"She recites lessons every morning in the community. It's all in English that we can't understand. It's obvious that she loves to study. Could it be that failing the college entrance examination has hit her hard?"
Taoist Bai couldn't help but speculate, but he had read the child's palm before, and he didn't think he would die young.
Liang Haoran also understood that Taoist Bai was suspicious of Bai Tingxue's cause of death. He thought for a moment and said, "What do the police say?"
Taoist Bai sighed helplessly, "Suicide."
He himself could be considered half a Taoist, so of course he understood that there were many ways to make a person die in an extremely normal way without finding any trace.
So he didn't take the police's talk of suicide seriously at all.
But it was useless for him to disbelieve it. Bai Tingxue's father believed it and signed the death certificate they issued. The body had even been sent for cremation.
Wei Mian nodded, understanding what Taoist Bai meant. "Do you have the girl's birth date?"
"have!"
Taoist Bai took out a piece of paper. This was what he had written down when he was fortune-telling for the child before. However, his ability was not good enough, so he could not calculate anything useful.
Wei Mian got the eight characters, took a look at them and handed them to Liang Haoran, who then lowered his head and started to draw up the horoscope.
Taoist Bai had always thought that the ranking board was extremely difficult, but now he saw the young man taking out a pen and paper and quickly starting writing and drawing without even frowning.
It is enough to guess that he has learned a lot after following Wei Mian for the past few years, and his strength is incomparable to before.
If only he had a master like this...
After a while, Liang Haoran was done. "Master, she was not destined to have this calamity. She could have lived to be seventy-six years old. She should have died of old age."
Wei Mian nodded. She knew it the first time she saw the eight characters, but she had just calculated something different.
Bai Tingxue was actually arranged to have a ghost marriage, and it happened just ten days ago.
Taoist Bai just said that Bai Tingxue had been dead for half a month, but she was arranged to have a ghost marriage ten days ago. This must have been done by her parents, and it would not be easy for others to get her birth date and bones.
"Do you have a recent photo of this little girl?" She looked at Taoist Bai.
Taoist Bai shook his head, "No."
After thinking about it, he felt that the Bai family might have it, or at least there should be a photo of Bai Tingxue, so he took Wei Mian to his own community.
On the way, she told the two of them about Bai Tingxue's arranged ghost marriage.
Taoist Bai didn't react much after hearing this. This kind of thing was very common in his hometown. When a young girl died, her family would arrange a ghost marriage for her.
On the one hand, girls cannot be buried in the ancestral tomb if they are not married. After a ghost marriage, they can be buried in the ancestral tomb of the other party's family, and not in a random graveyard.
On the other hand, it can also be considered as finding a companion for the child so that he or she will not be too lonely when traveling together.
A long time ago, there was a case where the family refused to arrange a marriage for the deceased child, and the deceased child came back to cause chaos in the family.
Later, I consulted someone who knew the matter and found out that it was because he died before getting married and was alone in the underworld. After the ghost marriage, he would be happy to have someone to accompany him.
Therefore, Taoist Bai could completely accept the fact that Bai's father arranged a ghost marriage for Bai Tingxue, and he didn't find it strange at all.
Liang Haoran frowned, "Isn't this nonsense!"
Wei Mian sighed, "This kind of thing can't be generalized as right or wrong. Each family's situation is different. Some ghost marriages are voluntary, and lovers finally get married. Others are forced by living family members for their own selfish interests. Even after becoming a ghost, they can't escape their family's control. Isn't that a tragedy?"
Taoist Bai remained silent after hearing this. This was indeed the case. He had never considered whether both parties were willing before.
But as Wei Mian said, money has to be given to the woman in a ghost marriage, and it is possible that some families want to squeeze the last bit of value out of their daughters.
The few of them soon arrived at Taoist Bai's residential area.
At this time, no one in the community was going to get married, and they saw manhole covers covered with red paper all the way to the downstairs of Taoist Bai's house.
He still lived on the first floor with a small courtyard, while Bai Tingxue's house was on the second floor.
This house was rented by Taoist Bai. He locked the door in the corridor and usually went in and out through a separate door in the courtyard. However, since they were going to Bai Tingxue's house, they had to go through the unit door.
When they walked around to the door of the unit at the back, they found that there was also a wedding character posted on it. It turned out that the person getting married was from the same unit as Bai Dao Shi. There were also many people standing and chatting downstairs, and they must have come to attend the wedding.
There were also people in the corridor, chatting in groups of three or four. When they saw someone going upstairs, they just moved slightly to the side.
"...He's been dead for half a month, and he's already marrying his son off, without even mentioning staggering the timing. How foul!"
A woman with a mole on the corner of her mouth said this while rolling her eyes.
"Who said she wasn't? Are you so impatient? She's your daughter after all. Waiting a little longer won't kill you. Even if it takes half a year, no one can say anything. It's only a few days, and you're still in the mood to help your son get married. Are you really her real mother?"
Another woman with permed hair echoed the sentiment, glancing upstairs from time to time. Anyone with sufficient eyes could see what she was saying.
"It's more than just heartless. You definitely don't know there's something else going on. Let me tell you, Bai Lao Er even arranged a ghost marriage for Tingxue from their family and took a betrothal gift of 188,000 yuan!"
The woman with a mole on the corner of her mouth rolled her eyes in disdain, obviously looking down on the Bai family's affairs.
But because it involved some feudal superstitions, I carefully lowered my voice for fear of being heard.
The instant noodle curl woman was immediately interested when she heard this. She exclaimed, "One hundred and eighty thousand! That's more than the price of a living person! My sister-in-law only got a hundred thousand as a betrothal gift when she got married, and my mother-in-law was so happy!"
The woman with the mole on the corner of her mouth sneered, "You don't understand. When a living person gets married, they have to prepare a wedding room and decorate it, and the wedding ceremony is also a huge expense. But when they get married like this, they can just be buried together in one coffin. It saves trouble and money, so of course they have to compensate more in other ways."
As Wei Mian walked by, he had heard all the conversations between the people. He couldn't help but sigh in his heart. It was very likely that Bai Tingxue was not married voluntarily, but was forced into a marriage by her family for the sake of interests.
The three of them walked through the crowd and soon arrived at the door of the Bai family. The door was wide open and the bride had been brought in. She was now calling them mom and dad!
Taoist Bai didn't care whether he was spoiling other people's fun or not. He just stood in the living room of the Bai family and watched Bai's father drinking tea with his daughter-in-law with a smile on his face, without any sadness for losing his daughter.
As an outsider, he felt sorry for Bai Tingxue, but Bai's father, as her father, had no reaction.
Taoist Bai turned to look at Wei Mian, wanting to ask her opinion, but saw that Wei Mian was staring at each member of the Bai family, even the bride.
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