Chapter 3

Chapter 3

An icy wind howled, and paper money for the dead danced through the air. Off to the side, several men in traditional Chinese clothing were beating gongs and drums. The suona from earlier had come from them.

I stood on tiptoe and looked toward the back. At the very end of the procession trailed a man with a deathly pale face. He was dressed in a red wedding robe, his long hair standing straight up on end.

My heart clenched.

Damn it. There was actually a Festive Ghost here too.

A Festive Ghost was formed when someone died suddenly during a joyous occasion. They usually appeared alone at funerals, dressed in red and smiling from ear to ear. But anyone who saw one was doomed to die.

Now that a Festive Ghost had appeared in a wedding procession, there was only one possibility: the ghost taking a bride had to be at the level of a Ghost King. Only a being like that could command him.

A Ghost King taking a bride, with a whole horde of ghosts attending the feast-if it came to that, we were in deep trouble.

Before they reached us, I immediately pulled a stack of Yang-Suppressing Talismans from my bag. A Yang-Suppressing Talisman could temporarily suppress the yang energy on a living person, preventing ghosts from detecting them.

“Everyone, listen to me. Those things coming up the steps aren’t people. They’re ghosts.”

“Hurry up and stick these talismans on yourselves, then lie down and play dead! If you wait any longer, it’ll be too late!”

I shoved the talismans into Chen Minghui’s hands, but he blocked me with the hand holding the suona.

“Oh, that’s hilarious. What, are you addicted to acting now? Is this some kind of prank show? Are there cameras hidden around here or something?”

Chen Minghui was talking, but the sound of the suona was still playing-and it was getting closer.

Only then did everyone realize something was wrong. They looked around, then saw the wedding procession on the steps.

“Whoa, look! What is that?”

“Cosplay?”

It was the middle of the night on a mountain path. The wind was cold and sinister, and a red bridal sedan was coming straight toward us. Any normal person would have found the sight terrifying.

But Chen Minghui was clearly not a normal person.

In an environment like this, people tended to blindly follow the crowd. Chen Minghui and his classmates kicked up a fuss, and when the others saw that, they joined in too.

“Where are the cameras?”

“Who came up with the idea of doing this on Mount Tai? Is that little girl an influencer?”

“Right? I thought something was off when they showed up. Those two young guys are both ridiculously good-looking, like celebrities. They must be influencers putting on a stunt.”

“Halloween is coming up soon. Is this some new tourist attraction Mount Tai came up with? Not gonna lie, it actually looks pretty convincing.”

Being misunderstood was my destiny. I understood.

Seeing that they refused to believe me, I quickly took all the Yang-Suppressing Talismans back. I stuck one on Jiang Haoyan and one on Ji Kang, then put the rest back into my bag.

I dragged the two of them to a spot sheltered from the wind, lay down on the ground, and started playing dead.

“Amazing. They’re actually lying down now.”

Chen Minghui burst out laughing. He adjusted the angle on his phone and started filming us nonstop.

The flash went off in my face until I was furious. I was just about to leap up and beat him when a thin, shrill voice suddenly sounded beside my ear.

“Young brother, how did these people die?”

I quietly cracked one eye open and saw the Festive Ghost crouching in front of me, his head tilted as he stared at my face with curiosity.

His face was ghastly white, and the corners of his mouth were stretched into an unnatural curve, nearly reaching his ears, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth. When he spoke, a frigid chill spilled from his mouth, and I couldn’t help shuddering.

“Hm? Not dead all the way yet?”

The Festive Ghost reached out and rubbed my face with his finger.

It felt like an ice pop, cold straight to the bone. This time, I was prepared, and I forced myself not to move.

Chen Minghui stood off to the side rubbing his arms, laughing under his breath.

“Damn, bro, you’ve got some serious cold extremities.”

“Do you come out in the middle of the night a lot? The wind’s strong on Mount Tai. Guess that counts as an occupational hazard, huh?”

The Festive Ghost ignored him. He kept poking and prodding my face curiously.

“Strange. No yang energy. Looks like he died not long ago, but why are two of his souls gone too?”

A person had three souls and seven spirits. Of the three souls, the first was the Heavenly Soul, the second was the Earth Soul, and the third was the Life Soul. The Heavenly Soul and Earth Soul did not always remain inside the body; they often drifted outside it.

Sometimes, you might visit a place you had never been before, yet feel that it was strangely familiar. That was because your Heavenly Soul or Earth Soul had been there before.

But the Life Soul was different. The Life Soul governed thought as well as action. A person’s seven spirits were all controlled by the Life Soul.

When a person had just died, the two wandering souls returned, the seven spirits dispersed, and the Life Soul remained weak. That was why the newly dead were muddleheaded, unable to remember anything from their life or even who they were.

However, the Heavenly Soul and Earth Soul would still be present. After enough time passed, the Heavenly Soul would disperse as well, and the remaining Earth Soul would either go to the underworld to await reincarnation or drift aimlessly, becoming a lonely wandering ghost.

And for malicious ghosts, a Heavenly Soul that had not yet dispersed was an excellent tonic. That was also why many malicious ghosts killed people.