Chapter 85
Chapter 85
Ning Shuo also recounted what had happened in the ancestral hall. When he finished, Rao Lin said, “Your luck really isn’t bad. You ran into an amnesiac plot NPC, so you didn’t even have to stay in character.”
At first, Ning Shuo hadn’t known it was a plot NPC either. He had simply assumed it was like the elevator ghost in the Hospital Script, the kind that only knew how to kill Player, which was why he hadn’t bothered maintaining his persona.
Ning Shuo irritably lifted his injured arm. “You want this kind of luck?”
“I’ll pass.”
Rao Lin glanced at Ning Wang, who had remained silent off to the side, then deliberately mocked him to lighten the mood. “After all, Teacher Song isn’t in the Sun Family. I don’t have another Teacher Song to come save me and then feel bad for me afterward~”
Ning Wang gave him a glance, neither confirming nor denying it, and took a Registry Book out of his Backpack. “I went to the cliff where the woman fell to her death. I found this on her.”
When Ning Shuo saw the familiar names in the Registry Book, he took out the memorial tablets and spread them out with a clatter. “They all match.”
Song Zhu pointed at several names. “I heard these ones mentioned by the Tian Family’s other sons.”
The entire Registry Book recorded the buying and selling of women by the various families over all these years. Ning Shuo asked, puzzled, “So every woman over the years is listed in here?”
“Mm. I tested some other NPC. They said themselves that the woman stole the Registry Book and planned to report them to the authorities after she got out.”
Ning Shuo had an inexplicable premonition. “…How did you test them?”
Ning Wang said, “I copied two pages, pretended those were the pages I’d picked up, and then openly went to ask about them.”
His tone was as flat as if he were saying, “What’s for dinner tonight?” But somehow, Ning Shuo felt like he could hear a certain smug, annoying undertone of “Aren’t I smart? Hurry up and praise me.”
Ning Shuo noticed that Ning Wang had changed into a new set of clothes and asked offhandedly, “Why did you change clothes?”
The room fell into a strange silence. Then Rao Lin burst into loud laughter. “He went down the cliff to look for the body, but the cliff was so high that he lost his footing and branches tore his clothes to shreds, hahahaha!!”
Ning Wang flushed with embarrassment and snapped, “You say that like I wasn’t the one who bailed you out when you got caught by an NPC in the concubine’s courtyard during the day!”
At that, Rao Lin curled his lip. “Who knew Aotianli had no ordinary sense of morals at all? The NPC who caught me actually thought I’d gone to the concubine for that kind of thing. Are women only good for that in Aotianli?”
Ning Shuo pressed his lips into a tight line.
Such an important Registry Book had fallen to the bottom of the cliff with that woman. Why hadn’t the NPC picked it up?
It couldn’t be because they had forgotten.
Then the only explanation was that the cliff was too high, and the NPC assumed the woman had been smashed to pieces beyond recognition, and that her remains would only be devoured by the wild beasts at the bottom. Naturally, the Registry Book wouldn’t have survived intact either.
So, on a cliff that high, had it really only torn Ning Wang’s clothes?
Returning to the matter at hand, Ning Shuo picked out one memorial tablet. “Since that Registry Book records every woman, why is this girl the only one not listed?”
It was Mingzhi’s memorial tablet.
They carefully flipped through the book again.
The format was basically always “xxx-sold on x year, x month, x day.”
Ning Shuo was thoughtful. “Then… could Mingzhi actually not have been a woman who was bought and sold?”
If she wasn’t, then what grudge did Mingzhi have against Aotianli?
And ghosts usually appeared as they had looked before death. Mingzhi had clearly suffered tremendous torment while she was alive.
There was also the title of this Script-Beware the Ghost Bride.
When he’d first received the bride identity, he’d assumed the Ghost Bride was a bride who, like his identity, had been “bought” into the family and then died miserably.
But looking at it now, could each family’s ancestral hall have a “Greater Ghost” like Mingzhi?
Ghosts were divided by strength into Greater Ghost and Little Ghosts, and the source of that strength was either devouring other people or ghosts, or experiencing immense pain before death.
What had Mingzhi gone through for her strength to surpass the other brides’ by so much?
Once they had discussed almost everything, Rao Lin glanced outside and tossed a soundproofing item onto the door. “It won’t block NPCs, but at least right now, the NPCs won’t overstep by coming to watch the young master play with his new bride.”
Ning Bride Shuo: “…”
Ning Wang very directly smashed the Registry Book at Rao Lin’s head. “Watch your mouth.”
Rao Lin hurriedly ducked behind Song Zhu. “Second Young Master can play with the bride. I’ll be fine playing with Young Master Tian.”
With the soundproofing in place, Song Zhu said, “The four opposing Players at the Tian Family still haven’t regrouped with Fu Xing and the others. Women’s movements in Aotianli are extremely restricted, and now items like Disguise can’t fool the NPCs anymore. Ah Shu probably hasn’t found a chance to send them any information either.”
“The Murderer on our team is Sister Yao.”
…
Ning Shuo stared at those memorial tablets.
The setting of this Script should be that once the ashes were gone, the corresponding person would never be able to reincarnate again.
That was why Mingzhi cared so much about those memorial tablets.
There were no other female ghosts in the ancestral hall, so Mingzhi’s claim about the “Greater Ghost devouring the Little Ghosts” could be trusted for now.
But if she had already devoured the other female ghosts, why did she still care so much about their ashes?
Besides, everyone else’s names were in the Registry Book. Those who could be suppressed beneath the ancestral hall should all be people whose memorial tablets were inside it.
It was precisely because Mingzhi’s tablet was in the ancestral hall that even though her yin energy surged at night and made her stronger, she still could not touch the ashes. After daybreak, her power would decline drastically, and she would definitely be dragged back to the ancestral hall by the ashes to continue being suppressed.
Not to mention, the Registry Book recorded more than just brides. Anyone bought and sold into Aotianli would be recorded in it.
So if Mingzhi was a bride, why wasn’t her name in the Registry Book?
Ning Shuo had a vague guess, but it was like something hidden behind a layer of fog, flickering in and out of sight.
Rao Lin and the others were still discussing. “Sister Yao said her killing condition is that the target has to be a man, and she has to kill him with the help of another woman.”
Kill a man, with a woman’s help.
Mingzhi’s wedding dress was also an extremely old-fashioned style.
Ning Shuo said instinctively, “Is it possible that Mingzhi was a ghost-marriage bride, and one of the first victims in Aotianli?”
Because it was a ghost marriage, she had a memorial tablet that could enter the ancestral hall.
Because she was one of the first victims, the ghost marriage still involved betrothal gifts. And since, in another sense, she had been sold into Aotianli by her parents, the Registry Book for trafficked women did not have Mingzhi’s name.
Because it was a ghost marriage, the bride in a ghost marriage would have all four limbs nailed into the coffin, and her mouth would be sewn shut, leaving her in unspeakable agony. Add to that the fact that she was one of the earliest victims, and her power would be even stronger.
As for her hatred of men, there was also a corresponding explanation: all the other girls were victims abused by the men of Aotianli. Whether from a woman’s perspective or from the emotions Mingzhi gained after devouring the other female ghosts, she would hate them.
Whether that was true or not, they would know once they submitted the answer.
Ning Shuo and Ning Wang pulled up the Virtual Screen. Ning Wang went over the criminal chain they had uncovered in Aotianli, while Ning Shuo explained that his sister had been sold into Aotianli and that her soul had later been devoured by the female ghost.
The former was correct. The latter was wrong.
Once his first guess was proven wrong, Ning Shuo became even more certain of his second guess.
He said, “Actually, none of the girls were completely devoured. They all have remnants of their souls left. That’s why Mingzhi got so agitated when I accidentally moved those memorial tablets containing ashes. If I really destroyed those ashes, the other female ghosts really would have their souls scattered, never to reincarnate again.”
“The reason we didn’t see them in the ancestral hall is because they all willingly gave their power to Mingzhi, the Greater Ghost, to the point that they no longer have enough power left to manifest.”
“Every single girl is using her own power to help Mingzhi take revenge for them.”