Translator: Cinder Translations
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Qin Jian, who was running ahead, suddenly froze, his scalp tingling with fear. The other sedan chair should have been behind them, so how could it have returned to the courtyard ahead of them?
His first thought was that a ghost had come for him. The sedan chair in front of him... was a ghost!
"It's us!" someone shouted loudly.
Qin Jian's heart skipped a beat. The person speaking in front of him was wearing a paper mask, but the voice was unmistakably Chen Xiaomeng's.
The sedan chair that had rushed out stopped right in front of them.
Then, as Chen Xiaomeng removed her paper mask, the other three sedan bearers also took off their masks, revealing their true faces.
Hao Shuai, Jiang Fugui, and Shi Liaozhi, with his messy yellow hair.
Along with Chen Xiaomeng, the four of them stared at Qin Jian and the others with a strange, inscrutable gaze that made their hearts race.
It seemed like they had a lot to say, but didn't know how to express it.
Fearing a trap, Qin Jian tightly shut his mouth.
Turning and running now would be foolish. The best option was to wait and see.
He had already been targeted. Being alone meant certain death; hiding among the crowd was his only chance for survival.
Chen Qiang and You Qi behind him felt the same.
In this silent standoff, Qin Jian vaguely sensed that something was wrong, but before he could think further, An Xuan, who was beside him, also removed his paper mask.
"Why are you here?" An Xuan asked directly, staring at the group. "How did you get ahead of us?"
According to the rehearsal route, the second group should have returned after the first group, as they needed to take a longer detour.
It was clear that the others hadn't figured this out either.
Chen Xiaomeng's expression changed slightly, but she maintained a calm tone. "Right after you left, the courtyard gate was locked."
An Xuan's pupils dilated at her words.
"We only just managed to break out," Chen Xiaomeng continued, staring into An Xuan's eyes.
"What?!"
The exclamation came from You Qi. The burly man, who wasn't much braver than Qin Jian, trembled with fear upon hearing this.
"Then... then who were the people we just encountered?" You Qi felt a rush of blood to his head, his eyes turning red.
This belated realization of fear was truly terrifying.
Remembering how the two groups had been carrying the sedan chairs in parallel, he kept swallowing hard, his way of coping with the tension.
A figure wearing a red veil stepped out of the opposite sedan chair. Lifting the veil, it was Zuo Jing, who was playing the bride.
The moment she stepped out of the sedan chair, it was as if a program had been activated. An Xuan, Qin Jian, and the others shuddered, and in the next second, they almost simultaneously let go.
The carrying poles slipped from their shoulders, causing the sedan chair to lose balance. With a loud "thud," it fell to the ground, swaying a few times before finally coming to a stop.
In the next moment, the group scattered like rabbits, their eyes filled with terror as they looked back at the sedan chair they had carried.
A deep fear lingered in their eyes, as if it might explode at any moment.
Not long ago, they had switched places with that mysterious sedan chair. Their sedan chair had been taken away, and they... had carried the other one back!
According to the original script, their sedan chair should have contained Zuo Jing, but Zuo Jing... was now standing right in front of them.
Cold sweat dripped from Qin Jian's forehead. He suddenly realized where that earlier sense of unease had come from—it was from the sedan chair they had carried back!
The sedan chair was much lighter than before. Although it still had some weight, it seemed to only weigh as much as the chair itself.
Moreover, no matter how much they jostled it, or even when they dropped it in panic, there had been no sound from inside.
Whatever was inside... seemed lifeless.
Just as everyone was wondering if the sedan chair might be empty, a gust of wind blew, lifting the curtain at the front of the sedan chair slightly. Through the small gap, they finally saw what was inside.
The fatty was stunned for a moment, then his entire body began to tremble. Qin Jian, who was closest, took several steps back in shock.
His chest heaved with uncontrollable fear.
Sitting inside the sedan chair was a paper figure with curved eyebrows and painted cheeks... a female paper figure.
The paper figure was dressed in wedding attire, its veil blown off by the wind. Its hands were delicately posed in an orchid gesture, resting on its knees, contrasting sharply with its eerie face.
The face, made of white paper, was devoid of any color. Its eyes were seductive, its lips curled into a smile, and a bright red cinnabar dot on its forehead made the figure seem almost alive.
It was as if... it was smiling at them.
The mist over the lake had mostly dissipated, and the bright moonlight spilled down. The blood-red sedan chair stood alone in the clearing, looking less like a wedding sedan and more like a blood-red coffin.
"Tang Shirou has been taken by Young Master Huang," Chen Qiang said, staring at the paper figure inside the sedan chair.
(End of the Chapter)
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