Chapter 22: 21, The Grass-Head Dragon

21, The Grass-Head Dragon

In a daze, Zhou Chang felt as though he stood in the center of a spacious main hall, surrounded by people dressed in red and green.

The sounds of horns and suonas, blowing and beating, continuously drifted out from outside the main hall.

"First bow to the high parents~"

Amidst the blurred and chaotic images, the master of ceremonies' deliberately raised voice rang out.

The newlywed couple in the main hall was pressed by the neck by maids and young servants behind them, kneeling to bow before the paper spirit tablets on the offering table ahead.

"Second bow to heaven and earth~"

That couple turned around, only to be pressed down by the maids and young servants again, kneeling to bow toward the door.

"Husband and wife bow to each other~"

A male youth wearing a melon-skin cap, with a fake rat tail woven from cotton thread attached to the back of the hat, under the actions of the maids and old women, bowed to face the bride wearing a red veil.

After the two bowed to each other, an old woman brought a bamboo strip wrapped in red silk, similar to a back-scratcher, stood beside the groom, and helped the groom, who was standing stiffly, lift the red veil of the bride opposite him: "Young Master Wen, look at the bride's appearance; she is very beautiful, surely she will please you~"

Under the red veil, a snow-white small face gradually revealed itself.

The woman's face was clean and fair, possessing quite a bit of spiritual vitality.

Yet her eyes were tightly shut, and her face was completely devoid of color.

On her neck, there was also a blackened strangulation mark.

Zhou Chang looked at the bride, and suddenly his head throbbed with intense pain—

He recognized that face!

He recognized the bride!

Who was the bride? The bride was—

Bai Xiue!

Zhou Chang, suddenly realizing who that bride truly was, saw the scene in his vision blur abruptly; the spacious main hall filled with people draped in red and green rapidly receded in his vision!

He saw the eight-immortals table before the bowing 'newlyweds',

On the eight-immortals table, five feet off the ground, stood a pitch-black spirit tablet, on which was written: Spirit Banner of the Grass-Head Dragon, Wen Yongsheng, Altar Seat!

Spirit Banner!

Wen Yongsheng was actually a Spirit Banner?!

Zhou Chang's pupils trembled violently!

He saw that on that eight-immortals table, only the Spirit Banner altar seat of 'Wen Yongsheng' stood upright, yet there were no incense sticks, candles, or offerings—those people surrounding Young Master Wen and Bai Xiue were holding up handfuls of burning incense sticks in their hands; their thoughts were the feast for the magnificent Spirit Banner!

—

Whoosh!

The blurred illusion in his vision vanished instantly!

That slippery, damp wind, like a wandering snake, also completely disappeared from Zhou Chang's perception at this moment.

The scent of the feast, coming from nowhere, also vanished without warning.

Zhou Chang's corpse body still had its mouth wide open, breathing hard, trying to suck in those drifting feasts—however, in the void at this moment, not a trace of feast scent remained; it was like a live fish thrown onto the shore.

"No one can trap you?"

Zhou Chang sneered coldly; a wisp of blood-thought thread swam up from under the flesh and skin, winding several circles around the Nian corpse's mouth and nose.

This Nian corpse fell completely silent, as if it had never 'come alive' at all.

Previously, after Zhou Chang struggled with it, it had drawn feast scent from the outside world, causing its body to return to its original state, no longer looking like a skeleton wrapped in skin as it did at the very beginning when the wine cellar steamed out the feast scent and delusional thoughts.

And Zhou Chang's wisp of thought threads had undergone even greater changes, already becoming like thick blood vessels.

These 'blood vessels' spread beneath the Nian corpse's flesh and skin, but could not absorb the delusional feast scent accumulated within the Nian corpse's body; they could only suck in the delusional feast scent mycelium fermented by the wine cellar.

Zhou Chang waited for a while.

His hearing, enhanced far too much, did not detect any further abnormal sounds from the outside.

Thus, he split off a wisp of blood-thought thread from within his body, slowly probing out through the crack of the coffin, slowly sucking in the delusional mycelium in the rice grave that submerged him. After some time passed, he split off a second thread of silk, stealthily probing elsewhere to suck in the delusional mycelium growing on other rice graves.

The blood-thought threads swam through the fermentation pit where the stone egg was placed, submerging the mountain of grain in the pit where the stone egg lay, yet still no delusional mycelium grew.

Zhou Chang slowly increased the number of blood-thought threads drifting outward.

The color of the blood-thought threads deepened further, turning red to black; they did not become thicker, but every single thread began to have the texture of ox tendon.

The power they drew in fed back onto Zhou Chang's spiritual consciousness; in Zhou Chang's eyes, light also began to sparkle.

Faint light flickered and reflected within the dim coffin chamber.

About an hour passed this way; Zhou Chang heard the violent sound of water coming from the living spring not far away again. With a shift in thought, the blood-thought threads spread across half the wine cellar instantly retracted into his coffin.

Clusters of blood-thought threads pierced into the Nian corpse's flesh and skin, drifting and intertwining to form a vast net.

That slippery, damp wind of feast scent blew into the coffin chamber once again.

The Nian corpse began to struggle, trying to suck in the feast scent!

But after an hour of rest, Zhou Chang's blood-thought threads had grown even stronger; they intertwined beneath the Nian corpse's flesh and skin, firmly locking every pore of the Nian corpse—

Boom! Boom! Boom!

This corpse could only thrash and struggle inside the coffin like a fish!

Zhou Chang's thoughts were tainted by that wind of feast scent, yet this time, no obvious hallucinations arose.

After a moment, the wind of feast scent came and went; Zhou Chang began to repeat the previous steps, releasing wisp after wisp of blood-thought threads to draw in the delusional mycelium on the surrounding rice graves.

The day slowly passed.

In the evening, Zhou Chang heard the dull sound of moving stone slabs from above the cellar.

The fat man's voice sounded afterwards: "Prepare to awaken!"

His voice spiraled down from the top of the cellar; by the time it reached the very bottom of the wine cellar, it had become extremely faint, and this time, his voice produced not the slightest echo within the wine cellar.

When the wine yeast in the wine cellar "begins to ferment," something eerie follows.

The source of the eeriness might lie in that living spring not far away.

Zhou Chang waited quietly in the coffin chamber, listening as the sound of shoveling through the rice mound came from above downward, from far to near; finally, the sound of the grain being shoveled away rang out directly above his coffin chamber.

"Mycelium has grown...

This person truly seems a bit mad..."

Hearing the fat man's words, the coffin lid covering Zhou Chang was pushed open; the fat man stood outside the fermentation pit with arms crossed, eyes wide as he observed Zhou Chang inside the coffin.

In the dim wine cellar, Zhou Chang could nonetheless see the fat man's subtle facial expressions.

He did not know what the other was observing in him, so he could only feign the appearance of someone just waking up.

"How do you feel?" the fat man grinned, his smile skin-deep, asking Zhou Chang.

Recalling the sensation of that wind of revelry eroding his spirit, Zhou Chang weighed his words and replied: "My head feels a bit dizzy, my memory is somewhat blurred, but it seems I can move my body..."

As he spoke, he slowly propped himself up with his arms.

Because the blood-thought threads could cover only the body's major joints, his movements appeared especially stiff; yet to the fat man, such stiff movements seemed just right.

The smile on the fat man's face finally seemed a bit more sincere: "Your delirium is being cured!

But it is not finished yet; you must come again tomorrow!"

A faint light flickered in Zhou Chang's eyes; he nodded: "Very well."

"Do you need me to help you up?"

"No need; I can stand up slowly by myself.

You are truly a kind person; I do not yet know your honored name."

"My given name is Qian Chaodong!

Just call me Steward Qian."

Afterwards, the fat man Qian Chaodong led those two men whose faces were covered with knife scars and burn marks, and they shoveled away the grain pile atop the fermentation pit where Shi Danzi lay.

Qian Chaodong looked at the grain pile, which showed no change whatsoever, and sneered: "Looks like he's feigning madness while not ill!"

He waved his hand,

and the two men with faces full of knife scars and burn marks crouched low, silently working together to remove the lid of Shi Danzi's coffin.

Inside the coffin.

Shi Danzi, lying rigidly straight, suddenly opened his eyes; with one hand he gently stroked his cheek, while with the other he formed an orchid-finger gesture; looking at the few people outside the coffin, his eyes were seductive as silk: "Tell me, do I look more like a person, or like an immortal?"