Oneshot Part 3

At two in the afternoon, Second Cousin Sister carried a plastic bag full of miscellaneous things she had bought on the deck of her scooter, then took Xiao Chun and Fulin to the snack street on foot while pushing the scooter.

Cousin Sister felt very sorry, thinking that it was rare for Xiao Chun to return to her hometown, but she couldn’t bring her around because she was busy with her wedding. Because Cousin Sister kept apologizing, Chunjun felt a little awkward. She didn’t think it was a big deal, and besides, there was not much to do in town. Her relatives treat her well, but she just couldn’t get along with them, probably because she hadn’t lived together with them.

Second Cousin Sister took them to a barbecue stall.

“You city people eat in such small bites, so elegant. No wonder you are so thin. I’m so envious of you.” Cousin Sister pinched her own belly and continued, “Look at my fat. I don’t lose weight even when I do farm work every day. I want to lose weight too!”

Cousin Sister added a large spoonful of chili to her bowl and offered Xiao Chun some. Chunjun said that she couldn’t really tolerate spicy food.

“I’m going to go Folk Singing the day after tomorrow. Do you want to come with me?” Cousin Sister picked up a piece of bean curd with her chopsticks.

“What is ‘Folk Singing’?” Chunjun asked.

“Ei? Have you forgotten the story Grandma told us when we were young? Singing a folk song to Ah Lang the Fox. Every bride will have to sing it.” Cousin Sister explained.

Chunjun tried to recall, then shook her head. She really didn’t remember anything about it. “What is ‘Ah Lang the Fox’?”

Fulin slurred, his greasy mouth full with baked potatoes, “Ah Lang the Fox is a fox.”

Chunjun: …

Cousin smiled with her white teeth showing, and there was a small piece of chili wedged between her teeth. Chunjun handed over a piece of tissue paper and pointed at her teeth, but Cousin Sister didn’t care about it. She simply wiped her mouth and said, “This is a tradition in the village. All brides who are about to get married must circle the mountain and sing in a wedding dress.”

“Legend has it that there is a fox in the mountains that has become a fox spirit and lived for hundreds of years. The villagers call him Ah Lang.”

“Ah Lang the Fox has a cave full of treasure, which it has saved as a betrothal gift for its bride. So whenever someone in the village gets married, the bride of that family will sing around the mountain in her wedding dress. Ah Lang will think that she is its bride, so he will bless her with a lifetime of happiness. If she sings well, Ah Lang will also send the bride a gift, which is the fox’s betrothal gift.”

Chunjun asked absentmindedly, “Is it true?”

“I don’t know. It’s a village tradition, and I don’t know if it’s true or not. But I heard that there were people who actually received the fox’s betrothal gift.”

“How did they know that the gift was given by the fox?” Chunjun was puzzled.

“Because the fox would also add a golden pheasant tail feather 1 along with the gift! Only foxes can catch golden pheasants, so it must have been given by the fox.” Cousin Sister said solemnly.

On the winding path back to the village, Chunjun was still thinking about this. She asked her cousin loudly in the wind, “But, if there really was such a cave, full of treasures, someone would have discovered it long ago!”

“Why?” Cousin Sister asked in a loud voice. The sound of the scooter echoed in the mountains, and both of them had to shout as loud as they could for the other to hear clearly.

“You can only get a single treasure after singing the song, how troublesome! If it were me, I would just find the cave and take all the treasure away!” Chunjun shouted.

“No, that’s the mindset of you city people!”

“Am I wrong?”

“That’s Ah Lang the Fox’s treasure. You can only receive it if he is willing to give it to you. How could you rob him?”

“…” Chunjun suddenly thought that her cousin sister was very naive, so she said, “That’s a fox. Why would a fox mind?”

“Why wouldn’t the fox mind? Everything in the world has a spirit.”

Chunjun looked at the stretching mountains, the sea of verdant trees, and stopped talking. Come to think of it, she would feel sad for the whole day even when there was no internet access on her phone, not to mention that the fox’s whole cave full of treasures were snatched away. The fox would mind too.

*

Before Folk Singing, there was a little incident.

After her Second Cousin Sister came home from the town, she started developing a sore throat. It didn’t get better even after two days, and it had gotten so bad that she could barely make a sound. Cousin Sister sat on the small bench at Grandma’s house and cried, her eyes red as she blamed the one spoon of chili. Chunjun listened to her cousin talk like she was hissing, as if she was speaking in Parseltongue from Harry Potter. It seemed really serious.

“With your throat like this, not to mention singing, you can hardly speak,” Grandma said.

Chunjun was anxious as well. She didn’t know why she was extra concerned about this matter. Didn’t she think that this myth was stupid? The fox and his bride, ha-ha.

Her Cousin Sister kept crying. Grandma pointed at Xiao Chun and arranged, “You walk in front in your wedding dress, and Xiao Chun will sing at the back.”

“Me? Can we do this?” Chunjun was stunned.

“Why not?” Grandma picked vegetables slowly, turned to Cousin Sister, and said, “Stop crying. It’s not auspicious for a bride to cry before her wedding.”

“But…” Chunjun widened her eyes wanting to refuse, but Cousin Sister casted a pleading look at her and spoke in a hoarse voice, “Please, Xiao Chun.”

Chunjun said quietly, “But I don’t know how to sing that song.”

“It’s very easy,” Grandma replied without even raising her eyes. She took a stalk of vegetables and rinsed them in a bowl. “I’ll teach you later at night. Little girlie who will be going to college is a smart girl. You will learn it in no time.”

*

Footnotes

锦鸡 (Golden pheasant)

(Pic source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_pheasant#/media/File:Chrysolophus_pictus_walking.JPG )