Chapter 45

Chapter 45

The antique shop was at the end of the pedestrian street outside the mall, and the entrance already had a seriously vintage vibe.

The four of them walked in and found out the place actually had two floors. The first floor displayed some larger antique pieces—carved wardrobes, dressing tables, official's hat chairs, and so on—set up in the middle to look like an old-fashioned living space. Among them were even a few mannequins, dressed either in Qing Dynasty costumes straight out of a zombie film or in red wedding gowns. Real or not, they were pretty interesting to look at.

Wei Yao leaned in, staring at the Qing official robe. "Is this outfit real or fake?"

Wen Dajiang noticed that the hem of the Qing official robe even had dark red stains on it, looking kinda dirty, and said offhandedly, "It's probably real—look, there are still marks on the hem."

Wei Yao rolled his eyes. "Maybe it's just artificially aged."

Xu Muchan listened to the two of them discuss and glanced at the mannequins out of curiosity. The mannequins didn't have heads—instead, there was a stand where the head should be, for displaying the matching hats.

The Qing official robe came with a hat with a peacock feather, while the red wedding gown was paired with a heavily embroidered red veil covered in translucent beads.

Xu Muchan couldn't tell real from fake, but he could tell both outfits were finely made just from the craftsmanship, and couldn't help but take a few more looks.

The first-floor showroom wasn't big, and there was no staff around. The four of them finished browsing in no time. Wei Yao didn't find anything he liked and headed upstairs. "Come on, let's check the upper floor."

Xu Muchan started heading for the stairs, but as he passed the mannequin in the red wedding gown, it suddenly tipped over toward him. Xu Muchan reacted fast and reached out to catch it, so it didn't crash to the floor—but the beaded red veil just happened to land on his head before slipping down onto his arm.

Wei Xilou, standing next to him, reached out to straighten the mannequin, then picked up the red veil hanging from Xu Muchan's arm and placed it back in its original spot. "You okay?"

Xu Muchan shook his head and looked at the straightened mannequin. "Good thing it didn't fall over."

Otherwise, they might've gotten blamed for breaking it.

After that little incident, the four of them headed up to the second floor. The lighting was dimmer, the decor classier, and definitely not as flashy as the first floor.

Someone who was either the owner or an employee sat behind the counter and casually told them to look around.

Xu Muchan didn't intend to buy anything—he was just there to look around. Wei Xilou, meanwhile, didn't think anything was worth a second look, his eyes basically glued to Xu Muchan the whole time. In the end, only Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang muttered to each other for a while before picking out a jade ornament.

Wei Yao called the owner over to ask the price. The owner held up one hand and shook it.

"Five thousand?" Wei Yao said cheerfully. "That's not bad. I'll take it."

The owner said, "Fifty thousand."

Wei Yao was stunned. "That expensive?"

The owner rolled his eyes with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. "This is top-grade mutton-fat white jade. Look how oily and smooth it is—feel it..."

Wei Yao looked at it more closely and had to admit it did seem pretty good, but he still hesitated. "Can you lower the price a bit?"

The owner said, "We're having a grand opening special—I can give you 12% off."

Even with the discount, it was still forty-four grand. Wei Yao winced and glanced at his savings account. He could afford it, but his money was only going out, with nothing coming in, so dropping that much money at once stung a bit.

Still, thinking that making his grandpa happy might get him even more in return, he sucked it up and said, "Fine, wrap it up for me."

The owner quickly wrapped it up. Wei Yao paid and held it happily, saying, "I'm heading home now—gotta get this to my grandpa while it's still fresh."

Wen Dajiang waved him off like he was shooing a fly. "Get lost!"

Wei Yao left, and Wen Dajiang looked at the old and young pair standing side by side, feeling oddly out of place, for some reason. He thought about it and figured it must be because he was wearing a neon green T-shirt today, which didn't match their vibe. So he rubbed his hands together, said he was off to the internet café to play games, and quickly slipped away.

The annoying little pests were finally gone. Wei Xilou's furrowed brow smoothed out, and he smiled at Xu Muchan. "Heading to the mall?"

Xu Muchan couldn't think of another excuse, so he just went along with it.

On the way to the mall, he remembered the jade piece Wei Yao had bought. He didn't know jade, but he was good at reading people—when Wei Yao was paying, the owner looked like his eyebrows were about to fly off his forehead. "Was that jade Wei Yao bought real?"

Wei Xilou said, "It's real, but not good material. At current market prices... five thousand at most."

The owner had made nearly forty grand off Wei Yao, crying tears of joy on the inside.

"..." Xu Muchan was silent for a moment, then looked at Wei Xilou with a hint of accusation. "You could tell—why didn't you say anything earlier?"

Wei Xilou asked in return, even more puzzled than Xu Muchan. "Why would I say anything?"

The little pests were too annoying; him not laying a hand on them was already an act of great mercy.

Xu Muchan realized he'd asked a stupid question and quietly turned his head back. "Let's go look at clothes."

Xu Muchan often found himself puzzled. Wei Xilou was clearly an old relic from the Republic of China era, yet he seemed completely at ease in modern society. For instance, Xu Muchan himself had never set foot in these luxury stores with prices that could scare a person to death.

Before, it was because he was poor. Now, it was because he was used to being poor.

Even if he had money now, he'd rather save it and spend it where it mattered. These terrifyingly expensive luxury stores—he wouldn't even glance at them when passing by.

But Wei Xilou walked in like he was returning home. He circled the clothing racks, picked out a few pieces, and just as Xu Muchan was about to take them to try on, he heard Wei Xilou tell the sales associate, "Not these few—everything else, wrap it up."

He even recited Xu Muchan's size. The sales associate's eyes lit up at that, and she gleefully called over her colleagues to help organize and package the clothes.

Xu Muchan held back as long as he could, then finally said, "I haven't tried on a single piece. What if they don't fit? And there are so many—I can't possibly wear them all."

Wei Xilou said, "Achan looks good in anything. No need to try."

Xu Muchan said, "This is wasteful."

Wei Xilou disagreed. "How is this wasteful? It's not like there's no space at home. I've already contacted someone to expand the walk-in closet and enlarge your study. Now that's what I'd call wasteful—all those empty rooms in the house."

"..." Xu Muchan felt exhausted and, figuring it wasn't his money being spent anyway, silently endured it.

Wei Xilou, meanwhile, ruffled his hair and said, "Is Achan worried we don't have enough money?"

He then laughed delightedly, as if he found Xu Muchan's worrying adorable.

Xu Muchan couldn't help secretly rolling his eyes.

Wei Xilou saw it and laughed even more joyfully.

He took Xu Muchan through every men's clothing store in the mall worth mentioning, buying not just clothes but also watches and various accessories.

Xu Muchan had felt pained by the spending at first, but by the end he'd gone somewhat numb. Then a hint of worry crept in, and he even began to suspect Wei Xilou might be involved in some illegal activities behind his back—where else could he have so much money?

So much that it seemed impossible to run out.

So much so that when they got home that evening, Xu Muchan felt this question warranted a serious discussion. He put on a stern face and looked at Wei Xilou. "I have a question."

Wei Xilou hummed in acknowledgment and looked at him with leisurely composure. "What question does Achan have?"

Xu Muchan hesitated for a moment, then said, "You haven't done anything illegal, have you?"

Wei Xilou actually gave it a serious thought, then said, "I'm not familiar enough with the law yet, but Old Man Wei introduced me to a pretty good lawyer, so probably not."

Xu Muchan's eyelids twitched at his words: "Then where did you get all that money?"

Wei Xilou smiled and reached out to pinch Xu Muchan's cheek, but Xu Muchan pushed his hand away with a serious look, so he could only sigh and rub his fingertips: "Achan forgot, the Wei family tomb had quite a few good things buried in it."

"Just gold ingots alone, there's at least..." Wei Xilou thought for a moment, realizing he hadn't paid much attention to the exact number, and could only estimate: "At least ten chests, I'd say."

"These were all dug up from the Wei family ancestral grave, and the family genealogy was in there too. Old Man Wei's already gone through the proper channels to make it legit. I split the stuff with him—I got the lion's share, he got the smaller cut. The antiques that were hard to unload, I gave to him, but the gold and silver, which were easy to move, all went to me."

Xu Muchan had long known that quite a few good things had been dug up from the Wei family ancestral grave, but he didn't really have any idea how much they were worth.

But now hearing Wei Xilou say there were at least ten chests of gold alone... he remembered those heavy wooden crates he'd seen in the storeroom, then quietly pulled out his phone, opened Alipay to check the current gold price, and went quiet.

Wei Xilou poured himself a cup of tea and watched Xu Muchan's ears slowly turn red as he held the cup, and said, sounding pleased: "That card I gave you—you haven't even looked at it, have you?"

Xu Muchan shook his head. He usually ate at the cafeteria during school, and Xu Zhifei had already loaded his meal card with plenty of money, so there was really nothing he needed to spend money on.

Wei Xilou set down his teacup: "Achan, you can take a look now."

Xu Muchan quietly dug out the bank card Wei Xilou used to send him his allowance, downloaded the banking app, logged in, and after counting the zeros in the balance, he finally realized he'd been worrying over nothing.

But you couldn't really blame him—who told Wei Xilou to always look like he was walking the line of the law?

Xu Muchan stood up, ears red, and said, "I'm going to shower and sleep!"

After his shower, Xu Muchan saw the two pillows on the bed, thought for a second, then went to knock on the door next door. Wei Xilou had just finished showering too; he came to the door casually wrapped in a towel, with water droplets still clinging to his body, not yet dried off.

The droplets rolled down the smooth, defined lines of his muscles... Xu Muchan lowered his eyes and said, "Brother, I want to sleep alone tonight."

Wei Xilou feigned confusion: "Hasn't Achan always slept alone?"

Xu Muchan: "..."

He looked up and said quickly: "I'm seventeen now, I need my own space. Anyway, don't come over tonight!"

After saying that, Xu Muchan turned and left.

Wei Xilou watched his retreating back, slowly knitting his brows.

Could Achan have gotten possessed by some ghost or spirit? Otherwise, why would he not want to sleep with him?

Xu Muchan went back to his room, stuffed the extra pillow from the bed into the closet, wrapped himself up completely in the only thin blanket he had, and only then fell asleep, satisfied.

In the dead of night, he dreamed of the Black River again.

Xu Muchan woke from his haze and realized that this time he seemed to be at the upper reaches of the Black River. Calling it the upper reaches wasn't quite right either, because when he looked ahead, he still couldn't see where the river began—only vaguely making out what looked like endless mountains in the distance, with a towering, sky-blotting tree at their base. The huge moon overhead rose slowly from that giant tree, looking from a distance as if it were hanging from its branches.

Xu Muchan looked at the moon overhead, feeling that the orb, hanging so close to the ground, had a sinister air to it.

He turned to look across the river, and saw that on the opposite bank, which had always been shrouded in darkness and void, something was faintly stirring.

Because it was wrapped in darkness, Xu Muchan couldn't see clearly, but the distinct feeling of being watched told him that something on the other side of the Black River seemed to be looking back at him.

This feeling made Xu Muchan uncomfortable and uneasy.

He instinctively turned to walk away, wanting to put more distance between himself and the Black River, while constantly reminding himself that this was a dream and he needed to wake up fast.

But he hadn't gotten far before his hurried steps slowed—in the darkness not far ahead, a red figure stood, having appeared there at some unknown moment.

It looked like a person in a red wedding dress, a red veil covering their head, pale hands with bright red nail polish, hands folded over their lower abdomen, standing there silently, facing Xu Muchan.

That red wedding dress looked somewhat familiar—the exact same one Xu Muchan had seen in the antique shop during the day.

Xu Muchan wasn't sure if this was a coincidence or if there was something wrong with the wedding dress in the antique shop. He stood his ground, alert, not moving.

But even though he didn't move, the red wedding dress did, gliding straight toward him.

Xu Muchan turned and ran, but his legs were clearly no match for the red wedding dress's drifting speed. Soon, he felt an ice-cold hand clamp onto his arm.

He turned back and saw the red wedding dress right beside him, its voice faint and eerie: "Can you do me a favor?"

Xu Muchan secretly struggled to free his arm while saying coldly, "No. Go find someone else."

The red wedding dress didn't let go. The fingers with bright red nail polish looked slender but gripped him like iron clamps, and it repeated the question: "Can you do me a favor?"

Xu Muchan said again, "No."

The red wedding dress completely ignored Xu Muchan's words, like a broken record, repeating over and over: "Can you do me a favor?"

She asked faster and faster, the frequency increasing, countless identical questions echoing around Xu Muchan's ears, scrambling to burrow in until his ears throbbed dully.

He stopped answering and instead desperately wrenched his arm free, covered his ears, and ran in the opposite direction.

But no matter which way Xu Muchan ran, the red wedding dress's voice followed relentlessly behind him. Frustrated and agitated, Xu Muchan clutched the Mountain God Amulet and spun around, angry: "Are you done or not?!"

But there was no red wedding dress behind him, and those repetitive muttering voices had also fallen silent.

Xu Muchan gripped the Mountain God Amulet, warily observing his surroundings, when a chill suddenly crept up his back. Before he could turn his head, his vision was filled with red.

A heavily embroidered red veil was held in a pair of hands and draped over Xu Muchan's head. A voice whispered eerily in his ear: "You agreed before. I don't want to marry that man—my beloved is already waiting for me... so... you go marry him in my place."

The moment those words finished, joyful wedding music sounded in Xu Muchan's ears, and the surroundings seemed to shift. No longer was it the moonlit bank of the Black River, but another place entirely.

Xu Muchan lifted the veil and found himself sitting in a sedan chair, his clothes transformed into an elaborate, heavy red wedding dress.

The sedan chair looked very old-fashioned and was extremely cramped, barely fitting one person. Xu Muchan was tall and could barely turn around. Where the door should have been, there was no door at all—it was sealed shut, with only a palm-sized window on each side.

Xu Muchan removed the phoenix crown from his head and carefully leaned toward the window to look outside.

Outside was still night, but it wasn't dark. The torches held by the procession following the bridal sedan lit up the surroundings brightly.

But the people in the procession looked vaguely strange and off. Yet the window was too small, limiting Xu Muchan's view, so he could only turn to the other window to look out.

Just as he looked out, one of the people walking ahead happened to turn his head toward the sedan. Xu Muchan finally understood why the people in the procession looked so strange and off—

They weren't people at all.

They were paper effigies.

These paper effigies were made convincingly lifelike—from behind, you couldn't tell them apart from real people. But when they turned their heads, their paper-white faces had two obvious red blushes painted on, their eyes were simple black line drawings, yet the black pupils could move nimbly.

At that moment, the paper effigy that had turned its head shifted its pupils, then slid them from the front to the back of its eyes, looking at Xu Muchan sideways. Its stiff mouth corners curled up in an eerie smile.

Xu Muchan jerked upright, backing away from the window, his heart pounding wildly.

This place was truly bizarre. Recalling what the red wedding dress had said about "marrying in her place," a sense of foreboding surged in Xu Muchan's chest. He frantically rummaged through the layers of the red wedding dress to find the Mountain God Amulet.

But strangely, the amulet that should have been hanging around his neck was gone.

In the past, whether or not he needed to use the Mountain God Amulet, as long as it hung safely around his neck, Xu Muchan wouldn't panic too much. But now, the Mountain God Amulet was missing.

Xu Muchan felt a surge of panic he could barely contain, but he forced himself to calm down.

Something felt off. If the Mountain God Amulet had really been taken off, he should have already turned into a ghost by now.

But when he checked his skin and nails, and felt for his heartbeat, there wasn't a single sign of him turning into a ghost.

So either this place was weird, or... the Mountain God Amulet was still on him and had never been taken off—his senses were just being messed with.

The second possibility calmed Xu Muchan down a lot. He gripped the red bridal veil tightly, telling himself not to panic and to just see what these things wanted.

It seemed to be night all the time here. Xu Muchan couldn't tell how much time was passing, only that the sedan chair was carried for a long, long time before finally stopping.

The wedding music stopped too, and everything went dead quiet.

Xu Muchan held his breath and pressed up against the window to peek out—and came face-to-face with a snow-white face.

That face was pressed right up against the window, one eye peering into the sedan. Xu Muchan nearly jumped out of his skin.

The black eyes on that face swiveled toward Xu Muchan, like they were smiling, and then a weird voice said, "Open the sedan door!"

Xu Muchan quickly sat back down, thought for a second, and clumsily threw the red veil back over his head.

With his sight blocked, Xu Muchan had to rely on his ears. He heard something open up ahead—first a creak, then wind blowing in. The sedan door must have been opened.

Someone stood by the sedan, holding out a hand to Xu Muchan inside, and said, "Please step down, bride!"

Xu Muchan didn't dare actually touch the paper effigies, so he just barely rested his hand on theirs, then hunched over and climbed out of the sedan.

As he stepped onto the plank below, he saw it was intricately carved with dragons and phoenixes—and realized this was the sealed sedan door from before.

He remembered seeing something online about those "ten-thousand-work" bridal sedans; this looked about the same. The sedan was decked out in lavish decoration, but the inside was super cramped. Once the bride got in, the door was sealed shut and wouldn't open until they reached the destination.

Beneath all that splendor lurked a bone-chilling ghostly vibe.

Xu Muchan took in his surroundings through the tiny space under his feet. Led by the paper effigy in front, he stepped over a high threshold, then passed through two more doors before they stopped.

The family that female ghost was originally supposed to marry into must have been some high-and-mighty household with tons of rules. Along the way, every time they passed a door, the paper effigies would chant a long, barely understandable string of blessings in shrill voices.

Only then could Xu Muchan keep going.

Now the paper effigy started chanting again, and when it finished, it said, "Please enter, bride!"

Xu Muchan heard a door open, and then two paper effigies—probably maidservants or something—came to support him, one on each side, guiding him inside. Finally, they sat him down next to an elaborately carved bed decked out in red.

Once he was seated, the two maidservants stood on either side of him, and heavy footsteps came toward Xu Muchan.

This person must have been high up in rank, because Xu Muchan heard the other paper effigies bowing and greeting them.

The footsteps stopped in front of Xu Muchan, and a slow, drawn-out voice said, "The groom got held up on the road and won't be back for another three days. The bride will stay here at the house for now; once the groom returns, we'll finish the wedding ceremony."

Xu Muchan let out a huge sigh of relief—he'd almost thought the person in front of him was the groom.

Not sure if the other party knew the bride had been swapped out, he could only pitch his voice high and answer, "Understood."

"The bride's had a long journey—get some good rest tonight. If you need anything, just tell the servants."

The speaker was probably an elder relative of the groom. After saying that, they turned and left, and then the door closed.

Now only Xu Muchan and the two maidservants were left in the room. Xu Muchan thought for a moment, then cautiously lifted the veil. When nobody stopped him, he took the somewhat heavy covering off.

The two maidservants on either side turned their heads at the same time to look at him. The red blotches on their cheeks made their pale faces look even more deathly, and their black pupils stared straight at Xu Muchan as they said in unison, "The bride is truly beautiful—the groom is a lucky man."