Chapter 115 - 108: Lantern Bride

Chapter 115: Chapter 108: Lantern BrideFlower Market Street is Liu Jiaotian’s Western-style house, complete with a small garden. She opened the door, walked through the garden, and arrived at the front door. In front of the door, a threshold was made of glutinous rice, which gleamed silver-white under the moonlight. Liu Jiaotian gently opened the door and went upstairs. At the entrance to the second floor, there was also a glutinous rice threshold, along with the sound of clanking iron chains. Liu Jiaotian opened the door and switched on the light. Inside the room, Tong Douzi lay on the sofa, while Li Shuangyi was lying on a sturdy iron bed. Chains were extended from the bed to manacle his wrists and ankles. He seemed a bit impatient, moving his limbs vigorously. "Brother Li, with Tong Douzi accompanying you, can’t you stay calm?" Liu Jiaotian chided, waking up Tong Douzi, who was asleep on the sofa. The two of them took turns sweeping the glutinous rice on the second floor and clearing the rice at the main entrance. After they had finished sweeping and cleaning, they sprinkled fresh glutinous rice. Li Shuangyi’s face was covered with white fuzz, and two tusks had sprouted from his mouth. After Liu Jiaotian was done with the rice, she let Tong Douzi enter the room first and then sat down next to the bed, reaching her arm to Li Shuangyi’s mouth. Li Shuangyi bit down on her arm like a lotus root, greedily sucking the blood. "Drink up, drink up..." Only when Liu Jiaotian could no longer bear the blood loss, her complexion turning pale, did she reluctantly grab some glutinous rice and scatter it on Li Shuangyi’s face. The glutinous rice, cultivated by Granny Mi, was extremely effective against zombies. When the glutinous rice touched Li Shuangyi, it immediately turned black. He jerked his head back as if lashed, releasing his bite. To calm Li Shuangyi down, Liu Jiaotian opened a drawer and took out a yellow talisman, which she affixed to his forehead. Immediately, Li Shuangyi became as still as if he were in a deep slumber, motionless. "Brother Li, I’ll take you to bask in the moonlight later." After taking a bath and changing her clothes, Liu Jiaotian called Tong Douzi out of the room. The two of them unlocked Li Shuangyi’s manacles, moved him onto a chair, and carried him to the balcony. Liu Jiaotian held a Dao Bell and shook it a few times. Only after it had gathered more rust did she remove the yellow talisman from Li Shuangyi’s forehead and took out a copper coin mask to put over his face. The Dao Bell allowed Li Shuangyi to have a brief moment of clarity, during which his intelligence was low, but he could utter a few human words. And when the copper coin mask sounded spontaneously, it indicated that Li Shuangyi’s clarity was rapidly fading and he needed a new yellow talisman, or else an unrestrained "zombie" could not be subdued by Liu Jiaotian. Liu Jiaotian didn’t resign to fate that day. She couldn’t bear to let Brother Li leave this world, so she carried Li Shuangyi back home and then sought out her own great-aunt to turn Li Shuangyi into a zombie! No matter if Brother Li became a blood-drinking monster, she didn’t want him to leave. But zombies are dangerous after all. Liu Jiaotian was worried that Brother Li might become fierce, a malevolent spirit, and harm people, so she took extreme precautions on every front and kept in close contact with Granny Mi, using various methods to prevent Brother Li from turning into a "Black Zombie." "Brother Li, if we had married back then, perhaps kids would now be running all around." Liu Jiaotian leaned her head on Li Shuangyi’s shoulder. Li Shuangyi, meanwhile, looked up at the moonlight, expelled a cloudy breath, and caused the copper coin mask to jingle. Then he vaguely praised, "Beautiful, the white moonlight is truly beautiful." ... The moonlight was beautiful indeed, but beneath it, many sins and oddities were stirring restlessly. Taiping Road is the most bustling street in Ping Shui Prefecture; even late into the night, it was still crowded with people. The high-end nightclubs shone with multicolored neon signs, and diners at the food stalls indulged heartily in their meals. Yet inexplicably, a wedding procession appeared on this busy street. The wedding party, dressed in festive red, played suonas and beat wedding gongs, carrying a red bridal sedan through the streets. Curiously, the coachmen waiting for fares outside the nightclubs, the drunken patrons, and the diners at the food stalls - not a single soul paid any attention to this deep-night wedding procession. Even the red lantern hanging high in the sky – a magic artifact of the Night Patrol Deity – failed to cast light upon the procession bearing the bride. "Great joys, great joys!" The bridal party moved swiftly, disappearing every ten or so meters, only to reappear hundreds of meters away. They went from Taiping Road to Taiping West Road, and then from Taiping West Road to Cotton Street, finally stopping at the doorway of the Zhou Family’s Troupe. The sedan chair came to rest, its frame adorned with a white lantern. The sedan curtain was lifted, and a bride dressed in wedding attire, her head covered with a red veil, stepped down, holding the white lantern, and proceeded toward the Zhou Family’s Troupe. Neither Zhou Xuan, Yuan Buyu, nor Zhou Lingyi sensed her presence, but... The Ancestor Tree did, branches wildly growing, reaching the ground, their tips faintly gleaming with blood light. The Lantern Bride, sensing the Ancestor Tree’s awakening, knelt on both knees, offering three resounding kowtows to the tree. Each kowtow seemed to convey a message. Once she finished the three kowtows, the willow tree once again fell into a deep slumber, its branches retracting to their normal length. After a fourth kowtow, the bride stood up, holding the white lantern and proceeding toward the courtyard of the Zhou Family’s Troupe, passing through the outer yard, through a significant portion of the inner yard, and then through the tightly-closed wooden door of Zhou Xuan’s room. Her steps did not halt as she moved towards the bedside. When she was merely a step away from Zhou Xuan, she gazed at his face, seemingly recognizing Zhou Xuan, giving a slight nod of acknowledgment, then took another step and entered Zhou Xuan’s body. ... Zhou Xuan was meditating in the Divine Revelation Secret Realm, attempting to connect with the opportunity from the second incense. This time, he felt his connection had become exceptionally solid. "Hee hee... hee hee..." "Ha ha... ha..." The woman’s laughter echoed clearly in his meditation. Even the indistinct voices he heard around the woman last time became clear today. He heard those people shouting. "First bow to heaven and earth for the perfect match, may the union be full and complete." "Second bow to the high hall to express gratitude for the parents’ nurturing." "The couple bows to each other, wishing for an early birth of a noble child, and to grow old together!" Then came the sounds of celebration after the wedding, the suona music, and the clinking of drink cups, all filled with a festive atmosphere. "No wonder that woman had a sincere smile, she was getting married. No wonder I couldn’t make out what they were saying last time, but I could feel the joy and celebration, they were actually getting married." This time Zhou Xuan heard everything clearly and plainly, but he was even more puzzled. Why was he trying to find the opportunity at the second incense Tangkou yet he heard the noise of others celebrating their marriage? Just as he was pondering this, suddenly, Zhou Xuan, who was in the Secret Realm, felt a weight on his back. He immediately cut off the meditation within the Secret Realm and stood in the Black Water of Divine Revelation Secret Realm. Zhou Xuan first looked down and saw a pair of women’s legs stretching out from his waist. The woman was wearing red silk trousers and her feet were bound in a pair of blood-colored embroidered shoes. Her two delicate hands, one resting on Zhou Xuan’s shoulder, and the other holding a white lantern. "I actually have a woman on my back." Zhou Xuan wanted to turn around and see what the woman behind him looked like, but found that he could no longer move. The sensation from the first incense returned. When Zhou Xuan saw the Paperman Boatman during the first incense, his body became immovable. Now, he kept his head down looking at the path, only able to see in the murky reflection in the Black Water, he faintly saw that the woman on his back was wearing a bridal veil. The Lantern Bride. "How could this bride be my Tangkou opportunity, What kind of Tangkou has a bride coming out of it?" He had just started pondering when a voice came to his ear. The woman behind him actually began to weep, her plaintive voice singing a mournful melody. "Lantern without shadow~ bright moonlight~ the bride weeps longing for her groom~" "The bride weeps longing for her groom..." The festive wedding attire, yet holding a dismal white lantern, the bride was also weeping, it seemed there was an extreme sadness. Joy and sorrow, white and red, Combined with the eerie singing melody and lyrics, Zhou Xuan felt the chills. "Lantern without shadow... Drip! Drip! Drip... bright moonlight..." From the singing of the bride, Zhou Xuan seemed to also hear the sound of dripping. After the dripping sound, his head seemed to move a little, and he raised his face to look up, It was not water that was dripping, but blood. Every time the bride sang the verse, a drop of blood would fall from above, landing on the white lantern. Drop by drop of blood fell, Zhou Xuan watched carefully—despite feeling a bit uneasy, this was the opportunity of the second incense, he had to see clearly. Gradually, Zhou Xuan realized that the blood drops were not falling randomly; the first dozen drops of blood actually formed lines. The lines wreathed whimsically, aside from the striking blood color, they had a unique beauty. Zhou Xuan calmed his mind and watched, The blood formed from dots to lines, and then dozens of lines created a rough pattern; it was the head of a bride—with a red veil. Looking at the pattern of the lines, Zhou Xuan felt the Blood Map was not finished. Yet the blood stopped dripping, and the bride behind him was also silent. Only leaving that white lantern with the Blood Map swaying in the wind of the Divine Revelation Secret Realm... ... Zhou Xuan woke up, grabbed his pocket watch to look, it was seven o’clock in the morning. After dressing up, making sure to have his journal on him, he freshened up and went to look through newspaper in the gatehouse, searching for any news about the Blood Well Society gathering, but found nothing. Zhou Xuan then had breakfast and went to borrow drawing paper, brushes, and cinnabar paint from Xu Li, and returned to his room. He wanted to draw out the pattern on the white lantern, and then ask Zhou Lingyi and Yuan Buyu what the bride on his back signified. Zhou Xuan had a foundation in calligraphy, as calligraphy and painting went hand in hand since ancient times; if one was good at writing, even without much depth in painting, they could still draft a few strokes. Whether it captured the spirit or not was another matter, but at least the general form wouldn’t be too off. He dipped his brush in cinnabar and traced the pattern on the paper. He drew very detailed, and if he could not remember some details clearly, he would put down the brush and take another look into the Secret Realm with his mind. It didn’t take long for the portrait of the bride’s head to be partially completed. When he reached the part of the red veil, Zhou Xuan forgot how to continue the line, so he once again immersed his mind into the Secret Realm. Not long into the observation, he keenly perceived a burning sensation and hastily returned to his senses, only to see that the drawing paper had caught fire, and a small part was already burnt to ash. The fire had incidentally ignited a magazine placed next to it. "How did it catch fire!" Zhou Xuan rushed to fetch a slightly damp face towel and patted it over the table to extinguish the flames. "Where did this fire come from?" Zhou Xuan opened a drawer, with a pack of cigarettes and matches lying quietly inside, showing no sign of igniting a fire. No source of flames, no ember, yet a sudden burst of fire broke out. "Could it be the painting?" Zhou Xuan was somewhat incredulous, and he decided to redraw the pattern he had just traced. With the experience from the first attempt, the second drawing was much smoother, and when he’d drawn about half of it again, a blue flame arose from the center of the painting. Zhou Xuan picked up the drawing paper and gazed at the fire, muttering, "This painting is really strange..."