After Refusing the Widow, the Male Corpse Shared My Face

To carry on the family line, my parents forced me to marry a village widow who had already doomed three husbands to their deaths.

I escaped with everything I had and hid in the unmarked graveyard.

It was only thanks to the shelter of a badly decomposed man's corpse that I barely avoided being dragged back.

After daybreak, I planned to head back to the city to continue my studies.

Before leaving, I wanted to bury the man's body to repay him for saving my life.

But when I finished digging the grave and was about to lay the corpse inside,

I discovered that the college acceptance letter clutched in his hand had the very same name as mine written on it.

Even the university and major he'd been admitted to were exactly the same as mine!

I froze on the spot.

If he was me,

then who was I?

...

I tried to pull the acceptance letter out of the corpse's hand.

But his fingers gripped that acceptance letter so tightly, as if he were clutching his own lifeline.

Left with no choice, I crouched down and leaned in to look.

The corpse had already rotted, and even getting slightly closer brought a foul stench of decay.

Combined with the badly decomposed face, every inch closer made me tremble with fear.

But to confirm the acceptance letter in his hand, I gritted my teeth, forced down the terror in my heart, and lay flat on the ground.

Finally, I could make out the words on the acceptance letter clearly.

In that instant, my mind felt like it had been struck by lightning, and I collapsed to the ground.

My name is Earl Delgado.

A month ago, I was admitted to Kingsbay University as the top state exam scorer.

When I filled out my application, I put down my favorite major, archaeology, full of hope.

But the teacher in charge of admissions said, "Archaeology is too obscure."

"Earl, I know your family isn't well-off. You'd be better off studying finance."

Back then I was moved to tears, and I even gave that teacher a bag of dried sweet potatoes I'd brought from home.

He wouldn't take them, and only told me to study hard, get out of the mountains as soon as I could, and live the life I wanted.

There's no way I could ever forget any of this!

But now my acceptance letter was in this corpse's hand.

So who was I?

An almost terrifying thought took shape in my mind.

My home is in a remote mountain region.

The only narrow path leading out of the mountains runs right along the edge of a cliff.

It was so dark that night, and in my ill-fitting groom's suit, I stumbled and staggered along the road.

One wrong step and you'd fall off the cliff and be smashed to pieces!

When I was a child, I saw with my own eyes an old woman lose her footing and fall off a cliff, leaving no trace of her body!

To this day, only an empty memorial tomb stands for her at her home.

My heart was pounding wildly, but I quickly forced the thought down.

It couldn't be.

I grew up in these mountains, and I've walked this road countless times.

I could find my way out with my eyes closed.

I remember the year I was in ninth grade, I ran a fever during an exam and didn't do well.

My parents broke one of my legs with a rattan cane, burned my schoolbag, and forbade me from going to school again.

Even dragging my broken leg, I managed to feel my way safely back to school.

The name and the university on this acceptance letter were exactly the same as mine, but I couldn't make out the year.

Maybe it was just a coincidence.

My gaze fell again on the corpse in front of me.

Seeing the groom's suit on him, almost identical to mine, bitter tears streamed down my face.

It seemed he was just like me, another poor soul forced into marriage.

The thick fear I'd felt suddenly turned into heartache.

Wiping away my tears, I struggled to drag the corpse into the grave I'd dug, meaning to bury him.

A thick layer of dirt covered his body.

I knelt down too, ready to kowtow to him a few times.

But when I saw the bone jutting out at his wrist, I was nailed to the spot!

There's a bone that juts out from my right wrist too!

I wasn't born with it. My father did it to me.

My parents didn't like me.

Even though I was naturally bright and scored perfect marks every single time.

They only ever lectured me with cold faces.

They said perfect scores were nothing specialcity kids developed in every way, morally, intellectually, physically, aesthetically, and in laborand they told me not to get cocky.

The year I was six, all the children in the village loved eating ice pops.

I wanted one too, so I spent a whole summer up in the mountains digging medicinal herbs, and with the money I earned I bought one sweet ice pop.

I cradled that ice pop, licking it carefully with my tongue, savoring the hard-won sweetness.

But my father saw it. Without a word he snatched the ice pop out of my hand and threw it on the ground.

Then he pinned my hand down hard against the stone steps and smashed it with a rock.

He said I wasn't applying myself, that I'd used my book money to buy snacks.

If I was that greedy, my hands deserved to be smashed.

Even though I cried and explained that the money came from digging and selling herbs.

My father wouldn't listen. He threw me into the cold, dark cellar to reflect on what I'd done.

The cellar was cold and dark. I cried until my voice went hoarse, and no one came for me.

It wasn't until three days later, when my mother pulled the five yuan I'd set aside for book fees out of my schoolbag.

Only then did my father take me to the village's barefoot doctor to set the bone.

But too much time had passed since the injury, and the bone had already healed.

Breaking it and resetting it could very likely leave me disabled for life.

So I had to go to school with that jutting hand bone.

My classmates mocked me for it, and I was miserable for a very, very long time.

A bone injury this particularyou couldn't find a second one like it in the whole village.

As I touched that protruding bone on the male corpse, my whole body was trembling.

Suddenly, someone up on the cliff called out to me.

"Hey, kid! Is the path down there slippery? Can we bring the coffin down?"

He was talking to me?

Joy shot through my heart, and I answered at once.

"You can bring it down! It's not slippery!"

The man nodded at me, then waved the people behind him to lift the coffin and start slowly down the narrow footpath along the cliff.

And my heart suddenly eased with relief.

Since someone could see me, and I could talk to him, that meant I was still alive.

As for that bone on the male corpse that jutted out exactly like mine

How many wretched souls are there in this world?

Maybe it was just a coincidence.

I patted the last handful of soil over the male corpse.

I stood up to leave, and ran straight into the funeral procession coming down.

Out of politeness, I turned to the side and stepped out of the way to let them pass first.

But as my eyes drifted over the black-and-white memorial portrait in the leader's hands, I was nailed to the spot.

The face in that portrait was exactly like mine!

I remember that photo.

It was taken before the college entrance exams, and it was the only photo I had.

When I got home, I told my parents I needed to have my picture taken.

Both their faces went cold at once.

My father especiallyhe snatched up the fire poker off the ground and started beating me with it.

He said I was young and already going wrong, acting like some rich young master getting his picture taken.

What was nextwas I going off to drink and run wild?

No matter how many times I explained that the school required the photo, they simply didn't believe me.

They even took the only ten yuan I had for food, shoved a few dinner rolls and some sweet potatoes at me, and told me to get lost back to school.

I went back to school in tears.

I wasn't lying. The photo was for the college entrance exams.

Without a photo, you weren't even allowed to sit the exam.

Luckily my homeroom teacher had a kind heart and paid the twenty yuan for the photo.

But my eyes were still swollen from crying, ugly, exactly like the memorial portrait in that person's hand.

I was terrified, so I rushed to the ditch beside me and compared my reflection in the water with the boy's face in the memorial portrait.

The eyes and brows were almost a perfect match...

And the mole at the corner of the mouth!

I nearly broke down.

But I still couldn't believe it.

I bolted into the funeral procession and threw open the coffin.

It was completely empty inside.

Only a few brand-new sets of clothes, in a style I had never seen before.

I let out a huge breath and dropped down onto the ground.

Thank goodness. It was just a false alarm.

Kids in the mountains all look about the same.

Maybe I'd seen it wrong.

I brushed the dirt off myself, made my apologies to the funeral procession, and moved off to the side to rest for a bit.

I was so tired. All that commotion just now had used up nearly all my strength.

To climb up from the bottom of that steep cliff, I'd need to be in good shape.

But no sooner had I closed my eyes than I heard a familiar shout.

"Found him! He's over there!"

"Grab her!"

I opened my eyes on instinct.

And saw a crowd of villagers standing less than twenty meters from me.

At the front was the old widow my parents were forcing me to marry!

Almost by reflex, I scrambled up and ran.

The wind whistled past my ears, and the thorns of the unmarked graveyard tore at my legs until they burned.

But I didn't dare stop.

Because I knew exactly what would happen to me the moment I was caught and dragged back!

I ran with everything I had, wishing I were one of these mountain beasts, born with four hooves to run on.

But after a whole night I was hungry and worn out, and after only a few steps I felt completely drained, my hands and feet barely obeying me.

As I passed a jutting rock, I lost my footing and crashed hard to the ground.

Blood immediately welled up from my leg, and the pursuers behind me closed in and grabbed me by the collar.

Slap, slap, slap!

The old widow at the front pinched my chin and struck me back and forth, three slaps in a row.

My cheeks swelled up like dinner rolls, my head spinning, and the whole time their cursing never let up.

"Your parents want you to marry me, so you're my man! You've got to provide for my whole family!"

"Still trying to run?"

"Take him back right now!"

I struggled and fought back, but they still bound my hands and feet and dragged me back inside by force.

Then I was thrown onto the old widow's kang like a ragged sack.

Firecrackers went off outside.

Everywhere there were shouts of congratulations and drinking games.

But I couldn't feel happy at all.

I didn't want a wife. I wanted to study.

I didn't want to be trapped in these endless mountains for the rest of my life.

I wanted to go out and see the world.

But the ropes were too tight, and no matter how I tried, I couldn't break free.

Just as I was panting from exhaustion, the door was kicked open from the outside.

The old widow, drunk out of her mind, came up to me with a leering grin, stroking my face with her greasy hand.

"Heh heh, husband, after tonight I'm yours."

"When the time comes, I'll bear you a son or a daughter, and with the five children left to me by my three late husbands, we'll live as one happy family!"

The old widow bent down to kiss me.

The stench of her made me want to gag.

I turned my face away in disgust, and I didn't expect it to enrage her.

She slapped me across the face, straddled me, tore my wedding clothes to shreds, and got ready to force herself on me.

Poor me, a grown man, bound hand and footnot only could I not move, I was like a fish on a chopping board, entirely at her mercy.

The slightest resistance earned me a rain of punches and kicks.

I even thought, maybe I should just accept my fate.

This was the worthless life I was born to.

As a child my father showed me no tenderness and my mother no love. Somehow, through my own hard work, I'd gotten into university and finally had a way out of this wretched hole.

But the next morning, my father told me, his face blank.

The family was too poor to afford a bride for me, so he'd used half a side of pork as the betrothal gift to have me marry the old widow next door.

The money saved would go toward carrying on the family line, raising the children the widow and I would have.

The past was like a pair of invisible hands, clamping down hard on my heart.

It hurt so much I couldn't breathe.

But I refused to be trapped in this life.

I would run. I would leave this place and never come back!

From somewhere I found the strengthI suddenly drove my knee up into the old widow's belly.

While she clutched her stomach and howled, I stumbled and ran for the door.

I wanted out so badly, even when the old widow behind me hurled something and struck me hard in the back.

Blood streamed down my back in sheets, and the people in the yard stared in horror, but I felt none of it.

There was only one thought in my mind: get out of here.

Never come back.

At last I made it outside, and at the edge of the village I ran into Katherine, the simple girl, playing in the mud.

When she saw me, her face broke into an instinctive smile.

"Earl, you're back?"

Then her eyes landed on my back, and a heavy worry welled up in them again.

"Earl, you're bleeding so much. Let me take you to Aunt Freda so she can kiss it better."

I was too tired, so I let her lead me home by the hand.

But when I pushed open the courtyard gate and saw the memorial tablet standing in the main room, I froze where I stood.

My name was written on it, clear as day.