Chapter 133

"Aaaaaah!"

Mei Shi heard Lu Xiaoyao's miserable scream from the hall. Soon, Ming Mei saw two paper-crafted servants with plateau-red cheeks bring Lu Xiaoyao in, bound hand and foot.

The scene looked just like killing a pig for the New Year in the countryside.

Lu Xiaoyao, tied up, her legs drawn up, hanging from a stick, had a look of utter despair on her face the whole time.

However, when Lu Xiaoyao saw Ming Mei sitting there, her eyes lit up instantly, as if she had seen a relative. As soon as the paper figures took her off the stick and placed her on the ground, she immediately squirmed like a worm towards Ming Mei's feet, using both hands and feet.

Lu Xiaoyao: My dear!

Her eyes were shining. jpg.

Ming Mei: "..."

Ming Mei didn't know what expression to use to face her.

She had clearly seen her coming in the live broadcast room, but she didn't expect their meeting to be so dramatic.

Due to the villain being nearby, Ming Mei didn't dare to untie Lu Xiaoyao.

"Why did you come back?"

Ming Mei wasn't really asking Lu Xiaoyao, but Lu Xiaoyao, who was tied up and leaning against Ming Mei's feet, naturally heard this and quickly replied, "I just want to figure out what's going on."

Lu Xiaoyao stared at Yuan Fang and asked, "Why did you betray us in this game? Could it be... you're not a player, but an NPC in disguise?"

After Ming Mei's experience, was she seeing everyone as an NPC now?

It had to be said that Lu Xiaoyao had a very big imagination. Everyone present, including Ming Mei, laughed. Zhang Shaojie also laughed when he heard Ming Mei's chuckle.

However, when Lu Xiaoyao saw everyone laughing, she wanted to cry!

Did she say something wrong?

Why were the villains laughing?

When the villains laughed, shouldn't players like her be crying? QAQ?

"Do you know what's going on?" Lu Xiaoyao looked up at Ming Mei pitifully, hoping to get some useful information.

Without directly answering Lu Xiaoyao, Ming Mei looked at Yuan Fang and Zhang Shaojie, and then asked, "Tonight's ceremony is to hand over the position of the Zhang family head, right?"

Yuan Fang didn't expect a mysterious merchant NPC selling lunch boxes to be so intelligent. Not only did she pretend to be a player at the beginning, but she also guided them to buy items in the middle, and she was still present at the end of the game's plot.

Yuan Fang looked at Zhang Shaojie without showing any expression. Seeing that the other party didn't intend to speak, he replied, "Yes."

"So, what you said about the ultimate mission being to escape Bai Shui Town was actually a lie, right? You discovered that your mission as the Bai family's young lady was different from Hu Yue and the others, so you wanted to use the different final missions to divide them?"

Yuan Fang smiled and shook his head, denying Ming Mei's guess. He looked at Lu Xiaoyao, whose face was now blank because her brain couldn't keep up, and said, "I just wanted to let this idiot off the hook."

Ming Mei: …

Lu Xiaoyao, who had come back to her senses: ??

Who was the idiot?

Who let off whose hook?

Ming Mei listened, looked at Yuan Fang's clothes, and then at Zhang Shaojie. She turned her head and subconsciously asked, "The reason why the Zhang family has never had children is because the Zhang family heads are all chosen from collateral branches?"

"Why would you say that?"

Zhang Shaojie looked at Ming Mei with a smile, without directly answering. He just signaled her to say more.

Ming Mei: …

"Judging from the way the ancestral tablets in the ancestral hall are recorded, the Zhang family matriarchs have always been Bai family young ladies. There are no children, and there are no tablets for the birth mothers of the Zhang family heads."

Ming Mei wasn't a talkative person. It was already her limit to say so much without any expression. At the end, her temper flared up and she glared at Zhang Shaojie.

It was like she was saying, "Stop being mysterious! Tell me quickly!"

After she finished speaking, Lu Xiaoyao's eyes widened and she looked at Ming Mei, asking, "Y-you can read?"

Ming Mei: "Otherwise, how could I understand the marriage certificate I had earlier? Did you only just realize that? Besides, shouldn't it be strange that you guys can't read?"

Lu Xiaoyao: …

Oh, that seems to make sense.

"The Zhang family has indeed never had any children." Zhang Shaojie put down his teacup and admitted this. Then he looked at Yuan Fang and said, "This time, it's a ceremony to hand over the power of the Zhang family head. This is the first time in so many years."

After speaking, Zhang Shaojie smiled at Lu Xiaoyao, "This is all thanks to you."

Ming Mei looked at Lu Xiaoyao, who seemed to only be able to say "aba aba," and an unbelievable thought flashed through her mind.

The first time?

"So, the Bai family knows about the evil deeds of your Zhang family, right?"

At this time, the two girls who had been knocked unconscious earlier had also woken up. Although they couldn't move their bodies, they had heard everything that they should have heard. Bai Xiao was the first to question.

Thinking of what happened at the end of the ancestral hall, Bai Xiao added, "You were threatened by the Bai family, right? So, for some unknown secret, you've had to marry the Bai family's young ladies all these years. The torn marriage certificate is some kind of contract you signed with the Bai family, right?"

Ming Mei didn't expect Bai Xiao to figure everything out so quickly. Then Bai Xiao looked at Yuan Fang and said, "And you, a distant relative of the Zhang family, you didn't bring your students here to gather local customs. Instead, you waited until the Zhang family completely got rid of the Bai family. Without a Bai family bride, we would naturally replace the Bai family's young ladies to complete your Zhang family's final sinister ceremony!"

Bai Xiao finished speaking in one breath. The whole place was silent. Everyone present except for Lu Xiaoyao basically understood. So, inexplicably, when Lu Xiaoyao came back to her senses, she found that everyone's eyes were focused on her.

Lu Xiaoyao asked blankly, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Ming Mei pursed her lips and couldn't help but reach out to touch Lu Xiaoyao's hair as she sat next to her. It seemed that her hair was indeed suitable for *rua* (petting/ head patting)?

Bai Xiao looked around and finally looked at Zhang Shaojie, asking, "Am I right about what I just said?"

At this point, the villain was probably done pretending and decided to show his cards. So, he told the truth of the matter.

Compared to the original plot, where the Zhang family was haunted by evil spirits and needed a bride to feed the evil spirits in order to maintain the Zhang family's wealth, this version was much more complicated.

The Zhang family did hire an evil ghost to guard the house in order to ensure wealth. This was inherently an evil method, so naturally they avoided letting outsiders know. However, this matter was leaked and learned by someone with ulterior motives, namely the people of the Bai family.

Speaking of this, Zhang Shaojie's eyes once again fell on Lu Xiaoyao, saying, "The Bai family's ancestors invited a Daoist priest to the Zhang family to set up a trap, so that our family would marry a woman with a peculiar *bazi* (八字, eight characters of birth date). Coincidentally, the Bai family always had a woman who matched these eight characters."

"In the beginning, the evil ghost wasn't very powerful, and the Zhang family signed this marriage contract with the Bai family in a muddle-headed way. As the maternal family of the Zhang family's matriarch, they would naturally be able to receive the protection of the evil ghost as well."

What wasn't understood when Zhang Shaojie said this?

Even Lu Xiaoyao understood now, blinking her eyes and suddenly realizing, "No wonder they didn't let me come to dissolve the engagement! So they sent me here to exchange for wealth and glory!"

The more Lu Xiaoyao thought about it, the more afraid she became. "If my will hadn't been firm during the day and I hadn't come after listening to the Bai family's mother, would I still have been packaged and sent over overnight?"

Ming Mei twitched her lips as she listened to Lu Xiaoyao's mutterings. Don't mention it, this situation might really be possible.

After all, if the players refused to come, they wouldn't be following the plot. At this time, the game characters would have to use their skills to send the players into the plot. It was just uncertain where they would be sent in the plot.

It was also possible to have the ending at the beginning.