Chapter 19: Ghost Marriage (Part 2)
Holding his phone, Jiang Si carefully navigated around the equipment scattered across the floor, passed through the living room, and pushed open the door to look outside. The light from his phone chased away some of the darkness, casting a beam of white light onto the mottled walls.
The white light moved slowly, sweeping across the semi-enclosed space. Jiang Si stood at the doorway, looking left and right.
His building had two apartments per floor, served by a single staircase. The public corridor separating him from the opposite neighbor was only about two meters wide. With the light, he could easily see everything on this floor clearly.
There was no one there.
Just as Jiang Si was about to put his phone away and go back inside, he suddenly sensed a black shadow rushing up the staircase. It moved so fast it was as if it were flying. It locked onto Jiang Si and his light with terrifying precision, bracing an arm against the doorframe to stop Jiang Si from closing the door.
Accompanying the flying tackle was a shout: “Wait!”
Jiang Si was startled. He could tell the figure lunging at the door was a person, but sometimes humans were scarier than ghosts.
Especially for someone like himāweak enough to pant after climbing stairs and powerless to truss a chicken. As a man on the verge of middle age, he had absolutely no ability to fight back against a thug.
In that split second, a thought flashed through Jiang Si’s mind: Should I just smash him with my phone?
But then the intruder started panting heavily and raised his head. Under the phone’s light, his blood-covered face reflected a red sheen. Some of it was still dripping, while some had coagulated into clumps stuck to the corners of his eyes and cheekbones.
“Helpāsave me.”
When he saw the man’s face clearly, Jiang Si shamefully felt his heart stop for a few seconds.
Power outage, screams, strange man, face full of bloodāit had all the elements of a horror movie.
Both of them were tense for a moment. After Jiang Si recovered slightly, he asked, “Who are you? What happened?”
The man’s pupils had constricted to pinpoints out of sheer terror, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot. He looked at Jiang Si, yet it seemed like he was looking through him at something else.
“I… I… I ran into a ‘ghost wall’ (supernatural barrier causing one to walk in circles),” he stammered, swallowing hard.
“I’m trapped here. I can’t get out.”
The man’s pale, cracked lips trembled with every breath. His fingers gripped Jiang Si’s arm involuntarily, as if trying to draw a bit of yang energy from the contact.
“Save me!”
The next second, his eyes widened as he looked behind Jiang Si. Three pale figures appeared out of thin air, floating behind Jiang Si and staring at him in perfect synchronization.
“You… you… huk…” He opened his mouth, pointing behind Jiang Si, but didn’t even have the strength to make a sound. His eyes rolled back, and he was about to faint.
Fortunately, Jiang Si caught him. glancing back, he understood immediately.
He explained, “It’s fine, it’s fine. That’s my projection. It’s not real.”
The man looked like he wanted to cry but had no tears left. He almost knelt down, hugging Jiang Si and wailing dryly, “Broādon’t scare me. I’m scared to death!”
But Hai Di, acting as if he didn’t understand human speech, floated straight over. Looking at the two men hugging, he asked with a cold face, “Who are you?”
“…You… HukāAHHHHHHHHāā”
The man gathered his breath in despair and screamed, looking at Jiang Si with the eyes of a betrayed lover.
This is what you call a projection?!
Liar!
Jiang Si took a deep breath, enduring the assault on his eardrums. He kicked Hai Di and signaled him with his eyes to back off.
Hai Di met his gaze innocently.
In the end, Xiao Fengxian couldn’t stand it anymore. She raised Hai Di’s golden baton and knocked the man out cold, then dragged him into the apartment.
The man was tossed casually onto the sofa. despite the blood on his face, he slept peacefully, looking much more normal than with his previous terrified, twisted expression. Jiang Si stood by and studied him for a while before finally remembering who he was.
Wasn’t this the neighbor’s kid from across the hall?
Jiang Si ordered Hai Di and the others to return to the room and stay there. He then contacted the neighbors across the hall and told them to come collect their son.
The neighbors were a middle-aged couple in their forties, and this was their only child. At first, hearing Jiang Si’s call, they were incredulous, stammering that their son was away at college and hadn’t come home.
Jiang Si sat helplessly on the other end of the sofa, glancing at the unconscious man. “You guys come over and identify him. He looks pretty much like him to me.”
A few minutes later, the neighbor couple knocked on the door.
Jiang Si led them into the living room, illuminating the scene with his phone light. The middle-aged woman screamed instantly. “Nan Nan! Hubby, it’s really Nan Nan!”
She trotted to the sofa, trembling as she checked her son’s breathing. Her face relaxed considerably, and she let out a long sigh.
“What happened to him?” The husband pointed at the blood on his son’s face, confused.
“He was screaming so much in the stairwell just now; didn’t you hear him? When I opened the door, I saw him with a face full of blood,” Jiang Si said expressionlessly.
“…Uh.” The couple exchanged an awkward glance. Of course they had heard the noise, but neither of them had associated it with their own son.
Jiang Si was getting impatient with the whole ordeal. He lifted his chin and said, “Since that’s the case, take him back.”
After thanking him, the couple each grabbed an arm and supported their son as they walked out, using the light Jiang Si provided to return to their home.
Having finally sent away this interruption, Jiang Si had just closed the door when he heard the appliances beep. The lights blazed on.
The power was back.
But it was too late.
After all the commotion, Jiang Si had no energy left for filming. He tidied up a bit and went to the bedroom to sleep.
Sleeping early meant he naturally missed the string of messages in the homeowner group chat.
A large number of snakes had appeared in the residential complex. Some had even climbed onto the transformer, causing the power outage. Property management staff worked overtime, calling the police and cooperating with the fire department to catch the snakes.
While Jiang Si slept soundly, the person just a few walls away wasn’t having such a good time.
Gongs and drums thundered, shaking the heavens. Red flower petals drifted down from the sky like snow.
Lin Nan, dressed in bright red wedding robes, was helped down from a sedan chair and walked into a large, ancient courtyard house. The original white walls and gray tiles were draped in red silk decorations; even the trees in the courtyard weren’t spared. Everyone passing by wore dark red robes, so all he could see was crimson.
Lin Nan wanted to break free from the people restraining him, but his limbs felt like they had just been attached to his bodyāthey didn’t listen to his brain at all, moving stiffly forward.
Inside the main hall, the crowd grew even thicker, the noise piercing the clouds. Lin Nan felt everyone looking at him, but in his eyes, everyone’s face was a blank sheet of paper, featureless.
Stupid brain, wake up!
Lin Nan cursed inwardly.
But his body remained at the mercy of others, pushed to the center position. On the high table in front of him, three finger-thick incense sticks burned, offered before an inexplicable landscape painting.
“Is this the groom?”
“The groom is a human?”
“He looks okay, huh!”
Lin Nan vaguely heard the word “groom” and thought bewilderedly: If I’m the groom, who am I marrying?
The surroundings suddenly fell silent. Lin Nan saw a beautiful woman walk in gracefully, also dressed in red.
The woman was incredibly fragrant. Her smile was brilliant, yet as if knowing shyness, she deliberately covered half her face with her sleeve.
“Xu Lang (Husband Xu).”
“?” Lin Nan was agitated and strained his throat to shout, “My surname is Lin! You definitely caught the wrong person. Let me go back!”
“…”
The woman raised her hand and slapped Lin Nan across the face. The brilliant smile vanished instantly, replaced by a cold shout, “If I say your surname is Xu, it’s Xu! Don’t be ungrateful!”
Lin Nan was stunned, feeling the pain on his face in disbelief.
Fck.*
Isn’t this a dream?
The woman’s face changed again. She smiled sweetly and said, “Xu Lang, my surname is Bai. From today on, I am your wife.”
Immediately after, Lin Nan, who had just opened his mouth to speak, was gagged with a ball of rough cloth. The people behind him forced his head down to complete the three bows of the wedding ceremony, then dragged him into a room lit with red candles.
With a creak, the door closed. Lin Nan tried every method to escape, but his limbs couldn’t move. The only way was to bite his tongue.
Hearing footsteps approaching outside, Lin Nan steeled his heart and bit down hard on the tip of his tongue.
“Xu Langā”
The woman pushed open the door only to find the man who should have been on the bed had vanished. Her expression turned terrifyingly dark. Under the immense pressure, everyone knelt down in unison to beg for mercy.
“Go find him and bring him back!”
Jiang Si locked himself in his room and filmed all day. It wasn’t until the sun went down that he realized he hadn’t eaten anything.
He lit a few sticks of incense for Xiao Fengxian and Xu Lanyue, telling them to rest well, then grabbed his keys to go out and buy food.
It was dark outside, so Hai Di didn’t need to avoid sunlight. He openly materialized and went out with Jiang Si.
As soon as the door opened, Hai Di froze. Jiang Si urged him, “Why are you spacing out?”
Hai Di turned sideways so Jiang Si could see clearly.
Jiang Si looked up. Having been under bright lights all day, his eyes were still adjusting to the dimmer environment. After a moment, he realized that the neighbor across the hall had installed a bronze Bagua mirror (eight trigrams mirror) above their doorframe at some point, aiming it directly at Jiang Si’s home.
No wonder Hai Di stopped moving.
Even a living soul would be suppressed by a Bagua mirror. Being shone upon would not only force him to reveal his true form but also directly damage his yin energy.
Hai Di hesitated. “I…”
Suddenly, his palm was enveloped by a warm, soft touch. Startled, his narrow eyes widened slightly as he looked at the person beside him.
“What are you afraid of when I’m here! Follow me.” Jiang Si pulled him toward the stairwell, then suddenly stopped and knocked directly on the neighbor’s door.
The person who opened the door was the hostess he had met yesterday. Jiang Si recalled her surname was likely Zhou.
“Auntie Zhou.”
“It’s Little Jiang,” Auntie Zhou said. “Is something wrong?”
“I just saw that your family put up a mirror. Why did you suddenly install this?” Jiang Si asked with concern.
“It was my Old Lin. He found it at an antique shop and thought it looked nice, so he hung it up.”
“Is that so?” Jiang Si smiled, not missing the trace of unnaturalness in her voice.
“This mirror is quite nice, but it’s not suitable to hang above the door. Auntie Zhou, I’m only saying this because I don’t consider you an outsider.”
Auntie Zhou hurriedly asked, “Go on.”
Jiang Si lowered his voice. “You and Uncle Lin know what my family does. I know a thing or two about feng shui and metaphysics.”
“If you’ve encountered some trouble, just hanging a mirror won’t work. Not only is it useless, but it’s also easy to suffer a backlash.” He pointed to his own home. “Auntie Zhou, my place has a lot of ‘those things,’ and the yin energy is heavy. If your mirror shines over here, leaving aside whether it can ward off evil, it might just attract the things from my house into yours.”
Auntie Zhou’s face changed. Her eyes darted around. She didn’t agree or refuse, only saying, “I can’t make the decision alone. How about this: when Old Lin comes back, I’ll discuss it with him. Thanks for the reminder!”
Jiang Si smiled and watched Auntie Zhou close the door. His gaze sank as he looked at the Bagua mirror.
Engraved on it was a line of text: Hang the mirror high to drive away evil and avoid sha (malignant spirits).
Whether it drove away evil was debatable, but it certainly wouldn’t avoid sha. Jiang Si laughed coldly. Just when Hai Di thought he was angry, Jiang Si pulled his hand again and led him downstairs.
“Are you angry?” Hai Di asked.
“Not really.” Jiang Si shook his head. “Just a bit chilled by it.”
Hai Di looked ready to listen, so Jiang Si indulged him, explaining in a few sentences. “We’ve been neighbors for over a decade. My grandfather helped the neighbors around here plenty back in the day. But after he died, it was like these people forgot all that past kindness. When I first moved back, they even came to my door several times to persuade me to leave. They all said making things for the dead is unluckyābut who doesn’t die eventually?”
“As for hanging the mirror, if they had even a shred of consideration for me, they should have come over and asked.”
Jiang Si sighed helplessly. “Forget it, it’s nothing. Isn’t that the trend nowadays anyway?”
“Not everyone is like that.” Hai Di couldn’t help but tighten his grip on Jiang Si’s fingers slightly, his voice carrying a nervousness even he didn’t detect. “You are very good.”
Good enough to bring a strange ghost he picked up randomly back home, offering the best incense and candles just to keep the spirit stable.
Jiang Si was surprised, then declared righteously, “Of course I know I’m very good! Have you ever seen anyone scolding themselves? Obviously, I was talking about other people.”
“…” The soft, cotton-candy-like sentiment Hai Di had built up was instantly shattered.
Jiang Si thought for a moment and added, “Don’t think praising me once means you don’t have to repay the favor. I’m keeping a tab on everything.”
“Okay.” Hai Di resisted the urge to facepalm and nodded silently.
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