The scene was simply too eerie.
Two paper figures staring straight at him with their dead eyes, combined with the dim, gloomy interior of the old house, made it look exactly like the set of a horror movie.
Xu Muchan stiffly tugged at the corners of his mouth and cautiously asked, “The groom… who is he?”
The paper figure seemed puzzled. It bent at the waist slightly, its stiff, deathly pale face moving closer to Xu Muchan. “The groom is the groom. Doesn’t the bride know?”
Xu Muchan leaned backward, watching them warily. “Of course I know. I was just testing you.”
The two paper figures stared fixedly at him for a long while before straightening up again, standing beside the bed like two guardian deities.
Xu Muchan thought that this wouldn’t do, so he cautiously tried, “I’m hungry. Could you go get me something to eat?”
This time, the two paper figures were surprisingly obedient. They left the room to fetch him some food.
Once there was no one else in the room, Xu Muchan finally took off the layers of elaborate wedding clothes he was wearing, leaving only a light red robe as he examined the layout of the room.
Judging from the style of the building, this should be an ancient structure.
The room was divided into an inner and outer section. The inner room contained a carved wooden bed, wardrobe, and other furniture, making it the living quarters. The outer room was separated by a large six-panel folding screen and contained a daybed, a small table, and other furnishings, presumably for receiving guests.
Because there was a wedding taking place, the room was covered with red silk ribbons and bright red wedding decorations. Even the bed curtains and bedding had been changed to festive designs featuring mandarin ducks playing in water.
However, all the furniture in the house was made of redwood. The aged, dark-red wood, clashing with all that festive scarlet, made the whole place look even more eerie and sinister.
Xu Muchan walked into the outer room and carefully pulled the door open a crack to look outside. There were side rooms on both sides, their doors tightly shut, and he had no idea whether anyone was staying inside. In the middle was a modest courtyard filled with carefully tended flowers, plants, and trees, as well as stone tables and stools.
If it weren’t for the heavy darkness of night, the scenery probably would have been quite beautiful.
Seeing that there was no one in the courtyard, Xu Muchan went outside for a look. He didn’t dare leave the courtyard recklessly. Instead, he casually walked toward the hanging flower gate and looked outside.
There were no lights outside at night either, leaving everything pitch-black and difficult to see. He could only vaguely make out several faint lights in the distance. They glowed with a strange green hue, as though they could be swallowed up by the surrounding darkness at any moment.
“Bride, dinner is ready.”
Just as Xu Muchan was leaning forward to look outside, a voice suddenly came from behind him.
He turned around and saw the two paper figures standing less than a step behind him. Each was holding a food box, their black pupils staring motionlessly at him. He had no idea where they had come from, but they definitely hadn’t entered through the hanging flower gate where Xu Muchan had been standing.
“Let’s eat in the room.” Xu Muchan steadied himself and walked back inside first.
The two paper figures stiffly took the dishes out of the food boxes. There were four dishes in total. They looked perfectly normal, even rather appetizing.
But Xu Muchan didn’t dare eat them at all. Who knew whether these dishes that looked and smelled delicious were actually transformed from insects, earthworms, or even offerings meant for the dead?
He did his best to put on the air of a host and waved at the two paper figures. “You can go out. I’ll call you back in when I’m finished eating so you can clean up.”
The two paper figures obediently opened the door and went outside.
Xu Muchan listened carefully to the sounds outside. The paper figures made noise when they walked, but the sound disappeared as soon as they reached the doorway. The two of them should have stopped outside and not gone anywhere.
Yet when Xu Muchan looked through the paper-covered window lattice, he couldn’t see either of them at all.
He sat there for a while, taking a little bit of each dish and wrapping the portions in a handkerchief before hiding them under the bed. Only then did he let the two paper figures back inside to clean up.
After clearing away the food, the two paper figures simply stood there in the room again, refusing to leave.
With them there, Xu Muchan didn’t dare make any reckless moves. Staring at them was unnerving enough, so he could only pretend to be sleepy and yawn. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep. You can go out.”
Once again, Xu Muchan managed to send the two paper figures away.
He half-reclined on the bed and began analyzing the information he had gathered so far. But the air in the room seemed to contain some kind of sleeping medicine. Xu Muchan had only been pretending to be tired at first, but as he continued thinking, he genuinely began to feel sleepy.
Sleepiness washed over him like a rising tide. Xu Muchan gradually lost consciousness, leaning against the headboard as he fell asleep.
After he was asleep, the door creaked open.
A paper-maidservant holding an oil lamp walked inside. Her stiff red-and-white face leaned close to the bed and looked him over.
“The bride is asleep.”
After saying this to herself, she placed the lamp on a nearby table before leaving again.
Early the next morning, the maidservants came to wake the bride with a fresh set of clothes.
Xu Muchan opened his eyes groggily and stretched lazily. He took the clothes from the maidservant and went behind the screen to change.
The newly prepared outfit was a dark-red long robe. Its design wasn’t as elaborate as the wedding dress, but it was still exquisitely made and heavily embroidered.
When Xu Muchan came back out after changing, he saw the two maidservants smiling at him, their eyes curved into crescents.
He smiled and said, “Thank you for your help. I don’t think I know what to call you two yet.”
One of the maidservants giggled. “My name is Chunhua.”
“My name is Qiuyue.”
Xu Muchan nodded to show that he had memorized their names. With Chunhua and Qiuyue attending to him, he rinsed his mouth and washed his face, then had them help tie up his hair.
Only then did he ask somewhat awkwardly, “My husband won’t be back for another two days. Am I allowed to walk around the residence during those two days? Staying in the courtyard all the time is a little boring.”
Chunhua was more lively than Qiuyue, and she immediately replied, “If you’re bored, Young Madam, you can take a walk in the garden. Young Master’s younger sister, Miss Ling, often goes there to play. She’s about the same age as you, so perhaps the two of you can play together.”
Xu Muchan immediately brightened. “Then I’ll go after breakfast.”
Breakfast was very lavish, and everything served was food Xu Muchan liked.
After finishing his meal, he eagerly asked Chunhua and Qiuyue to take him to the garden.
The residence was enormous, and the garden was even more beautifully designed. It was filled with precious flowers and plants, all of them blooming brilliantly.
Xu Muchan hadn’t even reached the garden when he heard a young girl’s laughter coming from the octagonal pavilion in the middle.
“Hmm? Why won’t they pay attention to me?”
As Xu Muchan approached, he saw a young girl in a pink dress teasing two little dogs with a whip.
The dogs were small, one white and one yellow. With their round, puppy-like faces, they looked adorable.
For some reason, though, they seemed extremely frightened of the girl. They lay flat on the ground, whimpering continuously, completely unresponsive no matter how much she poked at them.
The girl seemed to grow angry. She struck the little white dog with her whip.
The little white dog immediately let out a miserable yelp.
The other little yellow dog seemed frightened by this and yelped as well. Then, to everyone’s surprise, it lunged at the girl and sank its teeth into the back of her hand.
“Ow! How dare this little beast bite me!”
The girl screamed in pain and wildly lashed out with the whip twice more. Both little dogs nimbly dodged the blows before hiding underneath the table, their bodies hunched as they growled threateningly at her.
Her face flushed an even deeper red with anger.
“Quick, catch them! I’m going to send them to the kitchen and have them made into dog meat hot pot!”
The moment the two little dogs heard this, they immediately bolted.
And coincidentally, Xu Muchan happened to be walking in with Chunhua and Qiuyue, and the two dogs ran straight into him.
Xu Muchan thought the two little dogs were quite adorable. He couldn’t bear to let the girl send them to the kitchen to be killed, so he picked them up and frowned.
“The dogs didn’t know any better. They probably didn’t mean to bite you. If you don’t like them, why don’t you let me keep them?”
The two little dogs in Xu Muchan’s arms immediately raised their heads when they heard his voice.
Their eyes were wet and glistening as they barked excitedly.
“Holy shit!”
“Xu Muchan!”
“It really is you, Xu Muchan! It’s Wei Yao! Woof, woof!”
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang were practically beside themselves with excitement.
Heaven knew what they had gone through. They had woken up to discover that they’d somehow turned into dogs, only to be stuffed into cages by a group of bizarre paper figures and then delivered to an even more terrifying paper figure.
That paper figure had a deathly pale face with unnaturally bright red cheeks. Dressed in red and green, she looked like a young girl, but her temper was absolutely awful.
The two of them had personally witnessed her eat a cat alive. After wiping the blood from her gaping mouth, she had casually picked up her whip and walked toward them again, wearing an indescribably eerie smile.
If they had been facing a normal person, they could have endured the humiliation and pretended to be dogs in order to survive.
But faced with such a terrifying face, they simply couldn’t bring themselves to act like dogs. All they could do was lie on the ground and tremble.
Xu Muchan couldn’t understand dog language. He only thought the two little dogs seemed unusually affectionate toward him, their eyes wet and round.
He immediately happily patted each of their furry heads.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let them turn you into dog meat hot pot.”
The girl heard this and unhappily curled her lips.
“Who are you? These are my dogs! I want dog meat hot pot!”
Chunhua spoke from beside him. “Miss Ling, this is the Young Master’s new wife. You should call her Sister-in-law.”
Miss Ling’s eyes darted around before she giggled.
“So you’re my new sister-in-law. Then never mind. Since you like them, I’ll give them to you.”
She should have had an extremely cute and charming appearance, but when Xu Muchan met her eyes, he couldn’t explain why he suddenly felt a trace of malice within them.
It was cold and sinister, carrying an unmistakable ghostly aura.
But this was his husband’s younger sister, and she was about the same age as him. How could she possibly be a ghost?
Xu Muchan dismissed his doubts and smiled.
“Then thank you.”
Miss Ling stared at him with a giggle, saying ominously, “My brother will be back in two days.”
Xu Muchan lowered his eyes shyly, seemingly embarrassed.
“I know.”
For some reason, Miss Ling glared at him fiercely before walking away arrogantly with her attendants.
Holding the dogs, Xu Muchan quietly complained to Chunhua and Qiuyue, “My husband’s younger sister seems a little difficult to get along with.”
Chunhua giggled. “Miss Ling has the best temper in the entire household.”
Xu Muchan immediately frowned with concern.
“My husband’s temper isn’t very good?”
Qiuyue tilted her head and revealed a strange smile.
“You’ll find out when you meet Madam’s husband.”
Their words left Xu Muchan somewhat worried. He no longer felt like playing, so he carried the dogs back to his own courtyard.
After putting the little dogs down in the courtyard, Xu Muchan asked Qiuyue to bring out a ball of yarn so he could play with them.
The two little dogs were incredibly intelligent. Every time Xu Muchan tossed the ball of yarn, they would scramble to chase after it, pick it up, and bring it back, dropping it into Xu Muchan’s hand.
Xu Muchan became completely absorbed in the game, throwing the ball over and over again without getting tired of it.
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang, however, soon became exhausted like a pair of dead dogs. They sprawled out on the ground with all four legs stretched out, tongues hanging from their mouths as they panted heavily.
Watching Xu Muchan’s delighted expression, Wen Dajiang suddenly sensed that something was wrong. He turned his head toward Wei Yao and barked, “Old Wei, don’t you think Xu Muchan seems a little off?”
“Why do I feel like he’s actually having a pretty good time in this haunted place?”
Wen Dajiang glanced fearfully at the two paper figures standing on either side of Xu Muchan, and all the fur on his body practically stood on end.
Wei Yao noticed it too.
“Why does it feel like Xu Muchan got affected even more deeply than the two of us?”
Although they had turned into dogs, at least they still remembered who they were.
“Does Xu Muchan even remember who he is?”
Wen Dajiang fell into deep thought.
“This won’t do. We have to think of something. There’s no way we can escape in our current state. We need Xu Muchan to take us with him.”
“What can we do?”
Wei Yao rolled onto his back and kicked his little legs in the air.
“I can’t think of anything.”
“Watch me.”
Wen Dajiang glanced at Xu Muchan. Taking advantage of the moment when he wasn’t paying attention, he pounced forward, grabbed Xu Muchan’s hand, and viciously bit down.
Wen Dajiang bit with all his strength. Xu Muchan hissed in pain, and blood immediately appeared on his pale hand.
Chunhua and Qiuyue reacted at once, their expressions turning fierce as they moved to catch Wen Dajiang.
Wen Dajiang quickly released Xu Muchan and hid underneath the stone table, barking frantically at him.
“Xu Muchan, I’m doing this for your own good! Wake up!”
Xu Muchan frowned and covered his bleeding hand. When his eyes met the little yellow dog’s watery gaze, he inexplicably felt reluctant to let anything happen to him.
Seeing Chunhua and Qiuyue closing in on the little yellow dog from both sides, Xu Muchan couldn’t help saying, “Forget it. Leave him alone for now. My hand is bleeding. Go find some medicine and bandage it for me.”
Bright red blood dripped from his fingers onto the ground.
The strong smell of blood reached Xu Muchan’s nose, and suddenly he felt dizzy.
It was strange. He had never been bothered by the sight of blood before.
Yet now, looking at the blood, he felt as though his entire body had fallen into a spinning vortex.
Chunhua and Qiuyue heard him and, sure enough, stopped trying to catch the little yellow dog. They turned around, brought over some warm water and medicinal powder, and began treating Xu Muchan’s wound.
Perhaps because of his dizziness, Xu Muchan felt that their faces were becoming distorted as he looked at them.
Their originally full, rosy faces had become flat, their skin deathly pale. The blush on their cheeks looked as though it had been painted on, giving them an overwhelming sense of falseness.
Just like… paper figures.
This inexplicably horrifying thought flashed through Xu Muchan’s mind, and for some reason, he broke out in a cold sweat.
Frowning, he watched as the two of them finished treating his wound. Feeling somewhat drained, he sent them away.
Before that terrifying thought had occurred to him, Xu Muchan had thought Chunhua and Qiuyue were rather cute.
But after realizing how much they resembled paper figures the longer he looked at them, he found them increasingly eerie and frightening.
Goosebumps erupted all over his body.
Xu Muchan turned to look at the two little dogs, hoping to find some comfort in their fluffy bodies.
The two little dogs were huddled together underneath the table, cautiously peeking out at him.
Xu Muchan found them adorable and beckoned with his hand.
“Come here.”
The little white dog hesitated before crawling out from underneath the table. Seeing the white dog move, the little yellow dog followed and crawled out as well.
The two little dogs scampered over to Xu Muchan’s hand, barking and whining nonstop as though they were actually talking to him.
Xu Muchan rubbed their little heads and muttered, “You two sure have a lot to say.”
“Xu Muchan, wake up!”
Wei Yao was practically heartbroken.
Wen Dajiang barked along, “No, should I bite him again?”
Perhaps the eagerness in his eyes was too obvious. Xu Muchan stiffened and warily looked at the unfriendly little yellow dog.
“If you bite people again, I’m going to lock you in a cage, okay?”
Wen Dajiang immediately realized that wouldn’t do and could only temporarily abandon the idea.
Xu Muchan thought the little dog looked round, chubby, and rather foolish, but it was actually very clever. It could even understand what he was saying.
He played with the dogs for a while before becoming sleepy.
He loosened his outer robe and climbed into bed, reminding the two little dogs, “I’m going to take an afternoon nap. Don’t run off, okay?”
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang pitifully lay beside the bed to keep watch.
This place was filled with paper figures everywhere. How could they possibly dare to wander off?
Perhaps because the place where he had been bitten kept aching faintly, Xu Muchan’s nap was restless.
In his dream, it seemed that some terrifying thing had become entangled with him. No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t break free.
Xu Muchan suddenly jolted awake and instinctively reached for the Mountain God Tablet hanging around his neck.
His hand closed on nothing.
The Mountain God Tablet…
Xu Muchan sat there blankly, his fingers loosely curled against his chest, as though he had just broken free from an illusory dream. Cold sweat covered his forehead.
That’s right.
He remembered now.
He had been tricked by a female ghost into coming here to take her place as a bride.
He wasn’t anyone’s wife.
Thinking about everything he had done earlier, Xu Muchan’s face immediately turned an ugly mix of red and green.
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang, who had been lying beside the bed, noticed that something was wrong with his expression and quickly came over.
Wei Yao tilted his head and stared intently at Xu Muchan’s lowered face.
“Xu Muchan, are you okay?”
Wen Dajiang also pawed at Xu Muchan, belatedly realizing an important question.
“After I turned into a dog, am I using my own body, or was my soul stuffed into a dog’s body? I don’t have rabies, do I?”
Wei Yao: “…”
He solemnly put on his little dog face.
“That is an important question.”
The two dogs barked, yelped, and whined beside him, taking turns as though they were actually having a conversation.
Xu Muchan, who had been lost in regret, was pulled back to reality by their voices.
He looked strangely at the two little dogs casually conversing beside him.
Perhaps it was just his imagination, but the more he looked at them, the more human they seemed.
And their barking didn’t quite sound like the barking of real dogs either.
Someone in Xu Muchan’s village had once raised a local mongrel, and he had heard those little dogs bark before. Their voices were different from those of these two puppies.
When these two dogs barked, it sounded almost as though a human being were imitating a dog’s bark…
That realization made the two seemingly innocent, round-headed puppies suddenly seem sinister.
The goosebumps that had only just begun to fade returned all over Xu Muchan’s body.
Feeling creeped out, Xu Muchan edged away from them, trying to put some distance between himself and the two strange dogs.
But the more he moved away, the closer the two dogs followed.
They even jumped onto the bed and barked at him.
“What happened to him?”
Wei Yao asked in confusion.
“He liked us so much before. Why does he look a little scared of me now?”
Wei Yao shamelessly wagged his tail and pounced toward Xu Muchan’s hand.
Sure enough, Xu Muchan immediately pulled his hand away.
Wei Yao was stunned.
“Holy crap! A man’s heart really is as unpredictable as the sea! Just a moment ago, he was calling me his good little dog and letting me hold him. He takes one nap and suddenly turns cold and heartless!”
Wen Dajiang disdainfully shoved him aside and went to look at Xu Muchan.
He noticed that there was now a faint trace of wariness in Xu Muchan’s eyes.
Something suddenly clicked in his mind.
He barked loudly, “Xu Muchan, did you remember?!”
Wen Dajiang became excited and anxiously spun around on the bed.
“It’s me, Wen Dajiang!”
As he spun, he thought about how to make Xu Muchan recognize him.
Then he spotted the teapot on the table, and his eyes immediately lit up.
He jumped off the bed and tried to reach the teapot on the table.
If he got his paw wet, he could use it to write!
Xu Muchan watched strangely as the little yellow dog suddenly became extremely excited, its tail practically turning into a propeller.
Not only that, it desperately kept jumping toward the table, apparently trying to reach the teapot.
But its body was too small. After struggling for ages without reaching it, it finally collapsed onto a chair, panting heavily and looking at Xu Muchan with an aggrieved expression.
Just as Xu Muchan was wondering what on earth the dog was doing, the little white dog suddenly made an agile leap.
With a second jump, it stepped directly on the little yellow dog’s head and used it as a foothold to leap onto the table.
Then, with astonishing arrogance, it pushed the teapot off the table right in front of Xu Muchan.
Xu Muchan: “…”
Wen Dajiang, who had just been stepped on the head, barked furiously.
“Fuck! How dare you step on my head!”
Wei Yao dipped his paw into the tea spilled on the ground and urged him, “Hurry up and write! Write your name. Mine has too many strokes!”
The two little dogs immediately got to work.
Xu Muchan watched all of this with an increasingly strange expression.
When he saw the crooked characters written on the floor, his brows drew together, and a bizarre thought surfaced in his mind.
He cautiously asked, “Wen Dajiang? Wei Yao?”
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang were so excited they nearly cried.
They immediately wagged their tails and raced toward the window, their eyes watery as they nodded frantically.
“It’s us!”
After confirming that these two dogs really were his good friends, goosebumps erupted all over Xu Muchan’s body.
“How did you two end up here too?”
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang eagerly began telling him what had happened to them.
Perhaps because their identities had been exposed, after their barking twisted strangely for a moment, Xu Muchan suddenly found that he could understand them.
Wei Yao said, “Wen Dajiang and I arranged to duo at an internet café that night. We played until the middle of the night before splitting up to go home. Then, while I was waiting for a car on the street outside the internet café, I suddenly heard someone call my name from behind me, so I turned around and looked.”
Wen Dajiang added, “I heard someone call my name too.”
“But after we turned around, there was nothing behind us. We were already feeling pretty creeped out. Wei Yao originally wanted to go back to the old house to find his godmother, but it was already past two in the morning. Wei Yao was worried that we’d wake his grandfather and get scolded, so in the end, we went back to his home in the city.”
As it turned out, before they had even fully woken from their sleep, the two of them discovered that they had arrived in this haunted place—and had even turned into dogs.
Xu Muchan pondered this. “There is a saying that when you’re walking alone at night, if you suddenly hear someone call your name from behind you or tap you on the shoulder, you shouldn’t turn around.”
Wei Yao was indignant. “It’s the twenty-first century, and it was the weekend! People have plenty of nightlife! It could’ve been a friend or someone they knew. These ghosts are way too sneaky!”
Wen Dajiang said, “What about you? How did you get in here? Before this, I thought you didn’t remember anything. You really looked like a bride waiting to be married, chatting and laughing with those paper figures. Old Wei and I were scared half to death.”
Xu Muchan coughed awkwardly when Wen Dajiang brought up exactly what he didn’t want mentioned.
“I dreamed about that red wedding dress from the antique shop. The red wedding dress was being worn by a female ghost. She asked me to take her place as the bride, then forcibly put the red bridal veil over my head. I became the bride and was carried here in a sedan chair.”
Wei Yao was stunned.
“They can just force a sale like that?”
Xu Muchan thought for a moment.
“I think it might be because that fake mannequin fell on me during the day, and the red bridal veil happened to land on my head.”
But no matter how he put it, it was still basically a scam.
Xu Muchan got down from the large bed and walked around the room.
“And there must be something strange in this room too. When I first arrived, there was nothing wrong with my memory. Then I suddenly became sleepy, took a nap, and when I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything.”
“Help me look around and see if there’s anything unusual in the room.”
As Xu Muchan spoke, his gaze suddenly landed on an oil lamp on the table in the outer room.
The oil lamp had a distinctive design, and about half of the oil inside had already burned away. If he remembered correctly, this lamp hadn’t been in the room before he went to sleep last night.