When Uncle Fang hurried back to Baijia Village from Chenjiachuang, night had already fallen.
On the eve of the Little New Year, Uncle Qiao passed away, casting a heavy, gloomy pall over the entire Baijia Village. Villagers of all ages flocked to the Qiao residence to offer their condolences and pay their respects, their weeping rising in wave after wave like an ocean surge.
Uncle Fang, arriving a step too late, knelt before Uncle Qiao's bier and wept bitterly, unable to rise. He recalled how just days before they had been talking, discussing how once Uncle Qiao recovered, they would go into the mountains together to hunt a wild boar. Yet after mere days, they were separated by the netherworld, never to meet again.
Seeing how heartbroken Uncle Fang was, Fourth Master Liang stepped over to comfort him. "The dead cannot be brought back to life. Besides, with Uncle Qiao's consumption, who knows how many medicines he boiled without effect. It can only be said that his allotted span of life has run out—" At this, Fourth Master Liang could not help but shed two lines of hot tears.
At that moment, the Village Chief walked over. "I have a matter to discuss with the two of you." With that, he signaled with his eyes for Fourth Master Liang and Uncle Fang to step outside.
Outside, the cold wind gusted, and the sky was full of chilling stars with no moonlight. The dark, brooding mountains to the east appeared and vanished intermittently.
A glass kerosene lamp flickered on the table before the door, its feeble flame swaying in the biting night wind as if it might go out at any second.
The Village Chief led Fourth Master Liang and Uncle Fang to sit down by the table.
"Uncle Fang," the Village Chief said, "does Fang Yi and Qiao Xue's arranged marriage still stand? If it does, Fang Yi must wear mourning garb for Uncle Qiao alongside Qiao Xue."
Before Uncle Fang could speak, Fourth Master Liang chimed in, "This matter is probably... not easy to handle! Uncle Qiao died vomiting blood, and when he left, he didn't even leave a single word."
Uncle Fang slowly raised his head to look at Fourth Master Liang, then glanced at the Village Chief. After hesitating for a moment, he said, "I'll go back and discuss it with the children's mother." With that, he got up and left.
The cold night wind ruffled Uncle Fang's hair and stirred a storm of worries in his mind. His feet kept moving forward while his body seemed to pull back, stopping and going all the way. Between his fingers, a cigarette was blown out and relighted by the wind several times over.
Recalling the past, he and Uncle Qiao had climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and traveled from village to village together. They had endured countless hardships and cheated death time and again just to survive until today. Later, each had settled down and started a family, and by sheer coincidence, both households welcomed the births of Fang Yi and Qiao Xue in the exact same year. Overjoyed, the two families had arranged an engagement between the two children.
Yet ever since Uncle Qiao contracted consumption, there seemed to be a subtle change regarding the arranged marriage. Even when he was gravely ill, Uncle Qiao never brought it up again, as if he had completely forgotten about it, or perhaps as if he never wanted to mention it at all.
Uncle Fang had pondered this countless times. Uncle Qiao must have felt that not only was the Fang family poverty-stricken and burdened with many children, but Qiao Xue would have no good life after marrying into it, and that was why he had changed his mind. But as for Qiao Xue, Uncle Fang truly liked her from the bottom of his heart and hoped the engagement would be fulfilled as promised in the future. Yet now that Uncle Qiao had passed away just like that, and Auntie Liu had always been a mute gourd who never spoke up, everything was up in the air.
Unawares, Uncle Fang reached his front door just as Fang Yi was walking out. "Dad, you're back." Fang Yi quickly turned back to inform Auntie Li.
Fang Rong, Fang Hua, Fang Fu, and Fang Gui had been badly frightened upon hearing that Uncle Qiao died of vomiting blood, fearing ghosts might trail behind them in the dark. Thus, they had eaten dinner early and left to sleep at their friends' houses in the village. Fang Mei, Fang Lan, and Fang Ju were huddled on the bed doing needlework—knitting sweaters, making shoe soles, doing embroidery... A kerosene lamp on the table wavered and spewed black smoke, filling the room with the smell of oil while its dim, feeble halo illuminated the cold earthen walls.
Seeing Uncle Fang return home with a troubled face, Auntie Li hurriedly had Fang Yi fetch a basin of warm water for him to wash his face. She then went into the kitchen, lifted the pot lid, and brought out a steaming bowl of thin porridge and a few pieces of fragrant rabbit meat to place on the table, along with their unchanging staples of homemade pickles.
After washing up, Uncle Fang sat by the table to eat. He was quite surprised by the pieces of rabbit meat, yet he did not ask where they came from. He wolfed them down in a frenzy, chewing even the bones into fragments and swallowing them.
Leaning against the doorframe, Fang Yi watched his father eat the rabbit meat, feeling a heavy ache in his heart. He hadn't tasted a single piece of rabbit meat today; he had saved them all for his younger brothers and sisters. It wasn't that he didn't want to eat, but rather that he simply couldn't swallow them down. A single large bowl of rabbit meat was truly not enough for this family!
"Fang Yi, go to sleep as well," Uncle Fang said, waving a hand sideways at him between mouthfuls. "Uncle Qiao is gone. Tomorrow we all have to go over to his house to help, and there will be times when you are needed. Rest early tonight and wake up early tomorrow."
Fang Yi acknowledged the instruction, turned around, and quickly vanished into the vast night. Unlike his younger brothers, he wasn't afraid of ghosts when walking down dark roads. Being trained in martial arts, he had always been bold and dared to move about alone at all hours of the night. With Uncle Qiao gone, he felt profound sorrow rather than fear. He truly wished Uncle Qiao could live so that, just like before, he could always see Qiao Xue's smile.
Seeing that Fang Yi had gone far off, Uncle Fang had Auntie Li shut the front gate. The two of them sat by the table, sighing heavily. Uncle Fang recounted the words of the Village Chief and Fourth Master Liang to Auntie Li. After pondering for a long while, Auntie Li said, "Given the friendship between our two families, wearing mourning garb isn't really a big deal. It's just that it wrongs our eldest boy, being dragged into this so vaguely... What on earth is this supposed to mean?"
Uncle Fang remained silent, puffing away at his cigarette incessantly. "Just consider it a filial tribute to Uncle Qiao. Though our family has many children and heavy burdens now, by the time our eldest reaches marriageable age, perhaps we'll already be living a good life, and better girls will be willing to marry into our family..."
Auntie Li said no more and could only agree to let Fang Yi wear mourning garb for Uncle Qiao the next day.
The next day, before dawn broke, Fang Yi returned home radiating heat. Every morning he would slip into the mountain forest to practice his martial arts in secret, stopping only when he was drenched in sweat.
Uncle Fang shed his usual indifference and spoke to Fang Yi in an exceptionally gentle tone. "Today you have a very heavy responsibility to bear—you will wear mourning garb for Uncle Qiao. Their family has no sons, and they are the closest to us, so..."
Fang Yi was startled at first. Although he had long heard rumors about his arranged marriage with Qiao Xue, no one had ever brought it up to him directly. Moreover, he had always treated Qiao Xue like a real younger sister. At that moment, it felt as though words were on the tip of his tongue, yet for some reason he could not utter them. Facing Uncle Fang's piercing gaze, he ultimately nodded in silence.
The destitute, barren mountain ridge could offer little comfort to the dead, save for instinctively granting him a patch of yellow earth in which to sleep.
A harsh string of firecrackers shattered the silence, and a massive funeral procession set out along the mountain ridge against the rising morning sun. Fang Yi and Qiao Xue, dressed in mourning garb, walked at the front, closely followed by a shoddy coffin carried on an eight-man bier, advancing slowly toward the mountain forest to the east amid earth-shattering cries and wails.
Fang Yi walked with lowered head, watching dimly as the dirt path underfoot stretched forward, stretching... as if it would never end.
For the first time, his eyes were filled with distant, profound grief, and his heart filled with an inexplicable resentment and protest against poverty. He deeply loved the land beneath his feet, and deeply loved the kind villagers around him, yet he was powerless to stop the sudden strikes of illness and the passing of loved ones... Uncle Qiao had died vomiting blood, so who would be the next consumed by illness? And in what miserable manner would they leave this mountain ridge?
Ever since Uncle Qiao's death, Fang Yi had practiced martial arts furiously in the mountain forest—practicing staff techniques, saber techniques, spear techniques, fist techniques, kicking techniques, whip techniques, dart techniques... Any moves and forms mentioned in the Secret Manual or that he could conceive of, he practiced with grueling dedication. It seemed that only through this relentless torment of his flesh could he find a measure of comfort.
New Year's Eve was close at hand. Yet Uncle Qiao's tragic departure had plunged the entire Baijia Village into an unspeakable silence.