The beams of various flashlights cut through the night. Many villagers had co out of their houses, sealing off every escape route. Most of them were middle-aged or elderly.
Soone shouted, "How's the Liao family's preparations? Nothing can go wrong tonight."
Another tried to reassure Liao Fanghua loudly, "Fanghua, listen to your mother! This is a good thing—"
"Yes, why would we hurt you? We're doing this for your own good..."
"Honestly, why didn't that Qīngxìu girl get this blessing?"
The crowd murmured back and forth, utterly oblivious to how horrific the subject of their conversation actually was.
Evil qi spread through the entire village, and the villagers were like prey trapped in a spiderweb, manipulated and bewitched for generations. Nobody rembered how long it had been going on.
A couple of flashlight beams flickered toward the teahouse. Soone apparently wanted to see the replacent that Grandma Xu had ntioned.
"That outsider walking around is said to be pretty strange."
"Poor thing—it would be a blessing from heaven for her to get it, giving such fortune to an outsider?..."
"If it really can't be helped, maybe only Fanghua should do it?..."
"Grandma Xu already said it's fine!"
Tap, tap—
The sound of a cane hitting the wooden floor. The dayti figure, Grandma Xu, stepped out from the crowd and the villagers politely made way for her.
Her clothes looked a bit like ancient ceremonial robes, adorned with rustic trinkets. Her face was powdered and painted with red-and-white makeup; combined with her sowhat sharp, narrow features, she looked from afar like she had a fox's face.
Grandma Xu spoke in a honeyed, persuasive tone to Liao Fanghua, attempting to brainwash her, but it didn't fully work.
At this point, though, whether Fanghua wanted to marry or not no longer mattered.
For a long ti, it had always been like this—deep in these southwestern mountains, anything could happen.
A soporific was scattered. Grandma Xu had people carry the powerless, struggling Liao Fanghua away to be well supervised. Nothing must go wrong before tomorrow's auspicious hour.
She looked toward the teahouse that had remained silent and hoarse-voiced said, "Bring the black dog blood you prepared."
"This one inside the house probably has so unclean thing around her. Deal with it tonight, and she can still be carried out in a bridal sedan tomorrow."
Grandma Xu explained to the surrounding villagers: she had already checked the red-clothed woman's face and fate configuration; her figure was fine, her aura fairly pure, and that baby definitely wasn’t her child.
Her words were half-truth, half-lie—she hadn't actually seen the Ghost Bride's face, nor calculated her fate configuration. Fox spirits were not skilled at such divination.
But her eyes were sharp in other ways; she had seen that the child wasn't born of the Ghost Bride.
Even though the woman had so odd quirks, so what? The fox spirit inhabiting Grandma Xu thought like this. Their kind had done this generation after generation, and they had ties across nearly a hundred miles.
There was no way so clueless fool would co to spoil things—their ancestral matriarch was a powerful demon.
Forcing the red-clothed woman into the list of marriage candidates was partly selfish on the red-haired fox's part.
This was a treasure it had discovered alone. Since two brides had already been offered, the baby boy naturally belonged to it.
Although it didn't quite understand the boy's strange qualities, his scent was alluring. Even if it didn't devour him imdiately, raising him to feed on his essence over ti would taste far richer than ordinary people.
She sprinkled the black dog blood the villagers had prepared outside the teahouse little by little, drawing a circle that forbade entry. She pasted several talismans on the door and murmured incantations.
A shrill, weak, unpleasant scream sounded from inside; Grandma Xu knew it had worked.
The chill surrounding the red-clothed woman was likely caused by a stray, lonely ghost. After tonight she should be left weak and helpless; no one could protect her.
She instructed the villagers not to approach the teahouse until tomorrow morning, and then she slowly left, her figure fading into the darkness.
The whole village fell quiet again.
Around midnight.
The spreading yin qi made the surrounding villagers sleep more deeply, as if pressed by a ghost and unable to wake.
Click—
The lock circling the teahouse door silently unlatched.
The heavy door eased open soundlessly; the two talismans fluttered in the wind, about to fall.
Xiao Gui'an floated out, holding the bamboo basket in his arms, completely unaffected. He still carried the large red bamboo umbrella, tilted slightly to conceal his face.
He lowered his eyes to the black dog blood on the ground that ford an eerie pattern and could not help but let a trace of disgust flash through his eyes. He hesitated for two seconds, then floated a little higher.
After ensuring the hem of his skirt would not even be stained by that foul sll, he drifted over the blood-drawn ground prison without difficulty.
He scoped the two villages. Apart from the fox spirit possessing Grandma Xu, there were actually several fox dens in the village—foxes that had practiced cultivation poorly, enjoying the offerings and incense.
Each one looked well-fed, their fur glossy—no doubt fed with villager offerings.
The entire village had been bewitched and controlled by this fox brood for generations; how long it had continued was anyone's guess.
This was just a small fox den in the village; the place they were headed to was likely the real lair.
Looking at the iron hoes and tools placed in farrs' hos, Xiao Gui'an's gaze went distant. Before leaving, he always liked to leave a little surprise.
After arranging his backup asures, Xiao Gui'an floated back to the Liao residence, took control of the guards, and checked on Liao Fanghua.
She still slept fitfully in her unconsciousness, frowning the whole ti, but she had not been seriously hurt.
Xiao Gui'an considered whether to reveal his identity to Liao Fanghua. Tonight's upheaval had been traumatic enough for her—could she handle a little more?
A fox becoming sentient and being offered in marriage as a sacrifice was already conceivable; a Ghost Bride on top of that was not impossible.
As he pondered, a wave of yin qi entered her body and Liao Fanghua woke with a shiver. She trembled, groggy, and opened her eyes.
When she saw the red-clothed woman hovering in front of her, she was instantly delighted and, forgetting her own circumstances, asked, "Sister, are you all right? Why are you here?..."
Had she been captured and imprisoned in the sa room too?
Also, why did it seem like the other was a little high—her feet weren't touching the ground—
Her feet weren't touching the ground?!
Floating!!!—
The childish-faced girl gaped, eyes terrified, stamring as she pointed at herself and then at the Ghost Bride, "You... I..."
"I won't hurt you." The Ghost Bride said softly, landed on the ground, still speaking in that gentle, quiet tone.
After so explanations, Liao Fanghua finally accepted the situation in front of her. Although still afraid, seeing that the Ghost Bride ant no harm, her courage slowly grew.
If the woman had wanted to kill her, she would have done so already; she wouldn't be speaking so nicely.
With Xiao Gui'an's help, Liao Fanghua packed her belongings and prepared to leave tomorrow—she would return to school, and if that failed, she would seek help from the school authorities.
She worried that after she left, the villagers might be retaliated against by those demons.
"No—"
Xiao Gui'an's mouth twitched behind the big red umbrella. Once he dealt with the largest fox den, the curses and control would naturally dissipate.
After that, if Liao Fanghua safely returned to school and then used the power of the dia, the two villages hidden in the vast southwestern mountains would be exposed to public scrutiny and no longer vanish from the world.
With a true dragon guarding the area, no careless demon would dare to control this region again. To a certain degree, the villagers would be safe.
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