The Heroine Fell Deeply For Her [Quick Transmigration] 223p1

Chapter 223: What’s This About Marrying First and Loving Later? 8(1)

“Dong, dong, dong—”

There was a row of drums in the Lingxiu Village ancestral hall, usually covered with red cloth and carefully preserved, mostly used for rituals.

Occasionally, they also had special uses, like now—if the drums sounded, a summons must be answered.

Hearing Liang Chun’s words, the tourists were still confused. They hadn’t experienced this before and didn’t understand why Liang Chun reacted so strongly.

They subconsciously suspected that Liang Chun was hiding some life-saving rules again, but at this time, Liang Chun no longer had the patience to deal with idiots and turned to leave.

“Hey? Why are you leaving without saying anything?”

“Guilty conscience?”

The female student inexplicably found them a bit scary and quickly followed Liang Chun.

Tao Ning arrived at the ancestral hall earlier. More and more villagers gathered, their numb faces full of confusion, whispering amongst themselves.

Listening to their conversations, it seemed they didn’t know what was happening either.

The drumbeat gradually stopped. The discussions paused briefly before resuming. They wanted to ask the village chief, but he was nowhere to be found.

Tao Ning suddenly heard someone shout from behind: “Grandma, I want that!”

Tao Ning, lost in thought, looked towards Xiao Zhen’s wooden building, wanting to take the opportunity to go over and check while no one was paying attention.

Xuan Miao, hanging onto the edge of the cloth bag, also looked towards the wooden building.

Unlike others, she had already smelled the scent of death.

“That red doll! Grandma, I want that!”

The ghost and human finally realized that these words were directed at them and wanted to leave even more quickly.

The old woman, whose sleeve was being tugged, was impatient and looked up at Tao Ning: “Tao Zi, let him play with the thing in your bag, you can have it back later.”

In the villagers’ eyes, Tao Zi was an orphan, growing up ostracized. Having lived in such an environment for a long time, she wouldn’t dare to resist being asked for something.

So, of course, she wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with her attitude.

Unable to leave in time, Tao Ning slowly turned, her dark eyes reflecting the old woman’s bark-like face.

She said coldly, “Do you also like this doll? I picked it up in the bamboo forest on the mountain. I’ll pick up another one for you tomorrow.”

The red-clad doll hanging on the edge of the cloth bag also stared at the grandmother and grandson, making their scalps tingle.

A creepy person with a creepy doll, and it was brought down from the mountain.

“What do you want with a fool’s things? Unlucky, don’t take it,” the old woman said to her grandson.

The grandson refused, wanting to throw a tantrum on the ground, but was immediately slapped by the old woman, finally stopping, sobbing softly, staring at Tao Ning’s back with resentment.

The gaze was almost tangible. If it were an arrow, it would have pierced her a thousand times.

Tao Ning walked through the crowd, not paying attention to the grandmother and grandson.

These two had also visited Tao Ning’s house last night and were scared away by Xuan Miao.

Seeing them during the day, they were moving around as if nothing had happened. If someone accidentally touched them, they would realize that their skin had no temperature, clearly dead people.

Last year, the child, being mischievous, had gone to play in the water and accidentally fallen into the deep end. The grandmother, who was collecting firewood, saw him and went into the water to save him. Both of them drowned.

Fortunately, their bodies were well-preserved. After the village chief arranged a ritual, they were placed in coffins and stored in a cool place at home.

After the Mountain God Festival, the grandmother and grandson in the coffins sat up under the hopeful gazes of their family, living as usual.

The people of Lingxiu Village didn’t find this strange.

Because almost every family had family members who had died and come back to life, wandering around after dark. Everyone had long been accustomed to it, only closing their doors and windows tightly.

No matter who knocked, they would never open the door.

Family during the day, flesh-eating ghosts at night.

A village full of walking corpses, this village probably wouldn’t last long.

“Some people in Lingxiu Village aren’t alive, so how do they ensure reproduction, with a bride every year?” The female student caught up with Liang Chun, asking the question she had been pondering but hadn’t dared to voice.

Liang Chun was irritated. She hadn’t seen her companion along the way, not even that pretentious Taoist priest.

So she said, “Who said the bride has to be someone from the village?”

The female student was speechless.

Thinking about this answer gave her goosebumps.

The female student recalled the statue and spirit tablets she had seen in the main hall of the ancestral hall. The names of the brides were indeed engraved on them, a small portion sharing the same surname, but most had different surnames.

Lingxiu Village was secluded, and most marriages were within the village, sharing the same surname. So were those brides with different surnames really villagers?

If they weren’t from the village, where did these brides come from?

When the remaining few followed the villagers to the ancestral hall, they found the crowd agitated, talking about someone dying.

Liang Chun casually asked an older woman beside her: “What happened?”

The older woman glared at her. She was from the conservative faction in the village and had always disliked outsiders interfering with the rituals, but the village chief had spoken, and they couldn’t do anything about it.

But now…

The older woman sized up Liang Chun and the timid young woman beside her, secretly sneering, thinking, barely satisfactory: “Probably preparing to choose a bride.”

Liang Chun’s heart skipped a beat, immediately realizing the crux of the matter: “Something happened to the bride?”

The female student, who had just been thinking about the bride’s origins, also turned pale. When they first arrived, they were told that the bride had already been chosen and was living in the small wooden building near the ancestral hall.

Because the bride had already been chosen, everyone naturally assumed they only needed to be wary of the night and the tasks requested by the villagers. Now, they were saying something had happened to the bride.

Ignoring the older woman’s appraising gaze, Liang Chun walked directly towards the wooden building.

The wooden building wasn’t large, and its structure wasn’t complex. Made of red-lacquered wood carvings, it resembled the boudoir of a bound-foot lady from the old days, an exquisite cage.

The stairs were narrow, even shorter than a child’s foot. Adults could only fit half their foot on each step, having to walk on tiptoe.

The stairs were steep and led straight to the second floor, making it difficult to go up and down, creaking with every step. Escaping from such a place would be very troublesome.

On the second floor was the bride’s chamber, where she lived before her wedding. The bride couldn’t contact anyone before her wedding, and her food could only be delivered through the window on the other side using a basket.

Tao Ning stood at the bottom of the stairs. Obvious bloodstains and fresh footprints marked the narrow staircase.

They must have been left by those who went upstairs to check. They probably didn’t find anything and came down quickly, so there were footprints going both up and down, intermingled with the bloodstains.

Tao Ning touched the still-wet bloodstain with her fingertip, rubbing it and smelling it: “It’s definitely human blood, not animal blood.”

Xuan Miao pointed out: “Are there no animals raised in the village? What do you eat every day?”

A Ghost King sleeping for a long time didn’t mean she had no common sense, becoming a blank slate.

Humans ate grains and livestock, and even if they had nothing else, they would raise a dog to guard the house.

However, none of this existed in Lingxiu Village. There was no rooster crowing in the morning, no dog barking at night, quiet like a dead land.

Tao Ning wiped the blood off her fingertip with a handkerchief: “I can’t speak for others, but I eat fish.”

With a river in front of her house and a plot of land behind it, she wouldn’t be short of food.

Xuan Miao said without thinking: “I hate fish.”

After a moment, Xuan Miao added: “I hated it when I was alive too.”

Tao Ning put the soiled handkerchief back into her pocket, glancing at the stairs. She was about to go up to take a look, pausing at Xuan Miao’s words: “You remembered something about your past?”

Xuan Miao swung her legs inside the cloth bag: “Not much.”

As they were talking, Tao Ning had already reached the second floor, taking in the entire area.

The second floor was even smaller than the first, with only one room. The door was open, a winding trail of fresh blood leading from the stairs into the room.

It was as if someone covered in blood had been dragged up the stairs, finally disappearing into the room.

There were no signs of struggle in the room. A round table was placed by the window, the same window Tao Ning had knocked on earlier. Xiao Zhen liked to sit there and do needlework under the light.

On the other side, a canopy bed with red silk curtains was neatly made, in line with Xiao Zhen’s habits. She had been chosen as the Mountain God’s bride since childhood and was known in the village as a virtuous and intelligent girl, diligent and tidy.

“Something feels strange,” Tao Ning said after walking around the room, “Why is there no light source in this room?”

There were neither candles nor lanterns.

Xuan Miao floated out of the cloth bag, her height level with the beams. She looked down at the small room: “No, so stingy, they didn’t even give her a candle?”

“They wouldn’t be that stingy,” Tao Ning reached out to catch the descending Xuan Miao, skillfully putting her back into the bag, “The last time I came, Xiao Zhen had a bamboo lantern on her table, with a double happiness symbol pasted on it.”

Now, the double happiness symbol was thrown on the table, but the lantern was gone.

Looking at the blood everywhere, the ominous dark red staining the carpet, with such blood loss, Xiao Zhen definitely couldn’t have survived.

One window was wide open, the other was closed.

It looked like Xiao Zhen had extinguished the candle at night and opened the window to die. The bloodstains on the ground and the splatters on the wall were very similar to how the tourist had died.

Tao Ning said strangely, “This shouldn’t be right.”

Xuan Miao asked, “What shouldn’t be right?”

Tao Ning told Xuan Miao about her previous idea of taking Xiao Zhen’s place. At the time, she had thought Xiao Zhen would definitely agree, but she had been firmly rejected and almost pushed out the window.

The reason why she had thought Xiao Zhen would definitely agree was simple. Xiao Zhen, who had been chosen and raised as the Mountain God’s bride since childhood, had fallen in love with someone, a young man from the village.

It was absolutely forbidden for the Mountain God’s bride to have feelings for others, so Xiao Zhen had been sent to the wooden building in advance and locked up.

After being whipped, the young man was also taken away by his family, only allowed to be released after the Mountain God Festival.

Xiao Zhen’s strong reaction that day was likely due to fear, worried about being overheard if she expressed her unwillingness.

However, Tao Ning said, “But the village chooses a Mountain God’s bride every year, most of them forced into it. Only Xiao Zhen was specifically raised for this role, and this was the answer given by the village chief after personally consulting the deity.”

This meant…

Thinking from a ghost’s perspective, Xuan Miao’s answer coincided with Tao Ning’s thoughts: “It means Xiao Zhen is very nourishing for the ‘Mountain God,’ possibly allowing it to advance to a higher level, but consuming her earlier wouldn’t be appropriate, unable to maximize the benefits.”

No one would believe that the Mountain God’s marriage was a real marriage.

The villagers sacrificed a bride in exchange for the “resurrection” of their loved ones and the Mountain God’s grace. This was the rule of Lingxiu Village.

But Xiao Zhen, who they thought wouldn’t die, was dead, her body nowhere to be found.

Tao Ning looked at the corner of the room. The wicker chest that had been there was also gone.

That wicker chest was the reason Tao Ning had judged that Xiao Zhen would definitely agree to her request. Inside were Xiao Zhen’s belongings. She always kept the chest closed, ready to leave at any time.

Now, the wicker chest was gone, leaving only a pool of blood, and the lantern was also missing.

Tao Ning: “I don’t think this is Xiao Zhen’s blood.”

If it wasn’t Xiao Zhen’s blood, then whose blood could it be? She looked at the only place where someone could hide.

—The neatly made canopy bed with red silk curtains.

The legs of the canopy bed were sealed, making it impossible to see what was underneath, and no one would think to lift the heavy bed board to check.

Tao Ning rolled up her sleeves and walked towards the canopy bed, preparing to dismantle it.

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