Chapter Seventy-Two: The Night of Interment

Some people simply enjoy being difficult. Such people can only be handled by those who are just as unreasonable. What does a scoundrel fear most? A scoundrel fears nothing more than a true rogue. Fatty was no rogue, because rogues at least occasionally abide by reason. Fatty, after all, had committed murder and arson; how could he possibly fail to put a country woman in her place?

Sure enough, after a round of beatings, everyone quieted down. My aunt, who had just been ready to fight to the death, covered her face and fled back to her family. My other aunt, who moments earlier seemed intent on killing me, now sat silently in a corner. In the end, evidence must be presented. I had both witnesses and physical proof showing I had nothing to do with the two dead bodies. If they insisted on pinning this on me, I wasn’t someone to be bullied so easily.

After all that commotion, things settled for the time being. I brought out the old lady, cleared my throat, and declared, “Since ancient times, the order of heaven, earth, emperor, parents, and teachers has been observed. Parents are the heads of the household; it’s true that the elderly must bury the young, but there is still our grandmother in the house. Though my uncle has passed, just as a country cannot be without its monarch for a single day, a household cannot be without its master. She is the eldest; though she has lost her son, she must bear the pain to arrange the affairs. We will listen to grandmother—whatever she decides, we shall do.”

The onlookers knew the family inside out. The old lady was usually a devout Buddhist, having suffered most of her life and never really managed the household. When it was suggested she take charge, someone immediately objected, “Her? Ask her if she has even a single coin in her pocket. Buying groceries, hiring help, incense and candles—all cost money. Being the head of the house is one thing, but she needs to have the means, too.”

“Exactly!” The second son’s family chimed in.

I didn’t even glance at them. To the crowd, I said, “Alright, I’ll pay for grandmother. No one leaves today; it’s the first month of the year and no one wants to get unlucky. Anyone who helps with the funeral will get a pack of cigarettes, two bottles of liquor, a pair of liberation shoes, and a towel.”

“Really?”

I whispered a few words to Fatty, who darted out and soon returned with the owner of the village store. I pulled out a wad of cash and handed it over, saying, “Absolutely. Payment on the spot. Go to the village store and have the owner deliver everything here; whoever helps can collect their reward after the work is done.”

In those days, most families would only give a pack of cigarettes for funerals. If they were generous, perhaps a towel. My offer was more than ten times the usual rate. In those times of scarcity, I believed the incentive was more than enough.

Indeed, soon people started lining up to sign up for chores: buying groceries, washing vegetables, kitchen work, digging graves, carrying the coffin, sending funeral notices, odd jobs. A long list of names was posted on the wall by the gate. No one remembered whose house they were supposed to visit for New Year’s; who cared? A pound of sugar paled in comparison to what I was offering.

The place became lively. Chen Wenbin wrote the lists and sent people to prepare everything needed, making sure nothing was overlooked. Fatty and I were assigned tasks—he was to beat the gong, I to clash the cymbals, the kind that make a loud crash with a single strike.

The afternoon was dull. The gate was dismantled, and the corpse was moved from the bed to the gate board, which was propped up by long benches. There was a ritual to this: after someone died, they weren’t immediately placed in the coffin. Instead, they had to wait a day, to “see red.”

This “seeing red” meant waiting for the next day’s sunset before placing the body in the coffin. Until then, the deceased lay on the gate board—the gate symbolizing passage from one door to another, as though entering the door to the underworld.

Chen Wenbin changed into a different robe, clearly not his own—likely left by his master. It was loose, not like the golden, embroidered Taoist robes seen in films, but rather a simple, long, blue-gray coat. No Eight Trigrams on the back, but a lotus-like petal embroidered on the chest, though it looked quite worn.

Every half hour, he circled the corpse, chanting scriptures, exactly three times, walking from right to left. Each time he reached the head, he paused, shook a bell above the corpse’s head, then dipped his fingers into a bowl and dabbed a drop of water onto the forehead, a ritual to calm the spirit and prevent resurrection. The water used was “rootless water,” collected from rainfall before it touched the ground.

At four in the afternoon, the steward slaughtered a rooster. A bowl of semi-coagulated rooster blood was brought in. Chen Wenbin dipped his brush in the blood and drew a talisman. I’d seen him use cinnabar before, but never rooster blood. This talisman was neither burned nor pasted; instead, it was folded into a small square, about the size of a block of tofu, and stuffed into the corpse’s chest.

In such solemn circumstances, I wanted to ask questions, but never found the chance.

Afterward, Chen Wenbin retired to the next room to rest, and Fatty and I were temporarily freed. Dinner was tofu—a Chinese tradition for funerals, the meal called “tofu feast,” likely because tofu is white.

After dinner, around six or seven o’clock, the women were told to finish their chores and go home. The children were taken away early by the elders—they knew what was coming tonight. With a Taoist present, there would be a grand ritual.

My uncle had been dead for three days. According to custom, he should have been buried today, so Chen Wenbin instructed the craftsmen to finish the grave overnight; the burial must happen before midnight.

A nighttime funeral was unprecedented in the surrounding villages. Normally, burials took place at dawn. Who needed to be buried at night? That was for Chen Wenbin to explain.

Chen Wenbin lounged in a master’s chair and said to me, “This man’s death was unclean. Burying him at night is called ‘stealing the coffin,’ letting him believe he’s still at home.”

His words unsettled me. “What do you mean, still at home? Isn’t he dead?”

He replied, unconcerned, “He hasn’t left; his soul remains. This afternoon, he spent all his time at home, sitting right in front of Fatty.”

Fatty jumped to his feet, shouting, “Chen, don’t scare me! You’re making things up!”

“I didn’t see anything,” I said. “Ignore him—Chen is teasing you.”

“You can’t see it,” Chen Wenbin said, surprising me. “Your heavenly eye is closing. I don’t know why, but it’s shutting down. During the day, ghosts are affected by the sun’s energy and are weak. At night, you might still see something.”

I instinctively touched my eyelids. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Why is it closing?”

“Heh.” Chen Wenbin actually smiled, then stared at me so intently I felt embarrassed.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Well, tell me—have you been with a woman recently?”

I stared in disbelief, “Does that matter?”

Chen Wenbin nodded. “It does. You’ve experienced the union of yin and yang, so your heavenly eye is closing. Everyone is born with it; that’s why infants can see things and are easily frightened. But as they age, the heavenly eye shuts. You’re unusual—probably always seen as a child. Now you’re a man, so naturally, it closes. Perhaps it’s a good thing for you.”

After Chen Wenbin left, Fatty immediately asked, “Damn, when did you do it?”

I replied, “Once, when I was drunk in Dongguan…”

At seven o’clock, the courtyard gate was closed. Only familiar faces remained—mostly family and relatives, plus the four coffin-bearers, known as the Four Mighty Ones.

The coffin was newly painted, a deep red with a strong smell of varnish. It was originally intended for the old lady, but now her son would rest there first.

The corpse had been brought into the room, washed by his siblings, dressed in funeral clothes and shoes. The pant legs were tied with hemp rope—because after death, muscles relax, and without tying, anything in the bowels would leak out.

At a quarter past eight, Chen Wenbin checked the time and signaled for the coffin to be placed. Instead of a quilt, his clothes from life were laid underneath, with a talisman tucked inside.

Placing the body in the coffin was called “encoffining.” Chen Wenbin used a wooden comb to brush the hair three times front and back, then placed seven cakes by the pillow, and seven copper coins—three in the mouth, two in each hand.

He took a new lamp wick, twisted from seven strands of white thread, and lit it in an oil bowl—this would light his way on the road to the underworld. He sprinkled mixed grains around the wick and put them in the coffin, followed by a bowl and chopsticks, a towel, and two stacks of paper money—one under the back of the head, one on the face.

At this point, Chen Wenbin called out, “Relatives born in the year of the Dog or Snake, please avoid. Everyone else, come pay your final respects!”

A chorus of women’s wails erupted. Fatty and I stepped aside. I saw my aunt had returned, her face painted with powder, crying the hardest. Her shouts were nothing but curses: “Whoever cursed you to die, take him with you! Don’t spare him!”

Fatty chuckled, “She means you, Little Summer.”

I retorted stubbornly, “Get lost! If they have the guts, let them take me! Even in the underworld, I’ll deal with him!”

With a thud, I suddenly found myself on the ground—the bench I sat on had collapsed without warning…

Good night.