Chapter 1: The Abduction

Midnight had fallen, and the darkness was thick and heavy.

A faint sliver of moonlight on the horizon was completely obscured by layers of dense clouds. A chilling wind swept through the secluded mountain path, carrying a faint, fishy odor that enveloped the entire mountain. The normally somewhat-trafficked path was now almost completely devoid of light.

As yin energy sealed the mountain, a large red sedan chair suddenly swayed into view from one end of the path. A procession of over a dozen wedding attendants followed, their faces deathly pale and their lips sealed in silence.

A female figure dressed as a matchmaker walked beside the sedan chair. At first glance, her smile seemed festive and cheerful, but on closer inspection, it carried a sinister quality that sent an involuntary chill down one's spine.

Eight sedan bearers in indigo short tunics, their waists bound with red silk, carried the sedan chair forward with smiles. They kept their heads bowed, moving silently, but their slightly lowered faces revealed glimpses of skin as pale as the dead. A sinister smile seemed permanently etched on each face, unchanging and grotesque, making them appear utterly terrifying.

Two small, red-clad girls led the wedding procession at the very front. Their jet-black hair was stiffly coiled into two doll-like buns, and their pale cheeks and lips were smeared with a bizarre red rouge. They hopped forward, their eyes curving as they snatched crimson flower petals from the small bamboo baskets slung over their arms and tossed them into the air. A strange little tune rose from the depths of their throats:

"Marrying the bride, marrying the bride... marrying flesh and bone and skin. You take a bite, I take a bite, the sweet taste fills our hearts. When the bride dies, fierce ghosts are born. Her three souls will all be in the corpse oil soup. White bones will dwell with men, and her body will never decay, lasting ten thousand years. Hee hee hee..."

The girls' voices were light and giggly, drifting through the heavy night air with a chilling, eerie resonance that the gusts of wind snatched away, making it even more unsettling.

A pair of bright red embroidered shoes peeked out from behind the large crimson sedan curtain hanging before the palanquin. They swayed and bobbed with each step of the bearers.

In the cramped, dim sedan chair, a young woman in a vibrant red wedding gown, her features gentle and beautiful, seemed startled by the chilling, spine-tingling song. The tips of her slender, rounded fingers twitched slightly.

This young woman possessed an exceptionally striking beauty. Her fair, warm skin radiated flawless, luminous vitality. Her cheeks were full and her lips moist. Though her eyes were closed, obscuring their expression, the elegant curve of her eyelids already promised that they would not detract from her face. Long, delicate eyelashes and gracefully arched eyebrows, black as raven's feathers, lay softly against her skin. Her long, black hair flowed like water, cascading smoothly over her shoulders.

From every angle, she was a vision of exquisite beauty.

After a moment of stillness, the beauty's brow furrowed slightly. Her limbs struggled, as if she were wrestling for control of her own body. She fought desperately for a while, finally managing to flutter her eyelashes twice, seizing the chance to awaken.

As Qiao Suihuan slowly regained consciousness, she immediately felt that something was wrong. Her eyelids were so heavy, as if she hadn't slept in a year, and they seemed glued together, making it nearly impossible to open them. Her breathing was labored and difficult, as if someone were covering her mouth and nose and pressing down on her lungs. A chill ran through her chest, and with each shallow breath, she could sense a strange, heavy aroma surrounding her—a peculiar incense smell, tinged with the musty, damp, and moldy stench of something unusual.

This scent was nothing like the incense she remembered from temples. Instead of bringing peace, it was cold and chilling, like burning damp paper money dug out from a moldy corner. The longer she inhaled, the more nauseous she felt.

A throbbing pain pulsed in Qiao Suihuan's temples, and her eyeballs seemed to jump in their sockets.

What's going on?

I didn't do anything special, did I? Why am I so exhausted?

She exhaled, frowning as she reached out blindly to find the source of her discomfort. Her fingers brushed against a wall—a wall that shouldn't have been there.

Strange... Why is there a wall?

Qiao Suihuan groggily peeled her eyelids apart, taking a long moment to adjust to the dim light. Squinting, she looked around, feeling as though she might be hallucinating.

She wasn't in her own room, but in an unfamiliar space. Everything was pitch-black, the colors and textures of the "walls" surrounding her indistinguishable. These walls enclosed a cramped space, so small she could barely turn around, and above her pressed a low, dark "ceiling." The entire enclosure was so suffocatingly tight that even the wardrobe in her walk-in closet seemed spacious by comparison.

What the hell is this place?

A chilling draft blew in from outside, rustling the "small window" on one of the "walls." The red curtain blocking the window was pulled aside, revealing a pale figure outside...

A slender neck, so fragile it seemed it might snap at any moment, supported a head with a face so deathly white it couldn't possibly be human. The profile flashed past in the gloom before Qiao Suihuan could get a clear look, and she froze, a cold dread creeping up from the pit of her stomach.

What the hell was that?

Is that even human?

Is this space... shaking?

A chill ran through Qiao Suihuan's chest, her scalp tingling as if it might explode. The gust of wind that had blown open the "small window" seemed to have stripped away the last vestiges of warmth from her heart. The biting cold made her belatedly aware of her own body. She moved her limbs and discovered her feet were dangling in mid-air!

Cool breezes swept past her ankles, sending an indescribable chill through her.

Her scalp tightened, and she immediately pulled her feet back.

Something was clearly wrong here. The damp, musty smell of mold clung to the air, and a sense of foreboding, bypassing her dulled senses, crawled up her spine. Qiao Suihuan instinctively clutched her clothes, but before she could feel anything, a pale, tattered face squeezed through the window.

Qiao Suihuan: "!!!"

It startled her!

The entire head pushed through, its paper-thin shoulders wedged in the window frame. It strained its unnaturally long, thin neck toward her, its black eyes—almost devoid of whites—staring directly at her face. Saliva dripped from its lips, and it spoke in a voice that was both terrifying and ravenous, as if a person who hadn't eaten meat in eight hundred years were gazing at a delicacy: "You're awake..."

Qiao Suihuan gasped.

She thought she saw the muscles beneath the man's face twitching! Was this even a living person?!

Moreover, she saw his mouth move, but couldn't pinpoint the source of the voice! The eerie, ethereal voice seemed to come from all around, utterly unlike human speech, and the man's lips hadn't moved at all! He was just... smiling!

Terror erupted in her heart, and Qiao Suihuan's heartbeat surged to a frantic rhythm.

What the hell is this?!

Without thinking, she raised her leg and kicked out.

But her foot met empty air. The kick that should have landed on his face passed through as if he were made of smoke.

Qiao Suihuan froze for two seconds, then saw the half-face hidden behind her leg—the 'matchmaker'—turn its remaining pale, ghastly face toward her and grin chillingly. In a cold, spectral voice, it hissed:

"You can't escape... You'll become food for all of us... You'll join us... Do you prefer being the bride in the sedan chair or the one welcoming the groom?"

As if to prove the eerie words, a stronger, chilling wind swept through the procession. The crimson sedan curtain before Qiao Suihuan's face lifted, revealing a wild graveyard in the desolate wilderness.

Dry grass and fallen leaves flew together as the wind whipped crimson petals through the desolate mountains, making the scene even more desolate and terrifying in the dead of night.

The moment Qiao Suihuan looked out, every "wedding attendant" in the procession turned their heads in unison. Their necks twisted a full 180 degrees, revealing identical, grotesque smiles directed at her.

Qiao Suihuan's scalp tingled, and a wave of overwhelming terror surged from her heart. The temples on both sides of her head tightened involuntarily, sending needle-like pains through her.

Driven by some primal instinct, under the cold blast of wind and the weight of her fear, a chilling realization suddenly gripped Qiao Suihuan: she might never return.

The dancing red petals transformed into pale, square paper money drifting through the air. The "joyful banners" held by the two "wedding attendants" at the front of the procession had become white funeral banners... This was clearly a ghost wedding procession, here to escort a spirit!

Qiao Suihuan felt a bone-chilling coldness spread through her body, as if her fingertips had turned to ice.

Under the eerie gaze of the ghostly procession, a white paper money drifted towards her. Instinctively, she turned her head and closed her eyes. Yet, as if possessing a will of its own, the paper money swerved mid-air, executing a wide arc to land precisely on her face.

The musty, cold scent of incense and decay flooded Qiao Suihuan's nostrils once more. A faint metallic odor seemed to drift through the air. The fragrance, so recently clear, now drugged her, sending her consciousness spiraling into a cold, chaotic vortex of nightmares.

The wedding ghosts watched in silent, chilling stillness as Qiao Suihuan collapsed back into the sedan chair. The red curtain, which had been lifted, fell back into place, once again concealing the unconscious "bride."

The cold, clammy gazes retracted. The ghostly procession resumed its march into the depths of the wild graveyard, the sedan chair carrying the bride swaying rhythmically.

Before long, a pair of girl's feet, clad in bright red embroidered shoes, emerged from the sedan chair once more, swaying and bobbing with each step of the bearers...