Through the thin red gauze, Fu Songcheng could even feel the chilling, ice-cellar-cold yin energy radiating from that hand.
It was the matchmaker.
But the once-festive matchmaker now radiated the aura of an undertaker.
“Bride…”
The matchmaker’s voice drifted in eerily through the red gauze.
Her voice was pressed extremely low now—hoarse, greasy.
“You must not, by any means, lift the curtain. If the dead’s yin energy collides with the red joy on your body, it will bring great disaster… Just sit quietly.”
Fu Songcheng’s fingers hovered in midair.
Through the red gauze, he stared coldly at that withered hand.
He could clearly distinguish the warning in the matchmaker’s tone.
A few seconds later, he slowly withdrew his hand, tucking the dagger back into his sleeve, and leaned back against the sedan’s soft cushion.
He closed his eyes, holding his breath and concentrating, using the sounds outside to judge the situation.
On the street.
Half was vivid red like fire; half was pallid white like paper.
Yu Huaiting was extremely displeased.
Not only because they’d encountered opposing players, but even more because this “wedding”—which he’d secretly been looking forward to, even if it was fake—had been forcibly interrupted by these unlucky things.
“Get lost.”
Yu Huaiting didn’t raise his volume, but his voice carried undisguised killing intent, clearly reaching every ear in the dead-silent street.
He looked down at the player holding the portrait, his chin lifted slightly, his gaze contemptuous and arrogant, like a lofty tyrant driving away stray dogs by the roadside.
“A good dog doesn’t block the way. Take your dead man and get the hell out of my sight.”
The moment that outrageously arrogant line came out, the atmosphere around them instantly pulled taut to the extreme.
The wedding NPCs gasped in fright, terrified the words would enrage the vengeful spirits opposite.
Yet the player holding the portrait wasn’t provoked.
He merely watched Yu Huaiting quietly for a few seconds, then—to everyone’s surprise—slowly took a step to the side.
As he moved, the coffin-bearing procession behind him seemed to receive some silent command, retreating in perfect unison, soundlessly, to both sides of the street.
In the middle of the narrow street, they cleared a path just wide enough for the wedding procession to pass.
Two rows of white-clad funeral attendants stood along both sides of the street, heads bowed, deathly still.
In the center was the passage left for the red-topped bridal sedan.
“Move.” Yu Huaiting coldly gave the order.
The wedding procession set off again, trembling with fear.
The musicians didn’t dare play in front of the funeral procession, so they could only grit their teeth and shuffle forward with stiff steps.
The sound of hooves rose again on the bluestone—clop, clop, clop—sounding especially abrupt in the oppressive atmosphere.
Yu Huaiting rode at the front, entering that corridor formed by the funeral procession lining both sides.
His eyes were locked dead on the player holding the portrait, not letting a single subtle movement escape him.
As the tall red horse passed shoulder to shoulder with the pure-white-clad player, the player suddenly moved.
His movement wasn’t fast—even somewhat sluggish.
He slowly freed one hand and reached toward the guide NPC beside him.
That NPC carried a bamboo basket full of white circular paper money.
The player’s pale fingers dipped into the basket and grabbed a large handful of coarse paper money.
Then—just as Yu Huaiting’s horse had passed, and Fu Songcheng’s ornate red-topped bridal sedan happened to reach right before him—the player suddenly raised his hand and flicked his wrist hard.
Crash—
A great sheet of pallid paper money, mixed with thick yin energy, flew straight at the bright red bridal sedan and at Yu Huaiting on horseback, flinging into their faces.
It was the most vicious curse upon a wedding procession.
The instant the man’s paper money left his hand, the killing intent long suppressed in Yu Huaiting’s eyes erupted like a volcano.
His right hand, hanging at his side, suddenly flung outward.
A very faint whistle of air suddenly sounded.
Two blue cross-shaped boomerang darts, like two bolts of lightning, tore through the sky full of fluttering white paper money, hurtling straight at the player’s throat and face.
Yu Huaiting rarely used throwing weapons—usually he just hauled out his greatsword and went at people. But he didn’t want to turn this wedding completely into a funeral, so he could only suppress his frustration and use this method to take the man’s life.
Facing the sudden lethal attack, the player didn’t dodge. His free hand snapped up and accurately met one of the darts heading for his throat.
That dart actually burrowed into his palm and vanished!
However, Yu Huaiting’s attacks never came in just one strike.
The instant he caught the first dart, the second had already arced through the air. He had no time to pull back—he could only jerk his body aside, and the dart grazed past his cheek.
Shh—
The faint sound of a blade slicing flesh.
A long, thin bloody gash instantly appeared on the player’s pale cheek.
Bright red blood immediately seeped out, sliding down his jawline and dripping onto his pure white coarse mourning clothes.
Bright red blood, deathly white cloth.
Blood on mourning robes—a great omen of ill fortune!
The player tilted his head slightly, letting the blood on his face flow, his hollow, deathly still eyes staring through the fluttering paper money, fixed dead on Yu Huaiting, who had straightened back up.
The corner of his mouth very, very slowly twisted into an extremely strange, distorted arc.
He was smiling.
Still provoking.
The second dart completed a perfect loop through the air and flew back into Yu Huaiting’s hand, vanishing into his palm.
Yu Huaiting sat on horseback, looking down at him, struggling hard to contain his fury.
If Fu Songcheng weren’t in the bridal sedan behind him, he absolutely would have drawn his greatsword on the spot and split this man—along with the portrait in his hands—clean in two.
But the brief clash had already been enough for Yu Huaiting to assess the opponent’s strength.
This man definitely had no small number of items and skills.
The first instance he and Fu Songcheng had teamed up for, Avalon, could be considered a novice instance. Their second instance was already matching opponents close to A-rank instance difficulty—that wasn’t normal.
The wedding procession didn’t stop because of the brief conflict. In extreme terror, they quickened their pace, as if fierce ghosts were chasing them from behind, hastily passing the funeral procession.
And inside the red-topped bridal sedan in the middle of the procession.
Fu Songcheng sat quietly in the darkness.
Just now, he’d heard Yu Huaiting’s driving-away, the two sharp whistles, and the sound of flesh being cut—all of it crystal clear.
He was ready to fight at any moment, but the situation hadn’t escalated further.
Just then, a sinister wind suddenly swept up outside the sedan.
Amid the sky full of fluttering white paper money, one piece happened to slip in through the tiny gap between the sedan curtain and the compartment’s edge.
The paper money spun through the air, drifting slowly down, and landed right on Fu Songcheng’s lap.
Fu Songcheng’s attention was partly drawn by the paper money. He put away his dagger and carefully touched the paper.
The instant his fingertip touched the paper money—
Fu Songcheng’s pupils contracted sharply.
This wasn’t the texture of paper at all.
An extremely yin, cold aura, like a venomous snake, shot through his fingertip into his palm in an instant, piercing straight to the bone, so cold that his entire arm couldn’t help but tremble slightly.
By the faint light leaking through the sedan’s gap, Fu Songcheng vaguely saw that on this white circular paper money, drawn in a dull dark red pigment, was a twisted, complex rune.
The lines of the rune seemed to be struggling, writhing in pain.
This wasn’t ordinary paper money.
Fu Songcheng immediately summoned the system panel and, with a flick of his mind, properly stored the paper money in the system’s independent space backpack.
This was definitely some kind of marker the opposing player had deliberately left, or some extremely vicious curse item.
Did Yu Huaiting have this kind of paper money on him?
Fu Songcheng felt somewhat anxious to see Yu Huaiting, to confirm the situation outside.
After passing the funeral procession, the wedding procession’s suona horns sounded again—but the sound was no longer a festive tune. It was a funeral dirge.
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