Chapter 3

Chapter 3

[Day Two – Daytime]

The funeral was held beside Daughter Stream, west of Dong Village.

Golden sunlight spilled across the water, making it sparkle mesmerizingly from afar.

Beneath the bright sky, the stream resembled a rippling bolt of blue silk, gently embracing the whole of Dong Village.

The banks of Daughter Stream were bustling. A massive opera stage had been erected, with festive music playing below and opera accompaniment sounding above.

Today, Dong Jing was performing Ban Xianfeng. Dressed as a local woman, he held a folding fan in his left hand and a white banner in his right.

Beaming porters carried an exquisitely crafted bridal sedan. Its body was bloodred and adorned with tassels of pure gold, a clear display of the family’s wealth.

What made it uncanny was how tiny it was. Talismans covered all four sides, and it had neither doors nor windows. It looked like a coffin sealed completely shut.

Yet the villagers showed no fear of it. They cheerfully called out, “Congratulations!” as if they could not be happier.

I noticed that, unlike last night’s wedding banquet, today’s feast was open to both men and women.

The dowry was lavish and the procession long, so it moved extremely slowly.

After leaving the stage, Dong Jing supervised the proceedings. Silver ornaments hung from his body, chiming with every movement. His lifeless face was both handsome and sinister.

“How wonderful, Nianci,” Dong Mu said. “Our family ought to hold happy occasions like this more often.”

“Of course. You’ve already brought another woman home, after all,” I said petulantly. “I’ll go keep an eye on her up ahead, in case she gets lost again.”

Dong Mu nodded and reminded me to be mindful of the child in my belly.

I forced my way into the crowd of corpses and spotted Cui Xiuxiu at once.

“Look.” She pointed. “They’re going to send the bride to the bottom of the stream.”

Cui Xiuxiu gripped my arm with such force that I was taken aback.

By then, eight porters had carried the tiny bridal sedan to the water’s edge.

With the stream blocking their way, they set the sedan on the surface and gave it a hard push.

The bloodred bridal sedan floated shakily like a little boat.

The current gathered around it, and it slowly sank beneath the water.

Two servants accidentally tripped, dropping the chest they were carrying.

Its lid sprang open upon striking the ground, spilling all manner of precious materials and rare treasures.

After scrambling to gather everything up, the two servants carried the treasures to the stream and lavishly consigned them to its depths.

Firecrackers exploded and suonas began to blare. The wedding music still had that strange, uncanny melody. It sounded familiar, but I could not put a name to it.

The guests burst into applause, then happily headed back. It was time for the banquet.

“Sister Nianci,” Cui Xiuxiu called, afraid I might forget. “See you in a little while.”

The daytime wedding feast was better than the one at night, at least. There were no glaring crimson lanterns to make my eyes ache.

The banquet was held in the family’s reception hall. Its exquisite decor made their wealth obvious.

Hundreds of round tables were occupied by guests, while dozens of large tables had been left empty, each laden with rice mixed with incense ash.

Rice mixed with incense ash was meant for the dead. This time, there were several times as many dead guests as there had been last night.

When Dong Mu saw that I was barely touching my food, he thoughtfully removed the bones from a piece of fish and placed the meat in my bowl.

I stared at the wet, raw flesh crawling with maggots and made no move to eat it. Dong Mu looked deeply concerned.

“Whenever Wanwan cooked fish for you before, you’d be craving it before it was even done. Why won’t you take a single bite today?”

A writhing corpse maggot crawled out of his mouth. I covered my own and answered honestly, “I-I feel like throwing up…”

“Throwing up?” Surprise and delight lit his face. “Is the baby acting up? Let me count… You’re already far enough along.”

“Why don’t I help you outside for a walk? The witch doctor said that would make the baby come sooner.”

“I’ll go by myself.” I rose to my feet. “Dong Lang, you’d better eat your fill and earn back the money we put in the wedding gift.”

“What does that paltry gift money matter?” He seemed drunk and let the words slip without thinking. “The one in your belly is the real gold!”

I did not respond. Supporting my waist with one hand, I left and headed toward the place where we had met yesterday.

The banquet would likely continue until before dinner, so we would have plenty of time to talk today.

Cui Xiuxiu was already waiting in the room. Dong Jing arrived last.

Once everyone was present, I finally let out a long breath of relief.

But I sucked it right back in almost immediately.

Because Dong Jing had brought something with him.

He was carrying a vegetable basket covered with a cloth.

When he lifted the cloth, a humanlike figure appeared beneath it.

It was an unopened-eyed-baby!

Dong Jing carefully lifted it out.

Its hair was sparse, its little face round and plump, and its eyes tightly shut. Both hands were clenched into fists.

The texture of its skin and even its wispy hair were indistinguishable from those of a real infant.

It wore bloodred bridal robes. The garments were exquisitely made, though the mandarin duck pattern had been embroidered backward.

Its appearance was equally peculiar. It wore gold jewelry and heavy makeup.

Rouge, face powder, and lip color had all been applied. It was dressed exactly like a bride.

It neither breathed nor moved. It had to be… a crafted doll.

But who could make something with such sickeningly lifelike detail?

I looked at Dong Jing. His tone was displeased. “She is today’s bride.”

I rubbed my brow. “As I thought. Today’s wedding is another marriage to a God.”

Just like the day before yesterday, there was neither a groom nor any parents presiding over the ceremony, and the wedding music was just as eerie.

Cui Xiuxiu swallowed. “But why is this bride different from last night’s?”

“That means there is more than one God,” I said. “The wedding customs vary with the God.”

If a Cave God lived in the mountains, there was nothing strange about a Stream God living in the water.

Compared to the Luohua Cave Maiden, the story of a river god taking a bride was far more familiar.

I turned to Dong Jing. “You’re the Sacrificial Official. You should have known long ago that there was more than one God. Why didn’t you mention it yesterday?”

“I wasn’t hiding anything,” Dong Jing said. “You should know that the rules of the Sacrificial Official are passed down orally by the previous Sacrificial Official.

“There are no detailed written records to consult, so some descriptions are inevitably imprecise.

“My father told me that marriages in Dong Village fall into two categories.

“The first is meant to continue the family line and produce descendants. Those are marriages between humans.

“The second is an offering to a Deity. Those are marriages between a human and a God.

“Marriage to a God is also divided into two types.

“Women who undergo Luodong become wives of the Cave God and can protect their entire clan. A wedding banquet must be held for them.

“Baby girls who die young become wives of the Stream God and preserve the village’s wealth. A wedding banquet must also be held for them.”

Cui Xiuxiu asked, “So Dong Village can catch those strange fish because they marry brides to the Stream God?”

I said, “The people of Dong Village are deeply attached to their homeland. Why would they willingly let their own daughters be sunk to the bottom of the stream?”

Dong Jing replied,

“They wouldn’t. If a baby girl in Dong Village dies young, her family first buries her in the woods.

“Then they hire a skilled artisan to make a baby girl doll and dress it as a bride.”

“When a marriage to God is performed, a doll is placed inside the bridal sedan and sunk into the stream along with the dowry.

“Rather than calling it a wedding, it would be more accurate to call it a funeral dressed up as a celebration, followed by prayers for blessings after the daughter is buried.

“That is why I believed the Stream God’s marriage rite was closer to a blessing ritual than the Cave God’s marriage to a dead girl.”

I said, “So until this morning, you thought the Cave God was the only Deity Dong Village truly worshiped?”

“I haven’t held this post for long. Much of what I know was passed down by word of mouth, so discrepancies are inevitable. Some things can only be understood after witnessing them firsthand.”

I asked, “Did you discover something new today? Something that convinced you the Stream God truly exists as well?”

“Yes. While taking inventory of the objects to be sunk in the stream, I secretly pried open the roof of the bridal sedan and saw the baby girl doll.

“It was so lifelike that I began to wonder if it had been made from a real infant.

“I cut into the back of its neck and peeled away the outer layer. What I found underneath wasn’t cotton.”

Dong Jing’s expression turned grave.

“It was flesh, blood, and bone. The smell of embalming spices was overwhelming.

“I exchanged her for a clay figurine of the same weight and secretly brought her out.

“This isn’t a doll made by some master craftsman. It’s the genuine corpse of an infant girl.”

The revelation struck Cui Xiuxiu and me like a bolt from the blue.

I walked behind the infant girl and pulled open the cut at the back of her neck to examine it.

It was exactly as Dong Jing had described.

She was neither a baby boy disguised as a girl by the people of Dong Village nor a doll crafted by a skilled artisan. She was a real infant girl.

On the surface, they sank a doll in the stream and buried the infant girl. In reality, they secretly defied the ritual and sank the girl who had died young to the bottom of the stream.

Put plainly, it was no different from offering a Luohua Cave Maiden to marry the Cave God. They had merely dressed it up to look less ugly.

But why bother? To deceive a wife who cherished her daughter, or to preserve some hollow pretense of morality?

I looked down at my belly. Dong Mu had said the real gold was inside it.

I still hadn’t worked out how these strange events were connected to the marriages with the two beings they called God, but there had to be a connection.

“Does this mean we’ve identified the symptoms?” Cui Xiuxiu asked. “Is it time to treat the disease?”

“We’ve more or less identified the symptoms, but we still need to find the cause. Every grievance has its source, and every debt its debtor. Whoever started all this must be involved.”

“Where do we look for the cause?” she pressed. “The bottom of Daughter Stream, for example?”

Dong Jing added, “And inside Taoyuan Cave, as well as the village chief’s residence.”

Dong Guangzu was the village chief. There was no way a village would have no record of its own history, especially one governed by an ancient and prominent clan like the Dongs.

The depths of Taoyuan Cave and the bottom of Daughter Stream were full of unknown dangers. Compared to those two places, sneaking into Dong Guangzu’s home would be somewhat easier.

But he had the Corpse-Driving Bell. If he rang it and summoned every living corpse in the village, the three of us wouldn’t stand a chance.

Timing would be crucial if we wanted to infiltrate Dong Guangzu’s residence.

I cleared my throat.

“We’ll move at the Hour of the Boar, once everyone has settled in for the night.

“Of the three of us, one will go inside, one will keep watch, and one will keep Dong Guangzu occupied.

“Xiuxiu, you keep watch. You’re alive, so you can run faster. If anything goes wrong, bark three times like a dog, then get out of there.

“Dong Jing, you keep Dong Guangzu occupied. You’re the Sacrificial Official, so it won’t seem strange for you to seek him out for a discussion. Can you do that?”

Cui Xiuxiu said, “Barking like a dog won’t be a problem, but where am I supposed to run?”

“To the entrance of Taoyuan Cave,” I said. “We don’t have much time, and I want to investigate several places tonight.”

“I can do that,” Cui Xiuxiu said, “but what if you get caught after we leave you behind?”

“Don’t worry about me. Just protect yourself, and don’t enter the cave recklessly.”

I looked at Dong Jing. “Come up with a reason to keep Dong Guangzu from leaving too soon.”

“Understood,” Dong Jing said. “You need to protect yourself too.”

My friend, we’re both dead. How exactly are we supposed to protect ourselves? We don’t even qualify for end-of-life care!

I arched a brow. “Then I’ll be the one to sneak into Dong Guangzu’s study.”

“For self-defense.” Dong Jing handed me a dagger.

By the time we stepped outside, dusk was approaching and the banquet was nearly over.

I pushed open the door. The setting sun hung to my left, sinking slowly toward the horizon.

The entire sky was stained bloodred, filling me with a sense of foreboding.

It gave me the same subtle unease I’d felt when I heard that familiar yet peculiar Wedding Tune and noticed the reversed embroidery on the bridal gown.

I stared at the blazing red sun. Its light shone in from the left.

It streamed through the window and cast silhouettes across the room.

The direction. There was something strange about the direction the houses in Dong Village faced!

Most houses faced south, with their backs to the north. That kept them warm in winter and cool in summer, making them comfortable to live in.

If this house faced north, however, the setting sun should have been on my right when I stepped outside.

But the houses in the village had their backs to the south and faced north, leaving their interiors exposed to sunlight for longer during the summer.

Everything was reversed!

People became corpses. Yin and yang were reversed.

The bridal gown’s pattern was embroidered incorrectly. Left and right were reversed.

The houses faced the wrong direction. North and south were reversed.

I asked Dong Jing, “What wedding music is played during a marriage to God?”

“An ancient Wedding Tune. It has no name.”

“Is there written music for it?”

“There should be.”

“Do me a favor. Find the score and rewrite it in reverse.”

Dong Jing agreed. I bade him farewell, then returned to the residence with Cui Xiuxiu.

As we passed through the streets, I saw a man holding a fish that glittered like gold, laughing heartily.

He looked familiar. I stared at him for a moment, and a chill of revulsion welled up inside me.

Wasn’t he from the family who had married off their daughter this morning? The ritual certainly worked fast.

After walking a few more steps, a sudden terror seized me.

But Dong Jing had already taken the bride out of the sedan!

Why had the Stream God still bestowed a reward?

What exactly was hidden at the bottom of the stream?

Did Dong Village truly worship two Deities?

Why hadn’t Cui Xiuxiu become a living corpse after entering the village?

And even if we uncovered the village’s history, how were we supposed to solve the problem?

I could only hope I would find all the answers tonight.

When we returned to the residence, Dong Mu was whispering with a shaman-healer.

When he saw us, he smiled. “Where did you two go? Why are you only getting back now?”

“We were just wandering around, and it got late before we knew it. Here, I picked this for you on the way back.”

I thrust the flower into his hands, then greeted the shaman-healer respectfully. “What brings you here, sir?”

“The child is full term, but the lady has yet to give birth, so he invited me here for a consultation.”

I stared at Dong Mu for a long moment, gently caressing my swollen belly.

“My back is aching. You two keep talking. I’m going to lie down in my room.”

Cui Xiuxiu immediately latched on to me. “I’ll go back to the room and rest for a while too.”

Once Dong Mu was asleep, it would be time for me to act.