Amidst this compound of dilapidated courtyards and strewn rubble, the main hall was spotless.
Before a snow-white wall facing the doors stood an offering table.
Behind the offering table, an ancestor portrait covered nearly an entire wall, displaying the portraits of the Zeng clan's forebears from their distant ancestors down to recent generations, neatly arranged in order across the vast painting.
A so-called "ancestor likeness" or "ancestor portrait" was a painted image of one's forebears and ancestral fathers.
Such ancestor portraits were almost exclusively hung inside ancestral halls for descendants to look upon in reverence and offer sacrifices; they were rarely shown to outsiders.
Yet the master of this Zeng residence had hung the ancestral portraits right in the front courtyard's main hall, a place meant for receiving and seeing off guests.
All the surrounding rooms were either collapsed or in ruins, strewn with debris; only this main hall had been swept thoroughly clean, which already betrayed the room's bizarre nature.
A main hall that should have received guests clearly served the function of an ancestral hall, making this place feel all the more eerie.
Standing in the central hall, Ding Ling felt a sinister, clammy chill sweep around her.
Somehow suppressing her instinct to turn on her heel and flee, she followed Teacher Zhou's instructions and picked up the Zeng Clan Genealogy from the offering table. Flipping through it, she listened as Zhou Yang spoke:
"Strange...
"The wall notes beside the ancestor portrait indicate that all these are portraits of the Zeng clan's ancestors.
"The genealogy is also that of the Zeng clan, so why is there a spirit tablet on the offering table dedicated to 'Empress Ding Jiu'?
"Who is this Ding Jiu? Why are they called 'Empress'?"
The pages of the genealogy turned one by one.
Ding Ling casually glanced up, looking toward that spirit tablet as red as rouge upon the offering table.
Her gaze contracted slightly, then drifted upward with hesitation.
Behind the tablet, the final figure on the ancestor portrait was a clean-shaven, fair-faced male with slender brows and eyes.
This male, positioned at the very end of the ancestor portrait, was named "Zeng Laifeng," courtesy name "Guiyun." Beside every other ancestor's portrait, their generational rank and birth order among the Zeng forebears were inscribed.
Only beside Zeng Guiyun's portrait was his name written, with no generation or birth order whatsoever.
Beside Zeng Guiyun, there was no portrait of a wife or companion either.
It was just that the spirit tablet of "Empress Ding Jiu" happened to sit directly to the right of this portrait.
"Zeng Laifeng, courtesy name Guiyun, eighth-generation descendant of the Zeng clan, aged eighteen, entered into the clan genealogy, free of illness, free of calamity..." At this moment, Zhou Yang slowly read out the characters written on the final page of the Zeng Clan Genealogy.
He paused, then abruptly drew a sharp breath. "No, this is wrong!
"This Zeng Laifeng—he is merely registered in the genealogy—he isn't dead!
"A genealogy lists the names of all males of a clan. Whether living or dead, they are entered into the records. If someone died young or passed away, it would also be noted in this genealogy booklet. But Zeng Laifeng has no such note!
"Either he was the last person of the Zeng family, and after his death no one remained to add further strokes to the genealogy, or... he is still alive today!
"If he died and the Zeng clan had no heir, how could his portrait be included on the ancestor portrait?
"And if he is still alive, how could his portrait be included on the ancestor portrait?!"
Regardless of whether Zeng Laifeng, the last male recorded in the Zeng Clan Genealogy, was dead or alive—his likeness should never have appeared on this ancestor portrait!
Zhou Yang, looking through Ding Ling's eyes, suddenly raised his gaze and looked again at the wall-spanning Zeng clan ancestor portrait. He felt that every single figure's visage and posture was steeped in eerie malice!
Zeng Laifeng, positioned at the very end of the portrait, felt especially sinister to him!
The crude brushwork outlining Zeng Laifeng's portrait now gave Zhou Yang the sensation that its eyes were wide open, as if it were about to come alive!
A piercing chill struck Ding Ling's back in an instant, shared with Zhou Yang through their sensory link!
That freezing cold almost locked up both of their minds!
"Ghost rhythm..."
In this compound that had originally been free of lingering ghost rhythm, the ghost rhythm turned intensely suffocating in that single instant!
Zhou Yang's mind shook, and in a flash he took over Ding Ling's body!
"Wuuuaaaah—"
Pitch-black ant burrows broke out across Ding Ling's body, and the sound of ghostly weeping erupted from countless perforations!
"She" whirled toward the entrance—the doors of the central hall had swung shut at some unknown moment.
Outside the door stood a pitch-black figure.
Bursts of voices drifted in through the crack in the door.
Listening closely, the speech had cadence and melodic inflection—the speaker was even infusing the vocal skill of opera recitative into ordinary conversation!
"Having enshrined the Opera Empress's tablet, one must listen to more opera and study more opera. Only then can one transfer the Opera Empress's craft onto oneself...
"Have you learned any new operas recently?"
The male voice was unhurried, each word ringing clear as pearls dropping onto a jade plate.
A female voice began to sing, melodious and lilting:
"'My beloved dwells in my heart, while I nurse a broken soul; only the moon knows my aggrieved sorrow...
Meeting is hard, parting so easy; now regret comes far too late.
Did you not know that on that day, the paired phoenixes rejoiced in their bond...?'"
Though this female voice was delicate and melodious, traces of a man's voice inadvertently slipped through.
The faintly revealed masculine timbre bore a striking resemblance to the male voice that had spoken earlier.
Listening to that half-male, half-female operatic singing, the male voice sighed with emotion. "There is already a woman's likeness in the voice.
"We are almost there...
"We are about to exchange ourselves for that Opera Empress."
The half-male, half-female voice said, "It is still a pity, though. A pity that our comprehension is too dull and our horizons too narrow. Otherwise, we could melt the various opera schools into one furnace, craft something novel and unprecedented, and compose an opera that the Opera Empress has never heard before. If we could captivate the Opera Empress, we could turn this skin inside out all the faster, wearing the garments in reverse.
"Once this skin is turned inside out, this voice of ours will sound entirely like a woman's..."
...
Zhou Yang poked a hole through the window paper.
Through that small hole, he saw that in the debris-strewn courtyard, a figure clad in the colorful, garish opera costume of a huadan, adorned with kingfisher-feather headwear and tassels, had its back turned to him. It was facing empty air, drawing its eyebrows and dotting its lips.
Every movement it made was exceedingly graceful and delicate, possessing a naturally fluid theatrical elegance.
That elegance was so profound that it even masked the stench of decay radiating from "her" body.
And it concealed the fact that not even the opera costume could fully hide this masculine skeleton and stature.
The voices of the male and female in conversation were both coming from "her" mouth.
"She" seemed not to have noticed Zhou Yang hiding in the main hall.
Having finished painting her eyes and brows, "she" was adjusting the silk hair curls at her temples when her shoulders suddenly twitched.
A male voice deliberately pinched into a sharp, shrill imitation of a woman came out of "her" mouth, carrying a hint of operatic cadence: "Who's—there?"
As "she" spoke, "she" twisted her head a full one hundred and eighty degrees around.
A face with peach-blossom cheeks and almond eyes looked straight at Zhou Yang behind the window.
The beauty offered a charming, delicate smile.
Bang!
The sound of a heavy object crashing to the ground startled away the flower-like beauty outside the window hole.
That huadan beauty who had looked straight at Zhou Yang suddenly twisted its head back to its original position and began to sing mournfully—before Zhou Yang could make out what it was singing, an illusory sound rang out from far away in his ears:
Bang!
Another thud, like a heavy object hitting the ground!
The sound rippled through his ears, rolling over him in wave upon wave!
In an instant, his vision went black!
Chapter 43