Chapter 829: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 829: Liu Xiaoli's Funeral

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Li Xiulan, together with Zhou Hongwei, Liang Xinghua, Zhao Shoutian, Liu Dahe, and others, arrived at Liu Xiaoli's hometown.

Everything was already prepared with various funeral supplies.

The dilapidated old house, converted from a cowshed, had white silk hanging outside.

Liu Xiaoli's body was placed inside.

Li Xiulan and the others went in to offer incense.

Liu Xiaoli's two older brothers were helping keep vigil.

Wearing mourning clothes, filial piety hats, and white ropes tied around their waists.

"Please accept my condolences."

Li Xiulan offered a word of comfort to Liu Xiaoli's two older brothers.

"Thank you for coming to see Xiao Li off on her final journey."

One of the brothers offered a word of comfort to Li Xiulan in return, then gave her three incense sticks.

Holding the incense, Li Xiulan looked at the dilapidated wooden bed before her, where a cold body lay.

A sheet covered the top, concealing not only the body but also the face, revealing only a pair of withered, skinny feet.

Li Xiulan's expression was somewhat dazed; she even suspected for a moment that the person before her was not Liu Xiaoli.

In Li Xiulan's impression, Liu Xiaoli was a strong, hardworking, capable woman.

How could she have wasted away to nothing but skin and bones?

However, the fact was just that cruel.

Before her death, Liu Xiaoli really had been reduced to skin and bones.

In the last month of her life, Liu Xiaoli's body wasted away rapidly.

Yet her belly kept growing larger.

The suffering of late-stage liver cancer — that truly was a fate worse than death.

Couldn't eat, couldn't drink, couldn't sleep, the whole body ached.

Ascites swelled her belly until it was near bursting, while her limbs, wasted to skin and bones, had skin turned a dull, lusterless waxy yellow.

Li Xiulan, Zhou Hongwei, and the others finished offering incense to Liu Xiaoli's body.

Liu Xiaoli's relatives came over to greet them and showed them to seats in a temporary shed set up outside.

Eight Immortals tables were set up here to entertain guests.

Quite a few people were already seated here, all strangers Li Xiulan didn't recognize.

They must be Liu Xiaoli's fellow villagers.

They didn't seem sad at all; some were even chatting and laughing, eating peanuts from the table and drinking cheap rice wine.

Death is a big event.

So the whole village came to help.

They'd come on their own initiative even without being called.

Death, it seems, isn't such a big event either.

Just an ordinary send-off.

So everyone chats and laughs.

Not like the exaggerated grief in TV dramas.

Even Liu Xiaoli's two own older brothers didn't have much grief — more exhaustion, more resentment.

Exhaustion because the moment Liu Xiaoli breathed her last, they started running around busy with this and that, busy until now, never having closed their eyes to sleep.

Resentment because Liu Xiaoli's funeral shouldn't have been handled by the two of them brothers; it should have been handled by Liu Xiaoli's husband, but unfortunately Liu Xiaoli married and divorced several times and never found a final home.

In the end, only the two of them, her own brothers, could handle her funeral arrangements.

At eight in the morning, people had just about all arrived.

The funeral band responsible for the music had already arrived.

They were practicing gongs and drums on the side, blowing suona horns.

The four men responsible for carrying the coffin had already arrived.

Liu Xiaoli's two brothers not only gave them cigarettes but also red envelopes.

The ritual master (shiye lao) had also arrived.

He sat outside, explaining the ritual procedure to an apprentice helping out.

The crematorium's funeral car had also arrived and was waiting outside the village entrance.

The driver stood on the embankment by the river at the village entrance, watching the situation here from afar.

After the ritual master finished explaining the procedure to his own apprentice, he came over and explained the procedure once more to Liu Xiaoli's two brothers.

"You two brothers — the elder brother holds the portrait, the younger brother holds the black umbrella. When we set off, you shout when I tell you to shout, you cry when I tell you to cry. Because it's brothers sending off a sister, as the saying goes 'an elder brother is like a father,' this amounts to a white-haired person sending off a black-haired person — not an auspicious matter, with many taboos, so we simplify everything. Do you think that's alright?"

Liu Xiaoli's two brothers hurriedly nodded, both saying no problem.

Funeral matters like this, they don't understand too well.

They still have to listen to this professional ritual master.

After the ritual master finished instructing Liu Xiaoli's two brothers, he went over to the coffin bearers and told them how to carry the coffin, which direction to go, how far to walk, and where to set the coffin down.

Then he went to instruct the firecracker crew: firecrackers must be set off before the coffin goes out the door, and firecrackers must also be set off after it goes out the door.

Once everything had been arranged, it was time for the funeral procession to set out.

The master of ceremonies said to Liu Xiaoli's two older brothers:

"Give a loud shout, call out that your sister is setting off on her journey!"

Liu Xiaoli's two brothers immediately shouted in unison:

"Sister, we're setting off on the journey!"

The master of ceremonies immediately waved to the coffin bearers, signaling them to lift the coffin.

Then he began muttering incantations, chanting a ritual song.

Leading the funeral procession, they walked out of the house.

The long procession, like a worm, twisted and turned, crawling slowly toward the village entrance.

The sounds of gongs and drums, the suona, and firecrackers reverberated in the sky above the village.

Carrying a lingering melody, carrying a bleak desolation.

Liu Xiaoli's two brothers walked at the very front of the coffin.

Behind the coffin followed the Liu family relatives, then the fellow villagers, and last of all Li Xiulan, Zhou Hongwei, and the other friends.

Li Xiulan watched this funeral procession, and her heart could not help but ache secretly.

This reminded her of the scene when she saw her own parents off.

That was already many years ago.

She could barely remember it anymore.

Now attending Liu Xiaoli's funeral stirred those memories again.

When the coffin was carried to the funeral car, the master of ceremonies signaled the coffin bearers to set the coffin down, and then conducted a soul-summoning ritual right there.

He chanted incantations and sang the ritual song, then led all the mourners in circling the coffin; after each completed circuit, they knelt and bowed to the coffin once.

Only after circling nine times did the ritual conclude.

Li Xiulan watched all this; in her memory, when she previously handled her parents' funeral, there was no such step.

Perhaps she simply didn't remember.

Or perhaps customs differ from place to place.

The coffin was loaded into the rear compartment of the funeral car.

Liu Xiaoli's relatives boarded the minivan that had been chartered in advance.

They headed to the crematorium to cremate Liu Xiaoli's body.

Li Xiulan, Zhou Hongwei, and the others did not go along.

Because they were not related to Liu Xiaoli by blood.

According to local custom, generally only relatives accompany the body to the crematorium.

They stayed in the village, waiting for the ashes to return, then after eating lunch and giving the funeral gift money, they could leave.

Back at the hometown, several of Liu Xiaoli's relatives also did not go; they all had zodiac clashes.

They remained at home, responsible for disposing of Liu Xiaoli's personal effects.

The clothes Liu Xiaoli had worn, the bed she had slept in, the quilts she had used, and so on.

All of it was moved out and piled on a flat patch of ground outside the house.

Then it was set alight and burned.

According to local custom, items the deceased used in life carry Yiji Qi; if not burned, they bring bad luck.

With this burning, nearly every trace Liu Xiaoli left in this world was erased.

Perhaps after a year, half a year, or even a month, she would already have been forgotten by people.

At that point, she would truly have vanished from this world.

Ordinary people in this ordinary world, born ordinarily, live an ordinary life, then die ordinarily, and finally disappear without a trace ordinarily.

This is not just Liu Xiaoli's life, but the life of countless ordinary people like dust.

……