225: Chapter 225 The Powerlessness of the Ninth Bureau Team

"Pfft."

Fingernails slashed through the skin and flesh of the face, scooping out a clump of warm fresh blood.

Cuicui used her fingers, stained with her own blood, to slowly smear it across her lips.

"This rouge is so bright red; my lover will surely love it."

She used her own blood as lipstick, then drew a bewitching red eyeshadow at the corners of her eyes.

Old Li and Mother Li outside the door watched this scene, completely breaking down.

"What a sin! I'll fight you to the death, you man-eating mountain god!"

With red eyes, Old Li raised the butcher's knife in his hand and hacked like a madman toward the nailed-shut wooden door.

"Father, on this joyous occasion, do not resort to weapons and blades, lest you miss your daughter's auspicious hour."

Cuicui's eerie voice came from inside the door.

The next second.

Old Li watched in terror as his right hand, holding the butcher's knife high, suddenly stopped obeying him!

That hand seemed to be tightly gripped by some invisible force, forcibly reversing direction in mid-air, slowly aiming the sharp blade of the butcher's knife right at Old Li's own carotid artery!

"Dear! What are you doing!"

Mother Li shrieked and pounced forward, trying to snatch the knife away.

But the moment she moved, her legs felt as though they had been filled with lead, nailed firmly in place, unable to budge an inch.

"The auspicious hour has arrived."

"The bride is being sent off—"

A shrill eunuch-like voice suddenly exploded out of nowhere in the main room of Old Li's house.

"Bang!"

That wooden door of the inner room, tightly nailed shut by hundreds of long spikes and plastered with talismans from The Ninth Bureau.

Without any external force destroying it, it burst open from within!

Amidst the flying wood chips and talisman paper fragments.

Cuicui walked out, still wearing that blood-stained old pajama.

Yet, bizarrely, anyone who saw her could only see a bride wearing a bright red wedding dress and a red veil across their retinas!

Moreover, she walked on her tiptoes with her heels suspended in the air, her entire body looking like a lightweight paper-crafted figurine, "floating" step by step toward the front door.

"Do it!"

The moment Cuicui stepped across the threshold of the main room.

The team from The Ninth Bureau, who had been lurking in the dark alley all along, finally moved.

Captain Lao Xing took the lead, the military triangular bayonet in his hand glowing with cinnabar red light as it stabbed straight at Cuicui's throat.

Of course, this wasn't to kill her, but to use the malevolent aura on the weapon to sever the bizarre connection on her body.

"Open the net!"

Xiao Liu rushed out from the side, the high-pressure launcher on his shoulder roaring.

A special alloy net mixed with black dog blood and century-old glutinous rice juice descended directly over Cuicui's head.

Hongdou stood at the very back, her hands forming seals at lightning speed as she chanted the strongest mental cultivation technique within The Ninth Bureau.

"Heaven is clear, earth is bright, let the turbid yin retreat! Begone!"

An invisible mental shockwave headed straight for Cuicui's glabella, attempting to forcibly awaken her suppressed living soul.

This set of smooth coordination was this three-person team's trump card for dealing with high-tier vengeful spirits.

However.

Reality dealt them a cruel blow.

Facing the triangular bayonet thrust by Captain Lao Xing, Cuicui didn't dodge at all.

"Pfft!"

The triangular bayonet pierced through Cuicui's throat without any hindrance.

But no blood flowed out, nor did it meet any physical resistance.

Captain Lao Xing only felt his hand empty, a feeling just like stabbing a knife into a phantom!

"What the fuck, it's like this again!"

Captain Lao Xing's expression changed drastically.

Immediately after, Xiao Liu's alloy net covered Cuicui.

"Sizzle!"

The black dog blood and glutinous rice juice on the alloy net erupted into a violent chemical reaction the moment they touched Cuicui's body, emitting a large amount of white smoke.

Yet Cuicui's body distorted beneath the net like ripples in water.

Her arms, whose shoulder bones had been crushed, drilled out through the mesh of the net like two venomous snakes.

Afterward, her entire body turned into a ball of red mist, seeping out through the meshes of the net!

Ten meters outside the net, the red mist recondensed into that tip-toeing bride in red.

"Hehehe... Dear officers, why must you press me so hard?"

Cuicui turned her head and smiled eerily.

The most miserable one was Hongdou.

Her mental shockwave had just touched Cuicui's glabella.

"Ah—!!!"

Hongdou let out a miserable scream.

Her pretty eyes instantly bloodshot, two lines of bloody tears streamed down the corners of her eyes.

In her perceptual world, she hadn't touched Cuicui's soul at all.

What she saw was a bottomless giant karst cave.

On the stone walls of the cave, tens of thousands of human-skin brides were densely hung!

Those human-skin brides turned their heads simultaneously, staring fixedly at her with hollow eye sockets.

A mental pollution formed by a sea-like vast resentment instantly backlashed into Hongdou's sea of consciousness!

"Hongdou!"

Captain Lao Xing's eyes split with anger; he couldn't care about chasing Cuicui anymore, turning around with a flying pounce to tackle Hongdou to the ground.

Without hesitation, he bit the tip of his tongue and directly sprayed a mouthful of fresh blood containing righteous masculine energy onto Hongdou's face.

"Wake up!"

Under Captain Lao Xing's desperate pulling, Hongdou finally broke free from that terrifying illusion.

She panted heavily, her entire body soaked in cold sweat, so utterly exhausted that she couldn't even stand up.

"Captain... don't chase... you can't catch her back..."

Hongdou grabbed Captain Lao Xing's arm tightly, her voice trembling.

Captain Lao Xing knelt in the muddy water, his fists clenched tight, his fingernails digging into his flesh.

He watched helplessly as that tiptoeing bride in red stepped over the white paper money scattered all over the ground, step by step vanishing into the dense pink peach blossom miasma at the end of the street.

...

"These brothers from The Ninth Bureau really don't skimp on their equipment, but their brains are still somewhat lacking in sharpness."

On the second floor of Yuelai Inn, less than a hundred meters away from Old Li's house.

Behind a half-open carved wooden window.

Lin Ye sat unceremoniously astride the windowsill, one leg bent, his arm resting casually on his knee.

In his hand, he held a crude earthenware wine bowl filled with corn liquor.

On the small wooden table next to him sat a plate of extremely thinly sliced spiced cooked beef and a dish of fried peanuts.

He looked just like a wealthy lord sitting on the second floor of a theater watching a free grand show.

"Brother-in-law! You're stealing my peanuts again!"

Frost Star squeezed over from the side angrily, extending her tender little hand to accurately snatch the plumpest peanut from the plate and pop it into her mouth, crunching away on it.

"Eat, eat, eat. Watch out for getting fat."

Lin Ye rolled his eyes, picked up a slice of cooked beef, tossed it into his mouth, and washed it down with a mouthful of spicy corn liquor.

Helena stood obediently to the side, holding a wine pot, ready to refill Lin Ye's cup at any time.

Looking at the night view outside the window at this moment, her ice-blue eyes were filled with lingering fear.

"Boss, these ancient legends of Great Xia are even more creep-inducing than Western demons."

"Those policemen's weapons are completely ineffective against her," Helena whispered.

"Nonsense. Using physical means to deal with concepts is what you call climbing a tree to catch fish."

Lin Ye tapped his chopsticks.

"That isn't a simple ghost possession. That is the concept of 'taking a bride' completing its 'materialization' on this girl named Cuicui."

Leng Yue sat upright by the table, holding a cup of clear tea, her dark golden eyes scanning indifferently at the dense pink fog outside the window.

"For thousands of years, countless innocent young girls in the Ten Thousand Mountains have been sacrificed to the so-called 'mountain god'."

"Their despair, fear, and that morbidly poignant beauty when forced to put on wedding dresses have formed a powerful 'obsession' on this land."

"When spiritual energy revived, this obsession became a rule. It doesn't need a physical entity; it only needs to select a qualified host and then step by step assimilate the host into the rule itself according to the procedures of [grooming], [severing ties], and [sending off the bride]."

Ayugu squatted on the chair, hugging her knees, her face somewhat pale.

"Sister Leng Yue is right. In our Miao region, this is one of the most wicked taboos."

"Once chosen, this girl is conceptually already half-dead. That captain from The Ninth Bureau stabbing her with a knife just now was actually stabbing a nonexistent projection."

Listening to their in-depth analysis, Lin Ye nodded with satisfaction.

"Very well analyzed. That's why the brothers of The Ninth Bureau are used to fighting straightforwardly; when encountering this kind of thing, they appear a bit stretched to their limits."

Lin Ye drank down the last gulp of wine in his bowl.

He stood up, patted the peanut skin debris off his clothes, and looked into the dense fog.

"However..."

"Rules are rigid, but people are flexible."

"Since the old bachelor in these Ten Thousand Mountains likes to snatch brides, how can such pomp and circumstance lack this generous gift from yours truly, Manager Lin?"