Chapter 290
Chapter 290
Qin Nan and the others found the sight terrifying, but the ghosts?
The moment the female ghost made her move, the crowd erupted in applause.
She smiled, then spun around. Her skirt flared with the motion, lifted by the eerie wind. At the same time, the severed arm flew back and reattached itself to her body.
The female ghost really was dancing. Some of her movements made it clear that she was genuinely skilled at it. If she could only stop flinging an arm or a leg off every other second, Qin Nan might even have been willing to applaud her.
After dancing on the ground for a while, she suddenly pushed off with the tip of one foot and floated into the air, landing atop the white lanterns.
Qin Nan had no idea why a ghost even needed feet, but she really was dancing from lantern to lantern, her toes barely brushing their surfaces.
If he ignored the fact that she was a ghost, this might actually be a pretty good dance.
Or so Qin Nan thought.
He quickly retracted that ridiculous notion.
As the female ghost’s toes touched a white lantern, blood from her dress trickled down her leg and dripped onto it.
It was only a single drop, yet the white lantern instantly turned bloodred. Worse still, a crimson rain began falling beneath it.
The eerie wind gusted, making the lanterns sway and sending the crimson rain drifting everywhere.
Naturally, some of it soon came floating toward Qin Nan and the others.
Lu Jing reacted instantly, pulling Qin Weiyi behind him before dodging out of the way himself. Yang Zhen was just as quick. Mu Xin happened to be standing beside her, so she grabbed her and pulled her clear as well. Xia Zeqin, of course, remained completely untouched. As for everyone else…
Jian Fan reacted quickly too, immediately stepping back. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he reached out and pulled Qin Nan with him.
Qin Nan spun around to face Jian Fan, taking the crimson rain across his back.
He had not avoided it completely, but at least it had only landed on his back. It was no big deal.
Yellow Hair had been about to dodge, but when he remembered Lin Junruo beside him, he had no choice but to turn around and shield her with his back. Like Qin Nan, his back bore the brunt of it.
As for Shi Chen and Zhou Jingying…
Zhou Jingying’s reaction was not exactly slow, though she was still a step behind the others. In the end, all she managed to protect was her face.
Shi Chen, meanwhile…
The crimson rain scattered directly across his face.
Shi Chen: “…”
Damn it.
What the hell was this?
The female ghost continued dancing.
As everyone watched the drifting crimson rain closely, the female ghost began spinning wildly atop the white lanterns. Perhaps she got a little too carried away, because all four of her limbs went flying off. And not just her limbs, either. Her head went flying too.
The female ghost’s head hurtled straight toward Qin Nan and the others.
This time, they all reacted quickly and dodged aside.
None of them were struck by her head.
It landed on the ground in front of them and rolled around several times.
The female ghost let out a cry of pain when her head hit the ground. Then it rolled in a circle until her face was turned toward them.
She looked rather displeased. “Why didn’t you catch me?”
Everyone: “…”
The female ghost had been far away before, and her long hair had covered her face as she danced, making it impossible to see what she looked like. But now, her head was right in front of them.
Her entire face was riddled with bloody holes, each one steadily bubbling with gore. Worse still, strange-looking insects appeared to be gnawing at the holes.
The blood-soaked cavities covering her face, combined with the densely packed mass of insects…
Lin Junruo was so terrified that she nearly screamed. Realizing that something was wrong with this place and that she could not make a sound, she grabbed a hand and stuffed it into her mouth.
Still, why didn’t biting down on the hand hurt?
Lin Junruo’s thoughts wandered for a moment.
Yellow Hair found the sight rather terrifying too, but the pain in his hand soon consumed all his attention.
His mouth fell open from the pain, but he didn’t dare cry out. All he could do was stand there grimacing in silence.
Mu Xin was frightened too. She had just opened her mouth to scream when the quick-eyed Yang Zhen clamped a hand over it. In the end, all of Mu Xin’s screams were reduced to muffled whimpers.
And it wasn’t just the two girls. Qin Nan and the others were thoroughly unnerved as well.
No one responded to the female ghost’s question.
Wasn’t the answer obvious? They would have to be insane to catch it! But none of them dared say that aloud.
Fortunately, the female ghost didn’t seem to mind. It appeared to have been nothing more than a casual remark.
Her head quickly floated back into the air and, like her limbs, returned to her body.
Once her body had reassembled itself, the female ghost’s dance finally came to an end. She drifted lightly to the ground.
Perhaps her head and limbs hadn’t been attached properly, because she deliberately twisted and stretched her body, producing a series of creaks and cracks. Only after confirming that every part was back in place did she smile and nod at the crowd, marking the successful conclusion of her performance.
As she walked off to the side, her gaze swept past Qin Nan’s group.
Then she suddenly threw them a flirtatious wink.
Everyone: “…”
Thanks, but they really didn’t want that wink.
The female ghost’s dance was over, but the revelry was far from finished.
Apparently, her dance had only been the opening act.
Now that the atmosphere had warmed up, the other ghosts began itching to perform.
Qin Nan and the others watched with numb expressions as the ghosts pulled out every trick in the book, seemingly terrified that they might fail to scare their audience to death.
One of them, for instance, ripped out its own intestines with its bare hands, yanking its internal organs out one after another. Lin Junruo couldn’t hold back anymore. She bent over and dry-heaved off to the side. The others weren’t doing much better, their faces deathly pale.
Then there was a group dance featuring ghosts of every bizarre description, each bearing a different gruesome sign of death. A hanged ghost’s tongue dangled far out of its mouth, while the face of a ghost burned to death was a mangled mess of blood and flesh, with wisps of smoke rising from its head every now and then…
There was even a ghost playing the suona.
One tune from that suona sounded ready to send them all straight to the afterlife.
A ghost playing a suona was practically death itself calling for them.
After watching so many bizarre performances, Qin Nan’s face had gone stark white. His legs were so weak that he couldn’t move at all. There was no chance of growing numb to this. The longer he watched, the more frightened he became.
Could these ghosts really be putting on all these performances just to scare them to death?
As Qin Nan watched, he silently opened the System.
Of course, he wasn’t trying to exchange for an item. He only wanted to check the time.
As long as they held out until dawn, the ghosts would disappear and they would finally be free.
But when Qin Nan checked the time and saw that it was only two in the morning, he nearly burst into tears.
How could it only be two o’clock?
Just as Qin Nan was beginning to question his entire existence, the ghosts’ performances finally came to an end.
But the situation didn’t improve.
The ghosts suddenly divided into groups. Some sat off to the side and began playing funeral music, while others spread out to stand in two rows. At that moment, Miss Xie, who had previously been dressed as a Bride in red, emerged from the main hall wearing white and carrying a memorial tablet.
What was going on?
Were they holding a funeral immediately after the wedding?
The thought had barely crossed Qin Nan’s mind when the surrounding ghosts burst into tears.
They wailed with such grief that their cries shook heaven and earth.
By then, Miss Xie had reached the courtyard, and Qin Nan finally saw the inscription on the wooden tablet.
The spirit tablet of Fang Kang of the Xie Family.
Who?
Holy shit!