Chapter 26: Sending off the bride

After many years of experience, I have come to believe that what I see with my eyes is not necessarily real.

However, the three large boats moored in the bay were so detailed that I had to use such an adjective, because everything about them was so clear. I suspected that if I had walked up to them and crossed the several hundred meters of distance, I would have been able to see the wood grain on the boat clearly.

It was a typical Chinese wooden boat, with a two-story hull, full of the ancient Chinese style, but different from the delicate style of the Jiangnan boats, with a unique rugged flavor.

If someone were to see this boat and say it was fake, no one would believe them. But if it were real… why can’t I see clearly the people in the boat, dressed in black robes, playing and beating drums, and the people bustling about on the boat?

I felt that I needed to open my third eye to see what this boat was really like. But my intuition told me that it would be very dangerous to do so. Those on the boat would not have paid any attention to my existence, and I would have attracted all their attention. Even if I was tied up with a yin-yang knot, it would not be able to stop me.

That’s it. In the midst of the hazy darkness, the sudden appearance of the wedding boat, the exuberant joy, the faint mist… I wanted to put everything on the screen, and I couldn’t tell whether it was real or not. I couldn’t help but ask the old man Liu behind me, “These boats…”

But before I could finish my sentence, the old man behind me suddenly coughed a few times and whispered in my ear, “No one has ever been on them, and no one knows if they really exist… all we know is that they appear every two years, but you can’t get within ten meters of them.”

“What happens if you get close?” Mr. Liu’s words were very informative, and I didn’t know how to ask for a while, so I could only ask the most critical question.

“There was once a stranger in town who forced his way close to the ships… and then…” Mr. Liu was silent. I knew he wasn’t hiding anything, but was trying to find the right words. After a few seconds, Mr. Liu said, “Then he suddenly disappeared… disappeared before our eyes… Some people said he got on the ship, but the next day, his body was floating in the Yellow River. I went with my friends to collect his body, and I will never forget his face in my life. I don’t know what kind of shock could make a person’s face twist like that.

I was silent… At this moment, I was almost certain that these large ships were not real. Whether it was the ships or the people on them, they might be some kind of terrifying existence. But I still had one last question: “Old man, since these ships are so strange, are they going to sacrifice the children to the ships?”

I didn’t quite understand what was going on with this wedding party. But Mr. Liu told me that the children would not be in danger for the time being, and I vaguely understood from their conversation that the children were being sent to the so-called holy village. Could it be that they were going on this boat?

But Grandpa Liu also said that no one could get close to the boat, and that anyone who did would end up floating in the Yellow River. At that moment, I thought to myself, if the children were in danger, I would do my best to save them. That was a principle, and there was no way I could give up!

But Mr. Liu quickly gave me an answer: “The children are not sacrificed to this boat, but are sent to some… some mysterious place! This boat is not the real boat to pick up the children.”

“Then?” I frowned and couldn’t figure it out. Since this boat is not the real boat to pick up the child, does it mean that the child will be thrown directly into the Yellow River?

This time, Mr. Liu didn’t answer me directly, but said, “You’ll see when you look down.”

The night wind was getting colder, and the wind blowing in the northwest never had the meaning of “lingering” like the south. It was more like the heavy breathing of a tired man, direct and cold, blowing on the face, making everyone’s hair and clothes flutter…

The joy on the other side was even more intense in this wind, the mist was lingering, the person who could not get up after kneeling for a long time, the child who was lifted high… it made people suddenly realize that life is like a play.

In this scene, under the bright moon, a faint sound of breaking water suddenly came. After those magnificent large boats, a somewhat simple black-canopy boat appeared in my sight.

It was not the kind of black-canopy boat you would find in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but a somewhat rugged black-canopy boat from the Northwest. It had a wide hull, a black canopy, and a man wearing a straw hat and a typical Northwest sheepskin coat was at the bow of the boat, constantly rowing the boat… and at the bow of the boat was tied a large red silk flower, the fabric on both sides of the silk flower was draped downwards and decorated the boat, adding a touch of festivity to this simple boat.

But compared to the magnificent ships around it, this ship looks like an old soldier who has just returned from the battlefield, exhausted and covered in blood. Could this be…

“The messenger has arrived. This is the real boat for the wedding. Don’t you see the difference?” I had just guessed, and Mr. Liu had already leaned over my back and given me the answer.

Yes, there is a difference. Compared to those gorgeous ships, this ship looks like a real boat. Although they all look the same in the eyes, full of three-dimensionality and detail, the feeling is so different. It’s like the people you see on the screen and the people you see in reality are always different.

At that moment, I was a little dazed. When I looked at the magnificent boats again, I suddenly felt that the air around them was distorted, like the rising steam in a hot desert, distorting everything in the lens.

This… for the first time, I couldn’t believe my own eyes, but when I looked up again, everything returned to normal. At the same time, Wei Donglai’s voice, full of excitement and flattery, echoed in this desolate place: “The bridal boat has arrived, sending the bride.”

As he spoke, the black-canopied boat slowly approached the shore, while the other boats remained anchored in the backwater, some twenty meters from the shore.

At the moment the boat with the black canopy came to shore, the black-clad men holding the children raised them higher and higher. They lowered their heads and walked step by step towards the boat with the black canopy. The people knelt even lower, almost to the ground.

In the sound of the wind and the sound of the Yellow River, the children seemed to realize that this was a one-way road, and finally began to cry and wail, looking especially desolate and helpless.

My heart began to ache inexplicably, and I didn’t know which child spoke first. Suddenly, they cried out, “Mom, Dad, Grandma…” Then, the cries of the children calling out to their loved ones became a chorus.

This scene made me feel heartbroken, and suddenly I was so angry that I couldn’t breathe. Could it be that the children’s relatives were among the cloaked people?

I really wanted to ask Grandpa Liu, but before I could get the words out, I saw a figure suddenly stand up from among the kneeling black-clad people. He rushed towards the black-clad people holding the children, but was suddenly pulled back by the kneeling crowd around him.

Then, another female voice was heard in the crowd, crying out, “Don’t let my Hu Zi go! Our Hu Zi is not going! Our Hu Zi is not going!” Accompanying this female voice, one of the boys was crying especially loudly. In the moonlight, you could see him repeatedly extending his small hand and shouting, “Mom, Mom…”

However, all this was to no avail. Someone had already covered the woman’s mouth, and the distance between the mother and son could only be gradually widened… There were also a few cries of distress from elsewhere in the crowd, but compared to the tiger’s mother, those people appeared to be much more restrained.

I thought of the people crying in the crowd when I walked down the hill. Could they be the children’s relatives? How could they…? My hands trembled, and I thought of the love of my parents. Since I was a child, I have always wanted to save myself at all costs. I suddenly found that I could not restrain myself at all. In front of me was such a tragedy, and I could not just watch it happen.

I was carrying Master Liu, and my hands were shaking. He must have felt it, because his sighs sounded behind me: “Mourning their misfortune, angry at their lack of resolve… It’s too late to grieve now, what’s the point? But the fact that you can still grieve shows that you’re not completely numb! Don’t do it, it’s useless. Saving people isn’t just about saving them, it’s about saving their hearts. Otherwise, even if you save the children, they’ll still be sent away again!”

I clenched my teeth and my breathing became heavy. I almost spat out a sentence from between my teeth: “How can people’s hearts be saved?”

“Only by destroying the root of everything can the numb people gradually wake up. Go, don’t look anymore. If you look any longer, it will only make your heart ache more. It’s not just the suffering of a few children, but the people who once lived in a town, knew each other, and were living people.” After saying this, I felt my neck cool down. It turned out that a tear had fallen on my neck.

The hot tears from my eyes had not yet had time to fall to the ground, but had already been blown cold by the wind… Grandpa Liu cried, but his tears were cold. Was his heart cold?

Under the moonlight and misty night wind, several children were taken by the man in the sheepskin coat on the boat and were already sent into the boat, with joyful sounds… The boat with the black canopy silently drifted away from the shore.