Chapter 1.4 Move the Coffin (Extra)

The Wu family’s ancestral grave was on the sunny side of a rocky mountain. The unspectacular mountain was about two hundred meters high and housed more than just the Wu family’s tomb. The hillside on the front was scattered with four or five grave sites in different positions, all containing the ancestors of large families from the village. There was a dirt road up the mountain full of many weeds that hadn’t been cleared since many people didn’t visit. Fortunately, it was winter and the grass was thin, so it wasn’t very difficult to walk.

There had originally been a large stream in front of this rocky mountain. The so-called feng shui treasure land at that time was a concept of “water in the front and mountains in the back”, but the stream had long dried up since some people had built small hydropower stations and dug up the sand on the rocky mountain.

The grave removal ceremony was held on the morning of our third day in the village. Seeing that the almanac marked this as an auspicious day, not only our family, but many others from the village were also preparing. The rocky mountain was densely packed with people here and there.

As the eldest son’s child—and therefore the oldest grandchild—my rank was higher, so I had been kneeling in front of the burial mound since earlier. The Taoist priest was still doing preparatory work off to one side, surrounded by the sound of firecrackers going off.

I had always been very interested in what a grave robbers’ tomb would look like, but it was a great disappointment to see it. It was similar to an ordinary farmer’s tomb—a fan-shaped screen-type tomb poured with cement, in front of which was a large cement tablet. Behind it was a mound of earth sealed to the mountain, all surrounded by weeds. Without the cement part, you would’ve never known there was a grave there.

Uncle Three told me that our ancestral graves were relatively old in the village and had been rebuilt by government officials during the Qing Dynasty. The cement was poured after the founding of the People’s Republic. Grandpa lay on the level that was built on top of the old tomb. Six or seven meters below the old tomb was the ancestral grave. They had never seen what it looked like, but it wasn’t like there would be an underground palace so Uncle Three told me not to hold my breath. In this line of work, people could only hope for an intact corpse, so they wouldn’t undergo such large-scale construction for their own tombs.

When I heard this, I suddenly thought it was very funny—about half the people kneeling here dug up other people’s graves for a living and I didn’t know if they would end up doing the same later. I couldn’t help laughing at the picture of these people suddenly pulling out a large number of folding shovels. Grave robbers moving ancestral graves and forensic doctors examining the bodies of their relatives… I bet they felt helpless.

I had been kneeling there for two or three hours and was freezing so much that my shivering was making a rattling sound. It was almost eleven o’clock before the Taoist priest in Nike shoes finished his dharma ritual. With my father in the lead, my uncles and several other relatives lifted the tombstone and began to open the grave with a masonry hammer.

The whole process was completely unskilled, and it took them two hours to break through the grave. There were four juxtaposed concrete holes with coffins stuffed in them. Two of the holes were empty, presumably for my grandmother and my father. There were two wooden coffins in the other two. I knew that one of them was my grandfather’s, but I didn’t know who the other one belonged to.

Uncle Two counted the names on the tombstone and compared them with the family’s genealogical tree, saying that there should be nine coffins. Uncle Three said that some of them must be cenotaphs (1), such as those belonging to grandpa and great-grandpa. This generation was too big and I didn’t know how to call it any further. I didn’t know the situation of those old coffins, but if they fall apart, it would be even more troublesome.

The two coffins were lifted out, and then dad smashed the cement grave above and began to dig through the mountain mud below. This was Uncle Three’s strong point, and in the time it took to smoke a cigarette, they had dug deep and soon hit the blue brick—they had reached top of the old ancestral grave.

I wasn’t qualified to watch the following process, but my dad and the others called me over anyways. They jumped down and opened the top of the grave while the Taoist priest began to chant sutras and scatter paper money.

I didn’t know what was going on in the old grave, but it looked like the things were too old and difficult to deal with. It wasn’t until the sun set that the first coffin was carried up. It was rotted to the core, didn’t look modern at first glance, and gave off an uncomfortable smell upon landing that should be the peculiar scent of underground soil.

One by one, the other coffins were also brought up, some still dripping with mud. Not long after, all nine coffins were carried out and lined up on the flat hillside. The tops of the coffins were sprayed with water so that we could see the engraved names of the coffin owners. Then, the Taoist priest began to take notes.

I was almost frozen stiff at this point. Although I was witnessing such a scene for the first time, I wasn’t interested at all—the mountain was too cold. Seeing that the last coffin was carried out, my heart was finally at peace and I thought to myself, it’s finally fucking over. This was a really big project that wasn’t any easier than going to the tombs.

The next step was to wash the coffins a little and carry them to the ancestral hall to rest for a period of time. But because ancestors had seniority, the oldest coffin needed to be lifted first before the others could follow. Thus, we still had to wait for the person who recorded the names to locate that ancestor.

Just when everyone was feeling relieved, I suddenly heard my father shouting. We turned to look at him and saw that the people in the grave were still pulling something out.

The sun was going down and it was getting darker and darker. Biao Gong shouted loudly in the Changsha dialect, asking them what was going on.

“There’s another one!” My father shouted.

“Huh?” There was a commotion in the crowd and everyone looked over. Then, we all saw another coffin being carried up from below.

“How is that possible?” Biao Gong looked at the tombstone, then at the coffins on display, and asked in a baffled voice, “Strange, why is there another one?”

<Extra 1.3> <Table of Contents><Extra 1.5>

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TN Notes:

(1) Cenotaph can be a monument erected in honor of a person whose remains are elsewhere. Basically, Grandpa Wu’s brother, dad, and grandpa who died at the beginning of Cavern of Blood Zombies should have their names on the tombstone even though their remains aren’t there… I think.

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Updated 11/20/2021