The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 38: Reception

Inside the tent were more than ten round tables made of black wood, each covered in empty bowls and chopsticks with four tall chairs. The tables were arranged to leave a path in the middle leading to the altar.

The altar was built for only this occasion, separated in the middle by hanging white fabric and yellow talismans, and at the center was a long table with a photo of the dead, accompanied by a censer with burning incense sticks. Behind the photo, a big coffin could be seen. A couple women and children knelt on each side of the coffin whispering among themselves, dressed in rough linen clothes.

Officer Huang walked up to the altar and accepted the incense stick a man offered him. Holding it, he respectfully bowed to the photo on the table thrice before kneeling down on the rattan mat. Then he kowtowed thrice without actually touching the floor. Gao Yang and the others were young and unaccustomed to the tradition, but they all followed Officer Huang’s lead.

The grass-roots troupe began to play gongs and drums while the sound of suona threatened to reach heavens. Outside, someone had lit a firecracker. As if triggered by the sounds, the women and children in the ancestral hall suddenly burst into tears while wailing and howling. In the local dialect, they said different variations of ‘What tragic deaths,’ ‘How can you leave me behind,’ and ‘I’m going to go with you.’

After paying condolences to the dead, Officer Huang sat down at a table in the corner. A middle-aged woman with a large physique came over with five cups of hot tea. “Here. Have some.”

The five of them took the teacups without taking a sip.

Officer Huang took a whiff, pretending to savor the fragrance. “Are those the relatives behind the altar?”

“Relatives? Heh, Huazi’s family is pretty much alone with only a few distant relatives. Given what happened to them, none of their relatives and friends dare to come mourn them. Those people are all neighbors trying to do something good for them, and the funeral was organized by the villagers as well.”

“That’s kind of you,” said Officer Huang.

“Well, Huazi was a good man who had never harmed a soul. It broke everyone’s heart to see him and his family meet such a tragic end. We’re just doing our part so that they may leave this world with dignity and reincarnate into their next lives.”

Officer Huang nodded. “What should I call you, ma’am?”

“Sister Fan will do.”

“Thank you, Sister Fan. Don’t let me keep you here.”

“It’s not trouble. The food is going to be served soon. You should stay and eat before leaving, Officer Huang. Ask me if you have any questions. I’m Huazi’s neighbor, and I know a thing or two about his family.”

After Sister Fan left, the five of them talked among themselves in a lowered voice.

“Did you see the photo on the altar?” Fat Jun said, fidgeting.

“Yeah,” Wang Zikai said, unconcerned. “What about it?”

“It’s strange. Why were there only four people?” Fat Jun’s voice trembled. “Weren’t they a family of five?”

Gao Yang noticed that too. It was a group photo of four men. The one standing in the middle appeared to be in his fifties. He was tanned, and his gaze seemed friendly and easygoing. Before him was a young man sitting on a chair, and two teenagers stood on each of his sides. The black-and-white photo had been taken at a photo studio. The cheap, unrealistic canvas backdrop was a painting of the Great Wall.

Officer Huang chimed in, “Before we came to the Gu Family’s Village, I looked up the cold case. The head of the family was called Gu Huihua, a fifty-four years old farmer. His wife was a farmer too. She died of breast cancer a few years before the homicide. Then there was their oldest son Gu Chunxiu, twenty-seven years old. One of their younger sons had dropped out of school to help with farming, while the other was still in middle school.”

“Then who’s the fifth family member?” asked Gao Yang.

“Their daughter-in-law, Gu Chunxiu’s wife. She hadn’t gotten a chance to have a photo with the family since it was on the night of the wedding that the entire family was killed and dismembered.”

“The night of the wedding?” Wang Zikai got excited. “That’s crazy!”

“What’s her name? Where’s her family?” Gao Yang asked.

“That’s the strange thing. We can’t find anything about the woman.” Officer Huang fidgeted with the cigarette in his hand.

Gao Yang fell silent.

“Their bodies had been cut into more than a hundred pieces and scattered all over the village. It took the medical examiners two days to piece the body parts back together. There were four men and one woman. However, the woman was missing a head, and it was never found.” Officer Huang lit his cigarette.

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

Someone was hitting a gong. Then a man hollered, “Food’s coming!”

All the villagers helping with the funeral stopped what they were doing and streamed into the tent, quickly filling the ten tables. The women who had helped make the food served the steaming dishes, filling the tables with all kinds of proteins and vegetables. The five of them exchanged a look. None of them dared touch anything—save for one exception.

Gao Yang called out to the system in his mind and was going to tell it to scan the food when he remembered the function was unavailable here. He sighed and turned around, only to find to his shock that Wang Zikai had picked up a piece of braised pork and shoved it into his mouth.

“Wang Zikai...”

“What?” Wang Zikai’s mouth was already smeared with oil. “Hm, it’s good! You should have some too.”

“I’m not hungry,” Fat Jun lied, gulping.

There was no knowing how long it had been since they entered the village. After all that they had been through, they were thirsty, starving, and exhausted. In such a strange, dangerous environment, however, any normal person would know that they shouldn’t touch the food.

Unfortunately, Wang Zikai wasn’t a normal person, but an idiot.

He enjoyed the meal to his heart’s content, and he even started chatting with a drunk villager at the table next to theirs. While they seemed to have trouble understanding each other, they enjoyed the conversation so much that they ended up calling each other brother with their arms behind the other’s back, and two bottles of hard liquor had been finished between them.

Once the reception ended, the five of them left early.

Wang Zikai had gotten a little too much to drink. Gao Yang and Fat Jun supported him as they headed to the entrance of the village.

Officer Huang seemed at a loss. “Given the circumstances, this is probably ten days after the homicide from thirty years ago. It’s on record that the villagers had decided to go ahead with the funeral since the police had been struggling to solve the case.”

“Did we really go back in time?” Fat Jun was distressed. Then a thought came to him. “When...did the villagers disappear overnight?”

“The next day after the bodies were buried,” said Officer Huang. “When my mentor returned to the village for the investigation, it was already empty.”

“That would be tomorrow then,” Gao Yang said.

“Fuck! So we have to wait another day?” Wang Zikai might as well be exhaling alcohol as he spoke. Before he could say anything else, he suddenly staggered to the side of the road and dropped to his knees, throwing up nonstop.

Qing Ling looked at Wang Zikai with disgust. “Has he drunk too much? Or is this food poisoning?”

Officer Huang shook his head and walked up to pat Wang Zikai on the back, but immediately, his expression darkened, and he turned around to wave the others over. “Come take a look.”

Alerted, Gao Yang was the first to go up to them, and what he saw gave him goosebumps.

What Wang Zikai had vomited wasn’t food that hadn’t been digested, but a clump of earthworms and peanut worms.