Chapter 83: The Bride in the Painting

Ji Li’s thoughts were abruptly clamped down, as if something had seized them, halting his mind in an instant.

A crushing suffocation engulfed him, like seawater drowning him completely.

His feet pressed against solid stone tiles while cold seeped endlessly from all directions—the only sensations his body could still register, all of them pain.

Wails rose and fell around him, shrill and mournful, crashing like waves alongside the force tightening around his throat, deafening him.

Everywhere, voices howled; he couldn’t tell how many.

Darkness still veiled his eyes, his pale face flushing as blood surged upward.

Bang, bang, bang!

Through the agony, Ji Li thrashed, arms clawing at the thing throttling him.

His legs stamped with raw strength, cracking an old stone tile beneath his feet.

When his hands finally brushed that cold, bluish arm, his vision snapped back.

He stood inside an old room, facing a half-open door. Beyond it was only a dim, murky glow—no clear view of what lay outside, nor where he was.

Startled, he realized his own hands were clamped around his neck, as though the suffocation had been caused by himself.

It all felt like an illusion.

Regaining his clarity, he turned—and the sight behind him almost tore his eyes apart.

There, on a wooden chair, sat a woman in bridal robes.

Too familiar. A sight he could never forget.

The veiled bride in red, hands folded on her knees, her stillness like death itself.

Instinctively, Ji Li stepped back twice, sensing no other breath in this place.

That could only mean one thing…

He looked sharply around, focusing on the furnishings near the bride. A firm thought solidified.

He had been pulled into that eerie painting.

Everything before him matched the image exactly: the bride, the wall behind her, every detail from the portrait.

No wonder… no wonder!

This ghost is so powerful that when it dragged you in, even I couldn’t speak.

It froze all of our thoughts!

The third persona’s voice trembled—never had he faced such strength, not even with the specter at Tiannan Academy.

But then, that ghost had never acted against them.

Ji Li’s eyes steadied. He let out a long breath, smoothed his scattered hair back, and rubbed his swollen neck.

He met the motionless ghost bride’s gaze.

She still made no move.

It was as if bringing him here had only been to let her see him—nothing more.

For now, she didn’t seem intent on attacking.

Accepting what was, Ji Li relaxed slightly.

He couldn’t leave anyway. Fishing out a cigarette, he flicked the lighter, intending to smoke.

But the lighter refused to spark.

Annoyed, Ji Li tossed the cigarette aside and stepped closer to the bride.

If she meant to kill him, she could have done it already.

That thought brought him back to the shifting details he’d seen in the portrait inside the elderly woman’s room.

He fixed his eyes on the wall behind the bride.

It was gray, perhaps from the painting’s fading, or maybe that was its original color.

Across it lay faint shapes.

When he approached, the shadows vanished.

Puzzled, Ji Li ran his hand along the surface. Nothing strange—just an ordinary wall.

But when he stepped back again, standing level with the bride, the shadows reappeared.

This time, he counted carefully.

Three silhouettes flickered on the wall behind the ghost bride.

Yet the shapes were blurry, their outlines writhing in agony, and the faint, pitiful wails still echoed in Ji Li’s ears.

That meant the cries he’d heard upon arriving came from them.

Lowering his gaze in thought, he turned toward another wall.

There too were three shadows.

Ji Li slowly pivoted in place. On all four walls, each held three figures.

Neither dead nor alive, their souls seemed chained to this room, doomed to suffer forever.

A chill crawled across his scalp, but then he remembered what he and Fang Shenyan had overheard while eavesdropping from the roof beam.

There were twelve souls here.

And in half a month, the Li Mansion had held thirteen funerals.

One connection bound these events: the elderly woman.

And she was deeply entwined with the ghost bride.

Ji Li’s head snapped up—the word sacrifice flashed again in his mind.

“Could it be that the people who disappeared from the Li Mansion were used as offerings, their souls sealed inside the painting?”

But something didn’t add up. Based on the funerals, there should have been thirteen souls.

“One is missing…”

No matter how he puzzled over it, he couldn’t resolve it. Though the ghost bride had dragged him into the painting, everything here seemed to serve as a clue, pushing the task forward.

Whatever the truth, Ji Li had finally pieced together the link between the elderly woman and the ghost bride, and the reason for the deaths surrounding the Li Mansion.

The elderly woman and Chen Fu must have acquired this cursed painting from somewhere.

Tempted by its power, they used rituals to pursue their goal.

Coupled with what the elderly woman had said—that they still lacked five people—it became clear: once they sacrificed five more, their aim would be achieved.

The funerals were the offering rites, sealing each soul into the painting.

Ji Li stepped back twice, eyes blazing as he studied the portrait.

It was the most reasonable explanation so far, yet one part still didn’t fit.

If the mission demanded only five deaths, why were six hotel staffs summoned?

Wouldn’t that mean one person was never meant to be attacked by the ghost?

And who could that be?

Ji Li knew at once. From the very start, the one who stood apart was himself.

“Is that my luck? That I won’t be attacked?”

The thought barely formed before he dismissed it.

“I was chosen by the bridal sedan, chosen by the ghost bride. That can’t be a coincidence.

But why must it be me…”

As he wavered, a dim light from outside spilled across his back.

On the floor stretched four shadows.

They belonged to Ji Li—the second persona, the third, and the fourth.

The reason the ghost bride had chosen him seemed, at last, to be revealed.