Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 53 Broken!
"Click..."

The surface of the ancient mirror has cracks resembling hairline hairs.

The bride's body trembled violently, and a cold snort came from under her veil.

Ah Zhe's eyes widened: "Brother Yan...you...you smashed her dowry?!"

The swirling, turbid vortex and the projection of "Abyss" in the mirror vanished instantly, and the mirror surface returned to its deathly, dim yellow state.

"puff!"

The bride's body jolted violently, as if she had suffered some kind of backlash, and her hand holding the mirror trembled slightly.

A very faint, cold groan seemed to come from beneath the veil.

The invisible mirror light that had locked onto Xu Yan also dissipated.

Xu Yan collapsed to one knee, panting heavily. The strange condition on his right arm slowly subsided, but the dark blue power had not completely dissipated. Like a lurking beast, it still flowed faintly beneath his skin.

The unfamiliar fragments of memory in my mind receded like a tide, leaving behind waves of vague, dull pain and chill.

silence.

A deathly silence enveloped the entire courtyard.

All the ghostly guests froze, their gaping mouths forgotten to close, their empty eye sockets "staring" at the destroyed runes in the formation, then "staring" at the bride, seemingly unable to understand why the ceremony had been interrupted.

The eerie atmosphere, which was originally both joyous and tragic, was completely replaced by a cold, deathly stillness, like the calm before a storm.

The bride slowly, very slowly, straightened up.

She no longer looked at the groom, who had become an empty shell, lying paralyzed on the ground.

The scissors in her hand fell silently.

The bride slowly raised her hand and suddenly ripped off her veil.

It is neither rotten nor blank.

It was a face of extreme beauty, with lips as red as blood and eyebrows and eyes as beautiful as a painting, yet it was lifeless.

But those eyes were so black they had no pupils.

Ah Zhe felt a chill in his heart and muttered, "If this were photoshopped into a wedding photo, the only son in the family to dare hang it up would be..."

Those dark eyes were fixed on Xu Yan.

There was no anger, no resentment, only an extremely cold scrutiny.

Just as Xu Yan held his breath, he heard a voice softly call out in his ear:
"Xu Yan".

The voice sounded just like Zhiwei's, and also like his mother's.

Like an ice needle piercing Xu Yan's eardrum, the last note trailed off with the inhuman scraping sound of porcelain.

It's impossible to tell the difference between real and fake.

The ghost marriage ceremony was interrupted, but the real horror was just beginning.

Xu Yan suddenly looked up and met a pair of dark eyes without pupils.

He forcefully suppressed the restlessness in his right arm.

Save the living, seal the female ghost, accumulate good deeds, and Zhiwei awaits!

Time is running out!
The groom on the ground is sliding toward utter death.

The broken ancient mirror in the bride's hand rippled again, reflecting Xu Yan's image.

An invisible force tried to manipulate his cheek muscles, pulling out a strange smile.

"Brother Yan!"

Ah Zhe's cries were choked with sobs as he was forced to retreat step by step by the ghostly figure.

Xu Yan didn't turn around, fighting the twitching on her face, she forced out an urgent voice through clenched teeth:
"Zhe! Don't worry about me! Go find a way out!!"

He moved! He lunged at the groom and dragged him backward!
This caused the bride to pause in her scissors-wielding moment!
It's now!

Xu Yan used the momentum to turn around, pulled out a camera with his left hand, and pointed the lens intently at the ancient bronze mirror!

—Take it!

"Crack!"

A dull thud of the shutter clicked.

A grayish-white wave surged forth, rushing straight towards the ancient mirror.

hum!
The ancient mirror trembled violently, its surface boiling, emitting sharp, mournful cries of countless souls being torn apart.

The image in the mirror shattered, but in that final moment of shattering, Xu Yan saw not his mother, but the bright eyes of Chen Zhiwei when she first handed him the talisman, eyes filled with worry and trust.

At that moment, those eyes were rapidly dimming and shattering in the mirror.

A fear colder than death instantly gripped his heart.

To save her, he is turning into a monster that even he fears, and may even destroy his own memories of her.
At that moment, a weak thought surged wildly within me: Stop! Turn off the camera! It can't be used anymore!

But the groom's faint groans on the ground were like a whip lashing him awake.

"Ugh!"

He roared out all his fear and hesitation, transforming it into an even more resolute force.

The finger pressed the shutter without the slightest hesitation.

"Uh!"

The bride let out a muffled groan as her hand holding the mirror was jolted back by the force of the impact.

The mirror surface cracked like a spider web.

Effective! The camera's "fullness" returned, offsetting the cost.

The bride was utterly enraged.

The scissors shone with intense black light, gathering extreme death energy, and pierced straight into Xu Yan's heart.

Swift as lightning, there was no way to avoid it!
Xu Yan's strength was exhausted, and he was about to be stabbed.

"Fuck your grandpa! Turn it on, you son of a bitch!!"

Ah Zhe's hands trembled like a leaf as he frantically pressed a device that was not responding, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets in despair.

Just as the tip of the scissors touched Xu Yan's clothes.

Zhila! ! !

The device finally exploded with a blinding burst of blue and white sparks.

A powerful electromagnetic pulse swept out.

The ghostly guests twisted and dissipated like smoke, and the yin energy field collapsed instantly.

The bride's sure-kill attack was abruptly deflected.

The cold blade of the scissors grazed Xu Yan's ribs.

At that moment, time seemed to be stretched.

Xu Yan could clearly smell a rusty, bloody odor spreading from beneath him.

A chilling cold that could freeze one's soul traveled up the wound and straight to his heart, almost stopping his heartbeat.

He could even see the tiny black frost flowers that had condensed on the blade.

But this fatal deviation has created the only chance of survival.

Despite the excruciating pain and bone-chilling cold, Xu Yan once again raised the heavy camera, focusing the lens on the bride whose movements were slightly sluggish due to the disturbance.

All the struggle, fear, and longing for home finally coalesced into a chilling sentence squeezed out from between his teeth:
"It's time to leave."

He pressed the shutter button hard!

Click!

The pale verdict crashed down on the bride.

The bride screamed, deflecting the scream with a shattered ancient mirror.

boom! ! !
The two forces collided violently.

The shock wave spreads.

The two eerie green lanterns on either side of the courtyard gate went out with a series of "poof" sounds.

The courtyard fell into deeper darkness, with only the faint red glow emanating from the dying blood array on the ground.

The ghostly guests shrieked and vanished completely.

The grayish-white light dissipated.

The bride's figure was faint and about to disappear.

The ancient mirror in her hand shattered completely into dust with a "crack" and slipped through her fingers.

She suddenly looked up, her beautiful, eyeless face filled with extreme resentment and unwillingness, and stared intently at Xu Yan.

The next moment, her figure suddenly collapsed inward, like a torn wedding dress, shattering into pieces.

In the end, only a tattered corner of bright red, blood-red fabric remained, drifting lightly to the ground.

The moment the fabric touched the ground, the remaining embers of the blood array on the ground were about to be annihilated.

As if drawn by something, they transformed into a few fine red threads, quietly merging into the wedding dress, making its red even more eerie.

A very soft, cold laugh, echoing from the depths of the earth, lingered for a moment before disappearing.

The ghost marriage ceremony was broken.

The female ghost fled, severely injured, leaving behind a corner of her wedding dress that had absorbed the embers of the blood array and a sinister laugh.

The person was alive; they were saved.

A deathly silence enveloped the courtyard, broken only by Xu Yan's heavy breathing.

He staggered, clutching the bleeding wound between his ribs. The camera's feedback remained peculiar; the weakness and memory loss had lessened.

He quickly walked over to the groom and probed him.

His breathing was weak, but he still had a breath left.

“Brother Yan…we…”

A Zhe scrambled over, his voice distorted, his face covered in cold sweat and the chaos of surviving a close call.

"I really thought you were dead just now..."

After he finished speaking, he couldn't help but gag twice, and his legs went weak, causing him to sit down on the ground.

He reached out to pull Xu Yan, but then pulled back, his hand trembling uncontrollably.

Xu Yan tore off a piece of her dress to hastily bandage her wound. She glanced at the corner of her wedding dress, which had absorbed the blood embers and turned an increasingly ominous red, and her eyes became extremely gloomy.

He pulled up the nearly exhausted A-Zhe, his voice low and urgent: "Don't speak, take him with you, let's leave immediately."

The light of the blood moon, like a torn cloth, was gradually shrinking.

Xu Yan carried the groom on her back and held A Zhe's hand as they stepped into the dark path that could collapse at any moment.

This nightmare is far from over.

(End of this chapter)