Chapter 2: Old Matters
Feng Yuzhen was used to being a ghost; it had only been two days since her rebirth. She was still in a daze, surrounded by a throng of relatives offering their condolences with a cacophony of voices, and seeing her husband’s black coffin once again.
Today, however, the fright from Cui Jingkong had startled her into a sweat, which paradoxically made her feel the reality of being alive again.
A woman in a blue satin jacket and skirt lifted the gauze curtain and walked in, pulling over a stool from across the room to sit down.
She grabbed Feng Yuzhen’s two cold hands and rubbed them in her own palms to warm them, asking bluntly, “Cui Er told me he’s staying here for two days. Zhen’niang, what’s going on?”
Feng Yuzhen roused herself and hurriedly explained, “Little Brother-in-law discussed it with me. I’ll be living with him in the west of the village from now on. I thought the main residence is crowded, and it would probably be difficult to spare an empty room for me, so I agreed.
“Because of this, he’ll have to make do at the ancestral hall for these two days. I didn’t expect to trouble First Aunt.”
First Aunt—Liu Guilan—raised her eyebrows, her anger flaring. “Who told you that nonsense? How is there no room at the main residence? At worst, you can sleep with Wan’jie. It’s just a matter of adding another bed. Can’t we accommodate a woman who doesn’t even eat half a bowl of rice?”
Her husband was the Cui clan leader. She bustled about daily, managing the food and clothing for over twenty people in the main residence. It couldn’t be said that she wasn’t dedicated.
This remark had clearly struck a nerve with her, almost as if she were shouting that taking in one more widow would encroach on someone’s personal territory. No wonder she was upset.
Seeing Liu Guilan’s angry tone, Feng Yuzhen knew her excuse was a poor one. The words she had prepared were stuck in her throat.
After a long while, she finally spoke, “Before Brother Ze passed, he held my hand and told me that this is the only brother he has left. Though they weren’t close in this life, blood is still thicker than water, and he was very reluctant to part. He begged me to look after him…”
Her voice grew increasingly sorrowful. As her emotions deepened, the lie became truth. Thinking of Cui Ze, who had died young in both lives, two streams of tears rolled down her cheeks.
Liu Guilan’s sharp tongue could only soften. She embraced the weeping Feng Yuzhen, crying out, “My poor Ze’ge, my poor niece-in-law!” The two of them cried together, and the matter was considered settled.
In her previous life, Liu Guilan had been magnanimous and generous, treating her like her own daughter. The two years under her care had not been difficult.
Unfortunately, Liu Guilan had caught a chill after being caught in the rain and passed away after three days of unrelenting high fever. After that, Feng Yuzhen’s situation at the main residence took a sharp downturn, ultimately leading to her tragic death.
Feng Yuzhen was held tightly. She rested her head on the older woman’s warm chest, her tears flowing like two small rivers, gushing out endlessly as if to cry out all the pain and helplessness of two lifetimes.
Lost in this rare, cathartic cry, she didn’t notice the corner of a green robe flit past the doorway.
The last glimmer of golden light from the setting sun vanished as night fell. Soon, darkness crept in. In the inky-blue expanse of the sky, a few stars twinkled, hidden among the clouds.
The Daoist master invited to perform the salvation rites for Cui Ze had already set up his altar in the courtyard. A long table was covered with a yellow silk cloth, upon which were several talismans with inscribed incantations and various bottles and jars.
Feng Yuzhen came out with her eyes swollen like walnuts and came face to face with Cui Jingkong, who was also heading into the courtyard.
The young man glanced at her red-rimmed eyes and tactfully stepped back, not wishing to cause her further embarrassment.
“My condolences, Sister-in-law,” Cui Jingkong’s voice was steady, with a crispness like the clinking of jade, as if he were a completely detached observer.
Feng Yuzhen paused, nodded haphazardly, and quickened her pace, her heart filled with complex emotions.
Compared to her, a new bride who had only been with her husband for half a year, Cui Jingkong was the one who had lost his own brother, his blood kin. Yet he was the one consoling her to restrain her grief. There was something faintly absurd about it.
The sound of the gong for the first watch reached the Cui Clan Ancestral Hall, its sound drifting leisurely.
Although she had experienced the ritual once in her past life, Feng Yuzhen was even more devout this time.
The couple had no children. Cui Ze was five years older than Feng Yuzhen, and she had looked upon him as half an elder brother. Feng Yuzhen and Cui Jingkong knelt on both knees at the very front. She practically prostrated her entire body, her forehead pressed tightly against the green bricks.
She rose, clasped her palms, and lowered her eyes, chanting scriptures along with the Daoist master. The warm candlelight illuminated the side of her face.
The Daoist master picked up the bottles and jars and, with a wave of his arm, scattered their contents into the air. The powders, made from who knows what, fell upon everyone, and the ritual concluded amidst a haze of gray and green dust.
Four young men of the Cui clan lifted the coffin. The mourning relatives followed behind, scattering handfuls of white paper money that fluttered like snow filling the sky.
The throng of people, accompanied by the sounds of pipes and drums, made their way to the Cui family’s ancestral graves.
It was the local custom that when one spouse was being buried, the other should stay away, for fear that they would be overcome with grief and, in a moment of despair, follow the deceased.
Feng Yuzhen watched their figures recede into the distance. She leaned against the doorframe, craning her neck until she could see them no more. Her bad leg grew numb from standing, and her eyes stung with a dry pain.
She thought, if only she had “awakened” earlier, how wonderful it would have been to prevent Cui Ze’s death.
During their half-year of marriage as an older husband and younger wife, Cui Ze had always been accommodating and considerate towards her. This was one of the very few sweet things she had tasted in her short life that was truly her own.
Alas, in the end, they were fated to be together but not for long.
It was nearly the second watch of the night by the time everyone returned. Feng Yuzhen and a few other women had prepared a large pot of cabbage and dough drop soup in advance to warm everyone up.
There were no delicacies to be had in the village during winter. A few drops of lard were enough to make it delicious, and just looking at the steam rising from the soup was warming.
The men found places to squat, slurping down their bowls in three noisy gulps. The women gathered in the house, eating at a more leisurely pace. The village wasn’t particular about such things. As they ate, someone casually brought it up: “Zhen’niang, what are your plans for the future?”
The speaker was a woman surnamed Li. Auntie Li had lived near Cui Ze’s parents—Third Master Cui and his wife—when they were still alive. They had been good neighbors and had a friendly relationship, so she was now helping out due to their past connection. She had no ill intentions, only a habit of being a gossip.
She didn’t wait for Feng Yuzhen to answer, quickly moving on to a more pressing point. “It’s been seven or eight years, and this is the first time I’ve seen Cui Er. When we were coming back, I looked again and he was gone. I thought I was dreaming. I had to ask someone else to know I hadn’t seen wrong.
“Don’t blame me for scaring you, but that scholar brother-in-law of yours… there’s something uncanny about him.”
Seeing several pairs of curious eyes peeking out from over their bowls, mostly from new brides who didn’t know the old stories, Auntie Li felt more motivated to continue:
“He was in a hurry to come out of the womb before his time was due. The front foot he was carried out on, the back foot his own mother breathed her last.
“When other children of five or six were running all over the place, Cui Er couldn’t even utter a single word. Back then, the neighbors all suspected he was a simpleton.
“Later, something happened. Third Master Cui took him to a temple on the mountain to see a high monk. Two days later, we only heard that the two of them had rolled down the mountain in the middle of the night. The only one who came back was a child, along with Third Master Cui’s already cold corpse…”
“Alright, what’s the point of talking about these old, rotten matters? Can you blame a child for what happened to the Third Master?”
Seeing her getting more and more carried away, Liu Guilan cut in promptly, “It’s getting late. Everyone’s been tired these past few days. Let’s get some rest.”
Auntie Li could only stop, and people buried their heads back in their bowls.
Liu Guilan saw that Feng Yuzhen looked very pale, holding her bowl and staring blankly into space. Thinking she had been frightened by the alarmist talk, she nudged her. “Finished eating? Go and tidy up outside first.”
Feng Yuzhen pressed her lips together and acknowledged, knowing this was a way for her to get some fresh air.
She placed the empty bowl by the stove, her mind still heavy. Regarding Cui Jingkong’s bizarre and convoluted past, perhaps no one knew it better than her, aside from Cui Jingkong himself. It was precisely because of this that her fear of this person was so deeply rooted.
Cui Jingkong: lost his parents at a young age, was taken in by Lingfu Temple on Mount Qian at the age of five. He was suddenly cast out at ten to fend for himself, surviving for two difficult years by eating wild grass and tree bark. One day, by a stroke of great luck, he was taken in by a newly arrived teacher.
Few people knew about these unseemly old matters. The villagers now only knew of titles like “Scholar Cui Er.”
Auntie Li clearly only knew the gist of it. In truth, no one in the village knew what had really happened on the mountain that day.
Before the age of five, Cui Jingkong was not called Cui Jingkong. He was given that name after being taken in by the temple.
That day, the abbot had spent a long time alone with Third Master Cui. Late at night, he had insisted they not stay at the temple and had driven them out.
Third Master Cui had no choice but to descend the mountain in the dark of night. The adult carried the child, and with one misstep, they tumbled down.
The day after they fell, when the pilgrims rushing to offer the first incense of the day found him, his head was cracked open, and half his face was a bloody mess, as if gnawed by a wild beast.
Large patches of dark red stained several stone steps; he had died from bleeding out his last drop of blood. In the arms of the stiff-bodied Third Master Cui, his young son was staring with a pair of round, childish eyes, dried blood caking the corners of his mouth…
Thinking of those eyes, the four words “lone star of ill omen” involuntarily came to mind, and her blood ran cold.
I can’t think about it too deeply, Feng Yuzhen comforted herself. After Cui Jingkong became the top scholar, he was granted a marriage to a princess by the Emperor. He was promoted all the way up the ranks. Didn’t the Third Princess, as the person who shared his bed, live a life of luxury until she was thirty?
As for what happened after that, the storybook Feng Yuzhen had seen was incomplete. The scenes had stopped abruptly after Cui Jingkong reached the pinnacle of his power, cutting off right around the age of thirty.
It was cold outside. She was about to head back into the house when she noticed a bowl of dough drop soup she had set aside earlier was still by the stove.
Cui Jingkong had been at the back of the procession during the funeral. She had intended to bring it to him when everyone returned, but she couldn’t find him then.
Auntie Li’s casual remark, “when we were coming back, I looked again and he was gone,” suddenly flashed through her mind. Her eyelid twitched, and now she was thoroughly restless.
Could it be that he never came back at all, that he had already left?
She stoked the fire to warm the food slightly. Not wanting to disturb anyone, she carried the bowl and walked along the covered corridor, guided by the faint light.
Feng Yuzhen was a woman without a mind of her own.
In her past life, all the major events of her life were controlled by her parents, her husband, and her clan. She drifted along with the current, living a life not of her own choosing, and dying a death not of her own will.
Now that she had a rare second chance, she had found a path of uncertain light to walk. But her temporary companion, her brother-in-law, was no kind soul. After a few nightmares, she had spent the day consumed with worry.
For instance, she worried that Cui Jingkong would go back on his word and abandon her. Then she feared that Cui Jingkong would resent her as a burden and that she would end up as another soul dead at his hands.
The place Liu Guilan had temporarily assigned to Cui Jingkong was the woodshed behind the house. It wasn’t that she was deliberately mistreating him.
The ancestral hall was not a place for living. Apart from the single side room where Feng Yuzhen and her two relatives were staying for these few days, there was no other place for him to rest.
Groping her way to the end of the corridor in the dark, she found the woodshed was pitch-black, with no candle lit inside. Feng Yuzhen knocked on the door apprehensively. “Mas…” She swallowed the word “Master” that was on the tip of her tongue and called out softly, “Second Brother, I’ve saved a bowl of hot soup for you.”
There was no answer. Feng Yuzhen moved closer but could not hear any sound.
Her heart sank as if tied to a stone. She waited for a while, then asked again, but there was still no movement.
“Second Brother? Second Brother? Kong’ge’er!”
She panicked, thinking Cui Jingkong had really left her behind. She raised her hand and knocked on the door with some force.
Unexpectedly, the two doors creaked open, parting to form a crack. It turned out they hadn’t been properly closed, only latched loosely.
The door wasn’t even properly closed, so there must be no one inside. It seems Cui Jingkong really did take the opportunity to shake off this burden. Am I destined to be trapped and die in the main residence again in this life?
Feng Yuzhen’s heart turned to ash. Thinking of her hopeless life, her eyes reddened. She turned to leave, but before she had taken two steps, the door suddenly opened from the inside.
His voice was very soft. “Sister-in-law, what is it?”