He knew about reciting the Twenty-Four Mantras for courage and to ward off evil spirits, but logically speaking, a female ghost chanting the Twenty-Four Mantras...
He had never seen anything like it before.
Compared to him, Lu Mingran was not so conflicted. After a moment of stunned silence, he burst into laughter, hugged his pillow, and rolled back onto the bed, covering his face and laughter with the blanket.
"Hey, Mingran, Mingran!"
Cheng Yungui patted the blanket, trying to dig him out: "Jack is still upstairs, he's all alone."
Yes, he was staying in the last room. Just then, the woman's voice outside stopped, and Lu Mingran knew she had gone upstairs to find Jack.
"Okay, I'll be right there."
Later, when Lu Mingran saw that Cheng Yungui was also going upstairs, she became wary and, remembering all the things Cheng Yungui had done for Jack in the novel, decisively stopped him: "I'll go alone."
Before Cheng Yungui could speak, Lu Mingran looked at him, suddenly suppressing the smile in her eyes, and said calmly:
"What if it's too dangerous there and we all die together? It's better for two people to die than for the whole group to be wiped out."
"Oh right, I'm not saying I'm going to protect you and rush off to my death."
Lu Mingran regained her relaxed state and smiled happily:
"But the one who survives must have the ability to take revenge."
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After shouting a few times, the drunkard outside realized that the woman in front of him had suddenly disappeared. He blinked hard a few times and vaguely saw the door of a room move, and a young man walked out of it.
Perhaps it was because he had been staying up too late, but he looked somewhat gloomy.
The young man walked over, smiled at him, and told him to go back and rest. Then the man headed straight for the elevator.
The drunkard watched his retreating figure and had the illusion that this man was about to do something big, and that he was ready to die for it.
The system thinks so too.
But a minute later, Lu Mingran stood in the elevator, taking deep breaths, looking like a puffing air pump.
The system said, "...Luckily you're only one floor apart. If he lived on the thirtieth floor or something, I'm afraid you would have died in the elevator before you even got there."
Ding—The elevator has arrived.
As soon as Lu Mingran entered the sixth floor, he felt very uncomfortable. He thought that this must be the legendary yin energy. Following the winding corridor, Lu Mingran made his way towards room 604.
Fortunately, the female ghost seemed a bit discouraged after not getting anything out of the way downstairs, and left after staying upstairs for a minute or two. Lu Mingran walked over and knocked on the door of room 604.
...Hey, why is the door ajar?
Something's happened!
Without a second thought, Lu Mingran burst through the door and rushed in:
"Jack!"
With that movement, Lu Mingran kicked something hard the next moment.
It is a Bluetooth speaker.
Lu Mingran looked up in confusion and saw Jack lying on the bed, wrapped in a bathrobe, shivering as he held up a cross to his chest. Lu Mingran had watched TV dramas, and he could tell that Jack was definitely just scribbling randomly.
"...Jack, what are you doing?" Lu Mingran looked at the speaker at her feet. "And why did you take the hotel's speaker?"
Jack's lips were trembling so much that he couldn't utter a complete sentence: "Ghosts, two of them."
After a long while, Lu Mingran finally understood what he meant.
There was a woman crying in the room, and another woman outside the room was shouting "Civilized, civilized!" Jack didn't understand why the person inside was crying, nor why the person outside was shouting "Civilized!"—was the hotel staff so uncivilized that she couldn't stand it anymore?
Seeing how pitiful they all looked, Jack opened the door a crack, slid the speaker through, and planned to let them have a get-together and party.
Lu Mingran: "...I think I know why you kept courting death but always managed to survive."
"Never mind that for now, I want to know what's going on with the female ghost outside!" Jack roared.
"Well, actually..."
Lu Mingran said seriously, "The female ghost outside is using magical Eastern power."
——————————
When I opened my eyes and woke up, the scene had changed to the waiting hall in the county town.
The people around him were all carrying large bags and bundles, their faces filled with the eagerness and joy of returning home. A chubby uncle sitting opposite them saw Jack and smiled, saying, "A foreigner?"
As he spoke, he took a "福" (Fu, meaning good fortune) character from his bag and handed it to Jack: "Happy New Year!"
Faced with the kindness, Jack awkwardly tried to say "Happy New Year" and accepted the "Fu" character.
As his elder, Cheng Yungui held a corner of the character "福" (Fu, meaning good fortune) and told him how to paste it. Lu Mingran, who was next to him, smelled the instant noodles in the waiting room and looked at the strong New Year atmosphere. For a moment, he felt as if he was not in a dream, but really in reality.
This is the calm before the storm.
Soon after, the script arrived.
Jack: "Uncle, it's already noon. Are we going to miss the wedding?"
Cheng Yungui looked outside and said, "Have you seen the invitation? The wedding is tomorrow."
“Yes,” Lu Mingran interjected, “and it’s tomorrow evening. In ancient times, weddings were mostly held at dusk.”
Suddenly, Jack said, "Hey, I remember the wedding date on that invitation was tomorrow, I think!"
————————
That small village was a typical village from a ghost story, with inconvenient transportation, nestled against a mountain, and surrounded by small woods.
When the three arrived, it was already afternoon. Since they were relatives who had come all the way from abroad, a man claiming to be their fifth uncle was already waiting for them at the door.
"Hey, this is Jack, right?" Uncle Wu patted Jack on the shoulder. "If there's anything you're not used to living in this little village, just tell Uncle Wu."
Jack maintained an awkward yet polite smile; everything here was a bit difficult for him to adapt to. Fortunately, it didn't take long for Jack to find something that interested him.
What is that?
Jack raised his arm and pointed to a dark shape not far away, with what looked like a red silk flower on its head.
Fifth Uncle looked in the direction he was pointing and said, "Oh, little donkey, we'll need it for the wedding tomorrow."
This seemed to be the first time Jack had ever seen a live donkey, and his excitement immediately rose. While Lu Mingran and Cheng Yungui were packing their things in the room, they turned around and found Jack was gone.
"Where did this child go?" Cheng Yungui paced around the room in confusion, scratching his head.
Lu Mingran knew where he had gone.
Outside, a group of people suddenly appeared around the little donkey. They surrounded the donkey, but they were clearly not there to see it.
Cheng Yungui followed Lu Mingran over, laboriously pushing through the crowd, and found Jack happily riding on the donkey, even greeting him.
This time, Cheng Yungui, like everyone else, fell silent.
Finally, Lu Mingran spoke up: "Get down!"
"It's just a donkey, can't I ride it?"
"It can be ridden."
Lu Mingran pointed to the red flower on the donkey's head:
"The day you're ready to become a bride, you can ride a donkey."
Jack didn't seem to understand and remained sitting on the donkey.
Lu Mingran couldn't hold back any longer:
"Get off, this is for the bride to ride!"
Chapter 57 Want to be the King of the Night? No way (9)
As soon as Lu Mingran spoke, the onlookers who had been holding back for so long couldn't help but burst into laughter. The young women and wives stood to the side, heads bowed, laughing, while the men egged them on.
"Sit a little longer!"
Lu Mingran was really afraid that at any moment, some man would simply lead the donkey and take both the donkey and Jack back to his home.
“Yun Gui.” Lu Mingran poked Cheng Yun Gui’s arm. “I think you’re here not only to marry off your cousin, but also your nephew.”
Cheng Yungui responded to him very quickly:
"If you say another word, I'll marry you off too."
At this point, Jack finally lost his temper and, for the first time, obediently followed the local custom, getting off the donkey. Before leaving, he even patted the little donkey's head.
Finally, Uncle Wu heard the commotion. He walked over and stopped, somewhat puzzled, when he saw the little donkey.
"Wait a minute, whose donkey is this?" Uncle Wu craned his neck, looking back and forth. "I remember the Cheng family's donkeys didn't look like this."
Lu Mingran admired her fifth uncle very much; he could actually tell that donkeys looked different from each other.
In the novel, if Jack hadn't ridden the donkey, the Cheng family's daughter, who was about to be married, would have inexplicably come out and sit on the little donkey herself.
The little donkey would carry the Cheng family girl around the millstone again and again until her eyes suddenly became vacant.
Four years ago, the Cheng family's daughter fell seriously ill.
She was really sick that time, and the hospital issued several critical condition notices. Later, they stopped going to the hospital, took the girl home to raise her, and said that life and death were up to fate.
At this time, the Fang family from the neighboring village came over. In front of the girl, they said, "My son who died young needs a wife. I think your daughter is quite good. Why don't we arrange an engagement in advance?"
Ghost marriages are a common theme in ghost stories. But it's quite rare to see one involving a living person.
The Fang family was naturally driven out by this family with sticks, but the Fang family members were still shouting before they left:
“Our family is so rich, if you sell your daughter to us, at least you can recoup your costs of raising her after she dies.”
Some people in China believe in the saying, "Don't laugh at other people's families; the more you laugh, the better they'll live." Ever since the Fang family's outburst, the Cheng family's daughter has been getting better day by day, and now she's getting married and starting her own family.
Logically, the matter should have ended there, with the two families going their separate ways.
However, the Fang family harbored resentment.
They bought a female corpse to arrange a ghost marriage for their son, and even deliberately chose the same day as the Cheng family's, just to disgust them.
A wedding in the mortal world and a wedding in the underworld, on the same day, in the same village.