Chapter 94: The Wedding Banquet, Part Two

Fang Yue unleashed his Flame Palm in a sudden, violent strike, slamming his hand toward the bride.

A thunderous boom rang out. Though it had clearly struck a person, it felt as if the blow had landed on the entire mansion itself.

The bride’s body was driven backward by the impact, and the fire damage made her let out a shriek so shrill and pitiful it seemed steeped in bone-deep malice. It was not the cry of a human being, but something more like an owl calling in the dead of night.

The whole mansion trembled violently, as though it might collapse at any moment.

Fang Yue pressed his advantage without mercy. He sprang forward and struck again with Flame Palm, the wind of his palm whistling with searing heat, all but declaring that if you were already wounded, he would finish you off.

With a dull crash, a wedding table laden with dried fruit and incense flew out to block his path, only for Fang Yue to split it cleanly in half with one brutal palm.

The bride seized that fleeting chance to recover and let out a piercing scream, like a cat crying in the depths of night.

In an instant, the entire mansion descended into chaos. Everything in the courtyard, living or not, hurtled straight at Fang Yue.

Fang Yue showed no fear. Relying on the strength of his tempered body, he fixed on the bride’s position and charged straight through, headlong and unstoppable.

He had already advanced the hard-body technique known as Fire-Iron Body to its second level, making his flesh and bones even more resilient.

Once he drove his power through it, ordinary swords and blades could not harm him unless they carried tremendous force.

Whether it was tables, chairs, trees, stones, roof tiles, or anything else that flew at him, Fang Yue ignored it all and smashed his way forward.

Anything that blocked his way, he split apart with a single palm.

Several faceless guests stood in his path, and Fang Yue struck them with a series of Flame Palms.

Like swatting fat, tender insects, their bodies burst apart, spraying some strange fluid everywhere.

Fang Yue dared not let that fluid touch him. He was forced to retreat a few steps, while at the same time driving out a scorching palm wind to sweep away the splashes.

Just then, in the midst of the turmoil, the bride silently appeared behind Fang Yue.

Her delicate, jade-like hands had turned a dark iron blue. Her fingers had lengthened by several feet, the nails on them also iron blue, shimmering with a cold, eerie light.

Taking advantage of Fang Yue’s moment of avoidance while he dealt with the fluid sprayed from the faceless guests’ bodies, the bride’s five several-foot-long iron-blue nails shot straight for his back like five sharp blades.

The instant those nails were about to pierce him, a powerful hand reached over and seized her iron-blue wrist.

“I’ve got you!”

Fang Yue had somehow turned around, a cold smile on his face.

With his left hand he gripped the bride’s wrist, and with his right he unleashed Flame Palm, the blazing red palm mercilessly slamming down on her.

One strike, two, three, four...

Again and again, the fiery palm with its scorching aura struck the bride’s slender body, gradually dispersing the resentment that had coiled around her.

...

While Fang Yue launched his fierce assault on the bride, Fang Baoliang had not been idle either.

He drew his treasured blade and hacked at the old man beside him.

The old man lost an arm to the strike, yet not a drop of blood flowed, nor did his face show the slightest trace of pain. The severed arm that fell to the ground turned into a bundle of straw.

Fang Baoliang snorted and casually chopped off the old man’s head as well.

Once the head was gone, a wisp of black vapor rose from the body. Fang Baoliang’s eyes flashed with an odd light, and he reached out at once to catch it, then stuffed it into his mouth.

After swallowing the black vapor, Fang Baoliang’s face took on an intoxicated expression, as though he were greatly enjoying himself.

Meanwhile, the corpse on the ground had fully become a headless, ruined scarecrow.

Fang Baoliang did not remain lost in pleasure for long, because the entire mansion had begun to shake. Objects all over the courtyard were flying toward Fang Yue.

He glanced at Fang Yue and saw him still smashing forward through the chaos, so he turned back and looked around for his own target.

He spotted those maids whose faces and smiles were all exactly the same. With a savage grin, he rushed at them with his blade.

One stroke each, and he cut them cleanly in half at the waist.

Black vapor also rose from the maids’ bodies, though far less than from the old man. Even all of them together did not equal a single one of him.

Fang Baoliang did not disdain it. He gathered all the black vapor in his hand and swallowed it in one gulp.

Yet the maids’ bodies vanished without a trace, failing to revert to their true forms the way the old man had. No one knew where they had gone.

Fang Baoliang did not care. Blade in hand, he walked toward the faceless guests crawling on the ground.

The earth was trembling, and everything in the mansion was still hurtling toward Fang Yue.

Fang Baoliang ran a few steps to those faceless guests and cut down one after another with a single slash each.

When their bodies were severed, the strange fluid burst out.

Fang Baoliang was splashed with it, especially on the exposed skin of his face and hands. Where the fluid landed, it began corroding his skin.

He merely frowned once and paid it no further mind. Such corrosion could not do much to him; it would heal on its own very quickly.

The black vapor from the faceless guests was even thinner, far less than that from the maids.

After killing just two of them, Fang Baoliang lost interest.

He turned his attention to the place where Fang Yue and the ghost bride were fighting.

By then Fang Yue had already seized the ghost bride, and with every Flame Palm he struck down, she let out a venomous, shrill shriek that pierced the ears.

More than that, with each blaze of fire damage from the Flame Palm, wisps of black vapor began rising from her body and dissolving into the heavens and earth.

Fang Baoliang could not help swallowing. Then he walked closer to the ghost bride.

The red veil atop the bride’s head had already been torn away in the struggle, and what it revealed was not a face of exquisite beauty, but decayed flesh, dry, worm-ridden, and rotten.

Yet in Fang Baoliang’s eyes there was only greed and hunger, as though a lustful fiend had laid eyes on a peerless beauty.

Of course, what he was truly staring at was the black vapor rising from the ghost bride.

He stretched out his hand, scooped up the drifting vapor, and gulped it down ravenously.

...

Fang Yue did not know how many palms he had struck before he finally shattered the ghost bride by sheer force.

A large portion of the escaping black vapor was swallowed into Fang Baoliang’s belly.

The whole mansion suddenly convulsed, as if heaven and earth themselves were collapsing.

Then the festive scene with lanterns and decorations vanished, replaced by a forest in the darkest hour before dawn.

Starlight was sparse, and the surroundings were dim and still.

In that faint light, Fang Yue looked at Fang Baoliang standing motionless across from him and said nothing, though his expression remained mildly guarded.

After a while, a streak of dawn light split the sky in the east, driving away the last darkness before daybreak.

Only then did Fang Baoliang open his eyes and flex his limbs.

Seeing that his gaze was clear, Fang Yue finally relaxed and asked, “How do you feel?”

“Pretty good.”

“If you had come alone just now, could you have dealt with that female ghost?”

Fang Baoliang thought it over, then nodded.

Fang Yue said no more. His gaze fell on a ruined scarlet bridal sedan in the woods, its surface mottled with old bloodstains.

The source of the resentment was probably that sedan.

Fang Yue stepped forward and lifted the curtain. Inside, as expected, lay the corpse of a bride, rotten and worm-eaten, giving off a stench so foul it turned the stomach.

Her wedding robe was in complete disarray, and it was clear she must have suffered humiliation before death.

From these scraps and traces, one could infer what had happened: on the day the sea pirates invaded, she had just been married.

By cruel misfortune, the wedding party had been caught in the attack. The escorts were killed or fled, while the bride herself was seized by the pirates, sedan and all, and dragged into this nearby forest.

The rest of the scene was easy to imagine.

Fang Yue sighed and said to Fang Baoliang, “Gather some branches and firewood and burn this sedan. If we leave it here, the resentment may gather again and give birth to more evil spirits.”

The two of them searched the area for branches and dry wood they could burn, piling everything beside the sedan.

Once it was ready, they struck a fire and lit it.

Raging flames swallowed the bridal sedan, along with the bride’s remains inside.