"Listen!"

Fatty suddenly spoke.

The low voices of discussion immediately ceased, and everyone held their breath for half a minute.

"What are you having us listen to?" You Qi turned to look at Fatty, a hint of displeasure in his eyes.

"I... I thought I heard the sound of paddling just now," Fatty explained. "But I don't know why, it's gone again."

"Probably just too tense," Qin Jian said from a short distance away. He seemed very confident, and his gaze towards the others held a sense of having seen through everything. "Or maybe you're hallucinating..."

Before he could finish, Qin Jian, like a goose with its neck stepped on, craned his neck and stared at the misty lake surface with a terrified expression.

A boat silently cut through the fog and quietly sailed out.

The boat was empty.

It wasn't until the bow of the boat bumped against the shore with a "thump" that everyone reacted.

The next second, the sound of drums rang out.

The third watch... had arrived.

A chill began to spread along their spines, and everyone's gaze shifted from the boat to the lake surface. The mist gradually dispersed, and a deep red figure appeared on the lake.

It was Young Master Huang.

The figure was crooked and unsteady, one arm extended horizontally, the other bent, with a wide sleeve hanging down, conveniently obscuring his face.

This vague image of holding a pipa half-hidden did not bring any beauty to the scene, only a strong sense of fear.

They were almost certain that the face behind it... must be terrifyingly disfigured.

"You... you look..." Shi Liaozhi's voice trembled, "Look at what's beside him!"

As the mist around Young Master Huang gradually dissipated, everyone's eyes widened in shock, followed by a strong sense of fear that exploded directly in their hearts, their limbs becoming cold, as if their blood vessels were filled with ice.

Standing beside Young Master Huang on the lake were many brides wearing wedding dresses and covered with bright red veils.

Ten in total, they stood in a circle, surrounding Young Master Huang.

Their arms hung down naturally, making the scene extremely eerie.

The situation was now very clear: the ghost was hidden among them. If anyone accidentally picked out the ghost...

"Let's begin," An Xuan said, exhaling.

A look of strong reluctance appeared on You Qi's face, but he still moved his feet and was the first to jump onto the boat.

There was no choice; the order had been decided at the beginning.

It was the order in which they had met Young Master Huang before.

The small boat carrying You Qi disappeared into the mist.

Even stranger, as soon as You Qi's boat entered the mist, the area near Young Master Huang became blurry, and then gradually, nothing could be seen at all.

Those on the shore had no idea what was happening inside.

Just as everyone was getting impatient, the small boat reappeared from the lake, but to everyone's dismay, the boat was empty. You Qi, who was supposed to return with the boat... was gone.

"Where is he?" Everyone's scalps tingled.

Especially Shi Liaozhi, who was next in line; his legs were shaking, and he looked as if he had lost a loved one. Everyone was worried that he would accidentally fall into the lake.

But fortunately, the boat seemed to be controlled by some force; before Shi Liaozhi could even exert any effort, it directly rushed towards the center of the lake.

Realizing that he had entered the mist, Shi Liaozhi, who usually pretended to be timid, seemed to transform into a different person. He stood in the center of the boat, first testing whether the boat was stable enough, and then began to observe his surroundings.

The boat's speed was neither fast nor slow. He slowly squatted down, wanting to peek underwater, but the next second, he was frightened by his own spontaneously generated thoughts.

After imagining that he might see a rotting face hidden underwater, or countless pale hands pushing the boat forward, he decided to be more cautious.

He was a soldier.

And also an officer in a special forces unit.

Although his main focus wasn't assassination or combat, the vigilance rooted in his mind, or rather, his intuition, was much stronger than that of ordinary people.

Although he suspected that something was strange underwater, he believed that Young Master Huang and the brides he was about to meet were the biggest threats.

"Splash—"

Shi Liaozhi immediately became alert. The sound of the water under the boat... had changed.

Then, the bottom of the boat seemed to brush against something, slowly decelerating, and finally, it stopped.

He looked up, and the scene that suddenly appeared in front of him frightened him so much that he stumbled back several steps, almost falling off the boat into the lake.

Less than two meters away from him, a bride wearing a red dress and a bright red veil was standing silently, her arms hanging down naturally.

A cold wind blew, and Shi Liaozhi became a little more awake. The bride in front of him was just a lifelike paper figure, similar to the ones he had seen last night.

He could tell this from the hands hidden in the sleeves.

He looked to his left and right, and found that several other paper brides were standing there as well.

He counted them, a total of nine.

It seemed that the missing one must have been chosen by You Qi.

He squinted and sized them up one by one. These paper figures, whether in terms of workmanship, clothing, veils, or movements... were completely identical. As time passed, he finally hardened his heart and directly carried away the one closest to him on his back.

The reason he carried her on his back instead of hugging her or carrying her in some other way was entirely due to the limitations of the game rules. Otherwise, he believed he would rather hug the paper figure than carry her on his back.

God knows who came up with this idea.

After carrying the paper figure onto the boat, Shi Liaozhi finally breathed a sigh of relief, because the boat immediately started moving, without any abnormalities.

Although he couldn't tell the direction in the mist, based on his feeling, he was indeed heading back.

The paper figure was very light, so light that he felt no burden at all.

Before this, he had imagined countless terrifying and horrific scenes, such as the veiled bride grabbing his hand as soon as he reached out, or the strangely moving Young Master Huang as soon as he stepped onto the island...

Shi Liaozhi's thoughts stopped there, and he realized that he had overlooked something very important.

That Young Master Huang!

Where did that Young Master Huang go?

Shouldn't he be among those brides?

But why didn't he just now...

"Squeak—"

He suddenly heard a very light, but very strange sound, right next to his ear, like... like a rusty bearing being forcibly bent by an external force.

The next second, he saw out of the corner of his eye that the two straight paper arms that were originally resting on his shoulders were slowly bending at a visible speed, and the hands hidden in the sleeves were gradually revealed.

Shi Liaozhi's pupils gradually dilated, and he saw that the fingers gradually protruding from the sleeves were different from before.

No longer with the texture of paper, but... seemingly soaked in water for an unknown amount of time, the originally slender fingers were now swollen like clubs, even with a strange bluish-black color.

A tingling sensation also came from the neck, as if something wet and furry was approaching.

Crap...