Chapter 21: This Venerable One Will Tell You a Story (Pt. 3)

Young mistress Yao had a spirited personality. Once home, she cared for neither food nor drink, and instead she spent all her time pestering her papa to go ask around about this Chen Bohuan person. Although Chen Bohuan was already married, the ceremony had been conducted behind closed doors; who outside the family could have known? The townspeople hadn't even heard of the arranged betrothal between the Luo and Chen families all those years ago.

And so it was that the Young Mistress Yao was informed that this Chen-gongzi was unmarried.

The governor spared no effort in looking into this person, and in the end, he decided that this young man Chen was a capable fellow with a gentle personality and a satisfactory family. As such, he sent a messenger to the Chens with a marriage proposal.

On receiving this, Landlord Chen was so full of regret that his intestines nearly turned blue. They politely told the governor's messenger that they needed some time to think it over, closed the door, and immediately started arguing with each other.

"Look where your rushing has landed us!" said Landlord Chen. "That broke scholar died early, and his daughter should've stayed in mourning for three years; if you hadn't urged them to get married ahead of time, our son could have gotten out of the engagement! Look at this mess now!"

Madam Chen was just as anxious. "Oh, so you're blaming me? Weren't you the one who wanted to arrange the betrothal back then? This is the governor's precious daughter we're talking about here! How could that Xian…that Luo Xianxian even hope to compare?"

The pair of old bastards argued behind closed doors till they were red in the face. Out of steam and their energy spent, they were left staring across the table at each other.

"What should we do?" asked Landlord Chen. "Maybe we should turn the governor down."

"Absolutely not," said Madam Chen. "Our family is counting on this precious mistress for fame and fortune."

"Do you really think Young Mistress Yao would be willing to be a concubine?" Landlord Chen shot back angrily. "Do you? Our son already has someone—how are we to squeeze in another? And besides, look at how in love they are!"

Madam Chen was quiet for a while, then her eyes lit up. "Say, old Chen," she murmured. "The way I see it, no one outside our family even knows about this thing between Luo Xianxian and our son…"

There was silence for a moment while Landlord Chen stared blankly before he suddenly understood his wife's meaning. He quivered a little, half from apprehension, half from excitement. "Y-you mean…"

"If no one knows about the marriage, then it never happened," Madam Chen said. "We'll chase her out, one way or another. If asking nicely doesn't work, then we'll just use force. Everyone thinks our son is yet unmarried. And do you remember that incident from when she was younger, where she stole tangerines? As long as all of us stick to the story, even if she grows extra mouths to cry about it, who would believe her?"

Landlord Chen strode to the door to make sure it was closed tight, then sidled over. A mere moment ago, the two had been arguing like a pair of fighting cocks, but now they were huddled together, scheming in quiet whispers.

"I don't think it'll work," Landlord Chen said.

"Why not?"

"Our son will never agree to it. He's liked Luo Xianxian ever since he was little, and now you want him to just up and ditch her? Do you really think he'll go along with that?"

Madam Chen thought for a while, then patted her husband's hand. "Don't you worry. I'll take care of it."

Before long, Madam Chen suddenly came down with a grave illness. It was a strange illness; the doctor couldn't find anything wrong with her, but she spent the entire day raving, muttering nonsense, swearing that she was being possessed by a ghost.

Worried sick, Landlord Chen invited a cultivator to see her. This cultivator had a horsetail whisk and an ethereal air. He pinched his ring finger and thumb together and divined that someone in the Chen family meant ill toward Madam Chen. Left unresolved, she would not live to see the next year.

Chen Bohuan was very filial, and he anxiously asked, "Who bears ill will toward my mother?"

The priest walked around for quite a while in enigmatic pretension before saying it was, "a beauty who never sees the sun."

Everyone in the room was shocked. One by one, the Chen brothers turned to stare at Luo Xianxian.

Luo Xianxian was just as shocked. Ever since she was little, others had always said certain things about her: that she was unlucky, that she brought misfortune on all those around her, and that she had killed her mother at birth, then her brother, then her father. Now fingers were pointing at her again, saying that she was going to kill her mother-in-law.

In their distress, the Chen brothers took turns talking to Luo Xianxian. They asked her to leave, saying that no one outside their home knew that she was married and thus her reputation was still intact, that they would give her some money and she could go find another family.

Luo Xianxian was anxious and frightened, and, afraid that she really was the one cursing Madam Chen, she cried day after day.

Chen Bohuan's heart ached, watching his mother grow weaker by the hour. He was stuck between the two—not wanting Xianxian to leave, but also not wanting his mother to suffer—and this stress caused him to rapidly lose weight.

Eventually, the Chen brothers had had enough. One day, while their eldest brother was out, they went to find their sister-in-law. They found Luo Xianxian in the greenhouse, making Hundred Butterfly Fragrance, and rushed in, smashing all her tools. The heavily-scented powder covered her all over, its fragrance blanketing her as if it had soaked into her bones, impossible to wash out.

At first, the brothers surrounded her and sermonized at length about principles and such, "women's duty," this, "parents before wife," that. But though Luo Xianxian was a timid person, she was also stubborn and resilient in her own way. She cried, saying that she didn't want to leave, and begged them to please think of another way.

The second Chen brother grew agitated. He stepped up and slapped her, saying, "You harbinger of disaster, you're going to curse our mother to death! If there was another way, would your dad have died? Would your mom? Would your brother be missing, his whereabouts unknown?"

With his one hit, the others took their cue. They rushed in as well and closed in around her with punches and kicks, yelling, "get the fuck out," "unlucky pest," and, "bringer of death."

These brothers were of one mind with their mother and had been in on her plan since long ago. They jumped on this chance while their eldest brother was out and worked together to drive Luo Xianxian away, threatening to beat her every day if she dared to come back—she had no family anyway, so even if they beat her to death, no one would care to seek justice for her.

That night was a snowy one. Luo Xianxian was tossed out into the cold, her entire body beaten black and blue; one of her shoes had even fallen off. She crawled forward slowly, the choked sobs that made their way out of her mouth sounding like the cries of a dying cub.

The night grew deeper, and the snow kept falling. Who would leave their homes in weather like that? And so Luo Xianxian crawled in the endless snow, not knowing where to go, not knowing where she could go.

The Chen brothers were right. She had no family—no father, no brother, no one to turn to, no one who would shelter her. This pure-white world was vast, but it had no place for her.

Her body was frail to start with, and she hadn't been wearing much when she was chased out. As she shivered, her legs and feet quickly became numb and lost all feeling.

She crawled to the outskirts of the town, to the temple of the ghost mistress, and took shelter inside. There she curled into herself, lips blue from the chill, heart cold from the sorrow.

She looked up at the splendid, painted clay idol and couldn't help the tears rolling down her cheeks. She thought about the customs of the lower cultivation realm, in which marriages were witnessed by a master of ceremonies. But at her wedding, all she'd had was a red flower tucked behind her ear when she, smiling, knelt across from Chen Bohuan and bowed to the ground.

Had that ceremony behind closed doors been no more than a dream? Had the blushing face in the copper mirror that day been a mere reverie born of her dearest longings?

Luo Xianxian knelt before the statue of the ghost mistress, dragging her frozen body that grew heavier by the moment, kowtowing again and again, her tears mixed with laughter. "Entwining their hair, new husband and wife / Ensure their love shall ne'er be unwound. Joy…on this…eve…"

She grew dizzy, vision blurring.

It was as if a sheen of moonlight lit up a mirage of that day in the yard when she'd cried, "It wasn't me, it wasn't me, I didn't steal the tangerines."

But repeated rumor became fact, and gossip was a frightful thing; no one had listened to her side of the story.

Even now, she knew that if she were to go crying to the people of the town, even if she were to swear up and down that she was Chen Bohuan's properly wedded wife, no one would believe her. She was still the little girl that no one would listen to, standing by that low wall. She was no different. Nothing had changed.

At least back then, there had been someone who climbed over the wall and pressed a steamy, white mantou into her hands, who had said to her, "You must be hungry. Hurry and eat."

But…where was that person now?

When he returned and couldn't find her, would he fret, or would he secretly breathe a sigh of relief because she wouldn't curse his mother anymore?

Luo Xianxian curled up in the temple, the tears she shed slowly drying. She whispered, "Mistress of Ceremonies, I want to be with him. I'm his wife… There was no one to witness our wedding… You are a ghost mistress, and you don't deal with the living, but I…I can only…I can only talk to you…"

Her last words came out as a broken sob. "I didn't lie…"

I didn't lie.

The snow continued falling without a sound in the long, silent night.

The next day, some townspeople passing by the temple found Luo Xianxian's ice-cold body.