Chapter 17: This Is My… Beloved…
Red silk, crimson robes, fine steeds. Whips cracked, drums thundered, and suonas blared high-pitched tunes. It was, by all accounts, a proper wedding processionâexcept no ordinary familyâs procession included dozens of grooms.
Scores of grooms, large red flowers draped across their chests, rode forward on horseback. Their formation was as disciplined as a military march; every person held the exact same posture, and even the horses moved in eerie unison. The excessive uniformity made the scene feel exceptionally abnormal.
Yun Wuxiang roughly scanned the faces of those grooms but did not find Shen Lanqing or Prince Li among them.
He sensed the location of the talisman he had given his disciple. Following the direction, Yun Wuxiang looked toward the band playing the wedding music and spotted Shen Lanqing, who was holding a flute and pretending to play along to make up the numbers.
The disciple was found. So, where was Prince Li?
The boy band of grooms on horseback soon arrived at the Princess’s Manor. The seating arrangement at the banquet shifted to resemble a wedding hall setup.
Princess Huiqing sat on the high seat of honor, looking down at the crowd. Her originally graceful and noble black phoenix eyes had turned blood-red, and her dignified, amiable aura had become gloomy and terrifying.
In the seats reserved for family and close friends sat two men.
One was dressed in red. anxiety hidden in his eyes as he rapidly scanned the procession of grooms. He looked over every face, and only after confirming the person he cared about wasn’t there did his mind settle slightly.
The other man was dressed in whiteânot ordinary white clothing, but mourning robes of hemp and flax.
On a day of great joy, this man in mourning clothes stroked a broken bronze mirror and said to Prince Li, “Imperial Brother, I truly didn’t expect you to have someone you care for as well.”
“My Ah-Shuang is already gone. How can your beloved continue to live? We brothers should be the same.”
Prince Li shot a fierce, bloodthirsty look at the man in white, his words dripping with killing intent. “Prince Xuan, you are courting death.”
Prince Xuan gently stroked the mirror in his hand. The shattered surface reflected a handsome yet twisted face. “Yes, I suppose I have gone mad. To think I’ve developed the same ailment as youâhow truly unlucky.”
“My Ah-Shuang only wanted a bit of your destiny, yet you let that Daoist kill her directly!”
Prince Xuanâs eyes were filled with intense hatred and a faint trace of regret.
“He deserves to die, you deserve to die even more… You all deserve to die!!”
“Guanzhu, it seems you’ve broken up a pair of star-crossed lovers. Any thoughts?” The black cat squatted on Yun Wuxiangâs knee, turning its head to look at him, its tail gently sweeping across the back of his hand.
Yun Wuxiang grabbed the tail, gave it a pinch, and then pressed down on the cat as it tried to jump. “If I had known, I would have sent him on his way a few days ago to reunite with that Mirror Demon.”
Killing him now was impossible. Prince Xuan had a significant role in the original novel. If he were to be killed, it would have to be after his plotline concluded, or after the plot completely collapsed.
Yun Wuxiang felt the latter was more likely. The plot had already deviated ten thousand miles from the original text.
There was no Mirror Demon in the original novel, nor did Prince Xuan fall in love with one.
This really lived up to being a world of melodramatic angst. The two most powerful princes of Great Yu were more love-struck than the last, and they fell in love faster than one could blink.
How long had Prince Li known his disciple? …Forget it, they were the official pairing. Removing the angsty plot points, they were compatible from the start.
But Prince Xuan, what was his deal? The Mirror Demon didn’t even have a shadow in the original book. Mo Yang had chased her down to the Mortal Realm for less than a monthâhow did deep love develop in such a short time?
Song Yilou running wild on the island, a Mirror Demon randomly entering the story to romance Prince Xuan, plus people from the Immortal Realm harboring ill intentions toward the protagonist.
Yun Wuxiang realized that aside from the System and the World Consciousness, he was truly the only one hoping the script would proceed normallyâthough even his version of “normal” was a bit watered down.
“Imperial Sister, the banquet should begin,” Prince Xuan said to Princess Huiqing on the main seat.
Prince Li swept a look of disgust over Prince Xuan. “You call the monster occupying Imperial Sisterâs body ‘Sister’? Youâre unreasonable!”
Prince Xuan smiled. “What is Imperial Brother saying? This is our sister. Our Second Imperial Sister, Princess Shunming.”
Prince Li froze upon hearing this, turning his head to look at the main seat. “Second Imperial Sister?”
Princess Huiqing… no, Princess Shunming, who occupied her body, looked at Prince Li with her ghostly eyes and nodded. “It is me.”
Prince Liâs eyelid twitched. Not a demon, but a ghost?
He asked tentatively, “Does Imperial Sister have an unfulfilled wish?”
“You will know Imperial Sister’s wish soon enough,” Prince Xuan stopped smiling and lowered his head to continue stroking his mirror.
Princess Shunming spoke, “I am missing an ideal husband.”
Prince Li: “…I can ask Father Emperor to issue a decree to select a consort of excellent character and appearance for Imperial Sister.”
A paranoid obstinacy, bordering on obsession, surfaced in Princess Shunming’s eerie blood-red eyes. “I want to choose for myself. The old man has terrible taste; when I was alive, he always tried to betroth me to crooked melons and cracked dates.”
Prince Li shut his mouth. He remembered how this sister, who had been dead for several years, had died.
She failed to resist the imperial decree for marriage. On the wedding day, during the bridal chamber night, she stabbed the groom to death with a hairpin, then hacked to death more than half of the guards the Emperor sent to capture her, finally dying from excessive blood loss during the fight.
Since then, the Emperor had never granted a marriage decree to anyone again.
Princess Shunming announced, “Let the banquet begin.”
Following the command, a person ran out from the band and shouted loudly, “Spring Banquet, tying the knot! Seeking a virtuous wife and beautiful family, an ideal husband! Lanterns and streamers, love for a lifetime!”
The candidate grooms dismounted and walked neatly to the front of the main seat, standing like goods waiting to be selected.
Those qualified to attend the Spring Banquet had already been roughly screened by Princess Huiqing. Anyone present, male or female, was good-looking.
Princess Shunming quickly took a fancy to one. With a tap of her fingertip, the groomâs eyes changed from dull to spirited. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, forcing himself to remain calm as he bowed to the head seat. “Greetings, Your Highness Shunming.”
Although he couldn’t move along the way, he could hear everything around him and naturally understood the current situation.
Princess Shunming asked, “Do you have a person you love?”
The man nodded. “I do.”
Princess Shunming’s interest immediately waned slightly. “What is her name? Does she like you?”
The man answered honestly, “I grew up with the third daughter of the Chen family, Chen Miao. We are childhood sweethearts. I came to the Spring Banquet to find her and ask for an answer.”
Princess Shunming stared at him for a while, staring until the man felt cold all over, before saying, “Honest enough.”
In the blink of an eye, a gentle and graceful woman appeared in the room.
Princess Shunming asked the woman, “Are you willing to marry him?”
The woman trembled in terror, but her tone was firm. “I am willing!”
Princess Shunming waved her hand, and the two were seated in the guest seats.
“Lin-lang!”
“Miao-niang!”
The two, still in shock, dared not make any big movements and could only hold each other’s hands tightly in their seats.
Princess Shunming quickly picked out a second person and asked the same question.
The man said, “Yes.”
Princess Shunming: “Who?”
“The daughter of Minister Fang, Fang Xiyue.”
This time, a bright and dignified woman appeared.
The man exclaimed excitedly upon seeing her, “Xiyue!”
Fang Xiyue shook her head. “I am not willing.”
The man’s face instantly turned pale. “Xiyue, if we have a misunderstanding, we can resolve it slowly. Now is not the time to throw a tantrum.”
Fang Xiyue took a step back. “There is no misunderstanding. Three months ago, he was intimate with the niece of the Ming family, and he has been unclear with the maids in his manor. A few days ago, he even intended to assault my personal maid. I am not willing!”
The man panicked. “Which man doesn’t have three wives and four concubines? I was just playing around with them; the position of legal wife has always been reserved for you!”
Fang Xiyue said no more, simply persisting, “I am not willing.”
The chill in Princess Shunming’s already terrifying ghost eyes deepened, becoming even more horrific. “So it’s a piece of filth.”
“Your Highness, I… Ahhh!!!” The man dissolved rapidly like melting wax into a pool of bloody water.
The thick scent of blood made everyone present feel a chill run through their bodies, realizing with absolute clarity that Princess Shunming was a murderous malicious ghost.
Princess Shunming’s grim ghostly gaze swept over the remaining men below. “Next.”
“I… I don’t have a person I love.”
Princess Shunming sneered. “A lie. Coward.”
Another pool of blood exploded outward.
“Rong-er, save me!”
“Yue-niang! I truly like you, please give me a chance! I swear I will treat you well for the rest of my life!”
The grooms begged the sweethearts they had chosen. Some were sincere; others were driven by the desire to survive.
Their words were more or less the same. Some survived together, while others turned directly into bloody water.
Black Cat: “I thought the Guanzhu would step in to save people. According to so-called secular concepts, their crimes didn’t deserve death.”
Yun Wuxiang: “That is a malicious ghost.”
The black cat said casually, “It’s merely a malicious ghost. Surely the Guanzhu can beat her?”
Yun Wuxiang remained silent.
The black cat’s leisurely posture vanished in that silence. Its pupils constricted into slits, and a look of shock appeared on its feline face. “You really can’t beat her?”
Yun Wuxiang pinched the cat’s head with two fingers and sneered, “Do you honestly not know what this barrier does?”
A barrier that could even shield against the Heavenly Dao, with an Innate Divine Object as its core array eyeâthat was something even the Heavenly Dao couldn’t handle. What method could he possibly have?
And according to his current judgment, that Innate Divine Object was extremely likely to be on Princess Shunming herself. That was actually one of the better theories.
Recalling what the System hadn’t finished sayingâthe array eye could be an inanimate object, or it could be… If inanimate corresponds to an object, need it be said what the alternative is? A living thing.
Regardless of how an Innate Divine Object turned into a human and then a ghost, if Princess Shunming truly was the array eye, then he was likely in for a tough battle.
In just a short while, Princess Shunming had killed four more grooms. The ground had turned completely red, and the smell of blood was thick enough to make one dizzy.
Among the remaining grooms, there were very few whose appearances could catch Princess Shunming’s eye.
She glanced at them, her mood souring. “Sure enough, the good ones were picked by others long ago. The leftovers are all trash.”
At this moment, Prince Xuan spoke up with ill intentions. “There is one person Imperial Sister would definitely like. He is right here, a Daoist priest like a banished immortal. He’s probably hiding. Imperial Sister might want to look carefully.”
Hearing this, Yun Wuxiang immediately felt something was wrong. In the next moment, a pair of blood-red eyes looked left and right before locking onto his direction. The gaze fixed there, as if the invisibility talisman on him had failed.
Princess Shunming waved her sleeve, and Yun Wuxiang was pulled into the room by a force.
Seeing him up close, Princess Shunming’s red eyes brightened further, becoming even scarier in their redness.
“Does the Daoist possess a person he desires?”
Yun Wuxiang: “…”
He took back his previous words. Plot or no plot, he should have just killed Prince Xuan the last time they met.
Princess Shunming revealed a ghastly smile. “The Daoist isn’t speaking, so that means you don’t…”
Yun Wuxiang: “I do.”
Yun Wuxiang grabbed Song Yilou’s waist. “This is my… beloved.”
Never in any moment had he felt that speaking a few words could be so exhausting; his tongue felt like it didn’t belong to him.
Following this sentence, he saw Prince Li’s gaze turn bizarre, as if mutating. Prince Xuan looked shocked, mixed with unwilling resentment. Princess Shunming sized them up with regret and novelty, while the grooms wore various expressions.
And there was the obscure gaze his disciple cast from the direction of the band.
At this moment, Yun Wuxiang’s heart was as still as dead water; even a hurricane couldn’t raise a ripple.
If Song Yilou dared to dismantle his stage, he would kill this guy first, then go fight Princess Shunming.
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