Mei Ouchang, a juren from south of the Yangtse River, once told me of a strange case which his friend Sun from the same hometown had handled, while he was an official at Dezhou, in Shandong Province.
It all started with the wedding of the son of a villager. The bride was to be married into the family that day and relatives and neighbors came to extend their congratulations.
The drinking went on till the first watch was sounded. The bridegroom went outside where he saw his bride, dressed in dazzling colours, walking toward the back of the house with quick steps. He wondered what she was doing and followed her. There was a long, narrow river behind the house and one had to cross a bridge to get to the other side. The bride crossed the bridge and walked on. Suspicious, the bridegroom called to her, but she didn’t respond. Instead, she beckoned to him from a distance. He hurried forward, trying to catch up, but couldn’t. There was always a distance of a few paces between them.
After walking thus for several li, they entered a village. The bride stopped and said to the bridegroom, “It’s too quiet in your home, I can’t get used to it. Let you and I stay for a few days with my family before we go back to my father and mother-in-law. Then she took a hairpin from her hair and knocked on the door with it. A maid came to open the door. The bride entered first. With no other choice, the bridegroom followed. As they entered the hall, he saw his parents-in-law sitting there. They said to him, “Our daughter has been spoiled from the time she was a child and has never left us for a moment. Now that she has to leave home, we feel very sad. But we are comforted to see that you have come back with her. Stay here for a few days and then we’ll send you two home.” So they fixed up a room with a bed and quilt and the two stayed.
Meanwhile, back in the bridegroom’s home, the guests all joined in looking for him, when he did not return after a long while. There was only the bride in the chamber while the bridegroom was nowhere to be found. They searched far and near but found no trace of his whereabouts. His parents cried their hearts out, thinking he must have died.
About six months passed with the bride living like a widow. Her parents told the bridegroom’s father that they wanted to find another husband for their daughter. This saddened the father even more and he said, “But we haven’t found his body or his clothes. There’s no evidence. How do we know he is dead? Even if he is, your daughter can wait until a year has passed before she remarries. What’s the hurry?” But this further irritated the bride’s father who went to the prefectural authorities to sue the bridegroom’s family. The official, Sun, thought this was a strange case and didn’t know where to start the investigation, so he passed a sentence forbidding the bride to remarry until three years had passed. After his decision was duly recorded, he told the two families to go home.
The bridegroom, in the meantime, was living with his in-laws who treated him with warmth and hospitality. Every time he raised the question of going home, his wife would agree but kept postponing the date of departure. More than six months passed like this. The question bothered him incessantly and he had no peace of mind. He proposed going back alone, but the wife kept urging him to stay.
One day, the whole family appeared to be panic-stricken, as though disaster were pending. His father-in-law said to him in a hurry, “I had planned to send you two home in two or three days, but before we could finish the packing for you, a terrible disaster befell us. There is really no alternative, I can only send you home first.” So saying, he saw the bridegroom to the gate and then hurried back, having no time to give to ceremony and manners. The bridegroom was just about to take off when he looked back and saw that the house and courtyard had all disappeared! Only a tall grave stood in their place. The bridegroom was astounded. He quickly found his way home.
Back at home, he told the whole story from beginning to end and, with his father, went to the authorities to report his experience. Sun ordered his men to bring the bride’s father and told him that he should now send his daughter back to her husband’s home. It was then that the bride and bridegroom really wed.
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