After Being Forced into Marriage with My Paranoid Dead Husband - Chapter 12

Shang Zhangheng snapped his fingers.

The Qing brothers opposite him immediately felt a chilling, gloomy draft sweep past. Qing Wenlin even muttered under his breath, “Why did it suddenly get so cold?”

Qing Wenxu directly shivered all over.

Qing Ling saw it with absolute clarity: a wisp of black Qi had coiled around both of their necks.

In a commanding tone, Shang Zhangheng instructed, “Come in.”

Qing Ling froze slightly, and the next moment he watched a blood-drenched figure slip right through the carriage door. Crawling in with a twisted, unnatural posture, she inched her way step by step until she reached Qing Wenxu’s feet.

It was precisely the female ghost they had seen last night.

With three people and one ghost squeezed inside, the carriage wasn’t spacious to begin with. The female ghost was practically pressed flat against all four of their feet. Since dawn had yet to break and the lanterns hanging outside the carriage cast only a dim, murky light through the windows, the sight made the female ghost appear all the more spine-chilling and terrifying.

Qing Ling even felt as though he could smell the reek of fresh blood.

Unable to maintain his usual composed, mature demeanor, Qing Ling furrowed his brows slightly and pulled his feet back. This movement involuntarily caused him to lean his weight against Shang Zhangheng beside him.

Taking advantage of the moment, Shang Zhangheng wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him close, murmuring in a low voice, “Earlier she was too weak; otherwise, she wouldn’t have targeted only women with weak yang fires. Killing a single person took her a full half-day. Let me lend her a hand, just wait and watch.”

Qing Ling remained silent.

He couldn’t force a smile at all and could only shift his gaze elsewhere.

How soon the two Qing brothers would die was something he didn’t know, nor did he care particularly much at the moment. But he could clearly and truly see that female ghost. Although it wasn’t his first time seeing one, and he had experienced quite a few strange things over the past few days, having such a miserable and terrifying female ghost presented right before his eyes made it hard for Qing Ling not to feel afraid.

Especially when the female ghost had just glanced sideways at him with those eyeballs that only dead people possessed.

After waiting for a long time, Shang Zhangheng noticed that Qing Ling’s face was drained of color and his eyes were darting about in a panic, looking utterly terrified. This left the ghost thoroughly choked for words.

“What are you afraid of?” Shang Zhangheng frowned. “The more afraid you are, the weaker your yang fire becomes, and the more evil spirits will target you. Don’t forget how that woman died.”

Qing Ling recalled briefly: that pair of mistress and maid had indeed spent a long time pacing in circles inside the room before dying one after the other. So the female ghost’s method of killing was first to make people fearful, eroding their so-called yang fire, before she could take their lives?

Immediately afterward, he heard Zhang Heng say, “Forget it, you don’t have any yang fire to begin with. Even if you weren’t afraid, you’d still be targeted. If it weren’t for me, you’d have died a thousand or eight hundred times over by now.”

Qing Ling: “…”

Well, then he truly thanked him.

He wanted to ask why he had no yang fire to begin with, but considering the two humans and one ghost sitting right across from him, he could only temporarily suppress the doubts in his heart.

Throughout the journey, Qing Wenxu grew somewhat strange; he kept feeling as though someone was watching him, a pervasive, unblinking gaze fixed entirely upon him. The interior of the carriage also maintained an inexplicable, bone-chilling cold that made one’s heart race with terror.

Yet whenever he recalled what his father had previously told him, that men possessed abundant yang fire, and since he was in the prime of his youth, he wouldn’t be targeted by any evil spirits, he managed to steady himself. Besides, they were on their way to the ancestral hall, which housed the ancestors of the Qing family; no evil spirit whatsoever would dare to stir up trouble and wreak havoc there.

No matter how he comforted himself, however, that feeling of being watched never vanished.

The person having an equally difficult time was Qing Ling. He simply couldn’t stand the terrifying, ghastly appearance of evil spirits. Whether it was A-yuan or the female ghost, both presented horrifying visages, which inevitably caused Qing Ling to think of the evil spirit sitting right beside him.

Although Shang Zhangheng had shared intimacy with him multiple times—aside from his body being somewhat cold and his chest devoid of rising and falling movements, he was otherwise not much different from a living person, and his face was quite handsome. Yet he was a ghost after all, and he too possessed his own deathly appearance. No matter how he had died, a dead person’s visage could hardly be described as pleasing to the eye.

Qing Ling was afraid of him as well.

The journey was arduous. Suddenly, Shang Zhangheng, who was seated right beside Qing Ling, let out a soft “Oh?” and murmured, “Right beneath your family’s ancestral hall… something is hidden.”

Qing Ling was very familiar with this intrigued expression on Shang Zhangheng’s face. It wasn’t the look he wore when he wanted to do something to him, but rather the kind of look he had worn toward that white silk ribbon, or toward the female ghost currently coiled around Qing Wenxu.

Clearly, whatever was buried beneath the ancestral hall was definitely not anything good.

“I remember now.”

Patting Qing Ling’s waist, Shang Zhangheng said with a sudden flash of realization, “Although I don’t recall the exact time, someone once broke into my tomb and took away a suppressed artifact. So it was brought here.”

This revelation caused Qing Ling’s emotions to experience a violent rollercoaster ride, alternating between alarm, fear, and a helpless sort of resignation. He was grateful that the fierce ghost hadn’t remembered anything else, but his previous guess had indeed been spot-on: the Qing family really had stolen something from Shang Zhangheng’s tomb!

The carriage came to a halt at that moment. Finding it inconvenient to speak, Qing Ling waited for the two Qing brothers to dismount before softly asking, “What did you mean just now when you said I have no yang fire?”

“Mhm, otherwise?” Shang Zhangheng chuckled lowly. “If the Qing family hadn’t sent you away to Dragon-Slaying Mountain and forcefully bound you to me in a marriage contract, how could you possibly have lived until today?”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Qing Ling spoke at a rapid pace. “Why don’t I have any yang fire?”

Living people had yang fire; was he somehow no longer a living person?

“I don’t know,” Shang Zhangheng answered candidly. “Your fate is rare in its wretchedness, but this physical body of yours is also flawed. Why not ask your good ‘father’? He ought to know.”

Asking had yielded nothing. Ignoring him, Qing Ling brushed aside the arm wrapped around his waist and stepped down from the carriage on his own.

The Qing family’s ancestral hall was not the ancient, grand estate Qing Ling had imagined, nor was it particularly imposing. It was a two-courtyard compound; upon entering the gate, one faced the main hall, flanked by wing rooms on both sides.

The Second Branch couple also stepped down from the carriage while servants carried the so-called sacrificial offerings into the courtyard. Qing Ling swept a rough glance over them with a hint of confusion: did the Qing family consist of only this handful of people? Were there truly no other collateral branches at all?

Qing Congnan happened to walk over at that moment. His expression looked no different from usual; he even smiled slightly at his three sons before turning his gaze to Qing Ling. “Don’t let the smallness of the ancestral hall fool you, our ancestors belonged to a prominent, high-ranking household and even served as officials in the past. Come, later we will offer incense to our predecessors, enter your name into the genealogy book, and that will mark your official return to the clan.”

Qing Ling nodded.

Qing Congnan continued, “Furthermore, your birth mother passed away early, and you were raised outside all these years. Father truly feels deeply apologetic toward the two of you. Today, in the ancestral genealogy, I will register you as the son of the primary wife, Madam Qing-Shen. That will make you the Third Young Master of the Qing family’s direct lineage, consider it some compensation from your father. Surely your birth mother can now rest in peace in the netherworld.”

Upon hearing these words, Qing Wenxu’s expression underwent a drastic shift, while Qing Wenlin frowned deeply.

Ever since Qing Ling had returned, he had been stowed away in the backyard. Qing Wenxu had initially assumed he was merely an illegitimate son picked up from the outside and hadn’t paid him any mind at all. But if he was going to be registered as the son of the primary wife, that was an entirely different matter!

Moreover, this Qing Ling was thoroughly bizarre. Ever since he came back, the estate had known not a single moment of peace.

Qing Ling remained unimpressed.

He certainly didn’t believe Qing Congnan had suddenly developed a paternal conscience; there was bound to be a trap hidden in this arrangement.

Furthermore, from the moment he stepped into the courtyard, he had sensed what Shang Zhangheng had mentioned, something hidden beneath the ancestral hall. Though he couldn’t tell what it was, the entire ancestral hall radiated an inexplicable gloominess, exuding a bizarre, eerie chill.