The wedding feast is about to begin

Zhu Yan awoke in the grip of extreme cold.

The chill seemed to invade him from his limbs first, beginning in both arms and his calves before slowly spreading toward his abdomen and feet.

Every pore had been soaked through with icy slurry, and then it reached his organs—

In the darkness, he suddenly opened his eyes and jolted upright, gasping for breath.

As his consciousness and memories gradually returned, his vision slowly cleared as well.

The room was still the same.

Not far away, on the shabby, cramped wooden bed, the dirty bedding lay crumpled in a messy heap. Bits of trash were scattered across the floor, and the door remained tightly shut.

A thin strip of light seeped in beneath it.

But it was incomplete—

A shadow blocked the middle of the strip, perfectly still, as though someone were standing there.

Well, well.

Zhu Yan whistled inwardly and took out his phone to check the time.

It was exactly ten hours after he had fallen asleep: 7:46 p.m.

Without making a sound, he stood up and separated out a thin strand of [Mist]. He pried open a crack in the window and slowly drifted out, circling around to Jin Rongxu’s room.

At the same time, the prompt from [Everyone Has Their Own Fate] rang out in his mind, carrying a hint of cheerful teasing.

“Glad to see you awake, player!”

This notification voice had clearly eaten too much MaiMai.

Zhu Yan made a comment to himself, and, as expected, heard the rest.

“[Everyone Has Their Own Fate] kindly reminds you: This is not a time for jokes. Please remain vigilant.”

Roger that.

Zhu Yan fell silent inwardly as he controlled the strand of [Mist] to cling to the glass and peer inside.

By comparison, the scene next door was positively horrifying.

Jin Rongxu was slumped in the corner by the window, still gripping his military knife tightly.

He appeared to be sleeping soundly, his head lolling to one side, his chest rising and falling rhythmically.

Two or three steps away from him, several figures stood, swaying faintly.

They were Ma Dong, Pot Lid, and the military doctor!

Because they were facing the window, Zhu Yan could make out their faces fairly clearly by the faint light from the streetlamps outside.

Their expressions were remarkably uniform. The muscles at the corners of their mouths were drawn into subtle contortions, pulling their faces into stiff, insincere smiles.

Their black pupils had vanished. Their eye sockets held nothing but expanses of white, crisscrossed with blood vessels, all of them fixed on Jin Rongxu.

“Player, it has been detected that you have witnessed part of the truth.” The prompt from [Everyone Has Their Own Fate] continued. “Please note: the presence of a terrifying creature has been detected. This presence is related to the truth.”

“Because the terrifying creature’s level is higher than this ability’s level, [Everyone Has Their Own Fate] is unable to monitor the specific circumstances.”

“Please level up as soon as possible.”

All right, all right.

Zhu Yan responded inwardly.

The strand of [Mist] promptly left the window and darted into the front door of the building. It then crept upward along the staircase.

There was something outside the door, too.

The cold in the room had been so deceptive that it had concealed a considerable portion of Zhu Yan’s perception of the terrifying creature’s abilities outside.

He didn’t dare squeeze directly through the crack in the door and launch a full-frontal attack—what if the thing outside was Li Daochang?

Taking the long way around would waste time, but it was certainly safer.

The [Mist] moved up the stairs one step at a time, and [Everyone Has Their Own Fate] finally offered a useful prompt.

“[Everyone Has Their Own Fate] kindly reminds you: An enraged low-level [Walking Corpse] is ahead.”

The second floor was lit by a dim, yellowish light.

Sure enough, it was the old man surnamed Huang in the corridor.

His waist was bent backward at an impossible angle, his upper and lower body pressed tightly together.

His toes pointed outward, yet his face had twisted around to face the crack in the door. He was squinting with one eye as he peered into Zhu Zeyu’s room.

“This [Walking Corpse] appears to be very angry because it failed to achieve its goal of spreading.”

Oh. Spreading.

Zhu Yan understood.

It meant that it had wanted to use Zhu Zeyu’s body, but had been unable to select him.

“Please note, player: Stay away from that [Walking Corpse]. As long as you ignore what it says, [Everyone Has Their Own Fate] can protect you from becoming involved in this karmic connection!”

The [Mist] silently retreated down the stairs.

Avoiding minor karmic entanglements was perfectly acceptable.

Besides, nighttime was when things got lively.

He could put “Zhu Zeyu” away inside the ring, then fly out through the window in the form of [Mist] and check on the progress of their preparations for the “wedding banquet.”

For one thing, he had personally arranged this marriage from beginning to end. It was only reasonable for him to go take a look.

For another, with a wedding this important, Li Panlong, as the bride’s family member and the person who stood to benefit directly, was very likely to be present.

He could go see whether there was any room for him to make a move. That was reasonable too.

After all, spreading the contamination and hunting down the [Hunter] was everyone’s responsibility.

Zhu Yan still had time to muddy the waters!

He quickly made his way back to Zhu Zeyu’s room and controlled the puppet to walk, step by step, into a blind spot where the [Walking Corpse] could not see him.

Then Zhu Yan withdrew the puppet and rapidly dispersed into the air.

Before leaving, he did not forget to log into the [Player Forum] and open Jin Rongxu’s private messages.

While he had been asleep, Jin Rongxu had sent him a whole string of curses.

Zhu Yan ignored them all and simply typed a new message.

“Captain! I’m awake now. Are you all right?”

As he passed Jin Rongxu’s room, [Mist] couldn’t resist taking another look inside.

The eyes of those “people” had returned to normal.

Compared with Old Man Huang, their pupils were not dilated in the slightest. They looked exactly like living people.

…

Jin Rongxu was shaken awake.

He opened his eyes to find the military doctor looking down at him with concern.

“Captain, you fell asleep.”

The other man’s concerned thoughts poured into Jin Rongxu’s ears at the same time: He slept for so long. Is he all right?

Jin Rongxu looked around, unable to hide his astonishment.

When had he fallen asleep?

It felt as though he had been wide awake only a moment ago, and then, in the next instant, he had woken up from a deep sleep.

He looked at the military doctor, then at Ma Dong and Pot Lid, and instinctively grew wary.

“What time is it?” Jin Rongxu asked.

“Almost eight,” Pot Lid replied, still wearing that timid, obsequious expression.

“C-Captain, what do we do next?”

Jin Rongxu furrowed his brows and turned toward the military doctor.

“You haven’t slept at all? What exactly is going on?”

The blood vessels that had appeared in Ma Dong and Pot Lid’s eyes were definitely not a figment of Jin Rongxu’s imagination.

“Captain, you probably fell asleep several hours later.”

The military doctor spoke slowly.

“I was here while you were asleep. Nothing unusual happened.”

“Ma Dong and Pot Lid woke up one after the other.”

“Now you’re the only one left.”

The military doctor stared intently at Jin Rongxu. “Captain, I’ve already examined Ma Dong and Pot Lid’s physical condition.”

“What’s going on?”

“It should be some kind of protective mechanism.” The military doctor frowned, as if seriously considering the matter.

“We still don’t know why the trade items are abnormal. Fortunately, everyone is all right…”

“Ah, there’s one more thing. Just now, I heard something pass by the door.”

“It was muttering something about the wedding banquet starting soon.”