Chapter 60: Hezi Xinniang/The Box Bride (11) part 1
The ultramarine night sky and the vast sea blurred into a thick ink that could not be washed away. Amidst the rising and falling of the waves, the cruise ship’s deck swayed slowly and steadily like a cradle from childhood.
A man of medium build stood facing the wind, wearing a black trench coat. His hair was slightly long, and he wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. Behind the lenses, his single-lidded eyes narrowed slightly as he looked toward the invisible end of the horizon. The sea breeze howled, whipping the hem of his coat. In the midst of the hunting sound, a girl in a white dress with blonde hair approached him, holding a wine glass.
Her clean face beamed with a warm smile. “Mr. Hirakawa, why are you out here looking at the scenery alone?”
“I’m not looking at the scenery; I’m looking at people.” Hirakawa Haruhara reached out and pointed forward. “Do you see them?”
“Is there anyone else in this sea besides us?” The blonde girl looked in the direction he pointed, but no matter how wide she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see the silhouette of a single boat.
“There’s nothing.”
“No, they are standing right there, looking at us.” As Hirakawa Haruhara spoke, his soft words were scattered by the wind, leaving the girl to only catch one or two words.
She was dazed for a moment. Facing this famous author, she tried to strike up a conversation again. “Then do you know who they are?”
“They are my family.” As soon as Hirakawa Haruhara spoke, the girl’s mind became as messy as her hair in the wind.
What did he mean, his family?
As a loyal reader who had read and admired Mr. Hirakawa, the girl could recite his life story by heart.
Hirakawa Haruhara lost his grandfather at age three and his parents at age five. In that same year, the dozens of members of the once-prosperous Hirakawa family had all died suddenly due to various accidents, leaving him as the only young child.
Later, Hirakawa Haruhara became a sensation with an autobiographical book. His works were translated into over a dozen languages and became bestsellers in dozens of countries. It was through this book that countless people came to know this genius writer with such a tragic fate.
The girl ran out of things to say and stood blankly to the side.
Hirakawa Haruhara, however, grew interested and took the initiative to speak. “Do you know? What I love most in this life is the sea. It is very calm, peaceful, and open, with free vitality everywhere.”
“But isn’t Dongying an island nation? You should have seen the sea often since you were a child.”
Hirakawa Haruhara remained silent, tilting his head to look at her. The distant light reflected off his lenses. The black pupils characteristic of East Asians had now merged with the night. The girl couldn’t see clearly, nor did she know the images currently flashing through Hirakawa Haruhara’s mind.
The damp smell of the sea instantly pulled his thoughts back decades. The girl’s face under her wind-disheveled long hair overlapped with the madwoman in his memory.
The young Hirakawa Haruhara looked up at the madwoman who only had her head exposed from a giant box. Her skin was as withered and yellow as tree bark, her hair was more disheveled than wild grass in summer, and her two black eyes were like ink buttons, merely sewn onto her face as ornaments.
Except for curses he couldn’t understand, Hirakawa Haruhara had never heard her say a second sentence.
His father called her a “crazy old hag,” his mother called her a “lowlife,” and the surrounding uncles and elders didn’t give her a single kind look. It seemed that looking at her for even a moment was bad luck.
At first, he didn’t know that this madwoman was his biological grandmother. She was locked in a box, like a cactus planted in a vase, out of place yet stubbornly resilient, seemingly unable to die.
Later, Hirakawa Haruhara learned from his older cousin that the black-and-white photo the madwoman faced every day was his deceased grandfather.
As for why the grandfather died, everyone said he was provoked to death by the madwoman. Grandfather’s health had originally been poor. He had bestowed all kinds of good food and a house for shelter upon this madwoman who had fled from a famine, and the price was merely for her to take care of him.
Yet she couldn’t even do that properly and even flirted shamelessly with Grandfather’s brothers.
Grandfather’s illness grew more severe, and he often coughed up blood. It was at this time that he caught the madwoman in bed with someone else.
To punish the madwoman, he specifically asked someone to bring a large box from overseas. He pretended there was something inside he needed her to find and told her to crawl in to get it. Once she was completely inside, he suddenly locked it from the outside.
The madwoman could only survive through an opening just large enough for her head.
Grandfather told her this was a punishment, and he would let her out whenever she was willing to change.
The madwoman believed him and stayed obediently in the box for over a month.
Grandfather’s attitude toward her grew more lenient, moving from occasional scolding to being able to stroke her hair gently. The madwoman became a docile and obedient bedside ornament, following his various instructions.
Just when she thought she would regain her freedom, Grandfather suddenly committed suicide. In front of her, he swallowed a long copper key.
By the time others discovered him, he was already lying on the bed, his body stiff.
Before the madwoman could recover from the terror of death, she thought of something else. Without the key, how would she get out?
She used her mouth to beg everyone for mercy, pleading for them to let her out.
The people of this large clan were naturally well-educated and refined. Hearing her pleas, it would be a lie to say they weren’t moved, especially since she had several children.
But they asked where the key was.
The madwoman said it was in Grandfather’s stomach.
If a key couldn’t be vomited out from a living person’s stomach, how could it be retrieved from a dead man’s?
A person’s death was already a tragedy; how could they use a knife to cut open the abdomen and the red stomach to take out a cold key? This was a desecration of the deceased.
Thus, everyone found excuses to refuse her.
No key? Then what about a saw?
The Hirakawa family hired craftsmen to try and open the wooden box, but they didn’t realize that the box Grandfather had found was made of a special material. It looked ordinary but was full of hidden secrets.
It couldn’t be cut or broken open. She could only stay inside forever.
The Hirakawa family gave Grandfather a grand funeral. According to the family rules, after a husband’s death, the wife must observe three years of mourning.
It just so happened that the madwoman couldn’t leave the box or the house.
So, they hung the large black-and-white photo on the wall, and three to five people carried the box and moved her in front of the photo so she could ease her longing.
This “brilliant” idea was precisely the one thought up by the younger brother-in-law who had slept with the madwoman. He felt he had wronged his brother, so he used this move to make amends.
He also felt he had wronged his sister-in-law, so at first, he would personally feed her every day.
Just when everyone thought the matter had been handled perfectly, the madwoman suddenly went insane.
At first, she could soften her voice and plead with everyone—men, women, adults, children, masters, and servants. But no one could help her. So, she went mad and cursed anyone she saw.
The more she cursed, the more the family said she was insane, and the less they treated her like a human being.
After several months of being locked in an airtight box, no matter how clean her body had been, it became foul and stinking. The scent could carry for miles when caught by the wind.
Gradually, everyone felt the smell was unbearable and simply locked the door to the room. When they remembered her, they would give her a meal; when they didn’t, she could only starve.
It was hard to remember exactly how long she was locked away, but the young Hirakawa Haruhara had accidentally wandered in.
He looked up at her. Through her messy, grey-white long hair, he vaguely caught a glimpse of those hollow black eyes. After staring for a while, a long, thick maggot suddenly crawled out of her eye socket, its white body wriggling in the air.
Recommended Reads
