The Ghost Marriage

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Sweet though it was, the perfume of the incense could not disguise the odour of putrefying flesh. And the summer heat was not helping.

The cadavers were at the back of the room on a long table, surrounded by bowls of fresh fruit, boiled eggs in bowls of rice, dim sum still warm from the steamer, buns, a bottle of chilled white wine running with condensation.

The guests assembled at the far side of the room, near the door, and the window with a view on to the siheyuan courtyard. In the hutong beyond, children played unaware of the bizarre marriage taking place behind high walls.

The spirits of the dead man and his fiancée stood before a temporary altar: paper effigies to be burned, along with paper money, a paper car, and paper furniture that stood outside as comforts to be treasured in the afterlife. A gong sounded in the hands of the priest, and with a swirl of his red robe he placed a ring on the left hand of the paper groom. From the back of the observers, Feng Qi watched as the dead boy’s mother placed a ring on the paper finger of the bride, and he let his eyes return uneasily to the open coffins behind them and the dead girl, whose face was troublingly familiar.

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