Uncle Kuang was about to lead the actors onto the stage to thank the audience when he suddenly noticed some unfamiliar people stepping onto the stage. Confused, he turned to the village chief, who had followed them up, and asked, “Village chief, what’s going on?”
Seven or eight strong young men, like guards, surrounded the stage, blocking off the rest of the troupe behind them. Under the bright lights, only Zhen Zhen was left standing alone in the middle of the stage.
The village chief smiled, “Thank you all for your performance tonight, but what happens next has nothing to do with you.”
Leaning on his cane, the village chief walked to the front of the stage. The firelight cast eerie, strange shadows across his deeply wrinkled face, revealing a mix of excitement.
He raised his hand, signaling the villagers to quiet down. His old, solemn voice echoed through the stillness of the night, “Tonight in the Lie Nu Village, we have Lin, the wife of Pan Mingzhi, aged twenty. Her husband passed away seven days ago, and she has vowed to uphold her virtue by following him in death, in the name of chastity. Her pure and noble character is worthy of song and tears. Tonight, she steps onto this stage to die. Let us all bear witness together! After her death, her spirit tablet will be enshrined in the Temple of Virtuous Women, and she will be buried in the Grave of Virtuous Women, her name remembered for a hundred generations!”
The crowd erupted into thunderous applause, praising her noble virtue.
The village chief nodded with satisfaction, tapped his cane, and turned to Zhen Zhen, who stood with her head lowered, her eyes cast down. “Lin, let’s begin.”
Uncle Kuang, still in disbelief after hearing the village chief’s ceremonious words, slowly came to his senses. He pointed at the center of the stage in shock. “Are you trying to force that girl to kill herself?”
One of the young guards beside him frowned and pushed his hand down, saying, “No one is forcing her! She’s doing this voluntarily! This is our village’s tradition. What you all have been celebrating tonight is her sacrifice!”
Uncle Kuang’s eyes widened, and the faces of the other performers turned pale.
So, their entire performance had been in celebration of someone committing suicide?
Tao Yu, who had known the truth all along but kept silent due to Li Zhi’s instructions, could no longer hold back her anger. She spat furiously, “What a bunch of beasts!”
The young man’s expression darkened, “Who are you insulting? Show some respect!”
“I’m insulting all of you, you inhumane animals!” Tao Yu’s fiery temper flared up, and no one could stop her as she let loose a torrent of words, like beans spilling from a jar.
“What era do you think we’re living in, still forcing women to die for some ridiculous code of chastity! Even the Chairman said women hold up half the sky. Who do you think you are, forcing a young girl to die? Are women born just to be tormented by you? Didn’t you all crawl out from a woman’s womb? If you despise women so much, why don’t you kill yourselves first!”
The guards’ faces turned sour, and one of them angrily retorted, “This is our village’s business, not yours! And besides, she volunteered. No one is forcing her!”
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhen Zhen, who had been standing silently with her head bowed, suddenly lifted her head. Her clear, firm voice rang out in the night, “I don’t want to!”
Everyone froze in shock, and the village chief’s once-satisfied expression darkened.
Zhen Zhen shouted, “I don’t want to die for a man I only married three days before he died! My life was given to me by my parents, not Pan Mingzhi! He has no right to control whether I live or die!”
Tao Yu burst into laughter, her sharp, mocking voice tearing through the facade of righteousness.
The village chief slowly raised his cane, pointing it at Zhen Zhen. “Say that again.”
Zhen Zhen’s face showed no fear, and her voice grew even louder and clearer than before, “I’ll say it as many times as you want! I refuse! Why should a woman have to die just because a man does, while a man can live and remarry if a woman dies? It’s not fair! This entire practice is wrong from the beginning! It’s nothing but the oppression of women by men!”
Tao Yu immediately clapped and cheered, “Well said! Where there is oppression, there will be resistance!”
The other performers followed her lead, clapping and shouting, “She’s right!”
The applause and cheers from the troupe sharply contrasted with the earlier cheers from the villagers. The village chief’s face turned ashen, and the villagers’ expressions filled with malice. They began shouting, “These outsiders have corrupted her! Get rid of them!”
The troupe members’ faces were filled with anger, and even Uncle Kuang couldn’t hold back anymore, exclaiming, “This is a village of man-eating demons!”
As the tension mounted and it seemed a clash between the guards and the troupe was inevitable, a sudden gust of wind swept through the area. The curtains on the stage billowed in the wind, and the torches around them were instantly extinguished by the bone-chilling gale. Only the large red lanterns remained, casting an eerie, faint red glow in the night.
The crowd fell silent. Below the stage, Zhen Zhen’s grandmother trembled violently, her face revealing a look of terror.
The village chief gave a twisted smile and softly said to Zhen Zhen, “You will want to.”
A flicker of fear crossed Zhen Zhen’s eyes, but recalling what Li Zhi had told her, she quickly regained her composure, her gaze once again resolute.
Li Zhi had promised to save her.
She wouldn’t be afraid, and she certainly wouldn’t give in.
The eerie wind gusted around her like a slithering snake, surging toward Zhen Zhen’s feet. Her upright stance wavered for a moment, and her previously determined expression slowly morphed into a strange, ghostly smile. She turned around and, taking small, measured steps, slowly walked toward the table and chairs behind her.
On the table, a tray held a piece of white silk that had been prepared by the villagers. She picked it up, stepped onto the chair, and began climbing onto the table.
The members of the performance troupe shuddered as they witnessed this scene, terror creeping over them. One of them cried out, “What is she doing?! Didn’t she say she didn’t want to?”
Just then, a player who had been hiding behind the curtains suddenly dashed out. The guards, unprepared, were caught off guard, and several were knocked to the ground by the player’s surprise attack.
Li Zhi rushed straight to Zhen Zhen, grabbing her legs and yanking her off the table. Zhen Zhen whipped around, her eyes filled with venomous rage as she reached out to strangle Li Zhi.
But Li Zhi had anticipated this. After pulling Zhen Zhen down, she swiftly retreated two steps and shouted, “Fang Lin!”
Another gust of the eerie wind blew through as Fang Lin’s ghost, wearing her opera costume and embroidered shoes, appeared on the stage. The red glow from the lanterns illuminated her heavily made-up face, which was filled with deep resentment. She lunged at Zhen Zhen, her hands closing around Zhen Zhen’s neck.
Uncle Kuang, seeing this, screamed in terror, “—Fang Lin?! A ghost!”
Inside Zhen Zhen, the spirit of Lady Zhen was momentarily trapped by Fang Lin’s overwhelming hatred, unable to break free. Seizing the opportunity, Li Zhi pulled out a ghost-attracting talisman and slapped it onto Fang Lin’s back.
The ghost-attracting talisman had the power to draw all nearby ghosts to the area, trapping them for ten minutes.
Though the players had only encountered Fang Lin and Lady Zhen so far, that didn’t mean they were the only ghosts in the instance. Surely, there were more wandering souls within a hundred-mile radius. In an instant, the wind howled even more fiercely, and the villagers, panic-stricken, looked around in fear, sensing something ominous approaching from the darkness.
Lady Zhen, now bound by the ghost-attracting talisman attached to Fang Lin, was forced to leave Zhen Zhen’s body. A red shadow appeared on the stage, its form no longer human, but the immense surge of resentment could still be felt.
Fang Lin, filled with hatred for her murderer, lunged toward Lady Zhen without hesitation. Meanwhile, the ghosts drawn by the talisman began to arrive, their shadows flickering across the stage as they clashed in a chaotic frenzy. Even the now-demonic Lady Zhen couldn’t escape being ensnared by the mob of spirits.
The village chief, completely unprepared for this turn of events, snapped back to his senses, his anger and shock overwhelming him. He shouted furiously, “Seize these troublemaking outsiders!”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt a cold sensation brush against his neck. Li Zhi’s amused voice came from behind him, “Village chief, if you don’t want your head to roll off like a harvested stalk of wheat, you’d better stay still.”
Li Zhi held a sickle in her hand, its blade polished to a gleaming shine by the players earlier in the day. The curved blade rested snugly against the village chief’s throat, and it was clear that if she applied even the slightest pressure, his head would indeed tumble to the ground.
The village chief’s face turned ashen, and his voice trembled more than the leaves on the trees, “Don’t move! Nobody move!”
The rioting villagers, in a state of panic, froze in their tracks.
Li Zhi, still holding the village chief hostage, took a few steps forward and shouted loudly, “Lady Zhen!”
The twisted red shadow on the stage turned sharply to look at her, filled with venomous rage. She wanted to approach, but the ghost-attracting talisman on Fang Lin kept her restrained. She could only stay where she was, glaring at Li Zhi with seething resentment.
Li Zhi, however, ignored her and spoke to the village chief instead, “Tell her.”
The village chief quivered, “T-tell her what?”
Li Zhi replied, “Tell her the truth about why the Zhou family urged her to die for chastity. Tell her why you taught women to uphold virtue and die for it. Tell her the real meaning behind the ‘chastity archway.’”
The village chief trembled and stammered, “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
Li Zhi pulled a book from her coat and tossed it at the village chief’s feet. The old man looked down in shock—it was the village’s chronicle, documenting not only the past century of the Lie Nu Village’ history but also dark family secrets meant to be kept from outsiders.
Li Zhi pressed the sickle harder against his neck, the blade cutting into his skin. “Tell her!”
“I’ll talk, I’ll talk!” the village chief shouted as he felt his blood trickling onto the sickle. His face went pale.
“Lady Zhen! After Zhou Shaoyuan died, the Zhou family persuaded you to die for chastity. They claimed it was for honor and reputation, but the truth is, they wanted to split Zhou Shaoyuan’s wealth after you were gone! As long as you lived, all of Zhou’s assets—including the rewards the court posthumously bestowed upon him—would have gone to you! That’s why the Zhou family urged you to die! It was never about honor or righteousness!”
His frail, trembling voice carried through the night, reaching everyone’s ears.
“The chastity archway could be exchanged for imperial rewards, exemption from labor and taxes, and a better life for the family,” the village chief added quickly, trying to curry favor. “Of course, it also included your own family.”
Li Zhi pressed the sickle even harder. “One more word of nonsense, and I’ll cut you.”
The village chief could feel his skin tearing under the blade. This woman meant it—she would really kill him!
Not daring to sugarcoat anything further, he closed his eyes, resigned, and shouted, “We persuaded women to uphold chastity and die for virtue just to satisfy our selfish desires! We had no power to climb up in society, so we exerted authority by oppressing others! We used your lives to gain honor! To win rewards! To reap benefits!”
Li Zhi coldly remarked, “Holding women to the standards of saints, while applying the standards of scoundrels to yourselves.”
She then looked up at the red shadow on the stage. “Lady Zhen, did you hear all that? Over a hundred years have passed, and you’re still deceiving yourself?”
Still deceiving yourself?
Hadn’t Lady Zhen understood all of this when she saw the villagers praise her in songs but not one person stood up for her? When she saw her husband bury her in tears, only to remarry six months later? When they used the chastity archway, earned by her death, to secure rewards?
She knew.
But like a cocooned moth, she had never broken free in life—how could she transform into a butterfly in death?
Now, at last, the veil of chastity was ripped away by the very man who wielded the most authority in this place.
The night deepened, and on the stage, the red shadow let out a heart-wrenching cry of grief and resentment.