Chapter 213: The Yellow Paper Ritual

2022-05-20

Once all was done, the Village Chief finally spoke up. “Actually, before Wu Xiufen married in, we all knew her future husband—well, the man she was coming here to marry, Zhang Qiang—didn’t have long to live. The old folks said his face carried a deathly pallor. Anyone could tell he wasn’t long for this world.”

I frowned. Clearly, there was more to the story than we knew.

“And then?” I couldn’t help but ask, curiosity eating at me.

The Village Chief flicked his cigarette butt to the ground and licked his chapped lips before turning to us. “Back then, I was already an adult. Didn’t know Zhang Qiang well, but people talked. Word was, something was wrong with his lungs. He coughed the whole day, like he was about to hack up his own lungs.”

“That serious?” I said, surprised.

The Village Chief nodded and slapped his hand on his leg. “Yeah, it was that bad. Any regular person would know his body couldn’t handle much. But Wu Xiufen didn’t seem to mind at all. In the end, Zhang Qiang died of a lung illness. Maybe it was cancer, I don’t really know. But you tell me, what would a wealthy and pretty woman want with a sickly, penniless man like that?”

I rested my chin on my hand and stayed silent.

The Village Chief continued, “People tried to talk Wu Xiufen out of it, told her marriage was a lifelong thing, not a joke. Sure, Zhang Qiang was one of us, but we couldn’t just watch a woman gamble her future on a man like that. Still, she was set on marrying him. You have to admit, that’s a little strange.”

“Strange,” I agreed with a nod.

Just then, the Village Chief’s wife brought out a few simple stir-fried dishes, followed by bowls of rice soup and fresh bread. After running around all day, I was genuinely hungry. Night had fallen, the horizon a hazy black.

“Eat up! We can talk while we eat,” the Village Chief beckoned to us.

After a few polite refusals—our stomachs got the best of us. Each of us grabbed a bread roll, eating as we waited for the rest of the story.

The Village Chief sipped some rice soup and broke a piece of bread, speaking between bites. “That’s the odd part. No one ever figured out how the two of them got together. Before this, none of us had ever seen Wu Xiufen. It was as if she just appeared out of thin air. Just a handful of encounters and suddenly, they were married.”

He swallowed the last of his bread and started on the vegetables. “But a wedding is always a happy occasion. No matter what, as long as they’re in love, that’s what matters. Marriage isn’t just about money or matching social status. If they love each other, that’s enough.”

The Village Chief’s wife joined the table. “Listen to you, all about love. Back then, wasn’t our marriage arranged by our families too?”

The Village Chief shot her a look. “Come on, you can’t compare others to us! Ours was fate. Destiny! One in a thousand…”

Honestly, the old couple still seemed content with each other. They weren’t shy about showing affection, even in front of us younger folks.

The Village Chief smiled at his wife, then continued, “So they got married. After a few years, the man’s parents both passed away. It happens. People get old. The thing is, the couple never had any kids. People in the village, you know—we love to gossip.”

We listened as we ate.

The Village Chief took another sip of soup. “Some people said Wu Xiufen couldn’t have kids. That’s why she married Zhang Qiang—nobody else wanted her. But no matter what they said, they never had a child.”

“In the end, Zhang Qiang died,” the Village Chief remarked. “Some lung problem, they said. He died when Wu Xiufen was about thirty. Afterwards, even though she was pretty, lots of bachelors didn’t mind she was widowed and tried to marry her. Wu Xiufen turned all of them down.”

The Village Chief sighed. “After that, some lonely old bachelors kept pestering her, but Wu Xiufen just stayed inside and never opened the door for anyone. Eventually, people gave up. It’s been over thirty years now—she’s in her sixties—but for all these years, Wu Xiufen has gone up the mountain every day to burn yellow paper for Zhang Qiang.”

“Every day?” I frowned, pressing him, “Are you sure? Every single day?”

The Village Chief sighed again. “Every day. At first, people mocked her, tried to take advantage. But with that kind of persistence, who could keep it up? The old lady really is as constant as the sun. It’s after six now. She’ll probably head up the mountain again around eight.”

I checked the time. Sure enough, it was already six-thirty.

The Village Chief fell silent, focusing on his food. He seemed lost in some quiet reflection.

The more I heard about it, the more off it all sounded. Men and women marrying late isn’t odd—but this marriage was. Wu Xiufen was from Dongxing City’s old town, not from Xingdong Village, and the Red Mill Factory wasn’t even located in our village.

A woman, carrying a decent amount of money, came to a place where she knew no one—and no one knew her—just to marry a man she had barely met. Everyone knew that man didn’t have long to live. There had to be a reason for such a marriage.

But what was it?

We finished our meal in silence. It was seven by the time we were done. The sky had turned completely dark. Sitting in the courtyard, I looked up. The sky was still a hazy gray, with just a few lonely stars twinkling down. Early spring nights were chilly, and the Village Chief and his wife began tidying up.

We agreed we’d have to stay at their place tonight, and the Village Chief readily agreed. There were plenty of extra rooms in the village.

We stepped outside, gathering by the old woman’s firewood stack, not far from her house, waiting for her to come out and burn the paper.

Time ticked by. One by one, the village houses went dark. There were no streetlights on the narrow paths, so darkness swallowed everything whole. We couldn’t use flashlights, so the seconds dragged by, stretching on and on. No telling how long we’d waited, when we finally heard a wooden door creak open.

All of us perked up, alert.

Wu Xiufen opened her wooden door, carrying a bundle of yellow paper. She pulled the door shut behind her, not even locking it—like she wasn’t afraid of anyone stealing. Wu Xiufen glanced around, found the coast clear, and set off toward the mountain behind the village.

Gu Chen gave us a hand signal, telling us to follow. When it came to tailing people, Gu Chen was the absolute best.

We kept about ten meters behind Wu Xiufen, moving slowly so we wouldn’t make a sound.

Then a scratch sounded in the dark—the scrape of a match. Soon, a little flame flickered in Wu Xiufen’s hand. She didn’t light all the yellow paper at once. Instead, she set fire to a few sheets at a time, walking steadily forward while tossing the burning pages into the air.

The yellow paper spun a few times, fluttering down to the ground and flickering out.

As Wu Xiufen walked, she mumbled words we couldn’t quite catch, almost like chanting a spell.

We followed her through the darkness, watching as she burned yellow paper, inching her way forward.

The deep night was utterly silent. Families in every house were settling down to sleep while darkness blanketed everything. The early spring wind cut through the air with a chilly bite, making us shiver now and then. Bits of yellow paper danced in the wind, swirling in every direction—like ghostly flames flitting through the night.

There she was—an old woman in a black coat, clutching a handful of yellow paper, chanting words that sounded like scripture. The wind made the trees hiss and moan, a wailing sound that felt like whispers brushing against our ears, filling the darkness from all sides.

She moved quickly, shuffling in little steps. The old woman kept tossing yellow paper into the air, using the fire as a makeshift lantern. Her route wound up the mountain path behind the village, and soon, she’d reached the foot of the slope.

She paused at the foot of the mountain, firelight flickering in her hand and casting monstrous shadows behind her, as if a demon loomed at her back. The bunch of us followed silently, holding our breath as she stood still for a few minutes, then scattered yellow paper all over the trail and started moving again.

We followed her up the mountainside.

Suddenly, the old woman pulled a thick stack of black paper from her pocket and started burning it.

We’d never seen anyone burn black paper before. We had no idea what Wu Xiufen was doing.

The more we watched, the more uneasy we felt. Because, by the end, Wu Xiufen had dropped to her knees. She moved forward on her knees, weeping and muttering words we couldn’t understand.

Our hearts pounded harder with every strange thing she did.

What on earth was Wu Xiufen doing? Had she really kept up this ritual, day after day, for more than thirty years?

The three of us exchanged glances. In that dim, uncertain glow, I saw nothing but confusion and a hint of fear in the others’ eyes.

Finally, Wu Xiufen stopped.

Up ahead, there was a tombstone, but we couldn’t make out the words carved into it.

Wu Xiufen wrapped her arms around the grave marker, speaking softly.

I craned my neck for a better view, but accidentally snapped a twig beneath my foot.

A crisp ‘snap’ rang out in the night.