Mu Sicheng stopped fighting back. The flesh on his neck was bitten fiercely by the "Mu Sicheng" who flew over. However, what was sucked was not blood, but his soul. Mu Sicheng's face contorted hideously from the excruciating pain; his soul began waning before eventually vanishing on the pillar.
After absorbing the soul, the "Mu Sicheng" zombie flexed his shoulders contentedly and jumped down from the pillar, striding toward Bai Liu with a vicious expression.
Bai Liu lowered his head as if he didn't notice Mu Sicheng.
Mu Sicheng walked up to Bai Liu, and just as he was about to bite him, his head abruptly slammed down in a kneel. His face seemed to have two faces merging and changing alternately, and his body kept struggling.
Bai Liu raised his head slowly. "Mu Sicheng, it will take some time for you to merge with your spirit. Can you control this zombie body?"
Mu Sicheng's soul twisted out of his face, and he answered hoarsely, "Just barely… I can!"
"It's two minutes to twelve, the time when Yin and Yang meet—exactly when Yin objects are at their weakest as Yang energy flows backward." Bai Liu jumped off the bed and narrated calmly. "Now that we are both living people and the Yin and Yang roads have overlapped, it's the best time to escape and return to the road of the living."
"The only problem is," Bai Liu turned to look at the motionless bride staring at Mu Sicheng with a veil covering her head, "your body is already their husband, and you are also one of the owners of this tomb. If the host and honored guest escape, the Yin creatures in the tomb will definitely chase you. Do not let them completely devour your soul. This way, you can maintain your zombie body and partially retain your sanity so that we have the ability to fight back."
Mu Sicheng gasped. "So you'll let the spirit devour me, right?"
Bai Liu nodded.
Mu Sicheng's face was ferocious, his fangs exposed, and he clawed at the ground with sharp nails, exhaling two puffs of white air. "… I'll do my best."
"Then I'll count one, two…" Bai Liu paused for a second and looked down at his watch. He knelt on one knee on Mu Sicheng's back, grabbing his shoulders before raising his eyes and ordering, "—Three, run."
Mu Sicheng shot out like an arrow.
The light of the house lanterns flickered in the surge of wind following Mu Sicheng. When they lit up again, the bride of the house had disappeared.
Mu Sicheng sprinted on all fours through the dark tomb while Bai Liu knelt on one knee on his back.
At a corner, a headless bride appeared in front of them, about to get close in a few blinks. Mu Sicheng quickly turned sideways, exerted force with his fingers, and grabbed the side wall of the tomb passage before running past the bride, flying over the eaves and walls.
When he turned around, he saw another bride approaching. Bai Liu quickly blocked her with the wedding pole, lifting the veil.
A complete reversal: laughing sweetly, a head with a ghostly complexion and rouge lips was looking down at Bai Liu.
Bai Liu pressed down on the back of Mu Sicheng's neck. Mu Sicheng jumped down from the side wall and lowered his body to rush through the bride's blind spot.
They ran all the way to the main hall. The shadows who had been talking and laughing all stopped the moment Mu Sicheng ran in carrying Bai Liu. Their gazes turned sharply toward them, the viciousness in their eyes no longer concealed.
In front of the exit stood two people wearing melon-shaped hats, bowing formally, with flattering smiles and eyes curved into crescent moon shapes, welcoming the guests. Their voices sounded like men and women, sharp as eunuchs: "Host sees the honored guest—!"
Mu Sicheng didn't even stop and rushed out of the main gate with Bai Liu.
The smiles on their faces instantly disappeared, and they shouted sternly, "The guest has kidnapped the bridegroom! Kill the uninvited guest and welcome the honored host!"
All the shadows seemed to be waiting for this order. Sharp, frantic screams erupted from the walls in a chaotic manner. Despite the corners of their mouths forming blood-red, murderous smiles, their curved eyes were unnaturally wide open.
The moment Mu Sicheng ran out of the main gate, these shadows turned into thin black lines, rushing out at an extremely fast speed.
Mu Sicheng looked back, his face constantly switching between expressions. His words sounded like a schizophrenic's, sometimes full of malice, sometimes full of vigilance:
"They're catching up! What do we do!!"
"Die here, Bai Liu!"
"So fast!"
"You can't outrun these spirits."
Mu Sicheng raced through the tomb passage. The big red lanterns hanging on both sides of the passage cast the rapidly moving shadows on the walls, making them look extremely creepy, like a mass of red-eyed black snakes twisting and hunting people.
"We really can't do anything about these evil spirits in the underworld." Bai Liu's gaze remained calm. "But it's already twelve o'clock; Yin and Yang are converging."
"In the world of the living, without fire there is no light; without light there is no shadow; without a soul there is no spirit."
Bai Liu propped himself up and leaned forward. Holding the wedding pole, he quickly hooked down the lanterns hanging on both sides of the wall. As the candles in the lanterns went out, a puff of green smoke emerged. The red light disappeared, and the tomb passage fell into darkness.
Without the light source, darkness immediately swallowed the souls reflected on the walls, leaving only the echoing sounds of shrieking.
Mu Sicheng jumped from the wall and rushed out of the tomb passage. The paper bridge, previously swallowed by darkness, appeared in front of him again.
On the bridge, the sacrificial bridge ghosts were holding umbrellas, half of their heads dimly observing Mu Sicheng and Bai Liu as they advanced. Beneath the bridge, countless corpses rose and fell.
Mu Sicheng leaped onto the bridge pier with a ferocious look on his face. With a few quick bounds, he bypassed the sacrificial bridge ghosts.
Bai Liu looked back and saw the sacrificial bridge ghosts running toward them quickly. Fortunately, Mu Sicheng was swifter than before, and it seemed the ghosts' speed had declined compared to earlier. They were soon left behind by the speedy runner Mu Sicheng—trapped on the bridge, watching his departure with resentment.
"It's twelve-oh-one." Bai Liu turned around, leaned over Mu Sicheng's back, and swiftly ordered, "You must return to land before twelve-fifteen. The convergence of Yin and Yang is in fifteen minutes. Run as fast as you can."
"This is already the fastest I can run!" Mu Sicheng sprinted so rapidly that his tongue almost flew out of his mouth, panting heavily as he spoke. "At this speed, we can get back safely!"
While Mu Sicheng was replying, he ferociously bit a ghost that crawled out of a jar on the side of the tomb passage. He shook his head hard, embedding his fangs in the ghost's neck.
Bai Liu heard the sound of bones crunching and cracking. He patted Mu Sicheng on the head and said, "Don't suck the blood of the ghosts. Too much Yin energy is not good for you."
"And the blood from a water ghost's corpse doesn't taste good either," Bai Liu added.
Mu Sicheng spat out the neck of the ghost he had bitten, spitting in disgust. "Fuck, why didn't you tell me earlier? It's so watery and smelly!"
"You acted too quickly." Bai Liu narrowed his eyes at the jars rolling out of the dark tomb passage and the twisting bodies emerging from them. "These jars were not originally placed nearby but in a side tomb where I fell."
"Someone rolled these jars over here to make things difficult for us."
Mu Sicheng tilted his head and sniffed, then crawled forward with both hands, frowning. "This smell is so chaotic. Who did it?"
Bai Liu slowly raised his eyes. "Of course, they'd hope that we lose the game and die in the tomb—they are currently standing at the exit: Kong Xuyang and Yang Zhi."
—————————————————
The entrance to the tomb.
Kong Xuyang was swinging half of the Yin Yang Separation Talisman in his hand as he sneered at Yang Zhi. "Bai Liu actually used the Yin Yang Separation Talisman in a place like this; he really is courting death."
Yang Zhi gave a subtle compliment. "That's because he was pushed into a corner and had to throw away everything."
"Bai Liu has actually come to this point." Kong Xuyang looked at the trap door at the tomb's entrance and smiled maliciously. "If we don't help him out at this time, wouldn't it be very unkind of us to just stand by and watch?"
"Indeed." Yang Zhi looked at the door. "I remember that if you fall from here, you will land in a side tomb chamber full of jars?"
Kong Xuyang nodded, wearing an undisguised smug look. "That's right. The tomb on that side is full of ghosts in jars. A single scratch on one of them will result in being taken as a substitute."
"When you first played Yinshan Village, I remember you using this side tomb to kill two players and take their assets." Yang Zhi recalled. "How did you do it?"
Kong Xuyang rolled his eyes. "You have this memory skill, yet still can't remember anything."
Yang Zhi smiled flatteringly and admitted, "Brother Kong, you are a professional trap player. The trap tricks you use, both in and outside the game, are so many that even I can't remember them all."
Kong Xuyang tilted his neck back, hummed arrogantly, and then waved away Yang Zhi, who was standing at the entrance of the trap. "If you know, don't block the way."
"After using the Yin Yang Separation Spell, anyone who doesn't return to the living world before 12:15 will be trapped and die in the underworld." Yang Zhi looked at the jar under the trap door, his eyes showing a vindictive yet joyful light. "Although the jar ghost is not strong, it is the most difficult ghost in Yinshan Village. It can be used to buy time."
"All I need is a small Drive Talisman." Kong Xuyang took out the yellow talisman, dipped his brush in cinnabar, and drew on it with a swift movement. With his eyes shining, he stuck it on the trap door. "It will drive them for me and prevent the people in the tomb from leaving."
The yellow talisman pasted on the trap door suddenly emitted a red light. The jar below swayed and hummed in the reflection of the red light, rolling in a certain direction as if summoned.
Yang Zhi praised, "Brother Kong, your trap is still as insidious and vicious as ever."
"No poison, no hero." The smile on Kong Xuyang's face had not yet disappeared when the trap door in front of him burst open like a hurricane before suddenly exploding.
Two figures seemed to be standing in the dust.
Before Yang Zhi could see clearly who the two men were, a ghost with its neck bitten soft was fiercely smashed into the faces of Yang Zhi and Kong Xuyang, directly throwing the two men against the door and causing them to vomit blood.
The dust gradually dissipated, revealing the figures of two people hidden within it.
Mu Sicheng, lying on the ground, had a bruised face and bloody fangs. He ferociously spat out the blood of the ghost and stared at Yang Zhi and Kong Xuyang while advancing toward them.
Bai Liu, kneeling on Mu Sicheng, had bloodstains on his cheeks and shirt. Despite his extremely pallid complexion, he had a chilling, friendly smile on his face.
Bai Liu beamed and looked at the two men, coughing and lying on the ground. "Fellow countrymen, we meet again."