The house is about 30 to 40 square meters, with a mixed structure of wood and stone bricks. It is a typical old village house. On the mottled and peeling beams is a dim light bulb. The light bulb is not very bright to begin with. Red gauze curtains are hung from the four corners of the room by hanging wires, creating a festive yet eerie wedding atmosphere.
The girl was about eighteen or nineteen years old. She had two long, shiny braids with red ribbons tied at the ends. Her green floral jacket was specially tied with red silk, the other end of which was tied to a rooster.
Despite the oversized floral jacket, the bride had an extremely slender waist, and the skin under her neck was sallow and thin, giving her a malnourished appearance.
Directly in front of the bride is a small low table for offering incense and candles, covered with a silk cloth with a large red "double happiness" character on the bottom.
Six incense sticks were stuck in a copper incense burner, but were not lit. Fruit platters and pastries were placed on both sides. The fruit platter contained a few frozen pears, but mostly candied fruits. The pastry platter had a few dry biscuits on it.
The entire wedding was eerie and shabby.
Cheng Shuang thought that this should not be intentional. She remembered that there was a period of time decades ago when everyone ate and drank less. It seems that this instance originated from that difficult but united period.
She continued to observe secretly.
A large table filled with memorial tablets, resembling an altar, stood in the center of the room. The master of ceremonies stood there, his eyes devoid of any light, staring lifelessly at the bride, or rather, the boy and girl children behind her.
The little girl was already used to encountering dangerous strange people in the Land of Death. She could remain completely calm and unperturbed, letting the winds blow from all directions. Being glanced at a few times wouldn't cost her anything.
Cheng Shuang glanced quickly at the memorial tablet.
There were twenty memorial tablets in total, but strangely, they were not arranged neatly at all. I quickly counted them while the bride raised her arm to cover her face and laughed.
The twenty memorial tablets were arranged in a 3-5-4-7-1 pattern, surrounded by a circle of red candles. When a breeze passed by, the candlelight and the shadows of the wooden tablets flickered together.
The light from the red candles couldn't reach every corner of the room, causing Cheng Shuang and Du Jun's figures to be half in the light and half swallowed by darkness.
This was not a normal wedding, as everyone present knew, including the bride. Yet, the bride was beaming throughout, showing no sign of dissatisfaction. Instead, she turned around with a smile, holding the stiff rooster, and nodded slightly in the direction of the emcee.
Cheng Shuang raised an eyebrow, feeling that she was trying to convey some message to the emcee.
While the bride turned around and blocked the emcee's view, the little girl lowered her eyes and carefully looked at the tray, which contained a pair of red-handled scissors, a silver comb for combing hair, a match wrapped in red paper, and a stick of sandalwood.
The trays on Du Jun's side are the same items.
"Perform the three rites, may the couple grow old together in love and harmony!" The master of ceremonies' chanting resumed, long and winding, strange and unsettling.
The bride glanced at Cheng Shuang, blinking rapidly. Cheng Shuang initially didn't understand her meaning, but her survival instincts were instantly awakened in the emcee's deadpan eyes.
The little girl took a few steps forward, and as soon as she stood next to the bride, the bride shoved the dead rooster into her hands.
The stiff, cold touch sent a chill down the girl's spine, raising goosebumps all over her body.
The rooster wasn't given away for nothing. As the bride bowed to her, the girl, with a blank expression, held the tray in one hand and pinched the rooster's neck with the other, tapping its head with her finger so that it would give the bride a perfect nod in return.
As the bride raised her head, she met the rooster's two gray eyes, which were wide open as if he had died. She leaned back slightly, then gave Cheng Shuang a reproachful look, but her joyful smile did not diminish, as if she had a very high tolerance for Cheng Shuang's mischief.
Cheng Shuang smiled back, completely certain in her heart that the bride was satisfied with the marriage.
Is this not a wedding? Otherwise, why would a normal person willingly bow to a dead rooster?
Despite the many questions that remained, now was not the right time to explore them. After the ceremony, Cheng Shuang returned the rooster to the bride, took small steps back, and achieved the feat of being able to see the entire wall without moving his head.
Behind them was a wall with doors and windows. The doors were gray double doors, which were closed at the moment. Whether it was a peculiar custom or for some other reason, there was a couplet pasted on both sides of the door: "Auspicious time, auspicious day, auspicious marriage, auspicious scenery; a handsome man and a beautiful woman, a perfect match made in heaven!"
The window is an ordinary glass window, covered with all kinds of big red "double happiness" characters. You can't see the moon from outside the window, only a few stars hanging in the sky, so it is very likely that the window faces north or south.
The rosy-cheeked little girl, her neck stiff, her clear black and white eyes darted around like grapes, trying to find some useful clues. Her intuition told her that this instance was more dangerous than the ancient tomb. For example, the master of ceremonies, who was staring at them blankly for a moment, should not be underestimated because of his thin figure.
The little girl almost made herself cross-eyed in the end... Du Jun kept a straight face to avoid laughing out loud.
Cheng Shuang, her eyes stinging, gave up and rubbed them with her hands. She grinned at the young man, then obediently turned around and listened as the emcee continued, "The ceremony is complete. Exchange of engagement tokens!"
The bride smiled and looked at Cheng Shuang again. This time, the little girl was more experienced and approached her with a tray. Du Jun followed closely behind. Since it was an exchange of letters, it certainly wouldn't be a courtesy from the bride's side.
Sure enough, the bride loosened one side of her braid, picked up a strand of hair, and Cheng Shuang immediately and consciously offered the scissors with both hands.
The bride didn't move, but pushed the lock of hair forward a little.
The young girl expressionlessly picked up the scissors and cut her hair short. The bride, however, remained calm and composed, her smile as sweet as ever.
Something's not right!
Even the most gentle woman wouldn't be completely unmoved if her hair was cut so short that her scalp was exposed, especially since it was her own wedding. If she was unhappy with the wedding, she might use it as an excuse to cause trouble. Conversely, if she was happy with the wedding, she would probably hate Cheng Shuang, this mischievous brat who was deliberately causing trouble. But the bride remained unmoved.
If you say she's a puppet, her expressions and mannerisms are lively and natural; if you say she isn't, then something strange about her is evident everywhere.
Perhaps because the following steps were complicated, the emcee finally opened his mouth and began to guide them step by step.
Du Jun cut off a feather from near the comb of the dead rooster.
"A silver comb combs through black hair."
Cheng Shuang casually combed a lock of hair in her hand, turned her head to look at the young man holding a feather in one hand and a silver comb in the other, and her lips twitched slightly.
Then the hair was wrapped around the feathers, sandalwood was lit with a match, and the sandalwood was used to slowly burn them to ash.
When Cheng Shuang handed her hair to Du Jun, she replaced it with several strands from the black wig that Liu Juan's sister had made for Luo An. Once the wig was lit, the bride used clips to pick up the six incense sticks on the incense burner and lit them herself.
The six incense sticks burned extremely quickly, almost at the same time that the hair and feathers were completely burned away, and then a clump of them turned to ash.
The bride swept the ashes into a red tray, then smilingly took two small wine glasses from under the low table. The glasses were full, and she poured the ashes into them, gesturing for Cheng Shuang and Du Jun to take them.
The emcee chanted: "Young boys and girls drink the wine of a hundred sons on behalf of the newlyweds, may the newlyweds have a hundred sons and a thousand grandsons and their whole family rejoice!"
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