novelraw Page 65
Page 65
"The Ghost Bride was originally a group of ten, but because the venue is quite large, many puzzles require teamwork." The receptionist looked at Ling Yun. "So, would you like to wait until everyone is here before starting, or would you like to go in now?"
"The four of us are enough."
"Ok."
The receptionist brought out four disclaimers and asked them to sign them.
These large-scale escape rooms are usually equipped with live NPCs. Unexpected bumps and collisions are inevitable during the chase, and some players have even fainted from fright inside.
Upon seeing Ling Yun's signature, the receptionist was overjoyed and asked for his autograph to keep as a keepsake.
After signing the papers, they were masked, had their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them, and were led into the "Ghost Bride" themed secret room by the receptionist.
Chapter 105 The Bride in Her Wedding Dress
After the receptionist led them to their destination, she quietly left, and the staff's voice came over the loudspeaker.
"Players, please remove your blindfolds. The game is now officially starting!"
The four removed their blindfolds, each holding a small new energy candle that could barely illuminate a small area in the dimly lit room.
"Sister Qianyi, I'm starting to regret it..." Zhou Qiao tugged at Wu Qianyi's arm and whispered to her.
"Don't be afraid, Chairman Ling is here. He will protect us!"
Wu Qianyi was actually a little scared, but as the older sister, she had to be strong in front of her younger sister.
The interior was decorated in a way that looked somewhat authentic, but the props were a bit cheap, which was obvious upon closer inspection.
The loudspeakers placed in each room will prompt them with hints about the next route and small goals after they solve some puzzles, constantly guiding them deeper into the story.
Ling Yun activated his Eye of Insight, and many mysteries were solved without needing to find clues, leaving the staff outside stunned.
"Has Chairman Ling played this before?"
"It doesn't seem like it. The decryption methods are different in each of our stores. Even if he has played similar games before, he shouldn't be able to solve them so quickly."
"That would be strange."
The two of them stared at the monitor, and sometimes before the plot announcement had even finished, Lingyun had already solved the next puzzle, turning the escape room into a racing game.
As Ling Yun went to complete his solo mission, a girl yawned and walked past the monitoring room.
Upon seeing this, one of the people inside quickly looked up and called out, "Li Hong, why haven't you gone in yet?"
Li Hong is the NPC playing the ghost bride. At this moment, she is still sleepy: "I stayed up late last night and overslept. I just took a nap. Sorry, I'll go change my clothes now."
"Hurry, hurry! Chairman Ling has already... Holy crap, do we have another person in our store to play the role of a female ghost?"
Upon hearing this, Li Hong immediately woke up and rushed to the monitor.
In the surveillance footage, Ling Yun had already entered the bridal chamber. On the wedding bed in the middle of the room, a ghost bride dressed in a red wedding gown and wearing a red veil had appeared out of nowhere!
Before they could warn Lingyun not to approach, the monitor screen flickered a few times and then the signal was cut off.
"Mr. Ling, can you hear me, hello?"
Staff tried to communicate with Lingyun via the loudspeaker, but received no response.
To prevent players from taking photos secretly, all four of their phones had been put away beforehand. Unless they went inside, they couldn't talk to Ling Yun.
There was an extra person in the room. They looked at each other and finally decided to call the store manager.
Inside the room, Ling Yun looked at the ghost bride on the bed and a strong feeling suddenly rose in his heart.
The ghost bride in front of you is not a real NPC!
Name: Dong Xiaodie
Age: 20 (before death)
[Value]: 168, C
[Favorability]: 81 (Appreciation ↑)
[Realm]: Vengeful Ghost (Profound Realm)
[Special]: Bride in Wedding Gown (Purple)
[Identity]: Female lead in "The Ultimate Villain of Another Dimension"
Wedding Dress Bride: Receives additional bonuses in special scenarios; increases attack power when wearing a wedding dress and red veil.
Ling Yun had already finished reading the book "Wi-Fi Lockdown Technique" that Cao Hong gave him. The content was indeed easy to understand, explaining many methods for driving away ghosts, and also mentioning some of the writing methods and principles of low-level talismans.
Ghosts also vary in strength. Ling Leishan's kind of ghost is the lowest level. Apart from not being affected by regular physical damage, he is not much different from an ordinary person.
The ghost bride in front of me is a "fierce ghost" comparable to the Tongxuan realm.
Martial artists possess abundant vital energy, deterring low-level undead from approaching, but in the eyes of powerful ghosts, they are a delicacy.
Acquired martial artists cannot directly destroy ghosts, but masters of the Innate Realm, with the support of Innate True Qi, can inflict fatal damage on ghosts.
Dong Xiaodie sat quietly on the edge of the bed, not moving at all, as if Ling Yun had not come in.
As Ling Yun approached her, the loudspeaker in the corner of the wall blared.
"My life is so miserable, sob sob sob..."
"Why me of all people... Why force me to wear this wedding dress..."
This is a pre-set mechanism; this audio will be triggered whenever the player gets close to the wedding bed.
Besides the burning wedding candles, there was also a jade ruyi on the table, which was used to lift the bride's veil.
Ordinary people use a steelyard balance, while wealthy families use a jade ruyi (a type of scepter), both symbolizing "satisfaction and fulfillment of wishes."
"You came……"
"Did you come to pray for my soul after hearing about my grievances?"
"Or... are you here to laugh at me?"
The voice from the loudspeaker suddenly took on a strange, twisted expectation: "No...you must have come to marry me..."
"Husband...now that you're here..."
"Then... let's lift this red veil..."
"Let me see... this time... is it the person I'm waiting for..."
The recording ends here.
Ling Yun picked up the jade ruyi and examined the female ghost in front of him.
In the dim candlelight, even a real person would appear particularly eerie in such a red wedding dress, let alone a real ghost standing before Ling Yun!
He communicated with the talisman in the space using his mind. Although the other party had a high degree of affection for him, it was still a ghost and could not be dealt with according to common sense.
The moment the red veil was lifted, the flickering candlelight revealed a shockingly pale face.
Her beauty was like cold porcelain bathed in moonlight, delicate yet lifeless. The rouge on her cheeks was abruptly red, like blood spreading on snow. Her eyebrows were exquisitely drawn, and her eyes were like two black glass beads immersed in ice water, reflecting the candlelight but revealing no warmth. Her lips were small, pursed in vermilion red, and the corners of her lips held a strange, inhuman tranquility, a half-smile playing on them.
The wedding dress cinched tightly, outlining her full breasts and sharply narrowed waist, making her figure slender and lifelike, yet stiff as a meticulously sculpted jade statue, exuding a chilling aura beneath the red gown. The more perfect her curvaceous figure, the more unreal it seemed, like a wax figure, as if a gentle touch would cause her stunningly beautiful body, along with the red wedding dress, to silently shatter in the eerie wind.
Ling Yun and she locked eyes. The female ghost was the first to succumb to his burning gaze and turned her head slightly to the side.
"Aren't you afraid of me?"
"You're so beautiful, what's there to be afraid of?" Ling Yun sat down beside her, carefully examining her exquisitely beautiful face, which was tinged with a deathly aura.
The female ghost's heart fluttered slightly, but when she thought that Ling Yun had no idea of her true identity and only treated her as an NPC, her voice carried a hint of sorrow: "What if my face looked like this?"
The female ghost could no longer bear to deceive Ling Yun and revealed the appearance she had when she died.
Her beautiful face instantly transformed; the swelling from being submerged distorted her once delicate features, and her skin, pale and swollen like that of a drowned person, exuded a deathly, bluish-gray aura, like the silt at the bottom of a river. The rouge turned into a murky dark red, spreading from her cracked cheekbone.
Its two eyes had become holes constantly oozing black water, staring intently at Ling Yun.
Do you like me like this?
Ling Yun was not afraid, nor did he run away. Instead, he reached out and stroked her cheek.
The moment his fingers touched Dong Xiaodie, her terrifying face regained its original beauty.
The young man smiled and said, "Actually, I knew you weren't an employee in disguise when I came in."
Dong Xiaodie's beautiful eyes trembled, her lips parted slightly, but she didn't know how to speak.
"When we first entered this secret room, there was no female ghost in the bridal chamber. Did you just arrive?"
Under his gaze, Dong Xiaodie seemed to become mute, her two blushes even covering the rouge she had applied.
"So, you've revealed your physical form because you want to chat with me?"
"I just want to see you up close..."
Ling Yun grabbed her small hand. Being handsome has its advantages; even a female ghost falls for it.
"My name is Ling Yun. What's your name?"
"Dong Xiaodie".
"You were wearing this red wedding dress when you died?"
"Yes." Afraid that Ling Yun would misunderstand, she hurriedly raised her head, her icy fingertips unconsciously grabbing his sleeve. "They forced me into the bridal sedan chair! I... I didn't even know if that person looked round or flat! I didn't want to, I didn't want to from beginning to end!"
“I know,” the young man said gently, soothing her cold, boneless hand. “What’s his name?”
"Him? I think his name is Zhou Ming."
Chapter 106 Lord Ye's Love of Dragons
Less than ten minutes later, the store manager rushed to the store in his car.
Several staff members stood around the door of the secret room, but no matter how they tried, they couldn't open it.
"Did you take the wrong key?"
"There's no reason for that! I just used it to open the door!"
"The store manager is here!"
They made way for the store manager, who took out his spare key to open the door, but encountered the same situation as them.
"Is it really Chairman Ling?" He looked at the female receptionist, his forehead covered in sweat.
The receptionist nodded: "Yes, I even secretly took a picture!"
She opened her phone, and the store manager immediately recognized her as Ling Yun.
A man as striking as Ling Yun would attract even an ordinary person who didn't know him, and they would naturally remember his appearance.
"Wait a moment, I'll call the locksmith. Hopefully, it's not too late."
"Manager, what if..."
The man stared at them intently, his phone already dialing: "If anything happens to Chairman Ling here, none of us will escape."
Inside the bridal chamber, Ling Yun had already confirmed that the female ghost in front of him was Zhou Qiao's betrothed sister-in-law.
Ironically, Dong Xiaodie's experience is seven or eight parts similar to the theme of the ghost bride, and it's hard to say whether her story was referenced when the theme was designed.
Her parents passed away when she was in middle school, which was a huge blow to her. After failing the college entrance examination, she did not think about continuing to study at a junior college, but instead went to work in a clothing factory.
Because of her beauty and youth, Zhou Qiao's brother saw her while eating in town and then begged his father to help him get to know her.
The Zhou family wasn't wealthy, but Zhou's father had worked in town for a while when he was young and had a decent network of connections. Dong Xiaodie's parents were both deceased, and she only had an aunt and grandfather who disliked her. So, Zhou's father started an affair with her promiscuous aunt.
After a while, Auntie thought that it was better to let the good stuff go to outsiders, so she suggested that Dong Xiaodie marry Zhou Qiao's brother, Zhou Ming, which would be a double blessing for the family.
That was exactly what Zhou's father had in mind, and the two hit it off immediately, quickly agreeing on the marriage.
According to the town's custom, even if both sets of parents agree, a matchmaker is still needed to go through the motions. So they found the most famous matchmaker in town, Granny Sun.
Dong Xiaodie was completely unaware of this matter. She was at work that day when she suddenly received a call from her aunt asking her to marry Zhou Ming, which left her completely stunned.
She took leave and went home. She found it absurd to see her aunt already counting money. However, there were no other relatives to help her, and her grandfather, who favored boys over girls, also agreed to the marriage.
Dong Xiaodie's phone was confiscated, and she was locked in the house by her aunt. She tried to rebel by going on a hunger strike and lost several pounds in a few days.
Seeing that this wouldn't do, they found Granny Sun and quickly put her on the bridal sedan chair, preparing to carry her to Peach Blossom Village.
Ling Yun already knew what happened next: just as the bridal sedan chair was being lifted, Zhou's father and Zhou Ming, who were preparing to welcome the bride, suddenly died.