The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 98

“The auspicious hour has arrived—”

The cries in the courtyard rose louder and louder.

Li Daniu was bound with rope and shoved into the main hall.

White flowers hung everywhere inside, and white paper characters for double happiness covered the walls. Two white candles burned on the altar table in the center.

Every window had been shut. The room was thick with the scent of sandalwood.

Li Daniu opened his mouth to plead, but the men holding him forced him to stand in the middle of the hall.

Another voice called out, “The auspicious hour has arrived—the bride and groom will now perform the wedding bows.”

Li Daniu watched in despair as a woman dressed in white wedding robes was carried rigidly forward, supported on either side by two sturdy serving women.

They placed her beside him.

A white bridal veil covered the woman’s head, concealing her condition.

Tears slid down Li Daniu’s cheeks.

He begged Master Zhang, who sat expressionlessly at the head of the hall.

“Master, spare me! Please spare me! This has nothing to do with me. I only…”

Only what?

He could not say what he had done wrong to deserve this fate.

Master Zhang wore black, his hands resting on his knees as he stared coldly at Li Daniu.

“My daughter died because of you. How can you claim this has nothing to do with you?”

He gave a cold snort.

“My good son-in-law, stop making trouble. Think of your father. Proceed with the ceremony.”

His final words were addressed to the master of ceremonies in the hall.

The man drew a breath and cried, “Make your bows—”

The deliberately prolonged call was like a blade of ice slowly piercing Li Daniu’s body.

Think of his father.

He gritted his teeth and stopped struggling or begging.

“First bow—to Heaven and Earth.”

They forced Li Daniu to his knees before Master Zhang.

The rigid woman beside him was also manipulated into kneeling by the two strong servants.

Li Daniu’s forehead struck the floorboards heavily.

He glanced sideways but saw only the white veil hanging down.

“Second bow—to the honored parent.”

“Husband and wife bow to each other.”

“The ceremony is complete!”

When the master of ceremonies shouted those words, the tension in Li Daniu’s heart eased.

He said nothing and waited to learn what they would do with him next.

When he raised his head, however, he found everyone in the room staring at him.

“Escort them to the bridal chamber—”

Li Daniu shuddered violently. He could not understand how the Zhang family could carry matters this far.

He was given no time to understand. Men seized him and shoved him into a room.

Its windows had been sealed tight.

The woman who had bowed beside him now lay on a bed covered with white flowers and a quilt patterned with double-happiness characters.

She had been arranged in a perfectly peaceful pose, her hands folded over her lower abdomen.

The exposed hands bore the blue-gray skin peculiar to the dead. All ten fingernails were purple.

Li Daniu was pushed to the bedside.

A wedding matron dressed in white, a white cloth wrapped around her head and thick white powder covering her face, handed him a weighing rod.

“Groom, please lift the bride’s veil.”

Li Daniu shook his head and backed away.

Two powerful guards pinned him from behind.

After hesitating for a long time, he stretched out his arms, still bound with hemp rope, and accepted the black weighing rod with trembling hands.

He slid it beneath the white veil.

Li Daniu tried several times, but he could not find the courage to lift it.

At last, the wedding matron stepped forward impatiently. Taking Li Daniu’s hand, she used it to raise the veil.

The first thing he saw was a face as white and swollen as a steamed bun. The second was the short length of dark purple tongue protruding between thin lips.

Unlike the tongues of hanged ghosts in popular tales, it did not trail far from her mouth.

It merely hung crookedly against her chin, speckled with some of the fragrant white powder those people had applied to Miss Zhang’s face.

Li Daniu collapsed onto the floor.

The wedding matron ignored him. She left with the two guards.

The door creaked shut, and the sound of a lock followed.

Only Li Daniu and the corpse on the bed remained in the room.

On the round table, white dragon-and-phoenix wedding candles burned silently.

Li Daniu did not dare approach the bed. He fled to the farthest corner, drew up his knees, and huddled against the wall.

He closed his eyes in terror and covered his head with his bound hands.

Perhaps he was simply too frightened.

The instant he shut his eyes, he felt someone watching him from very close by.

Startled, he snapped them open.

No ghostly face had appeared before his nose as he had imagined.

The corpse still lay obediently on the bed.

Yet whenever his frightened gaze left the corpse, the sensation of being watched returned.

He did not dare relax for a moment. His eyes grew so dry that he imagined even a blink would make a scraping sound.

But every time his eyelids closed or his gaze strayed, that terrifyingly distinct sensation emerged again.

The night wind blew, and tree shadows swayed outside.

Li Daniu endured the entire night like that.

When a rooster crowed the next morning, tears of joy spilled from his eyes.

After daybreak, the door that had remained locked all night finally opened.

Several serving women entered and began changing the dead woman’s burial clothes.

Li Daniu was treated like a dog. They stripped off his wedding robes and dressed him in white hemp mourning bands.

The Zhang household bustled about arranging Miss Zhang’s funeral.

As her husband, Li Daniu attended his wife’s burial.

With his own hands, he placed the final handful of earth upon her grave.

Master Zhang’s expression remained as cold as before.

“You will mourn your wife for three years. If you dare take another wife during that time, hmph!”

Master Zhang left the threat unfinished, but everyone understood what he meant.

He continued, “Afterward, no matter whom you marry, she must kowtow to my daughter. Any children you have must do the same.”

Someone brought over an object wrapped in black cloth. It was flat and rectangular. One touch was enough to identify it as a spirit tablet.

Two large silver ingots were presented along with it, totaling roughly fifty taels.

Haggard and listless, Li Daniu accepted both and held them to his chest.

Master Zhang no longer looked at him. Turning his back, he stood silently before the new grave.

Li Daniu stumbled home.

Before he even entered the village, his father found him, crushed him in an embrace, and wept bitterly.

By then, everyone knew Miss Zhang was dead.

Everyone also knew that Li Daniu now had a wife.

The villagers gathered around, all offering consolation at once.

But their gazes felt like knives to Li Daniu.

Every word of comfort sounded like mockery.

Like a walking corpse, he returned home.

He buried the spirit tablet at the bottom of a chest, tore the white cloth from his head, and fell onto his bed in an exhausted sleep.

He slept deeply.

By the time he woke, it was already the next day.

Daylight streamed into the bedroom and fell across Li Daniu’s face.

He opened his eyes and told himself that life had to go on.

He prepared to rise, but his hand suddenly brushed something cold and hard beside him.

The earthy smell of fresh soil entered his nose.

He turned his head.

The wife he had buried the day before lay at his side.

She was still dressed in the burial clothes in which she had been interred.