Chapter 1750: Conditions

"How are we back again?" Wei Su exclaimed in panic. His belly was still bloated, and he hadn't even finished vomiting the water he'd just drunk, yet they were back at the place where the nightmare began.

Seeing the table laden with fruits and pastries, and remembering how happy he had been eating them moments ago, his stomach began to churn.

Qiu Honglei and Jing Teng also recalled the recent events, and instinctively distanced themselves from the food on the table.

Zu An secretly felt relieved. Just in case, he had asked Jing Teng to connect them all with vines earlier, preventing them from being separated again.

"What exactly is going on?" Qiu Honglei asked Zu An, her expression filled with worry.

Jing Teng's expression also subtly changed, as if deep in thought.

"If I'm not mistaken, we didn't find the key to resolving this matter earlier, which is why we've returned," Zu An replied.

"So if we can't solve this, will we be trapped in this loop forever?" Wei Su exclaimed.

"If all else fails, we can just wait until dawn when the sun comes out; the spirits will eventually retreat," Qiu Honglei shrewdly grasped the point.

"It's no use," Jing Teng shook her head slightly. "The spirits here are more powerful than I imagined. We must have fallen under her spell. Time flows differently here; we might not last until the sun rises."

She paused, then added, "Moreover, I suspect that even if the sun rises, its light might not reach this place."

Following her gaze, everyone looked up, only then realizing that the sky seemed to be out of sight.

Lanterns and decorations were everywhere, and strange mists obscured their view. No one had noticed this before.

"Are you saying we might be underground or inside a cave?" Zu An asked.

Jing Teng nodded, grunting in affirmation.

"Why don't we let Little Ying out to negotiate with the ghosts here?" Qiu Honglei suggested. "Since they're all ghosts, they might have a common language."

Jing Teng shook her head slightly. "The ghost world operates more on the principle of 'the strong prey on the weak.' Little Ying's cultivation is too low; if she comes out, she'll only have her energy absorbed and devoured by those vengeful spirits."

Seeing that this wouldn't work either, Qiu Honglei suddenly said, "In that case, let's just go directly to the bride and beat her into submission."

After all, she hailed from the Demonic Cult. After the initial panic, she gradually reverted to her usual way of doing things.

Zu An smiled slightly. "I was thinking the same thing."

Wei Su pointed to the guests nearby. "Shouldn't we deal with these people first?"

Zu An shook his head. "They're all just paper figures; destroying more of them would be pointless."

At that moment, the stage performance resumed, with the familiar melodic singing.

The group exchanged glances and quietly moved away from the vicinity of the stage.

The surrounding people continued to stare intently at the stage, as if completely oblivious to their presence, their expressions unusually strange.

On their way, Zu An directly followed his previous method, using the Primal Chaos Scripture to clear a path, quickly blasting a way forward.

Jing Teng watched with secret admiration. Although the method was crude, it was indeed effective.

However, recalling something, she immediately turned her head away and stopped looking at him.

As they neared the bride's room, Zu An said grimly, "There's a problem. When I tried to attack her just now, I fell under an illusion..."

He then briefly recounted what had happened.

Wei Su immediately complained, "Why do you get to play the villain while I'm stuck as the victim? That's not fair!"

Qiu Honglei, however, perked up her ears. "You and that female ghost just now?"

"Actually, it wasn't a female ghost, it was..." Zu An was about to explain when Jing Teng interrupted him with a light cough.

"Based on what you just said, it's highly likely her room has some special formation that caused you to fall into an illusion," Jing Teng said. "Don't rush in later; I'll pull her out first."

"Okay!" Zu An nodded. The group began discussing their joint attack strategy, determined to catch the opponent off guard.

The ghost's methods were too strange; if they allowed her to fully utilize them, mistakes were bound to happen.

Soon, the group arrived outside the bride's room again. The door was still ajar, and a woman, veiled and dressed in wedding attire, sat with her back to the door at a table, meticulously combing her hair.

When she took off her head to comb it, even though the group had been forewarned, they couldn't help but gasp.

The female ghost stirred, reattached her head, and seemed to be listening intently to something.

Jing Teng immediately acted, launching dozens of vines that instantly bound the female ghost.

With a forceful tug outwards, the female ghost shrieked. Countless strands of hair scattered, wrapping around various pillars in the room, creating a stalemate with Jing Teng.

During the struggle, her hair splayed out and her veil slipped, finally revealing her appearance. Her face was an extremely pale greenish-gray, her eyes almost entirely white with only tiny, pea-sized black pupils. Her lips were shiny black, and as she struggled, her face contorted into a terrifying grimace, revealing exceptionally sharp teeth. Saliva dripped to the ground, as black as ink.

Wei Su couldn't help but gulp. "Why is she so different from the female ghosts I imagined?"

*A Chinese Ghost Story* had truly misled him; he wondered who on earth had come up with such a ridiculous plot.

From that moment, he completely abandoned any thoughts of a romantic encounter with a female ghost.

At this moment, the female ghost suddenly reached out and fumbled on the dressing table. Her hand was a sickly bluish-green, like a withered branch, with long, pitch-black fingernails that would likely leave several bloody holes if they scratched someone.

Soon, she found a pair of scissors on the table and immediately began cutting the vines that bound her.

Jing Teng's expression changed slightly. The scissors looked remarkably strange, and she felt a sense of threat even before they made contact.

Just then, Zu An drew the female ghost towards him with an invisible force from his palm. His palm seemed to instantly transform into a black hole, emitting an immense suction force.

The female ghost let out a shrill scream, lost control of her body, and was directly pulled into Zu An's hand.

Qiu Honglei immediately took out the Changxin Palace Lamp to immobilize her, while Wei Su, also forming hand seals, caused two large rock hands to emerge from the ground and firmly grasp the female ghost's legs.

Zu An then activated the Primal Chaos Scripture: "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; what shouldn't remain shall not remain..."

The female ghost's face was contorted in agony as she let out sharp, painful cries, then her entire body dissolved into a cloud of dust and vanished.

"Finally, it's over," Wei Su sighed in relief. The ghost's appearance had nearly scared him to death.

At that moment, Qiu Honglei and Jing Teng simultaneously exclaimed, "Something's not right..."

Just then, their vision blurred, and they found themselves sitting in front of the stage once more.

"Didn't we already destroy that female ghost? Why is this still happening?" Qiu Honglei's expression changed slightly.

Jing Teng said gravely, "I mentioned this before: to truly eliminate some special spirits, you either need to resolve their lingering obsessions from when they were alive, or destroy the object they inhabit."

Zu An's heart stirred. In his own world, the purification spell of the Primal Chaos Scripture could send malevolent entities back to where they belonged. However, this world was peculiar; after being purified, they would return to their dwelling objects and revive.

"What exactly is her dwelling object?" Wei Su murmured to himself.

"The scissors!" Jing Teng recalled the unique sensation the scissors had given her earlier.

"The red veil!" Qiu Honglei also made a guess. In her opinion, the most important item for a bride was her red veil.

"I, on the other hand, think it's likely the comb, since I saw her combing her hair several times," Zu An chuckled. "But it doesn't matter, we can just try them one by one."

Seeing his smile, the others felt the surrounding ominous atmosphere lighten somewhat.

As the group was about to move, a gust of eerie wind suddenly swept through, extinguishing many lanterns near the stage and plunging the surroundings into instant darkness.

The performers on stage and the "guests" around them all vanished. The place that had been lively moments ago became as quiet as a pin drop.

An extreme chill permeated everywhere, not the kind associated with ice-element cultivation arts, but a sensation that made one's scalp tingle and soul tremble.

At this moment, a woman draped in a vibrant red wedding dress and veiled with a red head covering slowly approached from the distance. Despite the surrounding darkness, that splash of vivid red was strikingly unique.

She didn't seem to move her feet, yet in the blink of an eye, she would cover a distance, as if continuously teleporting.

The female ghost flickered into and out of view as she drew closer, an icy aura of death spreading outwards, filling every corner.

Wei Su trembled like a sieve, realizing he couldn't move his body at all.

The two women's expressions also changed slightly. This female ghost seemed to have held back a lot earlier, probably underestimating them, and was instantly killed by their combined efforts before she could fully display her abilities.

Now, she certainly wouldn't make the same mistake. She stopped at a moderate distance, surrounded by countless ghostly figures. Vaguely, they could see the estate guards, led by Zhang Yong, densely surrounding them.

Zu An, however, remained calm. Since the opponent had revealed herself, it saved him a lot of trouble.

Who knew the female ghost would suddenly raise her hand and point at Jing Teng, her voice like fingernails scratching across a tile: "Leave this woman behind, and I will let the rest of you go."

Zu An and the others were startled, all looking towards Jing Teng, never expecting such a demand from the opponent.