Masterlist of posts and character list
Chapter Two (continued)
A band playing a tune walked before the four bearers of the bride’s sedan chair, carrying her forth to the groom’s home. The musician at the front suddenly stopped, his tune vanishing as his face went unnaturally pale with shock.
A cold wind gusted abruptly, throwing leaves into a wild tumult. Not far away, a ghostly figure in black sat atop the roof of a fallen temple. He had long hair and was drenched head to toe.
A red cloth covered the sedan chair’s opening. The woman inside, dressed in her bridal finery, listened as the outside fell silent. She couldn’t help but ask, “What’s going on? Why have we stopped?”
No one answered.
Just as her confusion rose, she felt a wet sensation on the back of her hand. She moved the veil over her face to peer out and just then more water dripped from the top of the sedan chair to land on her hand. Soon, the strong odor of fish drifted in from outside.
How strange. How could water get inside the sedan chair? Growing more uncertain by the moment, the bride lifted her veil. She wanted to look; she had to see what was going on.
She’d only just half-raised her veil when she saw, right in front of her, the dirt-blackened feet of a barefoot man.
The bride’s scream pierced the forest, startling birds from the tree tops to scatter into the sky.
Then, the sedan stopped right where it was. The accompanying party fell, their corpses littering the ground in disarray. Each and every face was frozen in surprise; their eyes wide around cloudy, blinded pupils; their mouths gaping open as if a great fright had killed them instantly. Strange and tragic deaths.
The dripping-wet figure lifted the unconscious bride to carry on his shoulder. He passed through the disorderly array of bodies on the ground, walking slowly toward the deep recesses of the forest. The ragged edges of his tattered robes dragged across the soil, leaving behind damp water stains.
Zhao Yuanzhou watched the man with the black clothes and the long hair carry off the bride before him. “So, it was a Water Clan ghost,” he said in a relaxed tone. As he finished speaking, his eyes cleared and returned to their normal color.
“The Water Clan has a lot of variety. Dragons, fish, black tortoises, merfolk… Can’t you be a little more specific?” Wen Xiao asked.
Zhao Yuanzhou pondered a moment, then, “An ugly one,” he answered earnestly.
“An ugly water demon? That’s a huge help; the case is practically solved.” Wen Xiao was utterly speechless. The urge to stab Zhao Yuanzhou with her dagger grew more and more uncontrollable.
“Demons are only strong or weak,” Zhuo Yichen said. “Not beautiful or ugly. All demons are ugly.”
Incorrect! What utter nonsense! What were these people who studied demons all day even studying?! In an act of great compassion, Zhao Yuanzhou decided to teach them about the aesthetics of beauty in the demon world.
Idioms that appear in this section:
横七竖八 (héngqī-shùbā) – in disorder; at sixes and sevens; higgledy-piggledy
胡说八道 (húshuō-bādào) – talk nonsense; sheer nonsense; rubbish
