Chapter 12: Double Happiness
Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Double Happiness
"What do you mean ’I can’? You can what?"
Even in such a crisis, Yu the Scholar couldn’t help but feel a little stunned.
Just then, the surrounding guests all began to shamble toward Zhu Ge and Yu the Scholar like zombies, their movements stiff and numb.
Even Ma Laizi, who was right next to them, reached out to grab Zhu Ge, his mouth opening as if to speak, but no words came out.
"Hurry!" Zhu Ge urgently prompted Yu the Scholar. "Where is the Wedding God? I’ll stop it!"
As if waking from a dream, Yu the Scholar immediately pointed to the "double happiness" character on the house. "The Wedding God’s main body is there!"
Hearing this, Zhu Ge immediately opened his system interface again.
[Name: Zhu Ge]
[Lifespan: 33 Years]
[Trait: None Equipped]
[Inventory: Kunpeng]
"Equip!"
The next moment, ten years of his life vanished, and Zhu Ge’s head felt like it was about to split open.
But amid this agony and pain, everything changed.
"Transcend!"
His soul instantly rose from his physical body, forming a fiery red Kunpeng Egg.
Beside him, Yu the Scholar’s eyes suddenly widened as if he could see Zhu Ge’s soul. He exclaimed, "Why is it an egg! What a huge egg!"
And in Zhu Ge’s vision, everything had changed.
From his soul’s perspective, the "double happiness" character before him was not a cutout from red paper, but a blurry, indistinct human face that had not yet fully formed.
The face churned like bloody water.
Its mouth opened and closed as if chanting a spell, and its closed eyes were about to open, seemingly having sensed Zhu Ge’s soul.
"The Wedding God is about to make its move!" Yu the Scholar cried out. "Interrupt it, quickly! Or we’ll both lose our souls!"
Hearing this, Zhu Ge steeled himself and rammed straight toward the "double happiness" character in front of him.
The next moment, however, before Zhu Ge’s soul could hit the "double happiness" character, the blood-red face suddenly rippled and its mouth gaped open.
The surrounding red light instantly flowed back into its mouth like a hundred rivers returning to the sea. Then, it tightly sealed its lips and eyes, its face gradually sinking back into the "double happiness" character.
Zhu Ge’s soul crashed into it, but just as his soul had passed through solid objects before, it passed right through this as well.
"It didn’t steal our spirits! It’s afraid of you?!" Yu the Scholar’s voice was laced with a hint of joy. "Let’s go, now!"
At that thought, Zhu Ge’s soul immediately returned to his body.
Before he could even say anything after opening his eyes, he saw Yu the Scholar grab his hand and start pulling him on a run out the door.
Zhu Ge stumbled along, glancing back over his shoulder.
In the real world, all the red light that had been suffusing the area had now returned to the "double happiness" character on that house.
The guests were now motionless, standing in place with their heads bowed like wooden posts.
But in the brief moment he was distracted, the red light on the "double happiness" character faintly began to seep out again, and the guests’ heads started to rise once more.
A chill ran down Zhu Ge’s spine, and he quickened his pace.
Eventually, he was pulled all the way to Yu the Scholar’s home.
SLAM!!
Yu the Scholar shut the wooden door, then pointed to a nearby stool. "Have a seat and wait a moment."
Then, Yu the Scholar pulled a drawer out from under the wooden bed. It was filled with various bottles and jars.
Meanwhile, Zhu Ge took advantage of the remaining duration of his equipped Kunpeng to survey the room.
The original owner of his body had never been to Yu the Scholar’s house, though he had been to the teacher’s home. All the village children learned to read and write there when they were young.
Yu the Scholar’s room was similar to the teacher’s—a square, single-story house with a bed, a desk, and a shelf that held a few scattered books.
It was very simple.
But what startled Zhu Ge was that on one of Yu the Scholar’s walls, there was a "double happiness" character written in fresh blood.
Seeing this character, Zhu Ge’s expression froze.
’Double happiness...’
Zhu Ge glanced cautiously at the busy Yu the Scholar, his heart starting to pound.
RUSTLE, RUSTLE...
Yu the Scholar was still rummaging through the drawer, not noticing Zhu Ge’s expression.
"Yu the Scholar, what’s the deal with that Wedding God?" Zhu Ge asked softly.
"It was formed after Hua Xiaomei died," Yu the Scholar said in a low voice.
"My guess is that when Hua Xiaomei died from the plague a couple of days ago, her dying wish was to marry you, since you were engaged. This willpower was so strong that it formed a ’god’!"
’Engaged?’
Zhu Ge’s expression turned grim.
’There was nothing in the original owner’s memories about being engaged to Hua Xiaomei!’
"The characters the teacher left behind, can I see them?" Zhu Ge spoke again.
"Don’t look at them, now’s not the time!"
Yu the Scholar seemed to have found what he was looking for. He shot to his feet, holding a normal-sized rice bowl that contained a congealed, jelly-like substance.
"Is this..." Zhu Ge’s gaze sharpened. "Chicken blood?"
"Rooster’s blood!" Yu the Scholar said with a grave expression. He reached into the bowl, dug out a small piece of the congealed blood, and walked over to the desk.
"Each rooster only has a heart the size of a fingernail. It took all the roosters in the village to collect this small bowl of heart’s blood. I buried all the meat, which was a real shame, but there was no time for that... Come help me grind the ink!"
’Using rooster’s heart’s blood as ink?’
Zhu Ge frowned, walked to the desk, and stood by the inkstone, slowly starting to grind.
The congealed rooster’s blood liquefied under his hand, turning a vivid, fresh red, just like blood.
Or rather, its base ingredient was blood to begin with.
Then, Yu the Scholar picked up a calligraphy brush from the desk—its tip already stained red—and began writing directly on the paper.
"I’m going to write the character for ’Confucian’ now, imitating the teacher’s brushwork. Since you already know how to have an out-of-body experience, you should pay attention and learn. It might be useful in the future."
As he spoke, Yu the Scholar sighed. "If we even have a future."
However, as Zhu Ge listened to Yu the Scholar, a chill crept down his spine.
He saw that Yu the Scholar, using the chicken blood, was halfway through writing the character for "happiness."
While he was talking to Zhu Ge, he had already half-finished a second "happiness" character.
’Double happiness!’
Yu the Scholar wasn’t writing the character for "Confucian" at all—he was writing "double happiness"!
Seeing this, Zhu Ge immediately used the Kunpeng’s Transcendence technique.
Soul departure!
’It hasn’t even been a minute since I equipped it. I should have at least ten or so seconds left!’
WHOOSH—
Zhu Ge’s Kunpeng Egg shot out from his body, and he looked toward the Yu the Scholar before him.
In his soul vision, Yu the Scholar’s body was completely invisible.
There were only two possibilities for why he couldn’t be seen.
One was that Yu the Scholar’s soul was hidden, a characteristic of the Confucian Dao.
The other was that Yu the Scholar was already dead!
’No soul, nothing to see!’
Previously, Zhu Ge had assumed he couldn’t see him because Yu the Scholar practiced the methods of the Confucian Family.
’But now, it seemed highly likely that Yu the Scholar was already dead? That his soul was gone?’
’If that’s the case, who had he been talking to all this time?’
"It’s done!"
Just then, Yu the Scholar finished his final stroke and lifted the brush. He picked up the paper and handed it to Zhu Ge. "Here, keep this paper on you, preferably over your heart."
"I’ll write a few more, and then we’ll post them all over the village!"
Yu the Scholar was about to continue but noticed that Zhu Ge hadn’t taken the paper. So, he looked up.
He didn’t look at Zhu Ge’s face, but rather above his head—at the exact spot where Zhu Ge’s soul was located.
Yu the Scholar’s hand froze in midair. He stared at Zhu Ge’s soul, as if meeting his gaze.
The air solidified.
Yu the Scholar’s expression became calm, showing neither joy nor sorrow, just a strange, eerie smile.
"You..."
"What are you looking at?"