one more player who recognizes me, that gives me one more chance to win.
The evil god is a player too! A player who recognizes me.
The reason I guessed that… This morning, after Tạ Đường snatched my peace-lock pendant, I returned to Đào Hoa Residence, disappointed. I lay on the bed, growing angrier the more I thought about it, until I was so upset I cried. Hearing me cry, the puppeteer’s enormous hand appeared. It opened its palm, revealing the sparkling peace-lock pendant Tạ Đường had given me.
It really is good to me—it even stole the pendant back for me!
I wiped away my tears, took the peace-lock pendant, and clutched it in my hand, remembering what the system had said: the puppeteer was the evil god, lived in Hư Vô Điện, and was also called the Lord of the Void.
I remembered that when I first logged into the game, the system had given me three choices. Choice B was a roofless shrine with Hư Vô Điện written on its pitch-black sign!
I chose C, becoming a bride. If I’d chosen B, would I have become the evil god? Could another player have chosen B and become the evil god?
I dried my tears and asked the enormous hand, “You’re a player, right?”
The hand gave me a thumbs-up.
I asked again, “We know each other, right?”
The hand gave me another thumbs-up.
So that was it. I asked some more after that, but it didn’t answer. So I decided to find a chance to meet it.
But the ritual for meeting it was too complicated for me to perform on my own. Hehe~ So I’ll leave it to the players who want to kill me!