Chapter 15: This Venerable One’s First Time Seeing This Kind of Wedding Night Unveiling

Something like fleeing this wedding was obviously just wishful thinking. Shi Mei was still there, so no matter what, Mo Ran couldn't just leave.

This damned ghost mistress of ceremonies, though—wasn't it a little too fucking diligent?

Mo Ran was pale, both from anger and from the effort it took to restrain himself. Isn't it enough to just oversee the wedding rites? he grumbled to himself. How is the wedding night any of your fucking business? Besides! They're all corpses here! Rigor mortis! How the fuck would their wedding nights even work?!

As for what Chu Wanning's face looked like right now, Mo Ran was too scared to even glance. He got busy playing dumb, his eyes glued to the carpet. He really wanted to grab that ghost mistress of ceremonies, wherever it might be hiding, and roar in its face, Fuck! You! You son of a bitch! You show me how it's done, then!

The golden boy and jade maiden crowded around them, shoving them toward the back of the hall. A coffin lay there, painted a bright scarlet. It was humongous, twice the size of a normal casket, and looked exactly like the one they'd dug up before.

Chu Wanning murmured something under his breath in understanding. Not long after, Mo Ran also figured it out and let out a huge sigh of relief. Of course dead people couldn't have an actual wedding night. This so-called "wedding night" probably just meant being sealed into the same coffin for joint interment, to be "together in death."

The golden boy and jade maiden confirmed their suspicions. "Would the bride please enter the bridal chamber first."

Chu Wanning straightened out his wide sleeves and lay inside with a frosty look.

"Next, would the groom please enter the bridal chamber."

Mo Ran grabbed the edge of the coffin and paused, blinking. Chu Wanning had already occupied more than half the space inside. The coffin was spacious, but it was a bit of a squeeze for two men. He climbed into it and was inevitably forced to lay down on top of Chu Wanning's spread-out clothing, drawing an irate glare from the other man.

The golden boy and jade maiden circled the coffin and began to sing the same eerie yet sorrowful elegy as before.

"Oh luminous tide, oh sparkling waves

The waters of the great White Emperor

Upon which blossom-bearing mandarins

Come forth with flower'd beaks to greet two souls

To join them within this coffin dark

Entwined to lie within the sacred hull

Intent once sealed within the beating heart

Now known by death and all it has revealed

Henceforth these two shall pass beneath heaven

Henceforth in death their souls shall never part."

Song finished, the children stood, one to the left and one to the right, and slowly pushed the coffin lid into place. With a dull rumble, Mo Ran and Chu Wanning were soon surrounded by complete darkness as they were sealed inside.

The coffin's walls were so thick that they could speak quietly without being heard outside, but Chu Wanning raised his hand and erected a soundproofing barrier to ensure that they definitely wouldn't be detected. Having done that, the first thing he said was:

"Move over. You're on my arm."

Mo Ran stared in silence. Weren't there more pressing matters to discuss than someone being on someone else's arm? Despite grousing to himself, Mo Ran scooted over.

"Move over more. There's no room for my legs."

More scooting.

"Move more! You're right next to my face!"

"Shizun, I'm up against the side already, what else do you want?" Mo Ran whined, aggrieved.

Chu Wanning finally hmphed and went silent.

Mo Ran was crammed into the corner for a while before the coffin shook, lifted by people outside. These people started slowly moving in some unknown direction, the coffin rocking with their every step. Mo Ran strained to listen to the sounds outside as he seethed, thinking about how Shi Mei was probably trapped in a coffin with Madam Chen-Yao at this very moment. But there was nothing he could do about it.

Chu Wanning's barrier was incredible; it prevented sounds inside the coffin from getting out while allowing sounds from outside to pass through. They could hear firecrackers and suonas through the casket's sides.

"This gaggle of ghosts and demons sure are bored," said Mo Ran. "Just where are they taking these coffins?"

It was too dark inside the coffin to see Chu Wanning's face, so he could only hear his voice. "It's just like Butterfly Town's traditions; the destination should be the temple outside town."

Mo Ran nodded and concentrated on listening for a while. "Shizun, there seem to be more and more footsteps outside."

"Ghosts travel at night. All of the coffins will be carried over together. If my guess is right, the ghost mistress of ceremonies will appear in its true form at the temple to draw 'merits'14 from the newlywed couples."

"Won't people notice hundreds of coffins being carried through town?" Mo Ran asked.

"They will not," Chu Wanning answered. "The coffins are carried by ghost golden boys and jade maidens. Ordinary people can't see objects carried by ghosts."

"How are you so sure about that?"

"I used Tianwen to interrogate one of the ghost golden boys in the dressing room earlier."

They were silent for a while before Mo Ran asked, "What was the deal with that red coffin on the mountain then, the one with Chen-gongzi in it? And why do people keep dying in the Chen family?"

"Not sure," said Chu Wanning.

Mo Ran was slightly surprised. "The ghost golden boy didn't tell you?"

"The ghost golden boy said it also didn't know."

It was quiet again for a bit.

Then Chu Wanning spoke. "But I think that family is hiding something from us."

"Why do you say that?"

"Remember, although the thing enshrined in that temple exudes evil energy, it's still a being that has cultivated into a deity. It depends on the people's worship to grow stronger."

Mo Ran had never paid attention to Chu Wanning's lessons in his previous life and thus had ended up not having a lot of the basic general knowledge he'd needed to handle certain matters later on. He thought that perhaps he should try to be more modest and seek some instruction in this life reborn, and so he asked, "What's so significant about deities?"

"What were you doing during last month's lesson on the differences between deities, ghosts, gods, and demons?"

This venerable one was just reborn, Mo Ran thought. Of course this venerable one wouldn't remember what he was doing during some lesson from more than ten years ago!

But he'd probably either been picking at his feet under the table, reading Bedroom Adventures of Nine Dragons and a Phoenix, ogling Shi Mei while lost in thought, or staring at Chu Wanning's neck while secretly gesturing various ways of cutting a person's head off.

"As punishment, copy Record of Knowledge from the Six Kingdoms ten times when we return," Chu Wanning said stonily.

"Oh…" All those times Mo Ran had skipped class had come back to bite him in the ass.

"Deities differ from gods. Gods can act as they please, but deities cannot meddle in mortal affairs without being beseeched to do so."

A shiver ran down Mo Ran's spine. "Which means that this ghost mistress killed the members of the Chen family at the behest of a person?"

In the darkness, Chu Wanning's voice sounded terribly ominous. "The beseecher was not necessarily a living person."

Mo Ran opened his mouth to ask more questions, but before he could, the coffin shook abruptly and tilted to the left, perhaps because the golden boy and jade maiden carrying the coffin had come to a hill or some such.

With the unexpected jolt, the smoothness of the coffin's interior, and the complete lack of anything to grab on to, Mo Ran tumbled over and smacked firmly into his shizun's chest.

"Ungh…"

Mo Ran put a hand over his aching nose and lifted his head, disoriented, just as the faint fragrance of haitang flowers reached his nose. The scent was as light as the fog at dawn, with a hint of a nighttime chill. Such scents ordinarily lulled people into a haze, but this one was clean and refreshing, and instead cleared the head.

Mo Ran froze, then instantly became hard.

This was a fragrance with which he was all too familiar. It was Chu Wanning's scent.

But to Mo Ran, this scent had always been intertwined with desire.

All of a sudden, a certain deep-seated depravity, like a lightning-stricken forest fire, shot directly into his head.