Global Ghost Stories: I'm Investigating Ghosts in My Nightmare!

Chapter 11 Congratulations on the Wedding
Time seemed to be gripped by an invisible hand; the mournful suona music, the rustling of paper figures moving, and even the pounding of his own heart all vanished in an instant. In Mo Fei's world, only that young profile, so familiar under the dim green light, remained.

It's Xiao Zhao.

Zhao Wenjie, a Class D investigator, was a young man who had graduated from academy less than six months prior. He always wore a shy smile and would stand at attention, salute, and address Mo Fei as "Senior Mo Fei" whenever he saw him. Mo Fei remembered that before the mission, this guy had confidently promised to treat him to a meal at the newly opened barbecue restaurant in the bureau after the perimeter reconnaissance mission was over.

And now, he was walking less than five meters ahead of him. Dressed in an incongruous blue cloth robe, his face wore the same eerie smile as all the other walking corpses around him. His eyes were empty and unfocused, and he moved forward mechanically with the rhythm of the procession. He was no longer Zhao Wenjie, but merely a cog in the machine of this funeral procession called a "villager."

A surge of rage and grief erupted from Mo Fei's heart, instantly breaching the dam of his reason. Almost instinctively, he lunged forward, the battle axe at his waist humming slightly from the bulging muscles. He wanted to charge, to tear this damned, charlatan-like team to shreds, to take Xiao Zhao… he wanted to retrieve Xiao Zhao's body!

"Mo Fei! Calm down!"

An Mu's icy voice pierced his boiling mind like a sharp icicle. It was a command issued through a mental link.

"Don't move! Do you want us all to end up like him?!"

"But Captain! That's Xiao Zhao! He's one of ours!" Mo Fei growled like a beast in the telepathic link, his eyes bloodshot as he stared intently at the receding figure.

He is no longer one.

Bai Yu's voice followed closely behind, calm and undisturbed, yet like a bucket of cold water mixed with ice shards being poured over one's head.

“Look around you, Mo Fei. We are now ‘guests,’ attending a ‘wedding.’ The first rule is, ‘No noise, no falling behind.’ Any extra movement you make now is ‘noise,’ disrupting the ‘etiquette’ of this wedding. Guess what happens to guests who disrupt a wedding?”

"To hell with the rules! To hell with the guests!" Mo Fei gritted his teeth. "I refuse to believe that my two axes can't split this paper-thin garbage!"

"Oh, what a touching display of camaraderie." Hei Yan's languid voice, tinged with a playful mockery, echoed in Bai Yu's mind. "It's like seeing a beautiful painting stained with a harmless flaw, and then insisting on wiping it with a rough rag, only to ruin the whole painting. My dear little Bai Yu, your companion's taste in 'appreciating art' is truly appalling."

Bai Yu ignored Hei Yan's comments, his mind highly focused, and continued speaking to Mo Fei through the mental link: "Whether you can split them or not, so what? The core of power here isn't these paper figures, it's the rules themselves. If you attack them, you're openly going against the rules. At that point, the entire village's 'rules' will see us as enemies. We won't even know how we died. Do you want Xiao Zhao to sacrifice himself in vain?"

“Bai Yu is right.” Lan Ce’s voice joined in, carrying a hint of the coldness unique to data analysts. “Mo Fei, according to my preliminary vital signs scan, the target ‘Zhao Wenjie’… has no life signals. He is now just a biological puppet driven by rules. Our primary task is to survive and analyze the core of this nightmare, not to sacrifice the entire team’s lives for a lost comrade.”

"You..." Mo Fei's body trembled violently. He looked at that familiar yet unfamiliar back and felt as if his heart was being tightly gripped by an icy hand, and even his breath tasted of blood.

He knew they were right, and reason told him he had to endure it. But the pain and humiliation of watching helplessly as his companions became this inhuman, grotesque state was more unbearable than any physical injury.

Bai Yu gently patted Mo Fei's shoulder, signaling him to calm down.

Finally, Mo Fei slowly loosened his grip on the battle axe. He lowered his head, hiding his bloodshot eyes in the shadows, but his heavy breathing still sounded like that of a wounded, trapped beast.

The group continued moving forward in silence.

They walked along the only flagstone path in the village. The path was damp and covered in moss, reflecting a slippery sheen in the dim green lantern light. Faint, dark red marks, like rust, could be seen in the cracks between the flagstones—whether cinnabar or dried blood, it was unclear.

The houses lining both sides of the road were shrouded in a deathly silence. Every door was tightly shut, white lanterns hung at the entrances, and red "double happiness" characters were pasted on the windows. This extreme contradiction repeated itself endlessly in the continuous cluster of buildings, creating a suffocating sense of oppression. Occasionally, out of the corner of Mo Fei's eye, he could catch glimpses of blurry black shadows flashing by behind those windows covered with white paper, as if more paper figures were spying on them, these "uninvited guests," in the darkness.

The stench of decay and incense in the air grew stronger, as if the entire village was steeped in formaldehyde and the scent of death. The mournful sound of the suona horn echoed through the narrow alleyways, becoming even more distorted and frantic.

Just then, one of the "villagers" walking at the front of the group suddenly made an awkward little movement.

He slightly raised his head, his empty gaze seemingly drawn to the swaying red sedan chair, lingering for a fraction of a second longer.

This was an extremely subtle movement, almost imperceptible to anyone. But Bai Yu and the Black Words within him detected it instantly.

"Oh? One of the 'guests' seems to have developed an inappropriate curiosity about the bride." Hei Yan's tone was full of anticipation. "Let me guess, what kind of 'hospitality' will this guest who has violated 'etiquette' receive?"

Bai Yu's heart sank, and he immediately issued a warning through the mental link: "Everyone, absolutely do not look at that bridal sedan chair! Look down and look at your own feet!"

Almost the instant he finished speaking, something unexpected happened.

Without warning, the body of the "villager" who was looking up at the bridal sedan chair began to "soften," like a candle being scorched by a flame. His limbs and torso twisted and sank in a way that defied the laws of physics. His bones seemed to disappear in an instant, and his whole body turned into a shapeless, writhing mass of rotten flesh, and his blue cloth clothes collapsed as well.

The entire process was silent, without a sound, without screams, without struggle. He silently and without a sound, in full view of everyone, transformed from a "person" into a pool of blood and flesh slumped on the bluestone pavement.

Even more terrifying was that the two "villagers" beside him seemed oblivious to this, continuing to walk forward with stiff steps. One of them stepped on the pile of rotten flesh, making a soft "plop" sound, as if stepping into a mud pit.

The group following behind, including An Mu and his companions, could only step over the filth that was gradually merging with the ground with expressionless faces.

Mo Fei felt a churning in his stomach. He fought back the urge to vomit, his face turning deathly pale.

He now finally understood the meaning of Bai Yu's words—the consequences of adhering to these "facts" might be unbearable for them.

“The second rule is, ‘The bride is beautiful, and guests may freely admire her as a sign of praise.’” Lanze’s voice trembled slightly in the link. “This is not permission at all; it’s a screening trap. The act of ‘admiring’ itself is the switch that triggers death.”

“No, you’re only half right,” Bai Yu corrected. “The rules themselves are honest. They do allow you to ‘watch,’ but they don’t say what happens after you watch. In this village, the way to ‘praise’ the bride is perhaps… to become part of her wedding, like, the red carpet that’s paved.”

This chilling conclusion sent a shiver down everyone's spine.

The procession continued in silence and repression, passing through most of the village. Finally, the sound of the suona horns became particularly loud in one place, and the procession stopped.

They arrived at their destination.

It was an ancestral hall that looked more magnificent than any of the surrounding buildings. Black tiles, mottled mud walls, and huge upturned eaves resembled the claws of a monster, appearing extremely ferocious in the blood-red mist. The vermilion doors of the ancestral hall were tightly closed, and a huge "囍" character written in gold powder was pasted on the door. The strokes of the "囍" character were twisted, like two human figures struggling in pain.

Two enormous white lanterns hung on either side of the main gate, their eerie green light casting a corpse-like hue over the entire entrance to the ancestral hall. In stark contrast to this green light was a long, bright red carpet laid on the stone steps leading to the hall. The carpet was a jarring red, as if soaked in fresh blood, with a faint red liquid seeping down.

Before the ancestral hall's main gate stood two tall paper figures on either side. These were no longer the crude servants and sedan chair bearers of the past, but exquisitely crafted. The two on the left were depicted as a golden boy and jade girl, their faces heavily made up, their smiles sweet yet exuding an inexplicable malevolence. The two on the right were depicted as blue-faced, fanged demon kings, clad in armor, wielding steel forks, imposing yet chilling to the bone.

They stood there like four guardian deities, quietly standing guard, motionless.

The wedding procession stopped in the square in front of the ancestral hall. Four paper figures carrying the bridal sedan chair walked in unison, placing the blood-red sedan chair steadily in the center of the ancestral hall entrance, at the beginning of the blood-red carpet.

Then, all the paper figures, along with the puppet-like villagers, turned around in unison to face An Mu and his three "outsider" guests, their faces still bearing the same unchanging smiles.

The suona music stopped abruptly.

The whole world fell into absolute silence.

"What... do they want to do?" Mo Fei gripped his battle axe nervously and asked in a low voice.

“The sixth rule is, ‘The paper figures are friendly guides; please follow their guidance,’” Bai Yu reminded softly.

As soon as the words were spoken, the golden paper figure standing at the door slowly raised its stiff arm and gestured for them to enter. Its movements were eerily fluid, as if a living person were truly hidden inside.

At the same time, the two heavy vermilion doors of the ancestral hall creaked open and slowly opened inward.

A stronger, sweeter, more rotten smell surged out from inside the door like a tangible wave.

“Let’s go, the ‘wedding banquet’ is about to begin.” An Mu’s tone was extremely heavy, and he took the first step.

The four had no choice but to grit their teeth and walk onto the sticky, slippery, blood-red carpet, pass through the four eerie-looking paper door gods, and step by step enter the ancestral hall.

The scene inside the door gave even the battle-hardened veterans an unprecedented visual and psychological shock.

Inside the ancestral hall was a huge empty courtyard. In the very center of the courtyard, dozens of huge round wooden tables were neatly arranged, covered with bright red tablecloths, forming a grand open-air wedding banquet.

However, none of the "guests" sitting at the banquet were alive.

Each table was filled with paper figures of various shapes and sizes.

There were paper figures of elderly men dressed in long robes and mandarin jackets with goatees; paper figures of women dressed in floral cotton jackets with their hair in buns; and even paper figures of children dressed in open-crotch pants with their hair tied in a topknot. All of them had the same eerie smile painted on their faces and sat there motionless, forming a deathly silent sea of ​​paper figures.

The "villagers" puppets who came with them, including the investigator Xiao Zhao who had become a puppet, went to the empty seats after entering the ancestral hall and sat down stiffly like the other paper figures, becoming part of this eerie banquet.

The four of them couldn't help but be drawn to the tables of food and drink.

The table was laden with "dishes," a dazzling array that looked exceptionally "abundant."

However, none of those dishes were normal food.

Plates of a paste-like substance, resembling sludge, were topped with a few withered, yellowed finger bones, as if mimicking some kind of cold dish. A huge, charred earthenware jar was filled with a constantly bubbling green liquid, in which some white, eyeball-like objects floated. In the center of a massive white porcelain plate sat a "mountain of flesh" made of countless twisted arms...

Each dish challenges the limits of human sanity, emitting a bizarre odor mixed with rot and spices that is nauseating.

“The fourth rule is, ‘The wedding banquet is lavish, please enjoy the food to your heart’s content and do not waste any.’” Lan Ce’s voice was extremely dry, as if his throat had been sanded.

Mo Fei had already turned his head away, his face ashen, barely managing to hold back from vomiting on the spot.

There was no sound in the entire courtyard, but Bai Yu could almost hear a uniform chewing sound coming from all directions, gnawing at his reason.

Their gazes passed over the deathly silent feast of paper figures and landed on the main hall of the ancestral temple at the deepest part of the courtyard.

There, a unique and ornate table stood out, clearly for the host's banquet.

Behind the main table hung a huge painting that almost covered the entire wall. The painting depicted a woman in a bright red wedding dress, her head covered by a red veil, obscuring her face. Only her bright red lips, as if dripping blood, were visible beneath the veil, slightly upturned.

Two figures sit side by side in the main seat of the painting.

A figure dressed in a black ancient-style groom's robe embroidered with gold thread sat upright, but his body appeared somewhat stiff. His head drooped limply across his chest, as if he were asleep.

The other figure sitting next to him made the four of them feel as if they had fallen into an ice cave.

It was a figure dressed in the same bright red wedding gown as in the painting, with a red veil covering her head.

She is the bride.

She sat there quietly, motionless. But everyone felt a cold gaze, filled with endless resentment and malice, piercing through the sea of ​​lifeless paper figures and locking onto the four uninvited guests.

(End of this chapter)