Chapter 3: Frankenstein Corpse A Surrogate Burial (2/2)

“But, Grandpa… What happened to this body?”

Grandpa inhaled his cigarette and began to relate the history of this corpse in detail.

It all began thirty years ago.

At the time, in a village near the provincial town, there was a villager called Huang San. He was a good-for-nothing loafer who couldn’t do anything except drinking, gambling, and fooling around with women. Before he even reached twenty years of age, he’d already worried his mother so bad that she died.

No one would marry the bastard, of course. Apart from that, he’d always be running around begging to borrow some money from the villagers, but they knew the money was as good as burnt if they gave it to Huang San so they just ignored him. Huang San couldn’t find any work within the village, so he had to move elsewhere. He finally found work at a restaurant, but after only working for two days he immediately used the little money he earned to gamble.

Then he owed the gambling house 5000 yuan and fled, and the mafia came to the village asking for the money, but that amount of money was no measly sum at all. It was enough to cover a few households, so Huang San’s friends and family all pretended they never knew anyone with that name.

A few days later, someone found a black plastic bag beside the road to the hills, and inside was the bloody head of a man! It was reported to the police immediately and they took photos of the severed head and posted a notice in the newspapers to let anyone who knew this face to come up and give more information. One of Huang San’s distant relatives saw it on the newspaper and recognized him, but he thought that Huang San only had himself to blame and got what he deserved, plus the villagers all agreed that it would be safer not to report anything, for fear of any trouble from the mafia. Therefore, no one provided any further information to the police other than the identification and Huang San’s murder was archived as an unsolved cold case.

Huang San’s head was sent back to the village. Everyone felt that he was a pitiable man who led a sorry life and died so soon and so horribly. He didn’t even have his whole body intact — and the villagers were worried that this might cause his ghost to haunt the village!

Someone found out that Huang San’s mother was a Teochew person, so they formed a ‘surrogate body’ for him by patching up body parts from different farm animals and gave him a proper funeral according to the Teochew tradition, in the hope that he could find peace after death.

As Grandpa finished the story, he told me to place the bones back into the grave and bury them just as I found them before. After I was done with that, he took out a stack of joss paper from his jacket and struck a match to burn them.

“Forgive me, Huang San,” said Grandpa. “I had to trouble you again. I know you died a gruesome death and you had no children to give you any offerings in your afterlife, so please receive this meagre offering for now. On your death anniversary next year, I’ll make sure to invite monks and Daoist priests to perform ceremonies for you so your soul can ascend to a higher place.”

Just as Grandpa finished his sentence, a sudden cold gust of wind blew the flame that was consuming the joss paper. I thought I heard a faint sobbing sound, and just like the ashes of the burnt joss paper, it was carried by the wind up into the sky.

I was so shocked and afraid that I didn’t know how to react. Grandpa pressed on my head to make me bow and ordered me to apologize to the dead person.

When I finally got up to my feet, the eerie, chilly wind was gone.

“A-Are g-g-ghosts real, Grandpa?” I asked, not exactly in my most courageous moment.

“They are if you believe them to be,” answered Grandpa vaguely. “Always remember this, my boy — examining a corpse the way coroners do is an affront to the dead person. Never take the task lightly and never forget to pay your respects!”

“Yes, Grandpa,” I nodded.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that Grandpa’s words just now implied that he would allow me to become a coroner and work with the police now!

“Grandpa,” I said, “since I passed your test, does that mean that I can catch criminals with Uncle Sun now?”

“Never!” answered Grandpa. “This is a strict rule of the Song family! All members of the family must obey it!”

1.

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