Chapter 308
Chapter 308
Together in one coffin after death.
Did Miss Xie want all those people to share a coffin with her?
Was she trying to set herself up as some petty emperor?
Power and status were one thing, but apparently she was determined to experience the joy of a harem three thousand strong.
Qin Nan could only marvel.
“What purpose does this thing serve?” Qin Nan thought for a moment, then asked.
If it existed, it ought to have some meaning.
Jian Fan could not answer that. He shook his head. “Let’s look at the other things first.”
With that, Jian Fan looked away.
Miss Xie would not spend long making her toasts, so no one dared waste time. Every second counted.
Anyone capable of reaching this world was no novice. Even Lin Junruo remained fully focused.
They soon turned the bridal chamber upside down.
Apart from the strange bed Jian Fan discovered, Qin Weiyi found something as well.
It was a string of rusted bells.
Qin Weiyi did not dare touch it directly or move anything in the room carelessly. In the end, Lu Jing tore a strip of cloth from his clothes and placed the bells on it.
“What’s wrong with these bells?” Lin Junruo asked in confusion.
No matter how she looked at them, they were only a perfectly ordinary string of bells. Rusted ones, at that.
Yellow Hair immediately answered, “There’s nothing wrong with the bells themselves. The problem is that they’re here.”
How could a family as wealthy as the Xies keep a rusted string of bells? And–
“They were stored very carefully.” As Qin Weiyi spoke, he pointed to the brocade box he had set aside.
The bells had originally been kept inside the brocade box, which in turn had been carefully placed inside a jewelry case.
Qin Weiyi had looked through it. The case contained a great deal of jewelry, and even though he knew little about such things, he could tell at a glance that they were expensive. That made the presence of these rusted bells especially suspicious.
Jian Fan took the bells from Qin Weiyi.
Qin Nan stood beside him, so the moment Jian Fan took them, he was able to see them more clearly as well.
The string of bells had been fashioned like a wind chime.
At the top was a ring made of bamboo, with several strings of bells tied to it and hanging down.
And the bells…
Qin Nan counted them. There were eleven bells in total, along with one empty string.
In other words, the wind chime should originally have held twelve bells, but one had gone missing, leaving only eleven.
And that…
Qin Nan swallowed again, this time purely out of unease.
“I have a theory…” he said weakly.
Jian Fan looked at him. “They represent us?”
Qin Nan nodded rapidly.
Clearly, he was not the only one who had thought of it.
“They represent us? The bells?” Shi Chen did not seem to understand at first, but after hearing Qin Nan and Jian Fan, he counted the bells and noticed the empty string. The number was so conspicuous that he immediately caught on.
There had originally been twelve bells, matching the twelve Players exactly. Now one bell was missing, just as Fang Kang had died.
That meant the wind chime directly represented how many people in their group remained alive.
If that was true, then this object–
It seemed useful, but at the same time, it seemed rather pointless.
After all, when the group was together, the number of survivors was obvious at a glance.
Even if they were apart, knowing how many were alive or dead did not seem especially important.
Still, since the object was here, it might serve some other purpose. Qin Weiyi decided they should take it.
Jian Fan agreed.
Since Qin Weiyi had found it, Jian Fan handed the bells back to him for safekeeping.
Apart from the bells, Zhou Jingying had found something as well.
“Is that…” Qin Nan stared at the object she produced. “A miniature incomplete Sibuxiang?”
Zhou Jingying held a wooden carving, and its shape was identical to the stone statue outside the Xie Residence. It depicted a Sibuxiang that had suffered all manner of torment.
“Yes. I thought it looked like the statue outside, so I figured it might be useful,” Zhou Jingying said. Yellow Hair had lost his senses because of that statue earlier, after all.
Although the wooden carving was only a miniature, Zhou Jingying was afraid it might still be dangerous. She had avoided looking at it for too long and had found a wooden box in the room to contain it.
For the moment, however, it appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary wooden carving, with nothing else unusual about it.
“Bring it,” Jian Fan could only say in the end.
Besides those two objects, Lin Junruo discovered two wet footprints beside the bathing tub.
It was a very strange thing.
The bride was still out front, and before that she should have been off collecting the groom. There was no way she could have appeared in this room during such a short period of time. Moreover, there was no water in the tub. So where had the two wet footprints beside it come from?
They had seen footprints left on dirt roads before, but footprints made solely of water were a first.
No one could explain it.
Time passed as they discussed their findings.
They were so absorbed that no one noticed until a cold wind swept in and made them all shiver.
Lu Jing was the first to come back to his senses.
He turned toward the two doors standing wide open.
The wind was blowing in through them.
There had been almost no wind before, but now it had suddenly grown fierce. Both doors swayed beneath its force, creaking and banging against the other panels. Lu Jing took one look, then gazed outside.
Two red lanterns hung by the entrance.
From where Lu Jing stood, he had a clear view of them.
Now the wind sent both lanterns swinging wildly. As they swayed, their red color suddenly drained away, turning them into stark white lanterns.
“They’ve turned white!” Lu Jing immediately warned the others.
His shout jolted everyone alert, and they all turned toward the doorway.
The lanterns had turned white…
The toasts were over. The ghosts’ revelry was beginning.
Based on what had happened yesterday, the ghosts should perform for a while next. Then Miss Xie would appear holding the groom’s spirit tablet. Only after she smashed it through the doorway would all the ghosts attack the group at once.
But with the situation already changing this time, who knew whether the ghosts might attack the instant they regained their true forms?
“Leave this place.” Before anyone could reason it out, Jian Fan spoke.
He could not be certain whether the ghosts would attack at once, but they could not remain in this room.
This was Miss Xie’s bridal chamber–her home.
During the ghosts’ revelry, Miss Xie and the groom had disappeared for a period of time. Jian Fan could not confirm that she had come here then, but he had to account for the possibility.
“Let’s go,” Qin Weiyi agreed.
The group immediately headed toward the doorway.
But just as they reached it, an even stronger gale of sinister wind blasted toward them. It was stronger than any wind they had encountered before, leaving them barely able to stand, much less take another step forward.