41 Chu Mei's Curse

 

As Dai Yu dug between her toes, she commented, “5 years have passed since then, I never thought someone would still be willing to pay to listen to my stories.” Then Dai Yu lifted her finger to her nose. “Smells good.” Guan Zhenglin and I shared a look and we frowned. This Dai Yu appeared to have jumped right into her new identity, the trauma from 5 years ago made her the woman she was today. Perhaps psychiatrist counselling might help but it did not look like the woman cared about it anymore. Chu Mei had a horrible death, but personally, I didn’t think Dai Yu was that lucky to have survived either. A once good student who enrolled in a prestigious university ended up like this. How could fate be so cruel?

Dai Yu mentioned 6 men gangraped Chu Mei and killed her. Could the six be the six brothers of graverobbers? When the name of Chu Mei was brought up, the six clearly had something to hide. However, since only Chu Mei and Dai Yu knew when they were going to return that night, the gang of rapists probably acted out of opportunity. In other words, there was no reason for those rapists to get to know the names of the 2 girls. If that was the case, why did the grave robbers reacted so strangely when Chu Mei’s name was mentioned?

With so many holes in the story, it was hard to smooth out any clue. Dai Yu placed the dirt she dug out from her toes on the table and looked at it with interest. I could feel my stomach turning.

“But we’re not here for that.” Zhao Mingkun continued without a flinch to her expression, it was as if she couldn’t smell the thing. “We encountered something strange yesterday night. The villagers all said that Chu Mei has returned. Why would they say that? Has something else happened after Chu Mei’s death?”

At this point, Dai Yu’s hands halted and a glint erupted from her beady eyes. “Do you believe in ghosts?” Hearing that, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the wailing ghost bride in our yard yesterday night. She was still in her wedding gown. If it was the same dead woman from the Minghun, then who was she? And how did she follow us to our resting place?

Dai Yu’s words reminded me of something, this might be the opening I was looking for.

Zhao Mingkun raised her brow and said with a smile. “I’ve been eager to have a supernatural encounter but so far, all the ghosts I’ve met would run away whenever the humans arrive.” In other words, Zhao Mingkun believed that it was not a ghost inside the yard but someone playing a trick on us. Dai Yu returned to digging between her toes. “Since you don’t believe in ghosts, then I have nothing else to say.”

Despite her appearance, this Dai Yu was quite insolent. Looks like we were not going to get anything else if we didn’t follow her set rules in conversation, so I quickly added, “Sister Dai Yu, please don’t scare me. The thing from yesterday night almost made me shit in my pants, or else I wouldn’t have my big sister come to visit you and ask you about these.”

Dai Yu glanced at me and said, “Your younger brother is a much better conversationalist.” Then we were rewarded with yet another story. Chu Mei died in the cornfield and her murderers were nowhere to be seen. However a person’s death went far beyond the physical expenditure of one’s body. Even though Chu Mei had departed from this world, the stories around Chu Mei did not end there. The history of Minghun at Ba Jia Zi district was long and deep. A young and pretty girl like Chu Mei was a prime choice for Minghun. Even though the rapist had already smashed the back of her head in, the face wasn’t injured at all. After some patchwork done by the workers at the funeral home, Chu Mei returned as a beauty. Even after death, the prettier ones were worth more than the ugly ones.

Around the same time, Ol’ Huang’s son died in a car accident, the driver paid Ol’ Huang 300000 RMB as compensation. That amount was quite big in a small district like this. However, Ol’ Huang only had one son and no amount of money was going to bring him back. Someone had put a price tag on the son’s life and it was worth 300000 RMB. No matter how hard the two old parents spent, the money didn’t seem to decrease. The pair of old parents finally decided to use the money to find a wife for their dead son. The middleman showed them many different dead girls but none of them was up to the old parents’ standard. They only wanted the prettiest girl for their son. She didn’t need to be wifely or gentle, she only needed to be pretty. Their son already missed out on the fun in life, he should be able to enjoy himself in death. Therefore, finding a beautiful dead girl became the only goal driving the old parents forward.

Half a year after that, Chu Mei died. Chu Mei was a pretty woman when she was alive and her death did nothing to take away from her beauty. The Chu Family wanted to hold a Minghun for their daughter too. Traditionally only the groom would hold Minghun but Chu Mei’s father claimed to be a liberal person. He questioned why the privilege should be limited to men? He immediately contacted Ol’ Huang. After all, Ol’ Huang’s son had just died half a year ago, he was the perfect groom candidate and most importantly, Ol’ Huang would come bearing 300000 RMB.

That was the biggest Minghun the district had ever seen. Even though it was held at midnight, almost the entire village attended. Even a living marriage wouldn’t attract such a full attendance. 20 tables were placed under the night sky. Ol’ Huang and his wife and Ol’ Chu and his wife sat inside the tent. They were waiting for the Minghun to proceed. The parents of the couple looked at each other, there was a need to fill the void but neither of them knew what to say. A coffin for couple burial was placed in the middle of the tent. The friends and families from both families came. Some of the attendees came from outside the district and had not attended a Minghun before. They were quite conflicted, they had no idea whether to cry or to laugh when the ceremony began.

Soon two individual coffins were brought out and the Minghun finally began. According to tradition, the bride and groom would first bow to the heavens, bow to their parents and finally bow to each other before they could enter the nuptial chamber, which in this case was the large coffin. There were two hosts who directed this Minghun, one of them came in carrying Ol’ Huang’s son and the other carried Chu Mei.

First bow to the heavens.

The wind caused the candles inside the tent to dance.

Second bow to the parents.

People could hear whisperings appear from the silent night.

Third bow to each other.

When the bride and groom bowed towards each other, they had the attention of all the wedding guests. But suddenly cups shattered and chopsticks fell to the ground. People screamed and others got knocked to the ground. This was because they saw Ol’ Huang’s head suddenly got detached from his shoulders and rolled down to the floor. The head rolled about before stopping right at his future daughter-in-law’s feet. His eyes were open as he took in the bride and groom.

No one knew what really happened. Blood squirted everywhere and dyed the bride and groom red. Ol’ Chu and his wife screamed and were the first to escape from the tent. The hosts glanced at each other, dropped the bodies and ran.

People screamed, stomped and panicked. Tables were turned, the candles all went out and the horrifying voice appeared. It sounded like the cries of a female ghost, it was sometimes shrill and other times deep. It continued endlessly through the night.

Someone gained enough sense to call the police. When the police arrived, Chu Mei’s body was gone. Someone said they saw Chu Mei walk out from the tent. At the time, the situation was so chaotic and there was no light. The candles were all snuffed out so no one could really see anything. People knocked into tables and into each other. A 15 years old young man was knocked to the ground and scurried under a table for fear of being trampled on. He heard sounds coming from inside the tent and then he saw someone, or more accurately, a dead woman walk out from the tent.

It was Chu Mei’s body, she was still wearing her wedding dress. The scarlet was particularly eye-grabbing in the dark, like a flame flickering. The noise faded away and the young man’s mind was fully captivated by this sight. Despite his young age, he had been to many Minghun before and this was the first time he encountered something like this. Chu Mei walked very slowly, the train of her dress dragging on the ground. Even though the young man couldn’t see her feet, he could feel that Chu Mei was not walking but it felt more like she was floating. Eventually, she disappeared into the night.

After that, no one dared to arrange Minghun anymore. The rumors were that Minghun would only cause tragedy and death. As the father of the groom, Ol’ Huang was the one who arranged this marriage, and that was why he had to die. Eventually, that became known as Chu Mei’s curse. Some families refused to believe in the rumors and continued to hold Minghun but without accident, everyone who arranged the marriages had died in inexplicable ways. Some were found drowned in the river, others died from carbon monoxide poisoning. After enough deaths, no one dared to perform Minghun anymore… that was until recently when the Zheng Family’s son died in an accident. Ol’ Zheng refused to believe in the rumors and started to organize a Minghun.

The villagers came to persuade Ol’ Zheng to learn from the mistakes of the precedents. Ol’ Zheng exclaimed, “These are just superstitions. We’re already living in the 21st century, how can you people even believe that ghosts can kill people? Such superstition! The Minghun will be held no matter what!”

But as everyone expected, an accident did happen. The voice they heard was the voice from Chu Mei’s Minghun five years ago, that was why the villagers said Chu Mei had returned. Since Chu Mei had returned, it meant that someone must die. However, this time it was not the organizer who died, instead it was a grave robber called Little Three.

The bride disappeared during both Chu Mei’s Minghun and this Minghun. Had all the brides disappeared from each earlier Minghun? I had to find out more.

I was suddenly reminded of a person, someone with necrophilia. His favorite hobby was to have sex with female corpse. Was Ol’ Six already in Ba Jia Zi district 5 years ago? Was Ol’ Six present during the other Minghuns? Was it really Ol’ Six’s body standing outside Wei Er’s base with all the skin missing, the eyes gouged out and the face seriously damaged? Was it possible that Ol’ Six had found a scapegoat to fake his own death?

“I’ve told you everything I know.” Dai Yu suddenly said in a serious tone. “I am glad to share my stories with anyone who asks because the more people who know about this, the greater the hope of the police capturing Chu Mei’s killers.”

“Then do you really believe that Chu Mei has returned as a banshee to kill people?” I asked.

Dai Yu laughed. “Of course not, I was after all an educated university student! Furthermore, if Chu Mei really did return, she should have come to visit me first.” That was true, Chu Mei and Dai Yu were best friends. “To be honest, I was very afraid of ghosts in the past even though I know they aren’t real but that fear disappeared after Chu Mei’s death.” Dai Yu said in a light, lingering voice.