Sister Dies, Sister Remarries (Part 3)
Mrs. Xu lowered her voice and said indignantly, "Mr. Liu, I'm illiterate. You learned people have so many grand principles, but I don't understand them."
"But I just don't understand, what kind of world is this? Why is it always the girls who suffer? Niyi's parents are the same, one daughter has already been ruined, and now they want to drag the other one down with her too."
"In my opinion, his two sons are already quite grown up, so why shouldn't it be their turn to sell themselves to save their father?"
Qu Bu suddenly spoke up: "Godfather, what are you looking for?"
"N-nothing." Liu Yu waved her hand, glanced at me, and replied, "I twisted my neck while stepping on the stage, so I'm just moving it around."
I understood, moved to his side, and whispered, "What are you looking at, all that's going around in the dark?"
Liu Yu pointed to the coffin room: "Those people waiting over there, are they helping to carry the coffin?"
I nodded: "That's right."
“They can really drink,” Liu Yu continued, gesturing. “That jar of wine weighed at least five jin (2.5 kg). After the group finished sharing it, they called for more from the back.”
Carrying the coffin into the burial chamber is not only physically demanding but also requires skill. The family organizing the funeral treats the coffin bearers well, providing them with good food and drink. Following Liu Yu's direction, I saw several women helping with the cooking outside the tent, busily preparing the necessary food and drinks for the funeral.
I guessed what he meant, and held out one hand, saying, "Give it to me."
Liu Yu looked around, took out a thin paper packet about an inch square from under his sleeve, and quickly put it into my hand. I took it with my palms together, put it into my sleeve as well, and got up to walk towards the tea and snack table.
Sure enough, there was an opened jar of konjac sauce on the table, and a woman nearby was tidying up hemp fibers for sacrificial purposes.
I picked up an empty bowl from the side and handed it to her, saying, "Sister, I didn't have time to eat anything this morning. Please fill me up with a bowl of oil tea to tide me over."
The woman put down her work and said readily, "Wait for me, sister, I'll go get you something to eat."
Seeing her take the empty bowl and walk towards another table, I also moved to the side of the konjac sauce, with my back to the kitchen helpers, took out a paper packet from my sleeve, tore it open, and shook all the powder into the vat.
After finishing all that, I stepped back two paces and glanced around. It seemed no one was paying attention, and I was just thinking, "Heaven is helping me!" when I suddenly noticed that the konjac paste was bright red and thick, while the powder I had sprinkled in was grayish-white, completely undissolved, and clumped together, floating at the mouth of the jar—a truly alarming sight.
Looking again at the woman who had been pouring tea, I saw she was already walking back. I quickly picked up the ladle from the table, put it into the vat, and stirred it frantically. Fortunately, the powder was only difficult to dissolve, not insoluble. By the time the woman came over, it had almost dissolved.
I held my breath and put down the ladle, smiling at the woman: "Sister, this konjac sauce smells so good, flies are flying around it, I can't get rid of them no matter how hard I try."
"It's nothing." The woman didn't seem to care. She handed me the oil tea and two pieces of glutinous rice cake, saying, "It's for those stinky men anyway, there's no room for us."
After we finished eating, I stayed behind to help the women of Liao twist hemp fibers. We chatted about this and that, and eventually the conversation turned to Ni Yi's suicide.
The old woman sighed with regret, "Alas, she's going to be a mother in less than two months. Her belly is so pointed, it must be a baby. The Agu family has only had one son for three generations. With a baby by her side, what difficulty can't she overcome!"
"Did Nii encounter any difficulties at his home before her death?"
"Of course! Otherwise, why would a perfectly healthy person go looking for death?"
"Really?" My heart skipped a beat. "Tell me about it, sister."
"I heard it from someone else too," the woman whispered to me. "Well, if you want to blame someone, blame Aunt Xia's husband for his foul mouth."
"Aunt Xia and Ni Yi both work at the weaving workshop in Yanziping. Ni Yi is heavily pregnant and her back is bent, so she quit her job a few days ago and went home to rest. In the past few days, the mountain area has been rushing to produce autumn tea, and Aunt Xia's husband has also gone. The headman of the village invited them to drink, and that scoundrel got drunk and started bragging about how much money Aunt Xia has earned from weaving cloth, and how she handed over every single penny to him."
"According to those present, Ercuo's face changed instantly upon hearing this. That night, the young couple had a huge fight. Ercuo, even as a child, didn't have much ill intentions, but his mouth was incredibly sharp, just like his mother's."
“Although Niyi was proud, she had no dowry to back her up, and her family was a bunch of useless people. She must have been insulted so badly that she couldn’t stand it and hanged herself.”
"Why are Nii and her husband arguing—?"
"It's all about money," the old woman sighed. "Niyi weaves cloth faster than Aunt Xia, but she brings home less money than Aunt Xia."
“The Agu family is notoriously stingy, so they can’t stand seeing their new daughter-in-law hiding money. As for Niyi, she’s been living a really stifling life since marrying into their family. Why can’t she keep some of the money she worked so hard to earn for herself?”
I pondered and said, "The Agu family is indeed cunning. They first demanded that the Niyi family return the betrothal gifts. When they couldn't, they wanted to take Niyi as their concubine."
“Alas, it’s an old custom in the mountains, there’s nothing we can do about it.” The woman shook her head and said, “Niyi’s family originally came from Lianhuadong. The government troops wiped out the village when they were suppressing bandits, and they only moved to our Niumendong five years ago.”
"Their family didn't know the details of Agu's family. They thought that if the dowry was generous, then it was a good husband's family. In reality, Agu's family was only willing to give more because they couldn't find a wife."
I was secretly taken aback and quickly asked, "What do you mean?"
The woman replied, “The ancestors of the Agu family destroyed the sacred tree in the village, and the mountain god was angry with them. For three generations, the family has only had one son. I heard from the elders in the village that Ercuo’s grandmother also hanged herself at home back then.”
"The men in their family are cursed to bring misfortune to their wives; no one who knows this would want to marry their daughter to them. Now that Niyi has hanged herself, the mountain god's curse is still in effect. If they don't force Niyi to become a second wife, their family line will probably end."
After finishing cleaning up the hemp fibers, I returned to the tent and told the people of Yanziping the news I had gotten from the cook.
"What curses or not?" Aunt Xu waved her hand and said, "In my opinion, this family has a long-standing tradition of abusing their daughter-in-law."
Wang Yunhui nodded: "I think so too."
Liu Yu said, "The first is hanging, the second is jumping into a well. If any woman in a family has had one of these two accidents, it is best not to enter that household."
Liu Xingjian sighed, “The borders of the nation are all built with the blood and tears of the border people.”
At that moment, the bells rang loudly, and Qu Bu said, "The wizard has come out to guide the soul away!"
Surrounded by Agu's family, the shaman of Niumendong approached the coffin. A coffin bearer handed him a sharpened bamboo stick. The shaman rang a bell in one hand and tapped the coffin with the bamboo stick in the other, reciting the names of Agu's ancestors one by one. After reciting the incantation, the coffin bearer brought over a rooster. The shaman took it, pierced the rooster's body with a bamboo joint, and with a loud crowing, shouted "Open the way!" and threw the newly made "way-guiding ritual implement" forward.
Agu's family wailed and sang a funeral song. Several coffin bearers tied hemp rope to their arms and ankles and went to the main room.
Liu Xingjian frowned: "Are we going to move the body and seal the coffin?"
"Yes." I looked up at the sky. The sun was high in the sky, and it had been almost two hours since Huai Xu set off.
Wang Yunhui clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and softly murmured, "May the Bodhisattva protect me, may the mountain god protect me, may the people from the prefectural government arrive quickly!"
Aunt Xu wrung her hands anxiously: "That Agu family is definitely not good people. Is there any way to stop them?"
“No, Auntie,” Qu Bu hurriedly said. “For us Liao people, funerals are a major event for the whole clan. Disrupting a funeral will get you whipped. And you are Han Chinese, so disrupting a funeral will get you tied up and used as a sacrifice to the mountain god.”
Liu Yu asked, "What is the ritual?"
Qu Bu honestly replied, "It's burning firewood on the rack."
Liu Yu glanced at me sideways and said in a weak voice, "Oh dear... really, is there no law anymore..."
I gave him a comforting look and said, "It exists, but it's difficult to implement."
Amidst the funeral hymns, Agur Tso emerged from the main hall, carrying a memorial tablet, followed closely by pallbearers carrying the slab upon which the body lay. The group arrived at the shaman's quarters, where the shaman produced bamboo divination sticks, preparing to cast lots to invoke the gods and confirm the direction for placing the coffin.
One of the coffin bearers suddenly cried out, "Wait, Elder! I... I can't hold it in any longer!"
Another pallbearer chimed in, "Me too!"
The wizard put away the bamboo divination sticks and said sternly, "Go and come back quickly!"
The two rushed out of the room and fled to a secluded spot.
Agur Tso's father stopped wailing and scolded the other coffin bearers, "What kind of work are you doing?! The soul has already been sent out, but you can't seal the coffin. What if you delay the journey up the mountain?"
The lead pallbearer clasped his hands in apology, saying, "I'm so sorry! The brothers drank too much cold wine and have some stomach upsets. We'll be back in a bit."
After waiting for a while, the two men who had gone to relieve themselves returned. The wizard shook his bell, took out his bamboo divination stick again, and another coffin bearer jumped out: "Elder! I, I can't go on!" Before he finished speaking, he had already run far away.
Just as Ercuo's father was about to lash out at the leader, the man said, "Wait a moment, wait a moment, I'll be right back."
The Dong people inside the tent began to whisper among themselves: "What's wrong with the coffin bearers? They're so sick with diarrhea, like they've been drugged."
"Agu's family is so stingy, the food and drinks they prepared probably aren't fresh."
"Shh, keep your voice down, don't startle the spirit. Maybe that girl doesn't want to go."
"Hiss—the mountain god's curse..."
After going back and forth between the outhouse and the latrine for a long time, the coffin bearers finally stood in front of the coffin in unison.
The shaman glared at them, then took out the bamboo divination stick from his robes for the third time. Just as he was about to throw it, a figure suddenly rushed out from the tent not far away and headed straight for the room.
Behind him came a piercing cry, a mother's most helpless lament: "Zimor!"
The shaman's hand holding the divination stick trembled, and the two bamboo baskets fell to the ground. One of them bounced off the coffin wall and fell with a "plop," breaking into two pieces.
The mountain people cried out in alarm: "It's a dead divination! It's a dead divination!"
The shaman hurriedly knelt down and began to chant: "Little devil, please calm your anger, mountain god! Elder bamboo, please calm your anger! Ancestors, please calm your anger!"
Inside the room, everyone stared in disbelief. Zimo forcefully pushed aside the two coffin bearers, ripped off the mourning cloth from his head, and threw himself onto Nii's body, screaming hysterically, "Listen to me—my eldest sister didn't commit suicide! She wouldn't have! Absolutely not!"
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