The Heroine Fell Deeply For Her [Quick Transmigration] 223p2

Chapter 223: What’s This About Marrying First and Loving Later? 8(2)

Downstairs, the villagers were still gathered, chattering noisily. The village chief was busy with something in the ancestral hall and hadn’t come out to see them.

The confused villagers could only wait in front of the ancestral hall.

Liang Chun arrived at the wooden building a step later, stopping a man in gray cloth robes: “Chu Que, where’s my brother?”

Chu Que had just arrived, confused by her question: “What brother?”

Liang Chun lost her usual composure, her tone anxious: “My brother said he had something to discuss with you this morning, he kept saying something about a seal, that it would kill everyone.”

“Seal… no, I don’t understand what you’re saying at all.” Chu Que asked in confusion, “Who is your brother?”

Liang Chun: “My half-brother, Zhang Lei.”

A click sounded, as if something was being dismantled, pushed open by a pair of hands, crashing to the ground with a loud bang.

“Bang—!”

The tremor almost shook the entire wooden building, attracting the attention of many, who looked up at the second floor.

The female student took a couple of steps back in fear: “What happened upstairs?”

Chu Que remained calm, pulling at his sleeve: “There should be someone upstairs, I haven’t gone up to take a look yet, I heard the bride lives there?”

Saying that, he turned and went inside, clearly wanting to take this opportunity to see what was going on in the bride’s building.

Liang Chun had no choice but to follow.

Her temperament wasn’t as smooth as her brother’s, her talent points allocated to combat ability. She and her brother cooperated and wouldn’t betray each other.

This was her second time here, a familiar scenario, so why were there so many unexpected events? She shouldn’t have used that broken item, thinking she could skip a level and get closer to leaving the game.

Pushing open the door and stepping over the high threshold, they were all shocked by the blood all over the floor.

“So much blood… can anyone survive this?” The female student realized she had asked a stupid question and covered her mouth.

Her exposed eyes were filled with fear; this was her first time in the game after all.

They went upstairs, following the bloodstains into the room. The heavy smell of blood hit them, and the female student almost vomited.

The smell of wood and oxidizing blood fermented in the stuffy room, strange and foul, a smell no one could easily forget.

A person stood with one foot on the dismantled canopy bed, looking down at what was inside.

She muttered softly, “Looks familiar.”

Then she turned to the people at the door, tilting her head slightly, and said with a blank expression, “Do any of you recognize this person?”

Liang Chun pushed past the two people beside her, quickly reaching the canopy bed. Seeing the face inside, her vision went black.

Zhang Lei’s body was under the bed board, his head almost severed, only connected by a layer of skin.

She swayed, steadying herself before the female student could reach out to support her. She didn’t faint, suppressing her emotions and stepping forward to examine the body carefully.

On the other side, Tao Ning watched this scene, Xuan Miao hanging limply on the edge of the bag, like a real doll.

The dead person was a tourist, so where was Xiao Zhen?

Noticing someone looking at her, Tao Ning turned her head, meeting Chu Que’s retracting gaze.

He had just been looking at the Xuan Miao doll.

Caught red-handed, Chu Que gave an apologetic smile: “Your doll is quite unique, I couldn’t help but take a second look, sorry.”

Tao Ning said coldly, “You know it’s impolite and still look, how ill-mannered.”

Chu Que: “…”

On the other side, Liang Chun, after examining her brother’s body, glared at Chu Que: “This wasn’t caused by a ghost, these are clearly man-made wounds, did you kill my brother?”

Chu Que felt wronged: “Miss, I really didn’t see your brother this morning. Now that I see him, I remember him. He did advise me not to try to break the seal on the Mountain God, but I’m alone, so I gave up on that idea.”

“Since it’s a centuries-old tradition of Lingxiu Village, and the bride is willing to sacrifice herself, isn’t it her sacred love? Why should I destroy a long-standing tradition and force my will on others?”

Liang Chun hadn’t been saved by Chu Que and wasn’t deceived by his words, believing only what she saw: “Don’t give me that nonsense, my brother advised you for two days, and you still insisted on your own idea, and now you suddenly agree?”

“Isn’t it because the person who opposed you is gone?”

Chu Que retorted: “Are you projecting, saying that your brother came to me this morning with malicious intent?”

He looked at the female student who didn’t know how to mediate, “Miss Yan, I kindly helped you and your other companion, is this what you think too? Even if it is, where’s the evidence?”

This implied that they were repaying kindness with malice, making the female student feel awkward: “No, I…”

The tourist camp was completely in disarray.

Tao Ning leaned against the window, watching the drama unfold.

Outside the window, a strong wind blew, rustling the bamboo forest behind the ancestral hall. A bamboo leaf was blown into the room.

The bamboo leaf slowly drifted down, landing at Tao Ning’s feet. She looked down, thinking of the bamboo lanterns used by every household.

Behind the ancestral hall, there was a large bamboo forest, and bamboo grew easily, so there wouldn’t be a shortage.

Why did the villagers go through the trouble of going deep into the mountains to cut bamboo and bring it back to make lanterns?

The village chief had said before that it was because bamboo was the Mountain God’s favorite plant, and the villagers couldn’t cut it down. This reason wasn’t entirely unreasonable.

But it wasn’t as if there was only bamboo there on the mountain. That bamboo forest was relatively far from the village, and there were other places even further, and of course, other places closer, with easier mountain paths.

Yet the villagers insisted on only using that bamboo forest, generation after generation.

Tao Ning gently poked Xuan Miao’s face with her fingertip, whispering, “My Lady Mountain God, could it be that the bamboo lanterns that repel ghosts are imbued with your power?”

Things growing near the real Mountain God would definitely be more effective than those growing near the hollow egg statue.

The villagers might tacitly worship the hollow egg down the mountain, but it didn’t mean they couldn’t tell which one was truly effective.

Xuan Miao, holding back from moving: “?”