Day and night tour

Chapter 109 Lantern Bride
No. 123 Huashi Street is Liu Jiaotian’s villa with a small garden.

She opened the door, walked through the garden and came to the front door.

A threshold was made of glutinous rice in front of the door, and the glutinous rice turned silvery white under the moonlight.

Liu Jiaotian gently opened the door and went upstairs.

There was also a glutinous rice threshold at the door to the second floor, and there was also the sound of an iron lock ringing.

Liu Jiaotian opened the door and turned on the light.

Inside the room, Tong Douzi was lying on the sofa, while Li Shuangyi was lying on a sturdy iron bed. Four chains and shackles extended from the bed, locking his hands and feet.

He seemed a little impatient and moved his hands and feet violently.

"Senior brother, Tongdouzi is with you, yet you are still restless." Liu Jiaotian scolded and woke up Tongdouzi who was sleeping on the sofa.

One of them swept the glutinous rice on the second floor, and the other cleaned the glutinous rice at the front door. After sweeping and cleaning, they sprinkled new glutinous rice.

White hair had grown on Li Shuangyi's face, and two fangs protruded from his mouth.

After Liu Jiaotian finished cleaning up the glutinous rice, he let Tong Douzi go into the house first. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed alone and stretched his arm to Li Shuangyi's mouth.

Li Shuangyi bit her thin arm and sucked her blood greedily.

"Drink, drink..."

Liu Jiaotian waited until he could no longer hold on and his face turned pale, then he reluctantly grabbed the glutinous rice and sprinkled it on Li Shuangyi's face.

The glutinous rice grown by Mi Po is very effective against zombies.

When the glutinous rice touched Li Shuangyi, it immediately turned black. He raised his head and spit out the rice as if he had been whipped.

In order to make Li Shuangyi quiet down, Liu Jiaotian opened the drawer, took out a yellow talisman from it, and stuck it on the center of Li Shuangyi's eyebrows.

Suddenly, Li Shuangyi seemed to be in deep sleep, motionless.

"Brother, I'll take you to bask in the moonlight later."

Liu Jiaotian took a shower, changed his clothes, and called Tong Douzi out of the room.

The two men uncuffed Li Shuangyi, moved her to a chair, and carried her to the balcony.

Liu Jiaotian held a Taoist bell in his hand and rang it a few times. When the bell became more rusty, he took off the yellow talisman on Li Shuangyi's forehead and took out a copper coin mask and put it on.

This Taoist bell can make Li Shuangyi regain consciousness for just a quarter of an hour. Although his intelligence is not high, he can speak a little human language.

When the copper coin mask made a spontaneous sound, it meant that Li Shuangyi's mind was disappearing quickly and he needed to put the yellow talisman on again. Otherwise, without the restraining "zombie", Liu Jiaotian would not be able to subdue him.

Liu Jiaotian did not accept her fate that day. She was reluctant to see her senior brother Li leave this world, so she carried Li Shuangyi back home and went to find her great aunt, and raised Li Shuangyi into a zombie!
Even if her senior brother turned into a blood-drinking monster, she didn't want Senior Brother Li to leave.

But zombies are dangerous after all. Liu Jiaotian is worried that Senior Brother Li will turn vicious and become an evil spirit and go out to harm people, so he takes strict precautions in every aspect. He also has close contact with Granny Mi, and uses all kinds of means to prevent Senior Brother from turning into a "black-haired zombie."

"Brother, if we had gotten married back then, I'm afraid we would have children running all over the place."

Liu Jiaotian leaned his head on Li Shuangyi's shoulder.

Li Shuangyi looked up at the moonlight, exhaled a breath, blew the copper coin mask to make some noise, and then praised vaguely: "Beautiful, the white moonlight is so beautiful."

……

The moonlight is beautiful, but many evils and strange things are brewing under the moonlight.

Taiping Road is the busiest street in Pingshui Prefecture. Even late at night, there are still many people on the road.
In a high-end nightclub, the lights are colorful, and in front of the snack stalls, diners are feasting on food.

It was on this busy road that a wedding procession inexplicably appeared.

Everyone in the wedding procession was dressed in festive red, playing suona and beating wedding gongs, and the sedan bearers carried a red sedan and paraded through the streets.

However, none of the coachmen waiting for work outside the nightclub, the drunken guests, or the diners at the snack stalls cared about this late-night wedding procession.

Even the red lanterns hanging high in the sky - the magical instruments used by the gods to patrol the streets at night - did not illuminate the wedding procession.

"Great joy, great joy!"

The wedding procession moved very fast. Every ten or so meters, they would suddenly disappear, and when they reappeared, they were already hundreds of meters away.

They entered Taiping West Road from Taiping Road, then from Taiping West Road into Mianhua Street, and finally stopped at the door of Zhou Jiaban.

The red sedan came to a stop, with a white lantern hanging from its beam.

The curtain of the sedan chair was lifted, and a bride in wedding dress and a red veil got off the sedan chair, holding a white lantern in her hand, and walked towards the Zhou family camp.

Zhou Xuan didn't sense her presence.

Yuan Buyu and Zhou Lingyi didn't sense it.

but……

The ancestral tree sensed it.

The willow branches on the tree began to grow wildly and then fell to the ground. There was a faint glow of blood at the ends of the branches.

The bride with the lantern felt that the ancestral tree was awakening, so she knelt on her knees and kowtowed three times to the tree.

Every nod seems to be telling something.

After three kowtows, the willow tree fell into deep sleep again, and its branches returned to their normal length.

After the bride kowtowed for the fourth time, she stood up, holding the white lantern, and walked towards the courtyard of the Zhou family. She walked through the outer courtyard, most of the inner courtyard, and then through the closed wooden door of Zhou Xuan's room.

She did not stop and continued to walk towards the bed.

When she was only one step away from Zhou Xuan, she stared at Zhou Xuan's face, then seemed to agree with Zhou Xuan, nodded slightly, took another step, and walked into Zhou Xuan's body.

……

Zhou Xuan was meditating in the Shenqi Secret Realm, trying to connect with the opportunity of the second incense stick.

This time, he felt that his connection suddenly became extremely strong.

"Hahahaha……"

"Hahaha……"

The woman's laughter was particularly clear in his meditation. Even the vague sounds around the woman that he heard last time became clear today.

He heard the men shouting.

"Pray to heaven and earth, the perfect couple will be born and the whole life will be perfect"

"I bow twice to my parents and thank them for their kindness in raising me."

"The couple bows to each other, enters the bridal chamber, has a son soon, and lives together forever!"

Then came the joyous sounds after the wedding, the sound of suona, and the clinking of glasses, filling the atmosphere with joy.

"No wonder that woman laughed so sincerely. It turns out she's getting married. No wonder I couldn't hear what they were talking about last time, but I could hear a sense of joy and celebration. They were actually getting married."

Zhou Xuan heard it clearly this time, but he was even more confused. Why did he hear the sound of someone else's bridal chamber when he was looking for the opportunity to light the second incense stick?
Just as he was thinking about it, suddenly, Zhou Xuan in the secret realm felt a heaviness on his back.

He immediately cut off his meditation in the secret realm and stood in the black water of the Divinely Revelation Secret Realm.

Zhou Xuan first looked down and saw a pair of women's legs sticking out from his waist.

The woman was wearing red silk trousers and a pair of blood-red embroidered shoes on her feet.

She had two delicate hands, one on Zhou Xuan's shoulder, and the other holding a white lantern.

"I actually carried a woman on my back."

Zhou Xuan wanted to turn his head to see what the woman behind him looked like, but found that he could not move.

The feeling from the first stick of incense is back.

When Zhou Xuan lit the first incense stick, he saw the paper boatman and became unable to move.

At this time, he kept his head down and looked at the road. He could only see through the unclear reflection in the black water. He vaguely saw that the woman behind him was wearing a bridal veil.

Lantern bride.

"How could this bride be my chance to marry?

What kind of bride is coming out of the church?"

As he was thinking about it, he heard a voice in his ears. The woman behind him actually started crying and singing a sad song.

"The lights are dark, the moon is bright, the bride is crying for the groom~"

"The bride weeps for the groom..."

The bride was wearing festive wedding dress, but holding a pale lantern. She was crying, as if something extremely sad had happened.

Joy and sorrow, white and red,
Coupled with the gloomy singing style and lyrics, Zhou Xuan just felt creepy.

"The light has no shadow... Da! Da! Da... The moonlight is bright..."

Zhou Xuan seemed to hear the sound of dripping water from the bride's singing.

After the dripping sound, his head seemed to move a little bit, and he raised his face and looked up.
Those are not drops of water, they are drops of blood.

Every time the bride sang a word, a drop of blood fell from the sky and landed on the white lantern.

The blood dripped down, and Zhou Xuan watched it carefully - although he felt a little uneasy, this was the second incense stick opportunity, and he had to watch it clearly.

Gradually,
Zhou Xuan understood that the blood drops were not randomly dripping. The first dozen drops of blood actually formed lines.

The lines are winding, and apart from the blood color which is a bit eye-catching, it has its own unique beauty.

Zhou Xuan calmed down and watched.

The blood drops formed into lines, and then dozens of lines formed a rough pattern, which was a bride's head - a bride's head with a red veil.

Looking at the lines in the picture, Zhou Xuan felt that this blood picture was not finished.

But the blood had stopped dripping, and the bride behind him was motionless.

Only the blood-stained white lantern remained, swaying in the wind in the Divine Awakening Secret Realm...

……

Zhou Xuan woke up, grabbed his pocket watch and saw that it was already seven o'clock in the morning.

He got dressed, made sure he had his diary with him, washed up, and then went to the concierge to look through the newspapers to see if there was any news of a Blood Well Society gathering, but to no avail.

Zhou Xuan had breakfast first, then went to borrow drawing paper, brushes and cinnabar paint from Xu Li and returned to the house.

He wanted to draw the pattern on the white lantern, and then go to Zhou Lingyi and Yuan Buyu to ask what sect the bride behind them represented.

Zhou Xuan has a solid foundation in calligraphy. Calligraphy and painting have been inseparable since ancient times. Even if one has not practiced painting in depth, one who is good at calligraphy can still make a few strokes. Whether it can be vivid or not is another matter, but at least the painting will not deviate too much.

He dipped his pen in cinnabar and drew on the paper. He drew very carefully. If he couldn't remember some details clearly, he would put down his pen and look at the secret realm with his mind.

After a short while, he had already painted a small part of the bride's head portrait. When he came to the red veil, he forgot how to draw the lines and put his mind into the secret realm again.
Before he had watched for long, he felt a burning sensation in his body. He quickly came to his senses and saw that the drawing paper was burning and half of it had turned to ashes.

The fire also ignited the magazines placed nearby.

"Why is it on fire?"

Zhou Xuan ran over and brought a wet face towel, and slapped the table to put out the fire.

"Where did this fire come from?"

Zhou Xuan opened the drawer and found a pack of cigarettes and matches lying quietly, with no signs of fire.

There was no fire source, no spark, but suddenly a fire started.

"Is it a painting?"

Zhou Xuan was a little bit skeptical, so he repainted the picture he had just drawn.

With the experience of the first time, I was much more skilled in the second time.

This time he finished half of the painting. When Zhou Xuan continued to paint, a green flame appeared in the center of the painting.

Zhou Xuan picked up the drawing paper, stared at the fire, and murmured, "This painting is really weird..."

(End of this chapter)