Chapter 6: Red and White Collision of Evil

Seeing the scene before him, Zhao Jinming’s legs went weak and he nearly collapsed onto the boat.

His mind went blank, yet under some inexplicable force he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the corpse staring straight at him from the river.

From the moment Zhao Jinming locked eyes with the first corpse, the sound of footsteps echoed one after another beneath the river.

The once-clear water grew murky as the corpses stirred it, obscuring everything beneath the surface.

Those on the boat could only see face after face, bloated and rotting from the water, lifting grotesquely to stare at them in unison.

In the blink of an eye, the players’ boat became separated from the other two, encircled tightly by countless corpses.

Erwa, rowing, seemed oblivious to the corpses and kept paddling, while Li Quan’s sharp eyes caught the oar slicing off two or three arms from the bodies.

The stench of rotting flesh mixed with the river’s fishy odor assaulted the players. The newcomers were already pale with terror, unable to speak.

Among the three newcomers, Wang Xue—the only girl, raised in comfort in a big city—had never smelled such foulness. She desperately covered her nose, nearly vomiting.

Covering her mouth, Wang Xue instinctively turned her head, forgetting that corpses surrounded them. That slight movement made her lock eyes with several walking corpses beneath the water.

The standing corpses were less than half a meter below the boat’s bottom, and the narrow deck only drew the players and the corpses closer together.

Suddenly, Wang Xue remembered the hint word the electronic voice had given her, and in fright she quickly shut her eyes.

It’s over—who knows if the hint word “eye contact” is actually a taboo!

Despair surged in Wang Xue’s heart.

The corpses on the riverbed were closing in step by step toward the boat. They moved quickly through the water, surrounding them on all sides, countless ghosts staring at the people on board. Even Li Quan, a veteran player, felt a chill down his spine at the sight.

Cold sweat beaded on Li Quan’s forehead as he counted the corpses encircling them—at least a hundred within close range!

He had never seen such a start in a low-level dungeon before.

Something was wrong.

Their current situation felt like punishment for breaking some rule.

But Li Quan was certain they hadn’t done anything out of line along the way.

In his view, even the newcomers’ earlier screaming didn’t count as a violation.

So why was this happening?

They had come to the village to attend a funeral, but before even reaching the main plot location, they were inexplicably surrounded by corpses on the river.

This made no sense at all.

Just glancing at the corpses in the river gave Li Quan a chilling sense of danger.

“Turn off all your lights.”

Suddenly, a cold voice came from the bow of the boat.

In panic, the players instinctively obeyed, switching off their flashlights.

Only after turning them off did they realize—the words had come from the “bride” standing at the bow.

Li Quan’s heart tightened. He thought, it’s over.

How could he have followed the boss’s command? Now he had to brace for battle.

Without light, Zhao Jinming was plunged into pitch darkness. He could see nothing, only hear his own heart pounding and the growing sound of footsteps all around.

The stench of rotting corpses mixed with the river’s fishy odor grew stronger. The rustling footsteps did not stop. Zhao Jinming felt as though invisible hands were squeezing his heart, the crushing psychological pressure making it almost impossible to breathe.

The players waited silently in the dark for five or six minutes. The sounds around them never faded, but at least the corpses never climbed onto the boat.

At that moment, they finally breathed a little easier—thankfully, the boss didn’t seem intent on harming them yet.

Compared to the newcomers, Li Quan’s physical abilities were far superior. Even without light, he could use night vision to observe the surroundings.

Li Quan saw that the corpses hadn’t dispersed. As the boat moved across the river, the corpses formed a ring around it, always following along.

Since they were only following and not pressing in to attack, their level of danger seemed much lower.

The boss really had spoken to warn them.

Li Quan glanced at the youth in the bright red robe standing at the bow, uncertain of what he was thinking.

Qi Wuyuan had told the players to turn off their flashlights because “dark ghosts” are attracted to light.

These creatures are extremely difficult to deal with.

Qi Wuyuan is the boss of a funeral shop that deals with ominous or ghostly matters.

Bored from convalescence years ago, he left home and took up this work.

Qi Wuyuan’s constitution was unusual—unsuited for contact with normal people.

He needed to stay away from the living, and closer to the dead.

When Qi Wuyuan first set out, after his family learned of his intentions, they directly gave him a shop.

A “funeral shop” (凶肆) is a store that sells burial goods.

It sells coffins, wreaths, burial clothes, paper effigies, and similar items—in plain terms, Qi Wuyuan was in the business of serving the dead.

After working in this trade for a long time, Qi Wuyuan naturally came to know many taboos related to the dead.

Dark ghosts are a kind of spirit that never sees sunlight.

River ghosts, earthbound spirits in sealed spaces, and other such entities that grow in special environments accumulate heavy yin energy. Without sunlight for long periods, they become extremely vicious.

Especially when living people enter with lights, these dark ghosts are easily attracted. They hold deep resentment toward “light,” and unless the light disappears, their attacks will never stop.

Fortunately, Qi Wuyuan knew that if the light source was turned off before the attack, the dark ghosts—bound by their environment—could not continue attacking humans.

Qi Wuyuan kept his eyes closed, avoiding eye contact with any corpse in the water.

He felt no fear, continuing to think calmly.

Normally, small rivers shouldn’t have dark ghosts.

Even rivers two or three meters deep still receive sunlight underwater.

Unless… there is a sealed space within the river that imprisons dark ghosts.

Suddenly, Erwa’s voice came from the bow: “Just rushing along like this is boring. Since Chen sao asked me to tell you about the village customs, why don’t I introduce them now?”

His sudden voice startled the players on the boat, and Li Quan quickly responded: “Then we’ll trouble you.”

Alongside the sound of corpses walking on the riverbed, Erwa’s youthful voice drifted across the boat.

“Wang Xue, when you left the village with Uncle Wang you were still young, so let me tell you about our village.”

Erwa grew excited, eager to show off in front of the bride: “Our village is very particular about banquets.”

“We only hold two kinds of feasts: weddings and funerals.”

The customs of the village are very unusual.

If someone dies, the coffin must be kept for seven days, and only after the ‘first seven’ ritual can burial take place.

Wedding banquets must also last for seven days.

“If a young man in the village who hasn’t married yet dies unexpectedly, that’s wonderful!”

At his most excited point, Erwa swung the oar too hard, and Li Quan saw him knock away two corpses walking in the river beside them.

“In that case, the village matchmaker will arrange a marriage, something called ‘Baozhu…’ anyway, it means finding someone whose birth characters match. The groom can hold his wedding and funeral together!”

Erwa said enviously: “Ah, I really wish I could have my wedding and funeral together.”

But doing them together means you’d die early!

At that moment, all the players except Qi Wuyuan couldn’t help but complain inwardly.

Qi Wuyuan, holding the memorial portrait, silently completed the phrase Erwa hadn’t finished:

“If the man dies, the woman marries—the Baozhu marriage is performed.”

It sounds refined, but plainly speaking, it’s just a ghost marriage.

This is a serious piece of feudal dross.

Although he didn’t know why the phrase “woman marries” had turned into “he marries,” Erwa’s description of the village greatly piqued Qi Wuyuan’s interest.

He felt that such a village had no reason to exist.

After that, Erwa told the players several rules they must follow when holding weddings or funerals in the village, warning Li Quan and the others not to get the customs wrong.

After ten minutes or so, the boat reached the opposite bank. The corpses, unable to continue forward because of the sound of the water, gradually dispersed.

That ordeal was finally over.

The players’ tense hearts were at last relieved.

Once ashore, the wedding escort team was already waiting by the river, ready to have Qi Wuyuan carried in the bridal sedan chair.

Fortunately, nothing else happened afterward, and the group smoothly arrived at the household holding the wedding-and-funeral feast.

Only Wang Xue and Zhao Jinming occasionally rubbed their eyes along the way, feeling as if some dust had entered, itching uncomfortably.

In the pitch darkness, every player focused on the road ahead, so no one noticed that Wang Xue and Zhao Jinming’s eyes had already taken on an abnormal blood-red ring.

When the wedding escort team reached the Chen family courtyard, the surroundings suddenly became lively. Compared to before, the scene now looked perfectly normal, like a proper banquet.

The players stood at the alley’s edge, looking around, while Erwa told them to wait a while and make plans after the bride was received.

The bridal sedan stopped at the gate, and Qi Wuyuan was led into the courtyard by Aunt Chen.

Holding the portrait frame, Qi Wuyuan looked straight through the wide-open gate and saw a coffin placed in the middle of the main hall.

Chen sao stopped in front of the house, while Qi Wuyuan walked alone across the hall, passing by the coffin, and carefully placed the memorial portrait on a cabinet covered with white chrysanthemum decorations.

“Eh?”

Qi Wuyuan lowered his gaze and realized that all the chrysanthemums piled on the cabinet were made of paper.

The bouquets looked extremely lifelike.

He didn’t have time to dwell on it. After placing the portrait frame properly, the barcode hidden on his left wrist suddenly appeared.

The barcode on his hand shifted from a faint blue to a deeper, darker blue.

【 Congratulations, player, you have successfully triggered the first checkpoint!】

【 Beep—checkpoint complete, congratulations on your first success! 】

Before Qi Wuyuan could m

ake sense of the electronic voice in his mind, he lifted his eyes and saw, reflected in the glass of the portrait frame, a pair of dark red eyes.

The groom had unknowingly appeared right behind him.