Extra Dish
Translator: Cinder Translations
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Jiang Cheng was drowsy, clearly still in the transitional state between sleep and wakefulness. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Tang Shirou has been found!"
Jiang Cheng's eyes immediately snapped open.
In the backyard of the Huang residence.
To be more specific, it was the secluded courtyard they had visited the previous night.
A bright red sedan chair was placed right in the center of the courtyard.
It was a vivid, blood-red, as if it had just been pulled out of a pool filled with blood.
"What time was it discovered?" Qin Jian frowned, looking at Shi Liaozhi, who had brought him this information.
Early in the morning, it was Shi Liaozhi who had come banging on their door to deliver the news.
"I don't know," Shi Liaozhi swallowed hard, his eyes constantly darting around the bright red sedan chair, unable to hide the fear in his gaze. "It was the middle-aged woman who informed us."
But as they looked around, not a single person from the Huang residence had come.
Not even one to explain or guide them.
This place was truly eerie.
It was indeed a sedan chair made of white paper.
Dragons and phoenixes were painted on it, giving it a somewhat majestic appearance. But the most bizarre thing was the four paper figures standing around the sedan chair.
Dressed in bright red paper clothes and wearing green melon-shaped hats, the paper figures had eyes filled with a seductive charm and their waists twisted exaggeratedly.
Two plain white paper lanterns were held by the two leading paper figures.
It was extraordinarily eerie.
The bright red blood had soaked through the white paper sedan chair. Xia Meng sniffed the air, a sweet, fishy smell filling her nostrils. She was no stranger to the smell of blood.
The sand beneath the sedan chair had already been stained red with blood, making one wonder what kind of scene lay inside.
An Xuan took a deep breath and turned to Shi Liaozhi. "What did the middle-aged woman say?"
"She said that the person we lost is in the abandoned courtyard of the Huang residence," Shi Liaozhi replied in a low voice.
"Is that all?"
Shi Liaozhi nodded. "That's all."
"How did the middle-aged woman know that we lost someone last night?" Xia Meng asked.
Her question was something everyone wanted to know. Moreover, judging by the appearance of the sedan chair, it seemed no one had opened it. Otherwise, the blood-soaked sedan chair would have already been ruined.
"Why waste time talking? Let's just take a look," said You Qi, who seemed to dislike standing there. The sedan chair was one thing, but the courtyard and the lake were another.
This place was filled with strangeness.
"Who will go?" Zuo Jing sneered. "You?"
You Qi swallowed hard and mustered his courage. "Fine, I'll go," he said, then added, "But let me make this clear, if there's something inside..."
"It's all yours," Jiang Cheng urged. "Go ahead."
You Qi glanced at everyone and slowly approached. As he got closer, the inexplicable sense of panic grew stronger. He steeled himself, picked up a stone from the ground, and before anyone could stop him, hurled it at the sedan chair.
There was no sound of paper tearing. The entire sedan chair seemed to have reached its limit and suddenly split open. In the next second, a bride dressed in red, with a veil over her head, appeared before everyone.
She sat upright on a wooden chair inside the sedan chair, her hands tucked into her sleeves, resting on her knees.
Her posture was very dignified.
But at this moment, what everyone felt was not the aura of a noble lady, but a bone-chilling coldness. This must be the missing Tang Shirou.
No one had expected her to survive, but...
"Look at her clothes!"
Someone shouted, and then everyone noticed that the bride was wearing the exact same bright red opera costume that had been hanging in the center of Young Master Huang's pavilion the day before!
Because it was soaked in blood, no one had noticed at first.
A gust of wind blew, lifting the red veil on the bride's head. Beneath the veil was a face...
No, not a face!
It was a skull, a skull with its skin scraped off.
The corpse swayed slightly, and a hand slipped out of the sleeve. The originally pale hand was now mangled, with some parts even revealing the white bones of the fingers.
"Where is her skin?!"
At this moment, Tang Shirou was nothing more than a complete skeleton with flesh and blood still clinging to it.
Her skin... was gone.
"Those... those without opera costumes have no skin!" Shi Liaozhi seemed to realize something and cried out in horror. "This opera costume... this opera costume is our skin!"
In the next second, everyone nervously stared at the opera costumes they were wearing. No one would ever complain about the discomfort of wearing them or think about taking them off again.
After all, a bloody example was right before their eyes.
Because she had fainted, Tang Shirou only wore this bright red opera costume after her death.
And the price was... her skin.
In the morning, due to the incident with Tang Shirou, no one was in the mood for breakfast. They simply gathered around the table in the pavilion.
The horrifying scene lingered in their minds, and some even felt nauseous from time to time.
"Tap."
"Tap."
"Tap."
A crisp, mechanical sound of footsteps approached from a distance.
The nauseous fatty looked up and saw the middle-aged woman from before approaching. Behind her was a younger woman, who seemed to be the one who had greeted them at the gate earlier.
But he couldn't be sure.
"Young Master Huang thanks you all for your cooperation last night. The performance was a great success," the middle-aged woman said, her gaze unfocused, as if she was just going through the motions.
The younger woman was carrying a large food box, which looked heavy. She held it with both hands, clearly struggling, but her expression remained the same as before.
"In gratitude for your cooperation, Young Master Huang has ordered me to add an extra dish for you," the middle-aged woman said, stepping aside slightly.
The younger woman walked up with a cold expression and slammed the food box onto the table with a loud "bang," causing the table to shake.
Everyone's expressions turned uneasy.
Shi Liaozhi nervously stared at the two women, even entertaining the thought that perhaps everyone in the Huang residence was problematic, and they... were done pretending and ready to reveal their true intentions.
An Xuan slowly picked up a wine bottle from the edge of the table and quietly clenched it in his hand. Just as he was preparing to wait for the situation to change, ready to smash the bottle and use the sharp shards to stab the woman in the neck, he noticed something glinting out of the corner of his eye.
Following the light, he suddenly saw Jiang Cheng's position.
In each of Jiang Cheng's hands was a wine bottle. The glint earlier had come from the glossy surface of the bottles.
Noticing An Xuan's gaze, Jiang Cheng pursed his lips and nodded at him, offering a warm smile.
And sitting beside him was the fatty... An Xuan's throat moved involuntarily as he saw the man holding a jar the size of a volleyball under the table.
(End of the Chapter)
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