Epigraph:
Before you start reading, please adjust your mood and switch your thinking. (￣▽￣)
The protagonist of this book is referred to in the second person—you—unlike the usual first person·author (I) and third person (Li Muyun).
From now on, you are the protagonist, and your name is Li Muyun.
Main Text:
"Matchmaker ties a big peach knot, a rat carries a stinky cat, a mosquito lays a swan egg, it breaks, bloody, don't respond when it's dark..."
A creepy nursery rhyme came from your pocket, you took out your phone and said weakly, "Beauty, great beauty, do you have any other orders?"
"You little brat, it's only the hour of the monkey, why are you so listless already?" your mom's scolding voice came from the phone, "Let me tell you, tonight is the crucial moment for you to defy fate and change your destiny. If you miss it, you'll end up just like your deadbeat dad, not living past twenty!"
Today is the fifteenth of the seventh lunar month, Ghost Festival; it's also your eighteenth birthday.
"Yes, yes, rest assured, to continue the Li family line, I will definitely follow through."
You hung up the phone, hands behind your head, lying on a hillside in the northwest of Qian County, facing the mausoleum of Empress Wu Zetian of the Great Zhou Dynasty, hundreds of meters away from you.
The shadows grew long, and dusk deepened.
The clouds in the sky were unusually thick, like a giant hat pressing down on the city, making people's moods even more gloomy, hurrying on their way.
At this moment, your phone rang again.
"Muyun, where are you? Tonight is our class's graduation banquet, you can't be late."
The call was from Xiao Feng, your childhood buddy who grew up wearing open-crotch pants with you, belonging to the category of rich second generation, just without a credit card and not much chance to show off.
At the mention of this, you sighed deeply, "Old Xiao, brother's life is tough."
"Where are you?"
"Chang'an."
"What the heck? What are you doing in Chang'an?"
"What do you think?"
There were no secrets between you and Xiao Feng; he knew everything about you, including the millennium curse that the men in your Li family didn't live past twenty.
"Man, who believes in that superstitious stuff nowadays? Didn't you just have a thorough check-up last month? The doctor said you're in good health, living to eighty shouldn't be a problem."
You shrugged and sighed, "What can I do, you know my mom's temper. Anyway, since I'm already here, I might as well do as she says."
"Weren't you planning to confess to Wu Qiyao tonight? After tonight, you'll never have another chance."
At the mention of Wu Qiyao, an image of a pure, ethereal beauty surfaced in your mind. With a light sigh, you said, "Forget it, whether I say it or not, the outcome is the same. A high and mighty princess, how could she ever take a liking to a poor guy like me?"
"True, she's quite proud and aloof. Even if you confessed, it would just be embarrassing yourself."
After wasting a few more words, you hung up the phone. By now, the sun had set in the west, and you suddenly felt the temperature around you drop significantly, accompanied by gusts of cold wind.
You had to stay in this creepy place for the whole night, and at the intersection of the hour of the rooster and the hour of the dog, you had to find an extremely yin spot to burn the talisman paper your mom gave you. This "Fate-Changing Talisman" had been passed down for a thousand years and was a treasured heirloom from her family.
Shaking the small purple talisman in your hand, although it seemed far-fetched, who were you to argue when your mom had spoken so earnestly? Besides, including your father, the men in your Li family indeed mostly had short lives.
After nightfall, the surroundings were as if smeared with thick ink, pitch-black, and you couldn't see anything.
You leaned against a large jujube tree, which according to your mom's teachings, was yang in nature and could shield you from some evil spirits, preventing ordinary ghosts from approaching easily.
Of course, as a young person of the twenty-first century, you naturally—hey, what was that?
You suddenly felt something flash by because it moved so fast, you didn't get a clear look.
Just as you were about to use your phone to take a look, you suddenly felt a chill on your neck, as if something had brushed past your back.
"Gulp."
You swallowed nervously and slowly turned your head, but there was nothing but empty space behind you, so you breathed a sigh of relief.
But as you turned your head, a white shadow flashed in your vision again!
You jumped to your feet and quickly shone the flashlight from your pocket in that direction. The moment the light touched the white shadow, it vanished abruptly.
Your heart suddenly tightened. That white shadow couldn't possibly be human; no human could move that fast!
You checked your phone, still over an hour until the hour of the dog!
"Drip."
A drop of cold liquid suddenly fell on your neck. You touched it and looked at your fingers—blood!
You didn't dare look up, instead, you turned on the selfie mode on your phone. First, your pale, frightened face appeared on the screen, and behind you, a woman with disheveled hair was sticking out a tongue over a meter long!
"Holy shit!"
Angered and frightened, you dashed forward a dozen steps. When you turned around, you saw a woman in white with a blood-covered face slowly floating down from mid-air, landing where you had just been, sticking out her long tongue.
What else could you do at this time?
Run!
You started running, not caring about anything else, heading straight for the lights of Qianling Mausoleum a few hundred meters ahead.
As you ran, you occasionally checked behind you with your phone and saw that the female ghost was still following!
In your haste, you suddenly stepped into a void, and then you fell into a deep pit.
After tumbling and crashing around, you lay on a slightly soft patch of earth, holding your head.
That fall had left you disoriented and dizzy. When you came to, you realized you were in a pit.
You were lucky to have fallen from such a height and only scraped your arm a bit.
"Ah, hiss—"
As you looked up, the first thing you saw in the light of your flashlight was a crimson tongue!
That female ghost had actually followed you down into the pit!
"Fuck!"
You were starting to babble!
At a time like this, anyone would be scared, and when scared, the natural response was to run!
Run for your life!
You sprinted through a tunnel, then down some stairs, and into a passageway. Not long after, while running, you seemed to step on something hard and brittle—"Crack!"
You shone your phone's light on the ground—"Damn it!"
You jumped back in shock and quickly retreated because in front of you was a skeleton!
You never expected to encounter human remains here, and you quickly shone your flashlight behind you. The long-tongued female ghost was slowly floating towards you from about a dozen meters away!
This is bad!
Along the way, you saw three more human skeletons, the last one slumped in front of a stone door.
Hmm, a stone door.
Fuck, a stone door!!
You rushed to the stone door, pounding on it desperately, but the surface was very smooth and without seams. It only had a few characters carved in regular script: Trespassers will die!
With no gaps in the stone door and no mechanisms to be found, you could only lean against it, watching the white-clothed female ghost drag her tongue, slowly, slowly floating towards you!