36 Minghun

 

Life was never precious, especially when it was not yours. Based on my understanding, the dead body inside the palanquin had nothing to do with Wei Er’s gang. The families who arranged the Minghun sourced it themselves. Perhaps they traded with another group of grave robbers or they just picked a random grave and started to dig. 

The reason Wei Er’s team was at Lin Fen was not to trade in bodies but they had accepted Zhao Mingkun’s money to do something, what that something was, naturally I had no right to know.

…

When we saw the ‘bride’ again, she was standing straight inside a simple-constructed tent. The tent was about ten cubic metre in size and formed a rectangular shape. It had metallic beams and black canvas top. The tent was covered on all sides and an entrance was left open on the northern side. The body was situated right in the middle of the tent, to the both sides of it was a row of chairs. There were two wooden armchairs at the eastern side of the tent, they were probably meant for the groom’s parents.

Someone had strung rows of red candles on the tent’s metallic poles. The candlelight flickered in the wind. Paper money scattered outside the tent. Paper furniture, paper bungalows, paper cars were piled up to the corner. A paper pair of Golden Boy and Jade Girl guarded at the sides of the entrance. The whole thing was weird. The tent was situated at the foot of a nearby mountain, it would take about 20 minutes of walking to reach Ba Jia Zi district. There was no electricity so the source of light came from the candles. However, since there were so many candles, one could see clearly into the tent.

At this moment, we were squatting on a small mound which faced the entrance of the tent. Less than 24 hours ago, I saw this dead body singing inside a palanquin. The thought of it sent chills up my spine. In any case, I finally got a better look at this bride. I had to admit that she must have been beautiful before she died. Even in her lifeless state, there was an arresting beauty about her presence. Someone had done the make-up on the bride, giving her some lipstick and blush so that she looked more like a human. If not for the creepy atmosphere and the sad songs that were playing, I wouldn’t mind getting closer to have a good look.

Currently, the bride was in a big Chinese floor length red-colored gown. The voluminous dress wrapped up her body nicely. This meant that we couldn’t tell her cause of death from outside. There was a wooden plank placed at her neck to maintain her posture.

“She’s getting into the ground soon. The moment she is down there, I’ll dig a way into her grave and have a wedding night of my own. Lord, I can’t help myself even just from imagining it!” Ol’ Six beside me suddenly exclaimed. I turned to look and saw the man’s salacious gaze wandering over the dead female inside the tent. His eyes were almost falling out from his face. Then his whole body shook and a wet stain appeared around his crotch area. I looked at Ol’ Six with disbelief.

Zhao Mingkun frowned. She took a look at his crotch and then landed a kick on his backside. “Get back and change your pants, don’t forget the real reason we’re here.” Ol’ Six grinned wickedly and wandered off. After he left, Wei Er turned to the young man beside him to whisper. “Lil’ Three, go and follow Ol’ Six. Our stuff are back at the house, be on the lookout just in case he runs away with them.” Then Wei Er turned to glance at Zhao Mingkun beside him. Zhao Mingkun turned to meet his eyes. She commented lightly, “I have no interest in your things, you are perfectly clear with the reason why I’m here. As long as you can help me find him, the rest can be discussed.” Their conservation confused me deeply. However, through a brief interaction, I did get a sense of a few things. Zhao Mingkun did not belong to this team, she was merely in a working relationship with this gang of grave robbers led by Wei Er. And Wei Er’s team was not as united as it looked or else Wei Er wouldn’t send Lil Three to go watch over Ol’ Six.

Seeing the shock still remaining on my face, Wei Er chuckled. “That Ol’ Six has a fetish for dead bodies, apparently, it’s called necrophilia. Whenever we’re on the job, he would stop to spend some alone time with the dead bodies. The more rotten they are, the more alluring they are to Ol’ Six. That’s why it’s an inside joke among ourselves that one day, one of these female ghosts is going to come back to get him.” Wei Er laughed, “But honestly, if you go back to the roots, this is not really his fault.”

Wei Er looked at his phone, there was still time to the start of the wedding so he decided to regale me with Ol’ Six’s past. “Ol’ Six’s father was a necrophiliac himself. When Ol’ Six was around 7 or 8, his mother was caught by his father having an affair. His father did not say anything, he pretended like nothing happened. In fact, they even slept in the same bed that night. However, in the middle of the night, Ol’ Six heard commotion coming from his parent’s bedroom, so he went to check up on them. The lights in their bedroom were on. Ol’ Six pushed open the door. He saw his father fucking his mother while strangling her around her neck.

“Ol’ Six was stunned and he looked on silently. At the time, his mother was still alive, she kicked her legs violently. When she saw Ol’ Six walk in, she looked at him with pleading eyes but Ol’ Six was too flustered to do anything. His father literally fucked his mother to death.

“In the morning, his father told him that his mother deserved to die because she was a traitorous bitch. Ol’ Six was still too young to dare to say anything otherwise. It was not until a week later that the neighbours noticed something was wrong. When the police arrive, Ol’ Six’s father was fucking the dead body of the mother even though the body was already well into the decomposing stage.” At this point, the others sighed. Wei Er continued, “After that, Ol’ Six was left to walk the streets. He would take any odd jobs. Eventually he ran into a grave robber. The old robber pitied him so took him under his tutelage. The grave robber was our master and he had 6 disciples, Ol’ Six was the youngest. His necrophilia was hard to hide because we work with dead bodies. At the start, he would hide that habit from us but after walking into him for far too many times, he stopped pretending. He looks around 30 plus but actually he might be younger than you! We say he aged prematurely because his Yang energy had been drained by the corpses! We did try to hire him some prostitutes to help him kick the habit but it was to no avail. Nothing other than dead bodies could get him hard.”

Qian Er chimed in then. “I say we should just kick him out of the group. No one wants to work with a creep like him anyway. The last task he took with Little Three, he almost caused a big tragedy.”

“Have some heart. After all, he’s our youngest brother.” Wei Er shook his head.

Zhao Mingkun’s voice cut through the conversation. “It's already 10.30, the groom should be coming soon.”

Just as Zhao Mingkun finished, the sound of the suona horn came from the mountain road. It was playing a wedding tune but, in this circumstance, it just caused goosebumps to break out all over my body. Turning to the direction of the suona, I saw a small lantern moving in the dark.

“Remember what I need you to do.” Zhao Mingkun whispered. The men nodded. Zhao Mingkun turned to me and said, “Little brother, later you just stay here and don’t go wandering around, okay?” I had no idea what Zhao Mingkun and the guys were up to but it was impossible for me to stay put, but on the surface, I replied, “Okay, but do tell me when you’re leaving. Even though I have no idea what’s happening, it looks exciting.” Zhao Mingkun fluffed my head and stopped talking. The lantern came closer and eventually I could see them better.

The person holding the lantern was the same leading man carrying the dog’s head in the afternoon. Behind him was still the same group of palanquin carriers. But now they were not carrying a palanquin but a giant coffin. The coffin was large enough for 2 bodies. Looks like it was going to be a dual burial.

“Stop!” The leading man placed the lantern on the ground. The wedding guests surrounded the coffin and waited for the proceedings to begin.

“We’ll now welcome the groom’s parents to undo the first nail!” The leading man shouted loudly. A pair of 50 plus couples moved out from the crowd. They accepted the tool given to them and each yanked off a nail from the front of the coffin. However, as the nail flew out, fresh red blood slid down the gap of the black coffin.

“Ah!” The middle-aged man screamed in shock. The other guests were stunned as well. In fact, even we who watched from the mound almost cried in shock. The suona players stopped blowing the horn, the songs from the mobile speakers stopped playing. The place was so quiet that one could hear the drop of a pin. Even though the leading man had performed at many Minghuns, this was the first time he encountered something like this.

“Sensei, what, what is going on?” The groom’s father asked in a shaking voice.

“I, I don’t know either.” The leading man said, “I guess we better open the coffin to take a look.”

I asked in a whisper, “How long has their son died?”

Wei Er answered, “Based on what we heard, for some time already.”

“This is strange.” Qian San uttered, “How could a dead man’s blood be so fresh? In fact, a dead man shouldn’t even be bleeding.”

Zhao Mingkun signalled for everyone to keep quiet. “There’s only 1 possibility, it’s not his son inside the coffin. Today’s plan might be cancelled, I’ll reschedule the matter.” While we spoke, the leading man already started to pry open the coffin. The ceremony proceedings were halted, they needed to check the source of the blood first. The youths helped to pry open the lid. In a few seconds, the heavy coffin lid landed with a thud. Everyone finally got a glimpse of the person inside the coffin. His throat was cut and blood was still pouring. It looked like his windpipe was slashed. That was why he couldn’t scream for help and none of the coffin carriers heard his cries for help.

If not for Zhao Mingkun grabbing Wei Er’s shoulders, Wei Er would have rushed towards the coffin already.

“How can it be him?” I couldn’t help but gasp. Everyone’s expression darkened because it was none other than Little Three who was lying inside the coffin!

However, wasn’t he supposed to be watching over Ol’ Six? How did he end up dead inside the coffin? And where was Ol’ Six, was he the killer?