The Candle Burns Red - Chapter 9

News of Lady Wu’s wedding spread through every corner of Niutou Town. People gathered outside her gates daily to point and whisper. Some even wagered on whether He Zijin would survive long enough to enter the house. To ease their fears, I staged a ritual to drive out evil.

The wedding was set for evening. At dusk the procession left to fetch the groom, and I went with them. He lived three li outside town at the foot of a mountain. The road passed the Wu family’s ancestral graves.

Once he joined us, we headed back amid the music of drums and wind instruments. The narrow mountain path was unlit. Our lanterns were the only lights, our wedding music the only sound. From horseback I could see wild grass taller than a person. Every bird startled from it made someone jump. If lonely ghosts wanted to appear, this was the place.

A scream suddenly came from the front. People fled in all directions as though they had seen a ghost. Then I saw it: a creature with the head of an ox and the body of a man.

Zhang Jingui had told the truth. There really was an ox-headed spirit. The procession was made up of locals, and terror seized them. Townsfolk had long told stories of an ox-headed being in the mountains that killed wicked people.

I pointed at it and shouted, “Monster! I am the Divine Maiden appointed by His Majesty. Surrender!” The procession crowded behind me, leaving me to face it alone. By lantern light I spotted a seam at its neck. Hah. A trick to play at ghosts and gods.

The creature roared and charged, axe raised. I formed a hand sign and muttered an incantation. Just as the blade was about to split my skull, I pointed with an empty hand. Something struck the creature’s forehead. It stumbled backward. I raised my hand again, and Pei Xiuwen, hidden nearby, fired another projectile. The creature fell to its knees.

I was enjoying myself until its ox-head mask flew off. “Isn’t that Wu Si?” someone cried. Wu Si covered his face and tried to run. Pei Xiuwen sprang from the shadows and kicked him to the ground.

The Wu mansion was full of guests. He Zijin arrived at the wedding banquet on time in bright red robes, followed by constables. From the seat of honor, Wu Youshan demanded to know why they had come.

“Wu Si has confessed. You ordered him to dress as an ox-headed spirit and kill He Zijin. Come with us, elder.” The constables arrested him. Alarmed by the disturbance, the guests hurried away, unwilling to be drawn into it.

Lady Wu insisted on finishing the wedding. Pei Xiuwen and I were the only two guests left to witness the couple bow to heaven and earth.

At the banquet I drank several cups of fruit wine on a whim. It was sweet and tart, almost like juice, but soon the room spun and there were two Pei Xiuwens in front of me.

“You’ve had too much. I’ll take you back to rest.”

His clean, cool scent surrounded me as he helped me to our courtyard. The night breeze made me shiver and burrow closer to him. “Behave yourself.”

Instead I pushed him against the stone table, looped my arms around his neck, and groped him shamelessly. My fingertip traced his brow and slid down. “Your eyes are like luminous pearls. Your nose is like a mountain.”

He laughed. “And my mouth?”

“Like cherries.”

His eyes darkened. “You said cherries were your favorite thing to eat.”

I swallowed. His red lips looked like one enormous, ripe cherry. I lunged and bit.

“Ah!” He winced, but instead of releasing me, he held me tighter and pinched my waist in revenge. The night turned tender and heated.

On her eighth attempt, Lady Wu finally married the man she loved. With Pei Xiuwen overseeing the case, the truth came out quickly.

After her father died, she had run the family business alone. Her wealth tempted her relatives. Wu Youshan had driven off the side branches that begged for money because he wanted it all for himself. Under the Wu family rules, if Lady Wu’s line died out, her estate would go to the clan, to be distributed by its head. So he had fed her poison slowly over the years.

Of the seven previous prospective husbands, Lady Wu had chosen only the first and fifth herself. Wu Youshan had supplied the others. Before each wedding he arranged to have the groom killed. Her reputation as a woman who brought death to her husbands spread, until no one dared marry into her household. Then He Zijin appeared, undeterred by the rumors.

Zhang Jingui had been a clerk in a Wu shop. Wu Youshan paid him to court Lady Wu. They fixed a wedding date, but Zhang overheard the plan to murder him. He fled Niutou Town in the night and encountered Wu Si, sent to kill him. He survived but lost his wits. For six months he wandered the hills and lived by stealing travelers’ packs.

The fifth groom had suspected the earlier deaths. He made an empty grave for Zhang Jingui to hide his survival from the killer. He saved Zhang, but could not save himself. Wu Youshan was sentenced to beheading for murder.

When I next saw Lady Wu, she gave us a whole chest of fine dragon-and-phoenix wedding candles. She looked gentle and radiant, at peace with He Zijin. I invited her to the capital for my wedding with Pei Xiuwen.

She looked alarmed. “I’m only a merchant. How could I come to the Pei house?”

I glanced at Pei Xiuwen for help. He said lightly, “Don’t look at me. You’re in charge of the household.”

Heat rose behind my ears.