The 25th place reveal that stuns everyone is a great cliffhanger. The text cuts off right when it’s about to show it, and I’m genuinely curious. Based on the author’s pattern, it’s probably another sword from a major character. Maybe the Jing Ni sword actually appears at 25th? Or something totally unexpected like a sword from the Mohist school? That suspense keeps me reading.
Li Cuicui is such a hateable character, and in a good way. She's selfish and cruel, willing to sell off her own granddaughter for five taels of silver. When she says "she's dead, what's the point of calling a physician?" it made my blood boil. That kind of blatant disregard for life really hooks you emotionally.
One minor criticism I'll throw in is that the female corpse herself feels a bit like a passive object for most of this section. She's a plot device to move the story forward. She's the catalyst for the ghost wedding and the mysteries, but she doesn't have a voice yet. We only see her as a beautiful, dismembered corpse with a grudge. I'm hoping as the story goes on, we get more of her perspective, either through flashbacks or through the ghost wedding's actions. She has a past (the little girl with the candy) that was filled with potential. I want to know who she became before she died. Was she a victim, or was she involved in something dark? The hands being a man's hands is a clue. Was she a good person? Did she deserve this? The protagonist doesn't wonder about that, but I do. Her story is the biggest mystery right now, bigger than the wedding.