Nuptial Wine in the Stone Coffin

There was still half an hour until the auspicious hour. Jiang Ying's face was covered by a red bridal veil, her hands and feet bound tightly, stuffed into this cramped wooden sedan chair like a piece of dead goods awaiting sale.

"Madam... isn't this dosage too strong? The Second Miss has always been frail..." From outside the sedan chair came Cui'er's suppressed sobbing voice, trembling like a leaf in the winter wind. Cui'er was the only one in this household who still called her "Second Miss." On ordinary days, even giving her an extra half-bowl of hot congee would earn Cui'er a beating from the head matron.

"Shut up! If she's awake and makes a fuss in the burial ground, disturbing the General's soul, our entire Jiang family of several hundred people will be buried with her! Being able to take the Eldest Miss's place in a ghost marriage is a blessing she's earned over several lifetimes!" Stepmother Madam Jiang's voice was sharp and shrill; even through the sedan curtain, one could imagine her gritting her teeth with a hideous expression. Jiang Ying could even smell the thick, cloying scent of sandalwood wafting in with the wind from Madam Jiang, utterly incongruous with the atmosphere of this death-bound journey.

Jiang Ying heard everything clearly in the darkness but could not make a sound. The effects of the sedative coursed through her limbs and bones like countless cold little snakes gnawing at her sinews. She could only curl up feebly in a corner of the sedan. In truth, even without the veil covering her face, she could not see anything—ever since the high fever at age six, her world had been nothing but boundless darkness. But the darkness at this moment was colder than that of the past twelve years.

The sedan jolted and swayed, each bump feeling as if it would shatter her internal organs. She could sense they were climbing higher, and the gravel on the road made the sedan bearers' footsteps heavy and chaotic. This was the direction of the mass burial ground outside the city, a place even the boldest night watchman dared not approach after dark.

She was going to be buried alive. Together with a corpse that had been dead for a thousand years.

She did not want to die. She wanted to live, even if it meant only being able to listen to the wind in this cold world, even if it meant merely eking out an existence in the Jiang family's sunless wood shed. She had not yet found the truth behind the fire that had destroyed her eyes all those years ago—how could she die silently in a coffin?

After who knows how long, the sedan stopped.

"Lower the coffin—" Daoist Priest Xuyun's drawn-out chanting echoed across the empty wilderness, carrying an eerie, sinister quality. Even the wind around them seemed to stop, leaving only the occasional mournful caw of a crow.

Rough pulling and tugging, a dizzying spin, and then Jiang Ying was thrown heavily into an even colder, harder space. Her elbow struck the rough stone wall, sending a piercing pain through her. The air was thick with the smell of preservative spices and some kind of stale, earthy odor, mixed with a nauseating scent of blood, like an invisible blade stabbing straight into her nostrils.

This was the stone coffin.

"Hurry! Pour the nuptial wine! Seal the coffin!" Madam Jiang's voice was urgent and panicked, as if she wished to stay not a moment longer, as if delaying even a step would cause something inside the coffin to leap out and tear her apart.

A rough, cold hand pinched her jaw open, the force nearly crushing her mandible. The pungent, throat-burning wine was forced into her mouth, carrying with it a heavy, earthy taste. "Cough, cough..." Jiang Ying choked violently, the wine spilling from the corners of her mouth, soaking the front of her wedding dress. She tried desperately to spit it out, her stomach churning, but most of it still slid down her throat into her stomach.

It was a burning pain, searing from her throat all the way down.

"Seal the coffin! Seal it now!"

Amid the panicked breathing of the household servants, the sound of heavy stone grinding arose, followed by a dull "boom" as the stone lid slid perfectly into place. The last trace of the faintest air current was completely cut off.

The world fell into absolute silence.

All around was so still she could hear her own heart pounding like a drum. "Thump, thump, thump"—it echoed in the empty stone coffin like the tolling of a death knell. Jiang Ying knew her time was short. In this narrow stone coffin, the air would only sustain her for a few hours, or perhaps less. When the oxygen ran out, she would suffocate to death, struggling desperately until her last ounce of strength was gone.

The sedative seemed to have weakened somewhat from the shock and choking, and her sense of pain began to sharpen. She tried to move her bound hands; the hemp rope around her wrists had already cut into her flesh, leaving burning, painful marks. She fumbled inside her sleeve, searching for something. A rusty iron nail she had picked up from an abandoned courtyard—she had hidden it away when no one was looking. This was her only hope.

Even if she had to use this iron nail to slowly saw through the rope, even if it meant shredding her hands, she had to try.

Just as her fingertips finally touched that bit of cold, rough metal...

She felt a chill beside her that did not belong to her.

Not the cold of stone, not the lifeless cold of inanimate objects. It was something substantial, a bone-penetrating coldness, as if something alive was breathing, and each exhalation sprayed out nothing but icicles.

"Shhh..."

An extremely faint scraping sound. Like dry fabric brushing against stone, or dry bones rubbing against each other.

Jiang Ying's breath stopped instantly, her hand holding the nail frozen in midair.

Slowly, slowly, she turned her head toward that side. Though she could not see, she could clearly sense that in this sealed space where she should have been the only living person, something was awakening.

The putrid smell in the air suddenly grew stronger. The scent of blood, which had been suppressed by the preserving spices all along, now seemed to come alive, lunging at her with claws bared.

A hand—no, it could not be called a hand. It was an icy-cold thing with prominent bones, utterly devoid of any human warmth, gently resting on her wrist.

At that moment of contact, it felt like a block of ancient ice touching her skin.

Jiang Ying's mind went blank. All the blood in her body seemed to freeze in an instant. She wanted to scream, but her throat felt as if it were seized by an invisible hand, unable to make a sound. Fear trapped her like a giant net.

That hand followed her wrist, moving slowly upward. The movement was extremely slow yet carried an undeniable force. The icy fingertips glided over her forearm, over her shoulder—every inch of skin they touched erupted in goosebumps.

Finally, the hand came to rest on the side of her neck.

Rough, cold, carrying an irresistible force, as if with the slightest pressure it could snap her neck like a dry twig.

A low, hoarse voice, as if rising from the depths of hell, sounded faintly by her ear, carrying a spine-chilling amusement, and even a touch of just-awakened laziness:

"Is my wife thinking of backing out?"

Jiang Ying bit her lower lip hard, until she tasted the rusty flavor of blood. Fear surged like a tide, threatening to drown her, but she forced herself to calm down. In this sunless stone coffin, panic would only hasten her death.

That hand lingered at her neck, the icy fingertips feeling her violent pulse, as if savoring a fresh catch.

"Beating so fast." The voice sounded again, extremely close to her. Warm breath heavy with yin energy sprayed against her sensitive ear, carrying a long-departed, greedy sigh. "A thousand years... so long I thought I had truly died."

Pei Ji opened his eyes in the darkness. What met his sight was a familiar, nauseating dead darkness. A thousand years of imprisonment could wear away any sanity, leaving only endless resentment and a craving for slaughter. But this time was different. The stone coffin now held a living thing.

A fresh, warm little thing that exuded a faint fragrance.

The wine that had flowed down the corner of her mouth earlier had also seeped between his lips. That wine contained not only preserving herbs but, more importantly, carried the life-force peculiar to her—the Pure Yin Body. It was this faint life-force, like a fuse, that had ignited his soul, dormant for a thousand years.

"You... who are you?" Jiang Ying finally found her voice, hoarse and rough, as if scraping across sandpaper.

"Who am I?" Pei Ji let out a soft laugh, a laugh utterly devoid of warmth. His fingers tightened slightly, feeling the pulse of life at her slender, fragile neck. "Did your good stepmother not tell you who you were marrying?"

"...General Pei?" Jiang Ying ventured tentatively. This was the only scrap of information she had pieced together from Madam Jiang and the matron's fragmentary words.

"General? Ha." Pei Ji sneered coldly, as if hearing the greatest joke in the world. "Is that what they call me now? Back then, they called me traitor, monster, wishing they could grind my bones to ash. They nailed me into this sunless stone coffin to suffer the agony of ten thousand ants gnawing at my heart day and night!"

His mood suddenly turned volatile, his fingers tightening sharply. Jiang Ying cried out in pain; her slender neck seemed about to snap at any second. The feeling of suffocation surged over her, her lungs beginning to convulse in agony.

"No... please..." She forced out a few words from her throat with difficulty. Her hands instinctively tried to grab the hand that held her fate, but were useless, bound as they were. Her fingers scraped helplessly against the stone slab, nails breaking, blood seeping out.

Just as she thought she would die there, Pei Ji suddenly let go.

"Too weak." He shook his hand with disdain, as if shaking off something filthy. "You're not even interesting enough to kill. Like an ant that could be crushed at any moment."

Jiang Ying gasped heavily, greedily drawing in the limited, stale air of the stone coffin. Cold sweat covered her forehead, soaking the red bridal veil. Her neck burned with pain, a reminder of how close she had come to death.

"You're blind?" Pei Ji suddenly asked. Though it was dark, he could sense that though her eyes were open, they had no focus, like stagnant water reflecting no light or shadow.

Jiang Ying's heart sank. She had been found out.

"Yes," she answered in a low voice, unable to hide the bitterness in her tone. Even if she weren't blind, what difference did it make in this sealed stone coffin?

"Heh." Pei Ji sneered. "The Jiang family are truly cunning. Sending a blind woman to fool me. After all, who would willingly send their own daughter to be buried alive with a monster dead for a thousand years?"

He turned over and sat up, his movements stiff and slow, like a puppet that had not moved for a very long time. The stone coffin emitted a teeth-grinding scraping sound. With his movement, the air inside the stone coffin grew even thinner, suffocatingly oppressive.

"But it's fine." He reached out and pinched her chin again, forcing her to lift her face toward him. "A blind woman has her advantages. At least you cannot see what I look like now."

Pei Ji's voice carried a bone-chilling madness and cruelty. A thousand years of darkness and resentment had long since eroded the gallant young general he had once been, leaving only a shell driven by destructive urges.

Jiang Ying was forced to look up. She could not see his face, but she could feel the intense killing intent radiating from him, and the bone-freezing cold that seemed capable of freezing the soul itself. She did not know how much longer she had to live. But she refused to give up. The iron nail pressed firmly into her palm; the pain kept her clinging to her last shred of clarity.

"G-General..." She took a deep breath, trying to make her voice sound less trembling. "I... I can help you."

"Help me?" Pei Ji sounded as if he had heard some huge joke. "A blind girl who cannot even protect herself, a useless creature bound hand and foot—what could you possibly help me with?"

"I can... help you break the seal." Jiang Ying gritted her teeth and spoke the only bargaining chip she had.

Earlier, outside, she had vaguely heard Daoist Priest Xuyun muttering to himself. He had said the stone coffin was sealed with the Thousand-Year Mystic Ice Spell, and it could only be dissolved by the pure yang blood of one with a Pure Yin Body.

And she was that Pure Yin Body. This was also the reason Madam Jiang had gone to the trouble of drugging her and stuffing her into the sedan chair.

"And what makes you think I would believe you?" Pei Ji's voice turned cold, heavy with scrutiny.

"Because..." Jiang Ying paused. "Because you don't want to be trapped here anymore, do you? A thousand years of solitude is worse than death."

These words seemed to strike a nerve deep within Pei Ji. His breathing suddenly turned heavy and ragged, like a provoked beast.

"You're asking for death!"

He lunged at her, pinning her down beneath him. A wave of icy cold instantly enveloped her entire body. It was a cold that seeped into the marrow, setting her trembling uncontrollably.

Jiang Ying did not struggle, nor did she scream. She simply lay there quietly, letting his hand clamp around her throat. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, disappearing into her disheveled hair."Kill me, and you'll never get out," she said calmly, her voice as light as a breeze, yet carrying the resolve of one who had burned all bridges. "I'm the only one in this world who can save you."

Pei Ji's fingers froze.

He stared hard at her in the darkness, his hollow eyes showing not a trace of fear, only a heart-stopping determination. It was the look of a dying beast just before it strikes back.

"Fine, very good." Pei Ji slowly released his grip, letting out a low laugh that echoed eerily in the stone coffin. "I'll spare your miserable life. But if you dare deceive me..."

His fingers lightly traced across her cheek, leaving behind an icy sensation.

"I'll make you understand what it means to wish you were dead."