Since Xiang lost her mind, her family’s house had been abandoned. With the rapid population growth in the village, land for housing was in short supply, and some people had their eyes on her old property. However, since Xiang was still alive, openly seizing it would have been seen as bullying an orphaned girl.
After Xiang’s death, the village reclaimed her house, and a butcher from Shili Crossing immediately bought it. Having spent his life slaughtering animals, he feared neither gods nor ghosts. The day he acquired the property, he began tearing it down to rebuild.
Elders in the village warned him not to disturb the land before Xiang’s forty-nine-day mourning period had passed, but the butcher paid no heed. With three sons and no land to build new houses, he was desperate. Xiang’s property was in a prime location, facing south, and the butcher, who was well-off, invested heavily in constructing a three-story Western-style house.
The construction went smoothly, with no supernatural disturbances during the foundation laying or beam raising. The butcher’s family moved in happily, believing that a new house needed people to ward off evil spirits. Besides, the construction had been uneventful, so they had no reservations.
On the final night of Xiang’s forty-nine-day period, only a few nostalgic elders in Shili Crossing remembered to burn paper offerings for her. Everyone else had long forgotten.
That evening, the butcher’s family had dinner as usual, watching TV and playing on their phones before resting. But the next morning, villagers noticed something was wrong. The butcher, who usually left early to sell meat at the market, hadn’t shown up.
A nearby villager, preparing for a banquet, urgently needed to buy meat and went to the butcher’s house. No one answered the door, and calls went unanswered. Concerned, the villager discussed the matter with others in Shili Crossing, and they decided something was amiss.
They eventually sought out the village chief, who led a group to break into the house.
The scene inside was horrifying. Several people vomited on the spot.
The butcher’s family of seven, except for the butcher himself, had been disemboweled and hung on meat hooks used for slaughtering pigs. The butcher stood in the center of the yard, covered in blood, holding a butcher’s knife.
“I’m guilty. I deserve to die. I pushed Xiang into the river and drowned her,” the butcher rasped as people entered.
With that, he slashed his own throat…
Chow told me this story while I was recovering from the corpse poison, doing rehabilitation exercises in the courtyard. I was stunned.
Even though vengeful ghosts operate outside the laws of heaven, wiping out an entire family was extreme. Xiang was just an ordinary woman. Wasn’t she afraid of being condemned to the eighteenth layer of hell, never to reincarnate?
“Chow, since Xiang killed the butcher’s family, does that mean her karma is settled?” I asked, still shaken.
“You’re overthinking it. This isn’t that simple,” Chow replied after a long silence.
That night, Chow took me down to the Yellow River. He had said we’d handle the “important matter” after I recovered, but now we had to act early. With Xiang’s rampage, Chow’s abilities were no longer enough to protect me.
The moon was bright, and stars were sparse as we rowed upstream in the rotten boat. Chow still wouldn’t tell me what we were doing, but I noticed he had prepared an incense burner and candles, suggesting it involved a ritual.
“Chow, where are we going?” I asked after about an hour.
“Xiaba Village, the ancient Yellow River altar.”
The ancient altar was where, in feudal times, offerings were made to the Yellow River King, including the Yellow River Maiden. The altar in Xiaba Village, though long neglected, had withstood floods and storms, remaining intact.
With the river high, only a corner of the altar was visible above the water. Chow told me to take the incense burner and candles up while he stayed in the boat.
“Chow, can you finally tell me what we’re doing?”
“We’re paying respects to the Yellow River Maiden.”
“Why?”
“The woman you saw that day was the Yellow River Maiden. Only she can save you.”
“What? The Yellow River Maiden?”
I was shocked. No wonder the woman was so unearthly beautiful—she was the Yellow River Maiden.
“You have a connection with her, and only she can save you. Stop dawdling and light the incense,” Chow urged.
There are rules for burning incense: three for gods, four for ghosts. The Yellow River Maiden is a ghost, so I lit four sticks. The first three represented heaven, earth, and humanity, while the fourth stood for ghosts.
I lit the incense, placed it in the burner, and kowtowed four times before reciting the ritual text Chow had written for me.
“The union of man and woman is the foundation of human relations. The songs of Zhou and Zhao celebrate the origin of royal virtue.”
“Thus, the phoenix’s call heralds prosperity for five generations. The blooming peach tree sings of a harmonious century. Today, the gentleman Lan, blessed with ancestral virtue and renowned talent…”
I couldn’t continue. Even though I wasn’t a literature major, I could tell this wasn’t a ritual text but an ancient marriage proposal.
“Chow, are you seriously having me propose to the Yellow River Maiden?” I asked.
“Of course. Only she can save you, but you have no connection. Why would she help you?”
“But marrying a ghost will probably shorten my lifespan.”
“So, would you rather be killed by Xiang or marry a ghost? If you’re not afraid of Xiang, we can leave now.”
Thinking of Cai’s naked hanging and the butcher’s family’s gruesome deaths, I decided marrying the Yellow River Maiden wasn’t such a bad idea.
I finished reciting the thousand-word proposal without hesitation.
Then something strange happened. A cold wind swept through, extinguishing the fourth incense stick.
There are two taboos when burning incense: uneven lengths and extinguishing mid-burn. The former is an omen of misfortune, while the latter signifies insincerity, and the spirits won’t accept it.
“Chow, what’s going on?” I asked.
“It shouldn’t be like this. The Yellow River Maiden has seen you before and shouldn’t have any objections. You must be insincere. Light the incense again and recite the proposal once more.”
So I did, but the fourth stick went out again.
Chow frowned, asking if I had lingering feelings for another woman.
Sighing, I admitted something I usually kept buried. In college, I had a girlfriend—fair-skinned, beautiful, and the department’s top beauty. I had loved her deeply, and after our breakup, I lost interest in life, drifting aimlessly in Guangzhou.
But even the most intense emotions fade with time. Since returning home, I had resolved to turn over a new leaf and rarely thought of her. I couldn’t give her the life she wanted, as she had said during our breakup: being with me was fun, but marrying me would be heartbreaking.
When Chow asked if I had unresolved feelings, I thought for a moment, then took off the pendant she had given me for my birthday and threw it into the Yellow River. It was a memento of a past life, and keeping it served no purpose.
After discarding the pendant, I recited the proposal again. This time, the fourth incense stick burned without issue.
“Let’s go,” Chow said once the incense had burned out.
“Chow, is that it?”
“Yes. The Yellow River Maiden has accepted your proposal. Now we’ll prepare for your wedding.”
Marrying the Yellow River Maiden is a form of ghost marriage, but unlike the one in my relative’s family, this is a union between a living person and a ghost—a yin-yang marriage. I didn’t need to find her remains; I only had to erect a memorial tablet.
The problem was, I still didn’t know her name, so I didn’t know what to write on the tablet.
Chow said not to worry. When we held the wedding ceremony, she would carve her name on it herself.