Chapter 2

Chapter 2

[Day One – Night]

The wedding procession wound its way out of the forest.

A fine horse led the way, but the groom had not come to receive his bride.

The men parted of their own accord to let the bridal sedan through. It stopped in front of the cave.

A bell rang shrilly on the stage just as a deathly pale hand emerged from the sedan.

The wedding attendant stepped forward, and the hand settled on his shoulder.

The bride climbed out, her movements stiff and halting.

She knelt before two empty chairs.

“Look at that figure! She must be a beauty!”

“What good is beauty? She’s still de-”

“Watch your mouth. There are outsiders here.”

“She’s about to bow! She’s about to bow!”

“First bow, to the honored elders-”

…

With her back to the guests, the figure in scarlet bowed three times but did not rise.

The eager guests surged forward from behind, shoving me into the innermost ring of the crowd.

Facing the guests, the wedding attendant announced in a shrill voice, “The ceremony is complete! Send the bride to the bridal chamber-”

Firecrackers exploded, drowning out the music, and a gale swept through without warning.

The musicians onstage kept playing as the bells broke into a frantic, panicked clamor.

Dust stung the guests’ eyes. They lowered their heads one after another and rubbed at them.

The candle flames inside the lanterns thrashed wildly, casting a chaotic wash of crimson light across the ground.

The red silk of the wedding dress rippled gently, like great swaths of filthy blood streaming down the bride’s body.

The wind tore the bridal veil from her head, revealing half of a rotting human brain.

A small patch of fair, unspoiled flesh remained on her earlobe, from which two earrings dangled.

My pupils contracted sharply. She had two pierced holes in her ear.

Xiao Wan!

Bones cracked as her head twisted all the way around to face behind her.

There was no white in her eyes. Her pupils were blown wide, and two trails of bloody tears streamed down her face.

Her deathly pale hand clawed frantically at her wedding dress, exposing the hollow cavity in the left side of her chest.

Her mostly rotted lips, painted a vivid red, opened and closed without a sound.

Run… run… Nianci… run…

The step I had been about to take froze in place.

The wind howled harder. The music swelled louder. The bells rang ever more urgently.

I could only watch as Deng Wan rose and slowly walked into the depths of the cave.

Only then did the music onstage fall silent, and everything returned to normal.

Rather than a wedding banquet, this was a feast of sacrifice to God.

Too many things were wrong. Too many questions remained unanswered. I needed to go back and investigate on my own…

I turned to leave, only for an icy hand to clamp around my wrist.

“Madam, where are you going?” the wedding attendant asked with a smile. “You still have to attend the banquet.”

“I’m feeling unwell. Can you bear the consequences if something happens to me?”

“Can you bear the consequences of angering the Cave God by refusing to take your seat?”

Purple blotches surfaced on the back of his swollen hand.

Livor mortis. Only a corpse developed livor mortis.

I said nothing. A chill seeped into the depths of my heart.

The same blotches had appeared on my wrist.

I was also… a corpse.

When had I died?

And if I was already dead, how was I supposed to escape Dong Village?

Why had Dong Mu married the dead Xiao Wan to the Cave God?

With the situation still unclear, I did nothing rash. I went along with the banquet and entered the cave.

The cave walls were slick with moisture and covered in mold-green moss.

Countless talismans drawn in dog’s blood had been plastered over the moss.

Guests filled hundreds of round tables.

Ten tables remained unoccupied, laden with bowls of rice mixed with incense ash as offerings for the dead.

Platters of meat were brought out. The rotting flesh was rank and damp, as though it had just been fished from the water.

Flies rested on the dishes, buzzing incessantly.

Everywhere I looked, I saw deathly pale faces, unfocused eyes, and ashen lips.

These corpses, dressed in brightly colored burial clothes, were enjoying the banquet.

They toasted one another, traded jokes, and exchanged hollow pleasantries…

The dead guests behaved no differently from the living, utterly unaware of their own deaths.

A sense of wrongness washed over me.

Corpses could neither eat nor sweat, yet we could do both-

We were not dead bodies.

Unlike corpses, we could still do some of the things ordinary people could…

We were living corpses. We were the living dead!

One of the guests had called Xiao Wan dead earlier.

That meant a corpse whose heart had been gouged out was considered dead even by the living corpses.

Could their perception be the normal one, while I was the abnormal one?

No. Perhaps I wasn’t the only person who sensed that something was wrong.

Maybe the others were simply hiding it, just as I was.

Without betraying my thoughts, I surveyed the cave.

Two people had yet to touch their chopsticks.

Dong Guangzu, the village chief, and Dong Jing, the Sacrificial Official.

Dong Village had evolved from a clan that once lived in the mountains.

As time passed, the blood ties between its various branches had grown extremely distant.

The patriarch who had first established the Dong Clan made his position hereditary, passing it down to his eldest son. Over time, that position became the office of village chief.

The current village chief, Dong Guangzu, was ten years old. The purest bloodline of the Dong Clan flowed through his veins.

Dong Guangzu was his family’s only son. His father had drowned after his birth, and his mother had starved herself to death to follow her husband, entrusting the boy to the former Sacrificial Official.

Having lost his parents at an early age, Dong Guangzu had matured quickly.

His handsome face still carried a trace of baby fat, but his eyes were calm and his bearing unusually mature.

After the former Sacrificial Official died, Dong Guangzu moved back into his old family home and lived alone.

The former Sacrificial Official’s only son, the twenty-year-old Dong Jing, inherited his father’s position and became the new Sacrificial Official.

This banquet was the first wedding Dong Jing had ever arranged.

Dong Jing had features as flawless as carved jade and the refined bearing of a cultivated gentleman, but a patch of livor mortis marred his throat, lending him a sickly, brooding air.

By comparison, Dong Guangzu was only a child and seemed less dangerous.

But a bell hung from Dong Guangzu’s waist.

A crudely fashioned bronze bell.

That was… the Corpse-Driving Bell!

Of the Three Anomalies of Xiangxi, Corpse Driving was the best known.

A corpse driver would shake the bell to awaken people from Xiangxi who had died far from home. At the sound of the bell, their corpses would return to their homeland and be laid to rest.

The power to command the dead relied entirely on that bell. It was the Corpse-Driving Bell, an heirloom passed down through the main branch of the Dong clan.

And now, the banquet hall was packed with living corpses drinking and laughing together, completely unaware that they were dead.

Yet the ten-year-old village chief, Dong Guangzu, sat calmly among them with the Corpse-Driving Bell at his waist.

Now I understood how the dead Xiao Wan had managed to perform the wedding rites. Dong Guangzu had woven the bell’s chimes into the opera music!

The exploding firecrackers had drowned out the music, briefly freeing Xiao Wan from his control and allowing her to send me a message. Then the wind had risen, and the bell had rung again…

There was something wrong with Dong Guangzu. I couldn’t approach him recklessly.

I needed to find a way to get close to Dong Jing.

Forcing down my revulsion, I picked up a chunk of rotten meat from the table and put it in my mouth.

Sour bile surged up my throat.

I staggered toward the head table. Dong Guangzu, whose back had been facing me, turned aside just in time.

I threw up.

My vomit splattered all over Dong Jing. He seemed displeased. “Madam, please conduct yourself with some decorum.”

“F-Forgive me, my lord. I’m with child, and… urp!”

Dong Jing looked at Dong Guangzu. “I will change my clothes and return shortly. I hope you will excuse me.”

Dong Guangzu nodded distractedly.

I covered my mouth and followed Dong Jing out, pretending I was about to vomit again.

Outside the cavern, the night was pitch-black.

Forests surrounded us on every side, with several towering peaks looming over the area.

A handful of crimson lanterns glowed like the eyes of malevolent spirits.

There was nowhere outside the cavern to change, so we had to pass through the forest to the east to reach the village.

We followed the red carpet back through the woods. Gnarled branches clawed at the air like emaciated arms.

Dong Jing suddenly stopped. I walked straight into his back, and when I looked up, my heart jolted.

A Nuo mask was fastened to the back of his head, the kind worn during Nuo opera. Its blue-green face, sharp fangs, and savage expression were utterly terrifying.

Nuo opera was performed to entertain God, while the Sacrificial Official served God. So Dong Jing had been among the performers onstage that evening.

His elaborate, ornate costume jingled with every movement. Paired with the eerie Nuo mask, it made him look positively ghostly.

“Pregnant women should not drink.” Dong Jing turned and looked down at me. “Why are you pretending to be drunk, Madam?”

He hadn’t exposed me in front of Dong Guangzu, which meant he and I weren’t necessarily enemies.

So I went straight to the point. “My lord, was the bride my master’s wife who died of illness?”

“Dong Mu was the one who wanted this wedding banquet,” Dong Jing replied calmly. “Only in death could she truly be married off.”

“Why?” I clenched my fists and asked more bluntly, “Did Dong Mu sell her into a ghost marriage?”

Dong Jing countered with a question of his own. “Do you know all of the Three Anomalies of Xiangxi?”

I hesitated. “I’m an outsider. I only know a little.”

“One of the Three Anomalies of Xiangxi is known as the Luohua Cave Maiden. Madam Deng was a Luohua Cave Maiden.”

“Luohua Cave Maiden?” I repeated the words thoughtfully. “It sounds like the name of a divine maiden.”

Dong Jing smiled. The sight of a beautiful dead man smiling turned his beauty into something horrifying.

“A Luohua Cave Maiden isn’t a divine maiden. She is God’s bride.”

The Luohua Cave Maiden was one of the Three Anomalies of Xiangxi.

An unmarried woman would pass through a cavern and remain there without eating or drinking, yet come to no harm.

Not long after returning home, however, she would die. This unnatural death was known as dying from Luodong.

These women were said to die from Luodong because they had fallen in love with the Deity within the cavern.

After falling in love with the Cave God, they would return home and waste away from longing. Refusing all food and drink, they eventually starved to death.

Their clanspeople would choose an auspicious day to send the women into the cavern as offerings to the Cave God.

The women offered in this manner were known as Luohua Cave Maidens.

Marriage to the Deity would earn the clan the Deity’s protection, so clans took pride in having raised a Luohua Cave Maiden.

She had fallen in love with a Deity, so only in death could she truly be married off.

And because her groom was a Deity, the groom’s party had never once appeared at tonight’s wedding banquet.

“But Xiao Wan was already married. How could she have died from Luodong?”

Before Dong Mu could answer, I murmured,

“Of course. Because Dong Village doesn’t have any unmarried young women.”

Even ten years ago, people had been saying that “Dong Village’s feng shui only favors boys.”

Baby girls died young. Only baby boys survived.

Dong Village was isolated and closed off. Outsiders were forbidden from entering except through marriage.

The men’s wives were all women of other surnames who had married in from outside the village.

…Could the Luohua Cave Maidens be connected to the village’s current state?

A faint rustle came from the darkness.

My train of thought broke off abruptly.

Someone was eavesdropping!

Dong Jing seized the intruder before I could act.

I stared in surprise. “You?”

Cui Xiuxiu’s eyes were filled with terror, and she looked ready to scream.

I stepped forward and clamped a hand over her mouth.

Her chest rose and fell violently.

She was alive.

Alive!

Living corpses weren’t necessarily evil, and the living weren’t necessarily good.

“Where is Dong Mu? Why are you here?” I kept my hand firmly over her mouth. “Don’t scream, or I’ll kill you.”

Her large eyes fluttered, and several crystal-clear tears spilled from them. Cui Xiuxiu was every bit as timid as Deng Wan.

“All right, stop crying.” My voice softened. “As long as you do as you’re told, I won’t hurt you.”

She nodded obediently, her gaze drifting toward the distance. Several servants were roaming through the woods, shouting as though searching for someone.

I released her. She took a few shallow breaths before whispering, “Help me. I need to get out of the village. They’re all corpses!”

“Little girl, take a good look.” I pointed at myself. “Look carefully at what I am.”

“But there’s only something wrong with your body. Everyone else looks like there’s something wrong with both their bodies and their minds!”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Did Dong Mu send them to capture you?”

The girl nodded and looked at me pitifully.

After a moment’s thought, I said, “Come on. We’re going to the docks.”

Dong Jing said, “I’ll return home and change my clothes.”

“No.” I stepped in front of him. “What if you go warn them?”

“You know I wouldn’t. You’re worried Dong Mu will hold you accountable after she leaves the village, so you want me to share the blame.”

“Yes. If you’re there too, you can testify that she fled of her own accord.”

“After you, then.” I inclined my head. “Lord Sacrificial Official.”

Dong Village had a peculiar layout.

Streams surrounded it on three sides, while a sheer cliff rose to the east, with an enormous cavern at its base.

The stream was called Daughter Stream, and the cavern was called Taoyuan Cave.

Tonight’s wedding banquet was being held inside Taoyuan Cave.

The people of Dong Village normally relied entirely on boats to enter and leave the village.

The docks lay to the south, quite some distance from where we were.

As we walked and escape from the village seemed increasingly possible, Cui Xiuxiu’s spirits improved, and she began to chatter.

“My family is poor. We rely entirely on the money my father earns cutting and selling firewood. I collect birds’ eggs and go with him to the market to earn money.

“A few days ago, I went up the mountain to collect eggs as usual and ran into Dong Mu.

“He said he’d never married or had children, and that he’d fallen in love with me at first sight. He asked me to become his wife, so I… I agreed to visit his home.

“I originally planned to stay at his estate for a few days and see how wealthy he really was.

“Tonight, I wanted to go out and explore the village, and he came with me. Everything was perfectly normal, but then, all of a sudden…

“All of a sudden, everyone turned into corpses.

“Dong Mu was a corpse. The porters were corpses. The embroiderers were corpses… but they could still move and talk!

“I turned and ran. All I wanted was to get away as fast as I could.

“I remembered that you had to take a boat to enter or leave Dong Village, but no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find the docks.

“Dong Mu sent his servants to look for me. I was too afraid to go back, so I ran blindly and slipped into these woods amid the confusion.

“…And happened to overhear the two of you discussing all these strange things.”

…

When she finished, she said earnestly, “I wasn’t trying to steal your man. Please don’t be angry.”

My expression darkened. “I married into Dong Village because of my elder sister. She married into the village three years ago, and no one has heard from her since.”

I had no interest in men to begin with. The very idea that I would make trouble for her over Dong Mu infuriated me.

Only then did Cui Xiuxiu realize her mistake. She hurriedly said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have judged you by my own standards.”

As we continued walking, a stream appeared before us.

I knew this stream. It was called Daughter Stream, and it was Dong Village’s main source of income.

Daughter Stream was home to a rare fish that could sell for ten thousand gold pieces. In years of famine, this stream had kept the entire village alive.

It was a stream steeped in legend. Normally calm and beautiful, tonight it was terribly wrong.

Tonight, it was impossibly wide. Like a sea encircling Dong Village, its waters stretched all the way to the horizon.

The vast stream embraced the village. It was a treasure basin overflowing with wealth, an alluring cradle, yet also a hidden prison and an unknown danger.

Master once said that shallow water was clear, green water was deep, blue water was broad, black water was an abyss, and yellow water ran swift.

This water was as black as ink.

There was not a breath of wind. Daughter Stream lay like a length of unwrinkled black silk.

Its surface reflected the dark, fathomless night sky, a pure and hollow blackness.

For a moment, my mind slipped into a daze. I could no longer distinguish sky from stream, and I wanted to reach out and touch the sky at the bottom of the water.

I saw a reflection on the stream’s surface. A stunning woman gazed back with rapt fascination, the cypress vine at her temple perfectly complementing her red lips.

I smiled, and she smiled. I tilted my head, and she tilted hers. I stared at her, and she stared back at me.

Cui Xiuxiu crouched beside the stream, looking entranced as she reached toward the water. I grabbed her and yanked her back.

“Don’t touch it.” Still shaken, I pulled her several steps away. “There seems to be something beneath the water.”

I touched my hair. There was only a pearl hairpin in it. I had removed the cypress vine long ago.

The figure on the stream was not my reflection. It was some indescribable monster trying to lure me in.

“It looks like we can’t leave by water,” I said. “Daughter Stream has become strange too.”

Cui Xiuxiu asked, “What about the cave? Isn’t there a cliff with a cave in it to the east?”

Dong Jing said, “That cave is called Taoyuan Cave. No one dares enter Taoyuan Cave without permission.”

Cui Xiuxiu pressed, “Why not?”

“It is God’s bedchamber.”

She fell silent.

Dong Jing and I had been away from the banquet too long. It was time for us to return.

Cui Xiuxiu stood there blankly, saying she had no idea where else she could flee.

She remained by the stream as though her soul had left her body. “If there’s no escape, I might as well drown myself in the stream first…”

“Don’t let it bewitch you.” I wished I could tie her to my belt and keep her there. “Stop staring at Daughter Stream.”

Dong Jing said, “Dong Village is sick. That’s why Daughter Stream has become strange, and why we’ve become corpses.”

I picked up where he left off. “First we find the cause, then prescribe the right cure and eradicate the illness. Only then can the village recover.”

Cui Xiuxiu hesitated. “You mean everything can go back to normal?”

“Only if we find the cause,” Dong Jing said.

“I already have a theory.”

Cui Xiuxiu hurriedly asked, “What is it?”

“Xiao Wan… Dong Mu’s late wife and tonight’s bride. She didn’t die from Luodong.

“Dong Mu killed her because he wanted her to become God’s bride. His fishing and hunting haven’t gone well lately, so he wanted the Cave God’s blessing.

“Dong Mu told me that Xiao Wan died suddenly and had already been cremated, but he told Dong Jing that she died from Luodong and needed to be married to God.

“After Xiao Wan died of illness, she was forced to marry the Deity. She resented it and hated Dong Mu, so she took revenge on the people of Dong Village.

“If we give her a proper burial and bring the culprit to justice, wouldn’t that be enough to make her…”

“No,” Dong Jing interrupted. “Everything strange that’s happening now goes far beyond the work of a vengeful ghost.”

I was inclined to agree. “Since we’re investigating, let’s set a time for tomorrow night. For today, we should head back first…”

“Assume the worst,” Dong Jing said. “We don’t have much time left. We may only have two days.”

He stared fixedly at me. “Cui Xiuxiu will be fine, but we’re corpses.”

“In this heat, what if our bodies have completely rotted in another two days?”

Looking unsightly was the least of our concerns if corpses were left too long.

The real problem was that they leaked fluid and bloated, which would make it difficult for us to move.

This was our first time being living corpses, so neither of us knew whether we would rot and stink.

To be safe, we had to hurry, uncover the cause as soon as possible, and return everything to normal.

Before parting, we arranged to meet Dong Jing at his house early the next morning, after he finished officiating another wedding ceremony.

I took Cui Xiuxiu back to the Dong Residence. Faced with Dong Mu’s concerned gaze, she said sheepishly, “I saw a family celebrating a wedding, so I went over to join the fun.”

“What was there to see, Xiuxiu?”

Dong Mu brushed the fine hair away from her ear.

“When the time comes, we’ll hold an even grander wedding.”

Tears welled in Cui Xiuxiu’s eyes as though she had been moved.

I knew she hadn’t been touched by his sweet words. She was terrified.

Once we returned, Cui Xiuxiu stuck to me like glue and refused to leave my side.

At the third watch, she came knocking on my door with a pillow in her arms.

“Sister Nianci, Sister Nianci, are you asleep? Are you?”

I opened the door, my face expressionless. “Apparently, living corpses don’t need to sleep.”

“But living people do. We can squeeze in together.”

“No. Go find Dong Mu.”

She gazed at me imploringly.

“…Come in.”

I stepped aside to let her enter, and she promptly lay down on the floor.

Cui Xiuxiu said eagerly, “I’ll sleep on the floor, and you can take the bed.”

The steady, even sound of a living person’s breathing was unbearably irritating.

I pushed myself upright. “Cui Xiuxiu, get in the bed.”

She muttered softly, “I’d feel so bad about that.”

I climbed down and said flatly, “I don’t need to sleep anyway.”

Cui Xiuxiu pulled the covers over herself and sniffled. “As soon as the sun comes up, I’ll go back to my room next door.”

“I’m a very mercenary person. Whenever I help someone, I expect payment.” Something occurred to me. “Do you know how to raise gu?”

She rolled over at once. “Would I dare go up a mountain alone to steal bird eggs if I didn’t have a few tricks up my sleeve?”

“Does everyone in Xiangxi know how to raise gu?” I arched a brow. “Do you have any that can bind two people’s lives and deaths together?”

“The gu I raise only work on the living. They’re useless against corpses.”

“Can you give me two to play with? I’m just… curious.”

Suspecting nothing, she took two gu worms from the small embroidered pouch she carried and handed them to me before going to sleep.

Inside the jar, two plump, translucent gu worms slowly squirmed. I hid the jar beneath the bed.

Cui Xiuxiu slept soundly. Her peaceful sleeping face truly bore some resemblance to Xiao Wan.

If the truth I uncovered could turn me from a living corpse back into a living person…

Could it also bring Xiao Wan back from the dead and turn her from a corpse into a living person?

My thoughts ran wild all night. At the first light of dawn, I woke Cui Xiuxiu and urged her to return to her room.

Not long after she left, Xiao Tao knocked on the door. “Madam, please get up. You mustn’t miss the auspicious hour.”

Right. Dong Jing had mentioned last night that another special wedding ceremony would be held this morning.

Unlike last night’s Cave God Wedding Banquet, this ceremony was being held beside Daughter Stream.

“Coming.” I sprang up and pulled open the door.

Dong Mu stood outside, gently extending a hand toward me.

A fat maggot crawled out of his eye socket.

“Nianci, you’re with child. Take care of yourself.”

I placed my hand in his and let him escort me into the sedan chair.