He didn’t answer me but simply held “me” and swam towards my back, swaying the crocodile’s body.
“Once you meet my parents, you’ll believe me,” Ming Luo whispered in my ear, his laughter carrying a terrifying madness. “They’ve already prepared the wedding. With them as witnesses, this time, everything is proper. Ah Ran, I can’t wait to marry you.”
A wedding between a corpse and a crocodile?
“You’re crazy… Ming Luo.” I looked at his half-human, half-crocodile form, and instead of feeling scared, I felt pity. In the end, it was because I treated him poorly that he became a vengeful spirit. If I had answered that call, would he have turned out like this?
Suddenly, a light brightened from above.
A garden filled with lush tropical plants appeared within my sight. We were in a pond. I tried to look around, hoping to identify where this was, but the corpse I was “residing” in clearly wasn’t under my control, as my neck wouldn’t move. A shadow passed overhead. It was a stone arch bridge. After being carried across the bridge by Ming Luo, a railing bridge formed by two dragons appeared in front of me. Before I could assess which bridge this might be, a red figure appeared at the left end of the bridge. It was a woman dressed in traditional Thai “sarong” attire, her hair pure white, styled in a high Thai bun. She appeared to be in her early forties, with phoenix eyes and slender, arched brows. She looked graceful and alluring.
Is my soul in Thailand now?
How much time has passed since the incident?
It’s so far from Jiangcheng. Can Tunshe Nalin find me?
“Ah Luo, are you hungry?” The woman crouched down and took out a bloody mass from a nearby bucket. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a human head, and I felt a wave of nausea.
But Ming Luo held me and stepped aside. “Mother, Ah Ran is here.”
Is that Ming Luo’s stepmother? She really treats him like a crocodile and even feeds him human meat?
What kind of twisted stepmother is this?
“He will become your wife, and he will have to get used to it sooner or later.” The woman said with a smile, her gaze falling on me. I immediately noticed that she had a high nose and deep-set eyes, with her irises being blue. Unlike typical Thai people with darker skin, her skin was very pale. Combined with her white hair, she looked almost like someone with albinism, exuding a kind of sickly, cold beauty.
“Are you Ming Luo’s stepmother?” I stared at her coldly and said, “You didn’t just capture my soul to perform ghost marriage for Ming Luo, did you? You… are you trying to use me to attract Tunshe Nalin?”
“Very smart,” The woman smiled, her grin deepening as she slowly poured the blood from the bucket into the pond. “If I don’t summon the Corpse God Lord and ask for his help, how else could I bring my dear son back to life?”
“Is this your way of asking for help? You plan to use me as bait to threaten him!” I didn’t know why, but there was a deep malice emanating from this woman, and it didn’t seem like the love of a mother. “Let me tell you, if that’s your plan, you’re making a huge mistake. Tunshe Nalin is extremely powerful. A mere glance from him can steal someone’s soul. You can’t handle him, so release me now!”
The woman covered her mouth and giggled. “Oh, I’m so scared…” She laughed eerily. “Of course, I know that the Corpse God Lord is powerful, but even the mightiest beings have their weaknesses. And you… you are his weakness.”
A heavy unease filled my heart.
“What do you guys want to do to him? What are you guys planning?”
“This is not something you should ask about,” the woman said as she gracefully stood up and waved toward a pavilion at the left end of the bridge. “You all, take the bride to get ready. Don’t waste any time.”
Two maids lifted me and walked across the connected arched bridge from the pavilion. A magnificent Thai-style building appeared before me. Huge Garuda wings spread out on the roof, with layers of tiles forming the feathers. The eaves on both sides were shaped like flames. It looked like a temple. Were they holding a ghost marriage ceremony here? The Ming family was so reckless, didn’t they fear offending the gods and Buddha?
I truly couldn’t imagine that, as a man, I would be forced to dress as a bride twice. The first time, I was married to an evil god, and the second time, I was about to marry my dead ex-boyfriend, who had turned into a ghost, with my soul attached to a corpse. When I was dragged to the vanity and saw the face in the mirror, I couldn’t help but gasp, my hairs standing on end—the corpse was none other than Qing Ze.
He died and was turned into a vessel by Ming Luo for my soul to temporarily reside in.
I stared blankly at the face in the mirror, unable to believe that he had ended up like this.
Although I despised him, I still didn’t want his body to be desecrated like this. And when I looked into the mirror with those eyes that belonged to him, it almost seemed like I could see his resentment, unwilling to die in such a cruel way.
“Seeing me like this, you’re very happy, aren’t you, Qin Ran?”
With a “plop” sound, a drop of red liquid fell onto the wooden vanity.
I was startled, a chill rising from the soles of my feet, holding my breath as I looked into the mirror.
Behind me, between the two maids, a translucent figure pressed close to my back, revealing half of a pale face. It stared at me with an eerie gaze, blood tears flowing from one of its eyes.
“You don’t know why, all these years, I’ve been fixated on you, do you?” He said in a ghostly voice. “As for what happened in college, I honestly don’t care anymore… But do you know? I knew Ming Luo before you did. When he first debuted in Southeast Asia, I was already obsessed with his music. I bought every album he released and always wanted to paint him. But by the time I saved up enough money, he was already following you back, becoming your muse. How ridiculous! I wasn’t without trying, but he looked down on me, and yet he chose you, someone who never truly loved him, and you killed him with your indifference… and then, you turned around and had a new muse, and you were with him. Do you know how much I hate you, Qin Ran?”
I stared at him in shock and fear, watching as his hands, which were clinging to my shoulders, tried to grasp the neck of his own corpse. But his hands passed straight through it. His arms froze in mid-air, and he shook his head while laughing maniacally.
“How… how did you end up like this…? What did Ming Luo do to you?”
I asked through chattering teeth.
“On the night after YICCA ended, I don’t know who sent a BJD doll to my house. The doll looked like him, with silver hair, holding a guitar. How could I bear not to accept it? That night, I dreamt of him. He kissed me and said I should take care of him according to his method, that he would give me eternal inspiration, and love me just like he loved you… but what happened after that?”
“But what happened after that?”
He let out a piercing laugh. Unable to cover my ears with his hands, I could only shut my eyes tightly. Then, I heard a sound like a soul-summoning bell ringing. When I opened my eyes again, Qing Ze was gone.
With a golden headpiece on my head and a traditional Thai one-shoulder wedding dress wrapped around me, I was dragged by two maids through a long corridor, arriving at the quadrangle courtyard of this temple-like building.
Through the billowing white banners, I saw a massive Thai-style coffin with black panels and golden edges placed in the center of a floor covered with white candles. At the head of the coffin stood a portrait of Ming Luo.
It was exactly the same as the scene I had seen in the mirror when I was forced to marry Tunshe Nalin as his goddess consort. Dozens of figures wearing pointed hats, resembling sorcerers, stood around, holding strange metallic instruments. They swayed their heads and chanted incessantly, their eyes fixed on the coffin. A chill crept over me. Thinking back, these sorcerers had likely been performing their rituals here all along, trying to summon my soul for Ming Luo. Fortunately, at that time, their power had been insufficient to contend with Tunshe Nalin, so they had failed.
Hearing this, I was dragged to the front of the coffin and forced to kneel among the candles. I watched helplessly as the crocodile, possessed by Ming Luo, crawled toward me. Its tail coiled around me, trapping me in place. His upper body emerged from the crocodile’s jaws, transforming into a human-like form. He reached out and gently stroked my cheek. “What a pity,” he murmured. “This isn’t your real body. But even so, you must look stunning in this bridal gown, far more beautiful than when you wore that goddess consort’s attire.”
“Is this really what you want, Ming Luo?” I asked softly, looking at him with sorrow.
“I want to be with you, Ah Ran, no matter what method it takes. I want you to only look at me.”
A corpse and a crocodile’s wedding, there was nothing more absurd than this in this world. His obsession with me had twisted him beyond recognition. Yet, I could still recall the first time I met him. He had been standing by the roadside, silver-haired and strumming his guitar, exuding a carefree and defiant air. He had seemed like the wind itself, never meant to stop for anyone. I had believed that his soul was like mine, and so I chased after that wind. But I never imagined that from the moment he stopped for me, from the moment he gave me his love, that once free and untamed soul had begun to wither away.
I gazed at him, this half-human, half-crocodile form he had become, yet in my mind, the scene of our first meeting resurfaced.
That night was Christmas Eve. Onstage, he set down the microphone, while I, standing below, handed him my sketchbook, where I had drawn a small portrait of him. Fireworks blossomed overhead as I offered him a slight smile and asked if he could sign it. He raised an eyebrow and plucked a string on his guitar, letting a series of chords ring out. Later, he turned those chords into a song and gifted it to me, saying it was the sound of his heart skipping a beat for me.
The spirited, carefree version of him, I would never see again.
“I’m sorry… Ming Luo, I ruined you. I shouldn’t have let you stay in Jiangcheng for me.”
I murmured, my eyes blurred, “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t hurt others and yourself.”
A series of women’s giggles came over.
“Don’t think like that, my kind child. If it weren’t for his obsession with you, Ah Luo’s soul would have dissipated long ago.”
I glanced sideways and saw the white-haired woman walking out of the corridor, supporting an old man with a cane. They were Ming Luo’s stepmother and father.
“Is what you guys are doing really to bring Ming Luo back to life?” I stared at them. “You put his soul in the body of a crocodile and feed him human flesh, do you really love him? If you love him, how could you bear to see him like this? Shouldn’t you want him to pass on peacefully?”
“We, of course, love him, my youngest… I have owed him for all these years.” The old man spoke, his cloudy eyes fixed on Ming Luo, who was beside me. “Everything my youngest wanted, I will give it to him.” As he spoke, he coughed violently. The woman with white hair wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and helped him sit down in a chair in front of Ming Luo and me, then smiled at us.
“Alright, let’s do the formalities. After the formalities, we’ll be a family.”
