"Had it hidden in my pants. Lucky those big sisters who changed my clothes found it too troublesome to fully undress me." Yun Jianyue's tone was utterly flat, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.
What kind of normal person hides a chainsaw in their pants?!
Lu Changxue was utterly bewildered. She wanted to know how anyone could miss such a large chainsaw hidden in someone's pants! Were they all that nearsighted?!
"What are we waiting for? Let's get out of here!" Zhou Benxin asked.
Following Zhou Benxin's gaze, Yun Jianyue saw that Lu Changxue's illusory realm was dissipating along with the fading of her resentment. The villagers were regaining their senses, staring at them with eyes almost feral.
More accurately, staring at her.
Lu Changxue finally sensed fear, though it was unclear what a ghost had to fear. "They look like they want you dead."
Yun Jianyue nodded. "Feels that way to me too."
Zhou Benxin: "So we just stand here?"
"Run!"
Before the last syllable even faded, Yun Jianyue had already shot off like a sprinter.
Seriously, with over a hundred people here, even if half were elderly, weak, sick, or disabled, their ragtag group of two humans and one ghost couldn't possibly fight dozens barehanded.
"Holy shit, wait for me!" Zhou Benxin howled, kicking off after her. Lu Changxue played her part perfectly, screaming hysterically while floating away as if the villagers could actually hit her.
Old Fifth Zhou's face, like withered bark, trembled violently, reminiscent of crumbling ruins during an earthquake.
"The bride still lives... the gods haven't received the sacrifice..." he muttered to himself. Then, he laughed, a high-pitched, deranged sound: "Hahaha... it's over! Xianyin Village is finished!"
After his bout of madness, Old Fifth Zhou summoned every ounce of strength and bellowed: "None of us will live! Kill them! Kill them to accompany us in death!"
Wails, or perhaps roars of despair, rose from many in the crowd.
They were angry. They hated. They were terrified.
And all that emotion, all that desire for an outlet, focused squarely on Yun Jianyue, the bride who should have died.
A dark, surging tide of people charged towards Yun Jianyue, every one radiating unmasked malice and bloodlust.
"Did they inject chicken blood? Why are they so fast?" Yun Jianyue shrieked.
"Who knew people pushing fifty-plus were all track stars? Olympics won't be worth watching without them!" Zhou Benxin's adrenaline was off the charts, nonsense spilling from his mouth. He barely knew what he was saying; he just needed to talk to ease the pressure.
Lu Changxue floated along, wiping away ghostly tears. "I've never been chased by so many men before. A bit old, though..."
THUD!
A fist-sized rock slammed into the cement path mere inches from Zhou Benxin, creating a small crater where it landed. The thrower clearly possessed terrifying strength.
"Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!" Zhou Benxin transformed into a mindless curse machine. That rock had nearly taken his head off!
Lu Changxue sighed with relief. "Thank goodness they can't hit me. Scared me to death." Zhou Benxin desperately wanted to ask if that was any way for a 'person' to talk, then remembered she was a ghost and swallowed the retort.
As the mismatched trio fled in disarray, something strange happened.
The entire ground of Xianyin Village began to shake violently, as if something buried deep beneath was struggling to break free.
Some of the pursuers, old men and women in their sixties or seventies, forgotten their hunt in their terror at the shaking ground, tears streaming down wrinkled faces.
Slithers of pitch-black Yin energy began to seep upwards from the cracks in the earth.
It resembled Yin energy, yet it wasn't quite the same. As if something Yun Jianyue and her companions had never seen before had been mixed into it.
At the village entrance, the huge scholar tree erupted. Branches stretched like endless vines, lashing through the air with a screech.
Several branches coiled around a few elderly villagers. Before they could even scream, their flesh shriveled and vanished, sucked dry instantly, leaving only desiccated skin clinging to their skeletons.
"HOLY—"
Before Zhou Benxin could finish his exclamation, Yun Jianyue clamped a hand over his mouth and yanked him behind a wall.
"You stay hidden here. I'm going to save them." Yun Jianyue revved her chainsaw back to life.
"They want you dead! And you're going to save them?" Lu Changxue stared at her friend, aghast. "Have you been possessed by the Virgin Mary? Give me back my shameless, thick-skinned Stinky Baby!"
Yun Jianyue bared her teeth in a grin and raised the chainsaw. "Shameless, thick-skinned Stinky Baby will chop you into itty-bitty pieces right now."
Lu Changxue whimpered, her ghostly form shrinking back.
"They must live, so they can face the consequences of their sins. Dying now is letting them off too easy." With that declaration, Yun Jianyue charged out without a backward glance.
The hem of her red bridal gown whipped wildly in the unnatural wind, revealing the pair of sweatpants she wore underneath.
Everyone else was running for their lives. Only she was running against the tide, straight towards the heart of the danger.
It was a bizarre, almost surreal image. For a moment, Lu Changxue thought her best friend was radiating some kind of divine, inviolable light.
But upon a second look? Pure nonsense. Must be a trick of her spectral eyes.
"Are we really just hiding and not helping? Senior Yun is a weak... uh... she's still a girl!" Zhou Benxin saw the fiercely humming chainsaw and wisely swallowed the phrase "weak girl."
Lu Changxue shot him a look. "What do you think?"
"Alright then, if we die, we die together." Zhou Benxin spotted a hoe leaning against the wall nearby. He snatched it up, hefted it firmly in his hands, and rushed out just as resolutely.
Yun Jianyue swung her chainsaw, building momentum, leaping into the air with a bizarrely contorted yet fluid grace. She sliced clean through two attacking scholar tree branches.
The villagers she'd just saved, sprawled on the ground, stared at her in terrified confusion.
"Waiting around to die?" Yun Jianyue snapped, effortlessly hacking through another branch.
The two villagers nodded dazedly, scrambled to their feet, and fled.
One of them glanced back, shouting urgently at Yun Jianyue: "The Twin Gods we worship! They cut down the huge scholar tree at the village entrance!"
Yun Jianyue kept chopping, finding a spare second to throw up an OK sign without slowing down.
But more and more branches surged towards her. It was as if the tree sensed her interference; the majority of the limbs abandoned chasing villagers and converged on her.
Zhou Benxin tried, swinging his hoe. The blade slammed into a thick branch with a dull thud, barely scratching the bark.
"How do you fight magic with basic attacks? Here, let me buff you!" Lu Changxue channeled her own ghostly energy, enveloping Zhou Benxin's hoe in a shroud of dark power.
"Senior Yun uses basic attacks too! Why can she do it?" Zhou Benxin protested, swinging again. This time, with Lu Changxue's energy augmenting the strike, the hoe chopped clean through the branch like snapping a dry twig.
Hearing this exchange while still fighting fiercely, Yun Jianyue instantly found the breath to shout back:
"That's because I'm a fairy princess! MAGIC! Biu~biu~!"