Chapter 41: Chu Mei’s Curse

2022-05-20

Daiyu said, “It’s been five years, yet there are still people willing to pay to hear my story.”

Guan Zengbin and I exchanged a glance, our brows tightening just a little. It was clear Daiyu had grown used to her unkempt life. Whether she’d let go of what happened five years ago wasn’t clear, but judging by her current state, maybe it didn’t even matter to her anymore. As tragic as Chu Mei’s death was, sometimes it’s the ones left living who end up suffering most.

A girl who once made it into a prestigious university, now reduced to this. She might never have been pretty, but even so, you couldn’t help but feel for her.

Daiyu mentioned six people—could she be talking about those six brothers? I remembered that when Chu Mei was first brought up, those guys seemed nervous, like they were hiding something.

But only Daiyu and Chu Mei knew exactly when they went home. This group must’ve acted on a whim. If that’s the case, they probably didn’t even know either woman’s name. So, what is it the grave robbers are really afraid of?

Everything is just speculation at this point. Trying to piece together a real clue seems impossible right now.

“But that’s not the point.” Zhao Mingkun’s face held steady, unfazed by even the musty smell all around him. “Last night at our place, something strange happened. People in the village say Chu Mei has come back. After Chu Mei died, did anything else happen?”

Daiyu’s hands paused just a second, a light flaring in her narrow eyes. “Do you believe there are ghosts in this world?”

Her words instantly brought back the image of the weeping woman I’d seen in our courtyard the night before. She’d worn the same dress we’d seen on the corpse during the ghost marriage. If the one in the courtyard really was that corpse, then what’s her real identity? Who brought her back?

Daiyu’s question felt like a clue I could actually follow.

Zhao Mingkun raised an eyebrow and gave a wry smile. “If I ever really met a ghost, that’d be something. But I’ve never heard of ghosts being afraid of living people.”

In other words, Zhao Mingkun also believed what showed up in the courtyard wasn’t a ghost, but someone pretending.

Daiyu put her hands on her other foot. “Since you don’t believe in ghosts, then there’s nothing more for me to say.”

Ugly as she was, Daiyu had a stubborn streak. If you didn’t go along with her, she wasn’t about to keep talking. I jumped in quickly, “Come on, Daiyu, ghosts freak me out for real. Last night I was so scared I nearly lost control. That’s why I asked my sister to come talk to you.”

She glanced at me. “Your brother sure knows how to talk.”

That was the beginning of another story.

Chu Mei died on the spot; the killer vanished without a trace.

But a person’s death doesn’t end with the destruction of their body. Even if Chu Mei was gone, her story kept going.

Jiazi County has a long history of ghost marriages, and someone as young and beautiful as Chu Mei was a top candidate. Her face remained untouched, and with some patchwork from the funeral home, she was a beauty even after death.

Even dead, a beautiful corpse is worth more than the rest.

Back then, Old Huang’s son was killed in a car accident, and the driver paid the family three hundred thousand yuan in compensation. In a small county like this, that’s a lot of money. But Old Huang’s only son was gone, and the old couple could only stare at the money and cry.

Turns out, a life is worth exactly as much as three neat stacks of bills. No matter how they tried, the old couple couldn’t find a way to spend all that money.

All they wanted was to find their son a good wife. Many bodies were suggested by matchmakers, but Old Huang and his wife refused every time. Only a beautiful woman would do. They didn’t care if she was gentle or virtuous—looks were all that mattered.

If life was already so hard, why not indulge a little after death?

All they wanted before they died was a beautiful corpse for their son.

Half a year later, Chu Mei passed away.

She was a beautiful woman when alive—and an even more beautiful corpse.

The Chu family needed to arrange a ghost marriage for their daughter, too. Father Chu said he was a modern man, and that women deserved equality, even after death. Old Huang’s son had died just six months before, and the match seemed perfect—especially since the Huang family brought three hundred thousand yuan.

This became Jiazi County’s grandest ghost marriage yet. Even though it happened at midnight, the place was packed.

Some people never even had such a lavish wedding while alive. Twenty tables of food were laid out beneath the stars. Old Huang and Old Chu, along with their spouses, sat inside the mourning tent. Both families were waiting to complete a crucial ritual. They stared at one another, wanting to talk but not knowing where to start.

A joint burial coffin stood at the center of the tent.

Both families’ friends and relatives were there, unsure if they should laugh or cry when the wedding began.

Two coffins were carried out, and the ghost marriage went ahead as planned.

By tradition, the newlyweds would bow to heaven and earth, bow to their parents, then bow to each other. The final ‘bridal chamber’ was, of course, the coffin.

The two officiants each supported one of the ‘newlyweds’—one held Old Huang’s son, the other held Chu Mei.

First bow to heaven and earth.

The wind made the candles in the tent flicker.

Second bow to the parents.

It was as if a soft whisper drifted through the dark night.

Husband and wife bow to each other.

Just as the couple finished this last bow, Old Huang and his wife stared hard at them. But then something happened that stunned everyone. Wine glasses clattered to the ground, chopsticks fell, and some people even landed hard on their backsides.

Old Huang’s head rolled off his shoulders.

The head rolled in a circle, stopping right at Chu Mei’s feet.

His eyes were still fixed on the couple. Maybe they’d finally be reunited below.

The Chu couple screamed and bolted out first.

The officiants glanced at each other, dropped the corpses, and ran.

Everyone screamed and scattered, knocking over the outside banquet in their panic. All the candles went out at some point, and then a haunting sound echoed in the pitch-black night. Like the wailing of a female ghost, sometimes low, sometimes shrill, it went on and on into the darkness, chilling everyone to the bone.

Someone called the police.

By the time they arrived, Chu Mei’s corpse was gone.

People said they saw her body leaving the tent on its own.

It had been absolute chaos. The moon was barely visible, the candles had all gone out, and you couldn’t see a thing. People crashed into tables and stepped on each other in the confusion. A fifteen-year-old boy, scared of getting trampled, hid under a round table.

He heard strange noises from the tent—and then he saw someone coming out.

More accurately, a corpse stepped out.

It was Chu Mei. She still wore that bright red long dress. The scarlet skirt glowed like fire in the pitch black. The shouting faded away, and the boy’s mind went completely blank. Despite having attended countless ghost marriages, he’d never seen anything like this.

Chu Mei moved slowly, her dress dragging along the ground. The boy couldn’t see her feet, but somehow he knew she wasn’t walking—she was gliding just above the ground. Slowly, her form faded into the night.

Nobody dared arrange ghost marriages anymore.

News started spreading: those who arranged ghost marriages would die horribly. Because Old Huang organized the last one, he had to die.

That became known as Chu Mei’s curse.

Some still refused to believe it and kept up the old traditions. But just as expected, everyone involved in organizing a ghost marriage ended up dying in bizarre ways. Some were found drowned in rivers, others poisoned by carbon monoxide. As more and more cases piled up, people stopped arranging ghost marriages completely.

But then the Zheng family’s son died accidentally, and Old Zheng refused to believe in curses. He started arranging a ghost marriage anyway.

Someone tried to convince him to think twice, to remember what had happened before.

But Old Zheng just said, “That’s all superstition. We’re living in the 21st century—how can anyone believe in ghosts? Forget the curse, the wedding goes on!”

Predictably, disaster struck again.

That same eerie sound from Chu Mei’s wedding five years ago echoed through the night. Everyone who’d been at the original wedding insisted Chu Mei was back. But if she was really back, someone would have to die. This time, though, it wasn’t the wedding organizer—it was someone named San.

Chu Mei’s corpse vanished, along with this wedding’s body. Could it be that every ghost marriage results in a missing corpse? That needed to be investigated.

Suddenly, I remembered someone—Lao Liu.

Was Lao Liu still in Jiazi County five years ago? Was he there for the later ghost marriages, too?

Could it be the corpse outside Brother Wei Two’s courtyard wasn’t Lao Liu’s at all? His face was badly mutilated, impossible to recognize. Maybe Lao Liu found himself a stand-in and faked his death.

“This is everything I know,” Daiyu said, suddenly serious. “The reason I share these stories is because the more people know, the more hope there is to find those guys.”

“So do you really believe Chu Mei came back as a vengeful ghost?” I asked.

Daiyu burst out laughing. “I’m a college girl—how could I believe in that? Besides, if Chu Mei really became a ghost, she’d come looking for me first.”

Yeah, Chu Mei and Daiyu were best friends.

“Honestly, I used to be scared of ghosts, even though I knew they weren’t real. But after Chu Mei… I’m not scared anymore.”

Daiyu’s voice grew soft and gentle.