Caught off guard by Ye Tianxuan for not looking at the guide, Zuo Meng broke out in a cold sweat and quickly turned to the bride. "I...I also want to help you find your home. Is there anything I can do for you?"
The bride slightly raised her chin, her red veil almost completely obscuring the upper half of her face, making it impossible to discern her emotions. Only a hint of hesitation could be discerned from her slightly pursed lips.
After a moment of silence, she slowly raised her hand and pointed to a tombstone beside her. A weak voice escaped from her sewn-up lips, "Help me dig out what's underneath, and I'll tell you."
Zuo Meng turned to look at the tombstone. There were no inscriptions or photos on it, making it impossible to tell whose tombstone it was. It looked like a stone slab that had been carelessly tossed there. Only after the bride pointed it out did he realize that Ye Tianxuan had brought him here for a reason.
"I can dig, but I don't have any tools," Zuo Meng frowned. He couldn't very well go back to the village to find tools now.
"Dig it with your hands, the soil is loose. I believe you're young and strong, you'll dig it out quickly." Ye Tianxuan's relaxed and leisurely voice came from the side. Zuo Meng turned her head and found that Ye Tianxuan had at some point laid down the tombstone of a nearby grave, patted off the dust, as if cleaning it.
"Digging by hand isn't impossible, but Boss Ye, what are you doing?" Zuo Meng watched as Ye Tianxuan cleaned the tombstone, then took off his coat and covered himself with it before lying down.
"Sleeping, it's time to rest." Ye Tianxuan lay very calmly, sticking out a section of his arm from under his coat and waving it before quickly retracting it. "Good night, do your best."
Zuo Meng's eyes widened. "Boss Ye, you're not planning to sleep on someone's tombstone, are you?"
"It's okay, I know him." Ye Tianxuan closed his eyes and muttered, "I personally built this grave for him, buried it very well. Even after all this time, the weeds haven't grown much. He should thank me."
There was even a hint of pride in his relaxed tone.
Zuo Meng choked, unsure whether to continue asking questions. Seeing that Ye Tianxuan wasn't planning to participate in the digging and was even going to sleep nearby, he could only squat down and put the bride on his back aside.
"Alright, whatever you want, I'll dig it out for you. Afterwards, you have to tell me what happened to you."
Zuo Meng rolled up his sleeves, deciding to follow Ye Tianxuan's instructions.
The bride nodded, her delicate red figure slowly leaning against the stone in the cemetery, watching Zuo Meng lift the tombstone and dig with his hands.
She might not be able to use her brain, but she could still use her hands.
The night was dark, the cemetery pitch black.
Without the small match Ye Tianxuan had lit, the cemetery was exceptionally dark, making the bride's bright red wedding dress stand out starkly.
She sat there calmly, still appearing delicate, wearing an oversized, ill-fitting wedding dress, her veil covering her head, quiet and reserved, without a trace of threat.
Zuo Meng was focused on digging down the tombstone. Her mind wasn't the sharpest tool in the book, but she was certainly good at physical labor.
As she dug, the bride's cold voice suddenly drifted through the night.
"Are you afraid of paper figures, incense, or ghost brides?"
Without hesitation, Zuo Meng replied, "Of course I am."
The bride asked again, "Why are you afraid?"
Zuo Meng paused, thinking for a moment. To say that the little paper figure in the clinic was particularly terrifying wasn't really true, but seeing any moving paper figure did indeed evoke a fear—an instinctive fear.
"I can't quite put my finger on it... it's just Chinese horror, maybe it's a fear etched into our bones? It's so closely tied to death."
"In Chinese horror, there are many ghost brides, but why aren't there ghost grooms?"
Zuo Meng was immediately stumped by the question, squatting down to think seriously. "Because the bride... in the old days, was the weaker party, while the groom wasn't."
The bride lowered her head slightly and smiled, "Yes, because the living know how deep the resentment a woman who dies in her wedding dress can hold. What she experienced in her life will surely turn her into a vengeful ghost, while the groom won't experience such things."
Zuo Meng stared at the woman in front of her, seemingly understanding the heaviness in her words, but not knowing what to comfort her about.
The bride lowered her head slightly, her deep voice murmuring in the night, "Marriage, marriage is a woman's folly, marriage is a woman's imprisonment."
"Marriage Village, Marriage Village..."
"Is it really the village of marriage?"
Zuo Meng stopped what she was doing, thinking about the current situation in the village. There were no young women in the village, and even a large number of men were critically ill. These men, even on their deathbeds, were still getting married. Since there were no young women to marry, they married paper brides...
This extremely extreme behavior in marriage had reached a bizarre level.
"Are all the young women in the village like you?" Zuo Meng asked tentatively.
The bride nodded slowly, her voice low and cold, "Marriage Village is the village of the Matchmaker, famous for its joyous weddings. The red thread in the village can bind marriages, and the word 'joy' has become a cover for all the bad things in the village."
"Someone is sick, so they get married to bring good luck. "
"Someone's family has been having a lot of bad luck lately, so they get married to bring good luck."
"All unfortunate things are supposed to be washed away by the extravagant red 'double happiness' characters and the promise of marriage. Even if it doesn't work, they firmly believe it.
The women in the village are seen as mere commodities to be exchanged at will. Even... when someone is to be buried, the bride is the highest-ranking burial offering."
The woman's cold voice drifted on the night wind, each word sending chills down Zuo Meng's spine.
After learning that the entire world of ghosts and monsters was modified and categorized from real-world regions, the woman before her was no longer just a monster or an NPC.
"I don't know when it started... the paper figures in the village began to move, more and more people died, and those who got married fell ill one by one. I think... there were too many wronged souls in the cemetery, and finally, they couldn't be buried any longer, so they turned on them."
"And I was just one of those who woke up."
Her red veil swayed slightly in the night wind, and the voice from her lips, sewn shut, remained soft and weak. "I have no interest in taking revenge on the people in the village. I just want to go back to my home, but from the moment the coffin lid was closed, I could never go back."
The bride paused slightly, slowly raising her head. Even through the red veil, the emptiness she exuded sent chills down Zuo Meng's spine. "
Hands and feet are bound to prevent struggle; lips are sewn shut to prevent accusations from the afterlife; and eyes..."
A night breeze stirred, and beneath the swaying red veil, the dark, empty eye sockets were faintly visible, grotesque and terrifying.
"With my eyes gouged out, I won't be able to find my enemies, and I won't be able to find my way back."