Chapter Forty-Two: The Weeping Bride (Part Twelve)

“What’s wrong with you?” Lin Qi asked in confusion. As a thought struck him, his eyes suddenly lit up. “Wait, do you know that man? Tell me, what’s going on? I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”

“No, I don’t know him. I… I need to go!” Huang Mei had no intention of speaking another word to him. She hurriedly pushed past him and ran down the mountain.

In an instant, Lin Qi was left alone. A chilly wind swept by, making him hug his arms and shiver. Fear crept up on him as well. “Wait for me! Don’t leave me alone in this place!” he shouted after them.

Everyone returned to Zhang Gui’s house in succession, tacitly pretending not to know each other as they slipped back into their rooms. When Huang Mei came back, everyone in the room was already there.

She glanced at Su Man, wanting to say something, but after noticing the other two in the room, she realized this was not the place to talk. She swallowed her words, only stealing furtive glances at Su Man.

Whenever Su Man looked at her, Huang Mei would avert her gaze and lower her head, as if she wanted to speak but couldn’t, busying herself with her things to cover her embarrassment.

Su Man couldn’t tell if she wanted to talk or not, but she certainly had no intention of asking. If she initiated a conversation, she’d probably be up all night. If it wasn’t urgent, she could wait until tomorrow.

The other two girls in the room, however, caught on to Huang Mei’s intentions and teased her with bright smiles, “Do you have something to say to Su Man?”

Su Man looked at her again.

Huang Mei’s face flushed red. She shook her head furiously, “No, no…”

That night, Su Man actually slept quite soundly. But in the middle of the night, she suddenly felt as though something was watching her. She jerked awake, clutching her dagger tightly.

Bathed in the moonlight from the window, she could clearly see a shadow flitting below.

After pacing back and forth twice, the shadow abruptly halted and turned to look directly at her.

She quickly narrowed her eyes, pretending to be asleep, but her gaze swept over the beds of the other three.

The two women across the way were still there, or at least their comforters were heaped up as though they were. She couldn’t tell if Huang Mei was in the bunk below, but she was certain that the shadow couldn’t possibly be Huang Mei.

The shadow had a wild, tangled mass of curly hair, like seaweed knotted together.

As Su Man calmly analyzed the situation, she caught sight of the shadow moving toward her out of the corner of her eye.

Step by step, the figure drew closer. Su Man’s body tensed, her grip on the dagger ready.

In the next instant, she saw a face looming large before her—so close she could hear its breathing. No, there was no breath.

This was no living creature.

Without hesitation, Su Man slashed with her dagger.

The thing shrieked and stumbled back a step, but did not disappear or die. Instead, it looked at her with innocent bewilderment, its fingers gingerly probing the spot where the dagger had struck, as if genuinely confused by her attack.

With distance now between them, Su Man recognized the creature. It was the vagabond woman in the yellow dress she’d seen earlier. Her face wasn’t ugly; she gave a silly, dazed smile that almost seemed docile.

But why was she here?

Su Man toyed with her dagger, troubled by the situation. What should she do now? She sensed no murderous intent from this apparition; was it simply too powerful for her to perceive?

If the enemy made no move, neither would she. So the two stared at each other, neither making a sound.

Every time Su Man shifted her dagger, the apparition would shrink away, clutching its arm where it had been wounded, its gaze all fear and innocence.

If it weren’t for the others in the room, Su Man would have liked to ask this specter what it wanted.

But before she could speak, the apparition laboriously raised a hand and pointed at her. “Bad people. All bad people.”

Her words were slurred, spoken with the effort and seriousness of a child learning to talk. Su Man thought it was an accusation, but then heard her add, “Be careful.”

Be careful of what?

Suddenly, faint footsteps sounded outside. In an instant, the woman in yellow vanished from the room.

Su Man listened as the footsteps paused outside the door. She considered her options, then lay back down.

A moment later, the door creaked open with an awkward groan, and someone slipped inside.

She could tell it was a person, not a ghost, because the door’s noise woke the two women opposite, who stirred and then fell silent as the figure stood frozen, afraid of being discovered. Only when everything was quiet did the person move again. Su Man felt the bed shake—a sign that someone had climbed into the lower bunk. The soft rustling of blankets confirmed it: it was Huang Mei.

She must have gone out for something in the middle of the night and only just returned.

Su Man betrayed nothing, continuing to feign sleep.

Huang Mei did nothing unusual and soon began to snore softly, as if she’d fallen asleep.

But Su Man didn’t sleep at all. She lay with her eyes open until dawn, dozing off only briefly as the sun rose.

She was awakened by the sound of drums and gongs outside.

It was clear everyone had heard the commotion; one by one, they emerged, all grumbling from lack of sleep. “What’s going on? What happened?”

When Su Man made her way downstairs, the talkative uncle greeted her with a mysterious air. “Someone died in the village last night.”

A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant.

“Who? What happened?”

Before the uncle could answer, Zhang Gui strode in from outside, his face grave.

“Who stole from the village? Who committed murder?”

His gaze swept across each of them, missing none of their reactions.

“What was stolen? Wait, someone died?” Lin Qi, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he came downstairs, was suddenly wide awake. He didn’t even bother wiping the gunk from the corners of his eyes. “Hold on, let me grab my camera!”

Su Man couldn’t help but admire his dedication.

But Zhang Gui, by contrast, was furious. “Do you think this is a game?” he barked.

He made a gesture with his hand, and Lin Qi, as if tripped by some invisible force, tumbled down the stairs, landing with a series of painful groans.

A flicker of surprise crossed Su Man’s eyes. From Miao Sheng’s discreet destruction of evidence to Zhang Gui’s minor display of power, it was clear these people were not to be underestimated. The Celestial Master Village had some depth to it—it wasn’t full of fools like Da Yuan.

“What does any of this have to do with us? You can’t just take it out on me. I’ll sue you for intentional harm. Just wait until I write an article—”

Zhang Gui cut him off in a rage. “Someone in the village saw it. The one who stole and killed was wearing our tour group’s uniform!” His anger was real; the veins on his forehead bulged with fury. “If we don’t catch the culprit today, none of you will leave here in peace!”