(Completed)There is a custom in our village.
Women have to have their bodies checked before getting married.
If it is found that she is not clean, she will be abandoned by her husband's family.
An abandoned woman will become a plaything for all the men in the village.
My sister was found to be impure before she got married.
From then on, my door was constantly knocked on by men in the village.
1
My sister and brother-in-law can be considered childhood sweethearts, and they have grown up together.
My sister likes my brother-in-law very much. She has been looking forward to the day when she will marry him.
According to the rules of the village, my sister had to have her body examined by the village's Grandma Chen on her wedding day.
Only if the test proves that she is innocent can she marry into her husband's family.
It’s obvious that my sister can’t wait to marry my brother-in-law.
Other women would be nervous and shy when having their bodies examined.
Only my sister looked impatient.
"Grandma, please check it faster. I'm afraid I won't be able to make it in time."
Facing her sister's urging, Granny Chen smiled and glanced at her, her tone somewhat contemptuous:
"I know you're anxious, but this matter has to be done step by step according to the rules. You're just rushing me. Why don't you lie down first?"
My sister finally reacted after hearing what Grandma Chen said and quickly lay down on the bed.
During the physical examination, there will be many unmarried women in the room watching.
She said it was to gain experience so that she would know what to do when she gets married.
My mother pushed me into the house as well.
She said I was almost old enough to get married.
I’ll learn from my sister first, so that I won’t be flustered and laughed at when it’s my turn.
All the women in the room gathered around the bed, staring with wide eyes as they watched Grandma Chen examine my sister.
My sister was lying on the bed with her legs spread wide open.
Grandma Chen took something like a stick and poked it into her private parts.
My sister lay on the bed with a frown on her face, and her hands unconsciously clenched the corners of the quilt.
"Grandma, is the test done?"
My sister's voice sounded trembling.
Judging from her expression, this physical examination must be very uncomfortable.
Grandma Chen took out the stick-like thing from under my sister.
She just frowned and stared at the stick without saying a word.
Seeing that Grandma Chen ignored her, my sister couldn't help but ask again.
"What's wrong, grandma, why don't you speak?"
Granny Chen shook her head helplessly.
"I'm afraid your marriage won't be successful."
When my sister heard what Grandma Chen said, she immediately quit.
"What do you mean? Why can't you get married? Today is my big day, don't say these unlucky words here!"
Facing my sister's scolding, Grandma Chen glanced at her with disdain.
"Don't pretend to be ignorant here! You must have forgotten the rules of our village! You are not even clean, and you still expect to get married?"
My sister was a little confused by Grandma Chen’s answer.
Without waiting for her to retort, Granny Chen stormed out of the house.
After a while, her voice was heard outside the house.
"The rules in our village are so strict, but it's a pity that there are still people who don't respect themselves! I won't drink the wedding wine today, it's unlucky!"
According to the rules, after Grandma Chen has done the physical examination, no matter whether the person being examined is innocent or not, she will tell the man immediately.
When my sister saw Grandma Chen go out, she was so anxious that she pulled up her pants and ran out crawling.
"Don't listen to her, she's talking nonsense. I'm innocent! Ah Jian, you will believe me, right?"
My sister grabbed her brother-in-law's sleeve.
The look she gave him revealed tension and pleading.
2
After hearing what Grandma Chen said, my brother-in-law's face became gloomy and he didn't want to pay any attention to my sister.
She even shook off her sister's hand in disgust.
"I never thought you were this kind of person! You still have the nerve to ask me to believe you! Everyone in the village knows that Granny Chen never makes mistakes when doing body checks!"
The meaning of my brother-in-law's words is very clear.
But my sister still didn't give up.
She grabbed her brother-in-law's hand again: "Ajian, we grew up together. Don't you know what kind of person I am? I am really innocent!"
"Get lost! Dirty woman! I feel unlucky just by looking at you..."
This time, my brother-in-law kicked my sister to the ground.
My sister collapsed on the ground, but she still refused to give up and wanted to crawl over and hug her brother-in-law's legs.
But her brother-in-law didn't give her a chance and turned away.
As he walked, he turned back and said, "Just follow the village rules. Since she is so unfaithful to her husband, let the brothers in the village have fun with her!"
After my brother-in-law left, my sister stared in the direction he left in a daze.
Her eyes were empty and tears kept flowing out of them.
Seeing my sister like this, I felt very uncomfortable.
People around her were also pointing and talking at her.
My parents felt even more ashamed and simply hid in the house and never showed up.
I wanted to help my sister up, but her body was like a pool of stagnant water.
No matter how I supported her, she didn't move at all.
"Sister, I believe you are not such a person. Since your brother-in-law doesn't believe you, it means he is not worth marrying. Let's go back first. If it doesn't work, I will take you away from here. In the future, the two sisters will never come back!"
After hearing what I said, my sister gradually calmed down.
She didn't say anything, but just wiped her tears silently.
Then he followed me back to the house.
According to the rules of the village, if nothing unexpected happens, the men in the village will come to the door one after another at night.
By then, my parents will definitely hand my sister over to me.
So I had to take her away from the village before dark.
Our village is surrounded by mountains and there is only one way out.
If you want to avoid being discovered, you have to go into the mountains.
I told my sister about my plan.
But my sister told me that she didn't want to escape.
"I can't escape. I've already seen all the mountains around here. There are cliffs everywhere. I can't get out..."
My sister looked out the window with a complicated expression, and I didn’t know what she was thinking.
"Rather than running away, I think we should get rid of this shameful and outdated habit. Why should we women suffer this?"
My sister withdrew her gaze from the window and looked at me with a firm gaze.
I don't understand what she means.
Abolish this custom that has been passed down for hundreds of years?
I just think it's harder than climbing to the sky.
"Sister, why don't we just run away secretly? There are so many people in the village. How can others agree if you want to abolish this custom?"
In response to my answer, my sister sighed helplessly: "Forget it, just take care of yourself, you don't have to worry about my affairs."
After she said this she pushed me out of her room.
No matter how much I knocked on the door, she wouldn't open it.
It was getting dark.
Did my sister really give up on me like this?
3
According to the village rules.
A woman who loses her virginity before marriage has no right to resist.
I can only stay at home and wait for those men to come and abuse me.
I didn't want my sister to suffer this, so I secretly locked the door of our house.
We can resist for as long as we can.
But before it got dark, there was a knock on my door.
I looked out through the crack in the door.
I found that there was indeed a man outside.
This is against the rules. They are not allowed to come before it is completely dark.
"It's not even dark yet, what are you doing here so early? Get out of here!"
I wouldn’t have dared to talk to others like this before.
But now when I see those people, I just feel disgusted and wish I could kick them to death.
The man was not angry even though I scolded him.
Instead, he looked flattering.
"Don't be angry, sister. I'm here to save your sister. Open the door first and we'll talk in detail."
His tone was a bit flattering, but I just found it vulgar.
When I didn't open the door for him, he told me why he came.
"You definitely don't want your sister to be abused, right? I can save her. As long as she is willing to marry me, she can be spared this punishment."
I'm not very familiar with the men in the village, so I can't remember his name, I just feel like I have seen him before.
I seem to have heard something about the method he mentioned.
If a woman who loses her virginity before marriage wants to avoid being punished, there must be another man willing to marry her.
However, this possibility is too small. After all, those men don't want to become the laughing stock of the whole village.
I never thought that this man would be willing to marry my sister.
Although he is not good-looking and even looks a little creepy, he is the only one who can save his sister at the moment.
But I was still a little worried that he had bad intentions, so I asked him some more questions:
"Why do you want to marry my sister? What do you want? Aren't you afraid that the villagers will laugh at you?"
The man lowered his head and hesitated for a moment:
"Actually... I have liked your sister for a long time, but she is obsessed with Chen Jian. She is beautiful and a good person, and I know she would never fall in love with me, so I can only hide my love for her in my heart. Now I finally have the chance, and I will definitely not miss it!"
He spoke with a firm tone and a light in his eyes.
I can only choose to trust him temporarily and save my sister first.
I wanted to tell my sister about this first.
But no matter how I called her, she just didn't open the door.
There is no choice but to go find my parents first.
When my parents knew that someone was willing to marry my sister, they were so happy that they couldn't stop smiling.
"God is so merciful! Xiaozhi's marriage is finally settled."
My mother clapped her hands excitedly.
There are three children in our family. My brother is the oldest, my sister is the second, and I am the youngest.
The purpose of my sister and I being born was to get married so that we could exchange for dowry, find a wife for my brother, and build a house.
My brother was about to get engaged. As long as my sister got married and received the betrothal gift, my brother's marriage would be settled.
But now that my sister has gotten into this kind of trouble, my brother's marriage has naturally been postponed.
Now that another man wants to marry my sister, it means that my brother’s marriage has been settled.
My mother was so excited that she ran out immediately and opened the door.
The moment my mother saw the man, her face immediately fell.
"Why is it you? Can you afford the bride price? Let me tell you first, forget it if you don't have 100,000!"
The man was not angry, but smiled: "Don't worry, I can afford the bride price."
When my mother heard that I could afford the bride price, her face immediately lit up with smiles.
Without saying a word, he was welcomed into the house.
4
When the man entered the room, my father's expression changed immediately, just like my mother's at the beginning.
"Zhang Erwa, you are the only one who wants to marry my daughter? Do you have money?"
My dad also looked down on him.
When my mother heard my father's tone, she was so scared that she quickly pulled my father's sleeve hard and kept winking at him.
But my dad refused to even look at my mom.
In the end, my mother was forced to tell my father the truth in front of Zhang Erwa.
"Father, stop talking so much. Erwa can afford the betrothal gift!"
When he heard that I could afford the bride price, my father immediately lowered his attitude.
He even gave Zhang Erwa some cigarettes.
When I heard my father call this man Zhang Erwa, my memories of him slowly emerged.
He is notoriously ugly and poor in our village.
There are many brothers and sisters in the family.
When I was a kid, I loved to follow my sister around no matter what.
Later, when everyone grew up, he stopped following my sister.
It seems that he really likes my sister.
This way, I can also breathe a sigh of relief for my sister.
For my parents, as long as the other party can afford the bride price, it doesn’t matter who I marry.
So my parents decided this matter directly for my sister.
After the matter was discussed, it was completely dark.
The men in the village don’t know yet that someone is going to marry my sister.
So they still came on time.
The door of my house kept banging.
There were constant shouts of men outside.
"Hurry up and open the door..."
"What, you want to break the rules?"
"That's right, that's right, let us in quickly, or else don't blame us for taking the door down later!"
Facing the urging of the man outside.
My mother made a "Pooh" sound, and ran to open the door cursing.
"You have come here for nothing tonight. Someone wants to marry my daughter."
My mother spoke to those men in such a haughty manner that she almost looked down upon them.
The man who led the group looked at my mother like she was a fool:
"What did you say? Someone wants to marry your daughter? Are you still asleep? A whore, and someone wants to marry her? Let us brothers see who is going to marry her!"
The men behind him also joined in the booing.
My mother was so angry with them that she immediately pulled Zhang Erwa out.
"Look, he's the one who wants to marry! If you don't believe me, just ask him!"
Zhang Erwa stood in front of the group of men with his head almost bowed to the ground.
When the leading man saw that it was Zhang Erwa, he immediately laughed out loud:
"Oh, so you're going to marry a slut? That's not surprising. With your ugly looks, you're only worthy of marrying a slut, hahaha!"
Zhang Erwa lowered his head even lower because of their ridicule.
Just when they were laughing happily, my sister's door suddenly opened.
The door made a strange creaking noise.
Everyone's eyes turned to that direction at the same time.
Although the door was open, my sister didn't appear.
It was as if the door opened by itself.
I looked at the empty room and suddenly felt a palpitation in my heart.
I wanted to go see what was going on, but before I reached the door, I saw a large pool of blood on the floor.
Without thinking, I rushed into the room.
As soon as I entered the room, I saw my sister lying in a pool of blood in her wedding dress.
My sister died by cutting her wrists.
The blood dyed her already red wedding dress even redder.
I want to rush over and hug my sister.
But my body seemed to be fixed and I couldn't move an inch.
I could only stand there like a piece of wood and stare blankly, unable to even utter a word.
Seeing me standing still, my parents and the group of men came over curiously.
When they saw the scene in the room, they were so scared that they almost ran away.
In an instant, my parents and Zhang Erwa were the only ones left in the house.
When my parents saw my sister died, they weren't sad at all.
Instead, he asked Zhang Erwa whether the betrothal gift still counted.
Zhang Erwa ignored my parents.
After pushing my parents away, he walked straight towards my sister.
He walked up to my sister and gently picked her up from the ground.
He put my sister on the bed and wiped the blood off her body.
I don't know what he was thinking, but judging from his expression, he must be very sad.
After doing all this, he left my house.
When he left, my mother was still scolding him for being untrustworthy.
"Why did you just leave like that? Didn't we agree to marry her before? Even though she's dead, she just died, so she can still stay with you for one night! I knew that none of you men are good!"
No matter how my mother scolded him, he never looked back.
After Zhang Erwa left, my mother cursed at my sister's corpse all night long.
It wasn't until dawn when someone knocked on my door that she stopped scolding.
The person who came to my house was the village coffin maker.
"I heard that your eldest daughter died?"
The coffin maker had a gloomy face and exuded a gloomy aura from his whole body.
When my mother saw that it was the coffin maker, she didn't show any good face to him and started to scold him:
"Go away, I'm not buying a coffin, don't bother me!"
While scolding him, he didn't forget to push him out the door.
But after my mother pushed him for a long time, he still stood there motionless.
"I'm not here to sell you a coffin today. Your daughter died on her wedding day. She was wearing a red wedding dress when she died. The dress was stained with blood, which is a taboo! She wants the whole village to pay for her life!"
The coffin maker frowned and his face looked frighteningly dark.
My mother was also shocked by his words.
It took a while for him to recover: "Then do you have any solution?"
"Bury her in a hundred-year-old locust wood coffin, find a rooster over three years old to press against the coffin, seal the coffin with the blood of a virgin, and bury her in a very sunny place."
After the coffin maker said these methods, my mother's face immediately changed:
"After all, you still want to sell us a coffin!"
My mother's words left the coffin maker speechless.
"Believe it or not, if you think I'm just trying to trick you into buying a coffin, then you can buy one somewhere else. But I have to remind you that if you don't put it in the coffin before noon, you and your family will die!"
The coffin maker left angrily after saying this.
My mother spat at his back with disdain.
Although she didn't quite believe what the coffin maker said, she still turned around and told my father about it.
After hearing this, my father's face turned darker than that of a coffin maker.
"Women are women. What else can they do except gossip all day long? You have lived in this village for decades in vain! Is that coffin maker someone we can afford to offend? How dare you disobey him! And you even went to buy a coffin somewhere else! Have you ever seen other coffin shops that dare to sell locust wood coffins? Go and invite him back!"
My mother was scolded so badly that she ran away in shame to invite the coffin maker back.
As soon as the coffin maker entered the room, my father hurriedly handed him a cigarette, fearing that he might be neglectful.
Seeing my father being so sincere, the coffin maker's stern face relaxed a little.
5
"I have already told your wife everything I should have said. You must be put into the coffin before noon. This is a hundred-year-old locust wood coffin. I only have one in my shop. It is a bit expensive, but for the safety of the entire village, I can sell it to you at a low price."
When my mother heard that it could be sold at a lower price, she immediately thanked the owner with a flattering face.
As a result, before the smile on her face faded, she was frightened by the price the coffin maker said and almost fell down.
"What? You're asking twenty thousand for the cheap price! You're probably asking for too much!"
My father swung the knife at my mother, and she was so scared that she immediately covered her mouth and dared not speak.
"It's all up to you. We'll definitely give you whatever you want."
My father kept smiling at the coffin maker, which calmed him down.
After the locust wood coffin was brought over, my mother handed me the shroud and asked me to change my sister into it.
"Hurry up and bury Su Jing. I feel unlucky when I see her. She's going to cost me money after she dies!"
The coffin maker meant that the sister's wedding dress must be taken off and replaced with the funeral clothes he had prepared. Only in this way could the sister be subdued.
I looked at my sister's wedding dress and felt only irony.
She had been looking forward to it for so long with great joy.
The embroidery on the wedding dress was all sewn by her own stitch.
Just to dress beautifully and marry the person I love.
Unfortunately, in the end this dress became her shackles.
My sister is a girl who loves beauty.
She said this wedding dress was her most beautiful dress.
I don't want to deprive her of her last bit of right to beauty.
After I put the black shroud on her, I combed her hair again.
It was not until my mother urged me outside that I reluctantly went out.
"I told you to change your clothes but you still hesitated! You really deserve to be punished!"
I ignored her and just watched silently as they carried my sister into the coffin.
After my sister was put into the coffin, the coffin maker immediately pierced my finger and asked me to smear the blood on the seams of the coffin.
After sealing the coffin, he immediately put the rooster on the coffin.
The rooster's tail feathers were particularly bright, its comb was also very large, and it stood on the coffin without running around.
From putting the body into the coffin to burying it in the ground, the entire funeral process went very quickly.
At noon, the rooster crowed without any warning.
The coffin maker said that the crowing of the rooster means everything will go well.
In other words, my sister has been successfully suppressed.
What we need to do next is to keep this rooster well.
It cannot be eaten or sold, and must be kept until it dies of old age.
If the rooster dies halfway, then the sister is very likely to break out of the coffin.
After returning home, my father wanted to worship the rooster.
It wasn't until my brother came back that my dad took his focus off the rooster.
My brother just went to work in another place not long ago.
The reason for returning home this time is the same as before, he feels too tired from working and wants to rely on his parents for support.
The next day after he returned home, he slaughtered the rooster that was holding down the coffin.
The reason was that the rooster flew out and pecked him.
My parents found out it was missing when they came back from the market to feed the rooster.
My dad was so scared that he looked everywhere.
Until I saw my brother holding a plucked rooster in his hand.
He was so scared that he sat down on the ground.
"Qiangzi...you, where did you catch the chicken in your hand?"
My dad started to stutter when he spoke.
My brother, still not understanding what was going on, picked up the chicken in his hand and shook it.
"It flew out of that house and pecked me, so I killed it."
The house I am talking about is the one where the rooster that holds the coffin is locked up.
“It’s over…it’s over!”
After confirming that the rooster was killed, the last bit of light in my father's eyes disappeared.
The whole person is like a balloon that has been punctured by a needle.
My brother looked confused and asked my mother what was going on.
After listening to my mother's explanation, my brother not only failed to realize the seriousness of the matter.
He even started to mock my dad.
"You are really old, and you actually believe in these ghosts and gods! Not to mention that she will become an evil ghost, even if she becomes a monster, I won't be afraid!"
"Besides, she wanted to die on her own. We didn't force her to do that. Why would she come back to take revenge on us?"
After saying these words, my brother stewed the rooster with an indifferent look on his face.
My dad was the only one in the family who felt as if the sky had fallen and was out of his mind.
Unexpectedly, less than half a day after the rooster died, someone in the village came to say that my sister's grave had been dug up.
Now my dad is even more untenable.
He hurriedly called the coffin maker and ran to the cemetery.
After seeing the condition of the cemetery, the coffin maker was silent for a long time before he spoke.
"This wasn't dug out by someone, this was dug out from the inside..."
