A Survival Game Where You Have to Fall in Love with a Madman - Chapter 13

“Three o’clock direction!” The lenses of Liu Xin’s glasses reflected an eerie blue light. “The bridal veil behind the spirit tablet is moving!”

You Yan flicked his wrist, throwing his scalpel with pinpoint accuracy. The blade pinned the drifting red veil to the wall just as it was floating toward Chang Zhou.

The moment the fabric tore, You Yan caught sight of the veil’s underside embroidered in gold thread were eight characters representing a person’s birth time, which happened to be the exact timestamp of when they had entered this instance.

“Everyone, close your eyes!” Jiu Chenjing shouted fiercely, the sound of his command punctuated by the sudden shattering of his pocket watch.

You Yan felt ice-cold silk threads brush past his eyelashes as agonized screams erupted around him in quick succession.

When he opened his eyes again, the main hall had transformed into a bridal chamber. Eight skeletons clad in auspicious wedding attire stood holding cups of ceremonial nuptial wine, their hollow black eye sockets turning in unison to fix upon the group.

He Yanqing suddenly let out a soft chuckle. “Found you.”

Slicing the pad of his finger, he flicked a drop of blood toward a bronze mirror in the southeast corner. The mirror exploded violently upon impact.

Amidst a shower of flying shards, a figure draped in a red bridal gown abruptly materialized. Silver, bell-like laughter echoed from beneath the veil, but her cascading black hair lunged at everyone’s throats like a nest of venomous serpents.

You Yan slashed with his scalpel, severing the hair rushing toward him. The moment the strands hit the floor, they morphed into writhing, bloody leeches.

His eyes suddenly darted to the wine cups held by the skeletons. The liquid inside rippled with a bizarre concentric pattern that matched the Cheng family crest perfectly.

“There’s something growing inside the wine,” Liu Xin gasped, suddenly gagging. The fingertip he had licked earlier to calculate a safe distance was now sprouting tiny, white rootlets.

Guo Xuemei’s long whip erupted in ghostly blue flames, burning the incoming hair to ash. “These hair strands are mimicking our movements!”

Before her voice could even fade, a bullet fired by Chang Zhou took a bizarre, unnatural turn in mid-air, flying straight back toward the center of his own forehead.

At the absolute turn of a second, You Yan grabbed a copper coin sword from the altar and hurled it. The metallic crash rattled everyone’s eardrums.

The coin sword and the bullet clattered to the floor simultaneously. The Bagua mirror embedded in the sword’s hilt reflected a horrifying image a third arm had grown out of each of their shadows, slowly reaching up to throttle their respective throats.

“Don’t look at the mirrors!” Jiu Chenjing’s prayer beads suddenly floated into the air, forming a golden barrier. “This is a manifestation of resentment! We have to find—”

Right then, a hidden compartment beneath the bridal bed popped open automatically, and a yellowed wedding certificate drifted out.

He Yanqing snatched the certificate from the air. Fresh blood soaked through the paper instantly, revealing gold-rimmed text:

The Year of Wuxu, the Seventh Day of the Seventh Lunar Month. Cheng Hao & Jiang Wan A bond of Yin and Yang, eternally united in heart. Should this oath be broken, the soul shall dissolve and the bones shall perish.

A sudden, splitting headache struck You Yan as fragmented memories flooded his mind like a tidal wave.

He saw a bridal sedan chair in a torrential downpour, a young girl bound in chains inside a coffin, and a funeral procession passing beneath forty-nine white lanterns…

When the girl in his memories lifted her head, her face turned out to be seventy percent identical to his own.

“Watch out!” He Yanqing’s red string wrapped around You Yan’s wrist, pulling him violently away from his spot. The floor bricks where he had been standing a second ago had dissolved into a pit of jagged white bones.

The ghost bride’s veil fell away without any wind, exposing an exquisitely beautiful face marred by streaks of bloody tears. Twin lotus flowers on a single stalk sprouted from her hollowed-out eye sockets.

“Don’t look into her eyes!” Jiu Chenjing’s warning came half a beat too late.

Standing closest to her, Chang Zhou froze instantly. His mechanical arm turned uncontrollably, aiming his firearm directly at his own temple. His pupils began to melt, streaming down his cheeks like pale pink floral sap.

Guo Xuemei snapped her whip around Chang Zhou’s waist, the burning tip severing the translucent threads controlling his joints.

“It’s puppetry!” she shrieked, retreating to the side alone. “These threads materialize under the moonlight!”

The livestream chat went wild:

[ID: Heartbroken with No School to Go To] This instance is literally my worst nightmare! [ID: Yun An-an-an-an-an] I hope Gaffer He and the others can find a solution fast. [ID: Ship-ologist (ω)] This ghost bride is way too terrifying. I heard that later on, they still have to… [System Notice: Players He Yanqing and Jiu Chenjing have received tips.]

You Yan suddenly realized something and looked up toward the rafters.

The seemingly chaotic cobwebs stretching across the ceiling were actually a soul-suppressing curse embroidered with silver thread. Under the moonlight, the patterns were flowing slowly, mimicking the layout of human blood vessels.

“Destroy the curse writing on the rafters!” He scooped up a candlestick from the altar and hurled it at the main beam.

The moment sparks flew, the entire estate groaned in agony, and a massive amount of black blood began to ooze from the walls.

The ghost bride let out a piercing shriek. The gold embroidery on her wedding gown snapped, exposing dense clusters of talismans lining the inner fabric.

Taking advantage of the chaos, He Yanqing tied his red string around You Yan’s wrist. “Run in the opposite direction of the blood flow!”

The moment they crashed through the eastern window frame, a deafening roar of collapsing masonry echoed behind them. You Yan glanced back, only to see that the bridal chamber had transformed into a giant, stomach-like wall of flesh, swallowing the two skeleton players who had failed to escape in time.

A damp, chilly draft swept through the corridor, swirling with paper ash. The remaining four players stood before the moon gate of the western wing.

Twelve white lanterns hanging from the eaves suddenly turned in unison, the paper surfaces stretching to outline the contours of twisted human faces.

“We split up and investigate,” Jiu Chenjing said. His jade prayer beads had been re-strung, glowing with an eerie phosphorescence. “We must find it before midnight…”

“I’m in a group with my little theorist~” He Yanqing already had his arm hooked around You Yan’s neck, leading him toward the eastern veranda. “After all, when a certain someone gets tangled in puppet strings, he has to rely on me…”

You Yan slapped his hand away. Dropping his eyelids, he slumped lazily against the veranda railing. “Go if you want to. I’m taking a nap.”

Before the words could fully leave his mouth, the nearest lantern exploded.

A sheet of translucent human skin drifted to the ground, its inner layer exposing a dense network of capillary vessels.

Liu Xin knelt down and used a pair of tweezers to pick up a fragment. His pupils dilated behind his lenses. “This was flayed whole from a living person’s back. The pore structures are still weeping blood.”

Suddenly, Chang Zhou snatched the fragment and pressed it firmly against the back of Liu Xin’s neck. “Borrowing your body heat for a bit!”

The human skin adhered to Liu Xin’s flesh instantly. He let out a blood-curdling scream, trying frantically to tear it off, but his entire arm was already mummifying at an alarming speed.

“Don’t move!” Guo Xuemei’s whip flared with fire, but before the flame could touch the skin, it was knocked off course by Jiu Chenjing’s prayer beads.

“Using fire will trigger the corpse oil formation.”

Jiu Chenjing snapped three prayer beads from his string and flicked them in different directions. The beads embedded themselves into the veranda pillars with a sharp metallic clang. “This is the Seven Kills Lantern Formation laid down by the Cheng family. Each lantern is linked to a player’s—”

With a resounding crash, the doors to the western wing flung wide open. A foul wind thick with the scent of rotting silk rushed out to greet them.

You Yan narrowed his eyes against the gale. Inside the room hung six human-sized lanterns, and emblazoned clearly across the lampshades were the facial outlines of each of the six players.

He Yanqing’s red string snapped taut. “Looks like we’re being forced to split up.” Before his voice even finished, an invisible force yanked everyone toward different directions.

You Yan only managed to grab a handful of He Yanqing’s coat hem before being dragged into the left side-room.

The stench of decay intensified abruptly. You Yan’s combat knife scraped against the wall, kicking up a brief shower of sparks. Utilizing the fleeting light, he saw that the walls were completely covered in fingernail scratch marks, interspersed with the character for double happiness,  written in blood.

“Honestly, still finding a way to be sleepy at a time like this.” He Yanqing suddenly tackled him to the ground.

Dozens of silk threads whipped past right above their heads. The moment they pinned into the wall, they emitted a sound like cracking bones. Dangling from the ends of those threads were small bells, each clapper sculpted in the shape of a miniature human head.

You Yan simply laid flat on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. “Well, you’re here anyway.”

“You trust me that much?” He Yanqing laughed. Using his short knife, he sliced open his own palm and smeared his blood across You Yan’s eyelids.

[System Notice: Player You Yan has received the gift ‘The King of Slacking’ from ID: Belial, gaining 20 Points!]