Huang Guosheng

Those who had been enjoying the Mid-Autumn Festival still retained the balanced deliciousness of moon cakes on their lips. The moon itself had been hidden behind heavy clouds because of the typhoon and the rain. Zhou Haonan’s heart was filled with a collapsed and torn feeling.

All the birds in the mountains had flown away, and all the men on the paths had escaped.

In the hall of the ancestral house of Zhou at Nawu Town, in western Guangdong Province, A’shen, Zhou’s mother, lay silently in the smart blue clothes Zhou had dressed her in. Her eyes and mouth were tightly closed. Her face still carried the pink glow of life and her white hair had been combed. Her face appeared so calm and contented that Zhou felt that she was just asleep.

After one group of men left, another came to honor her. In this normally quiet village in west Guangdong, Zhou saw that many country people had suddenly emerged, old and young, men and women, all of them wanting to take a last look at this old woman, and all bursting into tears.

Zhou walked out of the house alone. After eight restless days of taking care of A’shen, his steps were heavy, but his heart was heavier. He took out his mobile phone to call a manufacturer of anti-corrosives in Shenzhen.

“Confirming my earlier call, I’d like to purchase a glass box,” he said. “It must be 1.7 meters in length, 0.75 meters wide and 0.75 meters in height.

And I want a set of preservatives consisting of formalin and a chemical to keep insects away, with high long-term effectiveness, along with the necessary assembly tools.”

“Please send it by express delivery, extremely urgent — I will pay cash on delivery. The goods must reach us tomorrow and my address and telephone number will be sent to you by text at once,” Zhou demanded.

“All right. Since you expressed your intention to purchase several days ago, the goods will reach you tomorrow morning,” the other man replied.

Zhou’s elder brother then took his son to the mountainside a kilometer away to the east, where A’shen had once cut firewood, to find a grave for A’shen.

When they returned, there was a discussion about the funeral arrangements. The elder brother summoned the Taoists to arrange a funeral ceremony the following night.