Ch.4 I Married a Dead Person

“Quick! Quick! Bring her into the bridal chamber!” Granny Liu gripped my hand tightly while I stared stupidly at the rooster in front of me, until two tall men clothed in black carried me up the the stairs and threw me into a room.

The light was dim in the room, and lifting my head, I saw a table with a large black and white picture! To be exact, it was a picture for the mourning hall, because there was a black ribbon all around the frame.

In front of the picture, two red wedding candles swayed. There was also a lot of food on the table, much more than usual for a memorial. I moved closer towards the picture, wanting to get a better look.

Only when I leaned against the table and squinted did I see the person in the picture clearly. His handsome features were looked cold and daunting, haughtiness showing through his slight smile, his skin so white I was jealous, and not to even mention his pink lips that seemed magical, making people wanting to give it a kiss.

I reached out my hand, but when my fingertips touched the frame, a sharp pain came from my fingers and shot up all the way to my heart. I withdrew my hand quickly, looking at that black and white photograph, frightened. I felt that his gaze had come alive, looking at me, staring at me, as if it could penetrate me, penetrate my inner thoughts!

A dead person! This was the most serious problem I realized when I came back to my senses. The strange baptism, the paper money on the way the here, the rooster in my wedding ceremony, and this portrait of a dead person in this room! I now finally understood, I didn’t marry a blind person, but a dead person, a person that does not even belong to this world anymore!

Dejected, I sat on the edge of the bed. My tears fell freely. What else could I do except cry? I had thought of thousands of different scenarios, but just not this one. A wedding totally dictated by someone else was already bad enough, not to mention that I became of wife of a dead person……

I cried till my eyes hurt, then rushed to the table and swept everything off of it. The sound of china breaking was like my heart. I had never thought that my biological father would be so cruel, as to sell me as a wife for a dead person. Now I also knew while my uncles were pointing at me and gossiping.

I picked up the chair besides me and threw it against the door. Until the chair, twisted, fell to the floor, did I start crying, “Let me out! Let me out!” I tugged at the doorknob with all my might, but it didn’t budge! Like I thought, it was locked from the outside.

“Let me out!” I curled up against the door and started crying. Lost, helpless, my life wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Bang! A heavy noise sounded inside the room. I wiped my tears and looked over, and saw a small door inside the room suddenly opened. It was dark inside.

I watched it carefully, afraid that something might walk out. Even though I knew clearly there was no one in this room but me, still, all the hairs on my body stood on end, because I kept feeling that someone in this room was looking at me!

Yes, this was what I felt, and I noticed just now that the temperature in the room had become colder, cold enough that when I exhaled, I could see a faint puff of white.

Frightened, I curled myself up even tighter. It shouldn’t be like this, it’s summer right now, how could I see the breath from my own mouth! I exhaled lightly again, and that faint mist made me almost faint.

There was something in this room! Surely, it couldn’t be……

I turned my eyes towards the table that held the portrait. It couldn’t be! There are no ghosts in this world! I stared at the man in the picture, silently comforting myself, you are already dead, and if you’re dead you don’t exist. How could I believe in ghosts and spirits.

When the door to the bathroom banged once again, I let out a scream. My heart felt like it was on a spring, jumping faster and faster. I stared unbelieving at the bathroom door. Just now, that door was open.

“Wind! It must be the wind!” I told myself in a small voice, but I understood perfectly that even if the closed door was blown open by the wind, this door could not be shut by the wind! Because except for a wall of french windows on one side, there wasn’t a single window that could open in this room!

I scanned the room nervously. It’s impossible, I repeated in my mind, it’s impossible to have ghosts in this world! I tried my best to calm myself, but at last I put my head on my knees, my hands hugging my head tightly.

The old saying goes that if you didn’t do anything bad, you wouldn’t be afraid even if a ghost knocked on your door at midnight. I never hurt anyone, so why would I feel scared? Even if there really was a ghost, so what? Hate has its target and debts have their owners. If he had unfinished business, it has nothing to do with me, a total stranger!

“Mother!” I cried out, crying, my head between my knees. Fear doesn’t go away just by talking, not to mention that the air around me was even colder than before.

My tears were like a flood breaching a dike, overflowing again……