The Moon Festival Vigil

“Dad, these are date-paste mooncakes. I remember you always loved the date-paste ones.” Bai Lingmiao carefully picked up a mooncake stamped with a red mark and, rising on her tiptoes, placed it before a spirit tablet.

“Little brother, you like the red bean paste ones. There were none in the village, so try the sesame ones. They’re pretty good too.”

After distributing the mooncakes, Bai Lingmiao took out three more incense sticks, lit them, knelt down, and bowed toward the tablets before planting the incense into the remaining mooncakes.

Thin wisps of blue smoke drifted slowly among the spirit tablets. The Bai family ancestral hall once again had the scent of incense.

Bai Lingmiao lifted her head, gazing at the black wall of tablets before her, as if lost in thought. After a long silence, a faint smile appeared on her face. “It’s Moon Festival tonight. I’ll spend it with all of you.”

She picked up a mooncake from the plate, took two steps forward, and sat down on the steps of the ancestral hall. Staring at the bright moon in the sky, she took small, quiet bites of the mooncake.

As she ate, a figure appeared beside her. Bai Lingmiao stretched out her right hand, offering the mooncake in her hand into the Second Spirit’s red bridal veil. Then she gently leaned her head to the left, resting it against the Da Shen’s red silk garments.

And so, on the steps outside the Bai family ancestral hall, two women with identical heads silently leaned against each other, sharing the same mooncake, gazing at the same full moon in the sky.

Suddenly, a blaze of fire flared up in the distance. Bai Lingmiao stood up to look, spotting the earthen kiln built from tiles and stones far away.

The kiln was tall, taller than any other building in Niuxin Village. Flames reaching for the sky enveloped the kiln, turning it into a giant bonfire.

Gouwa stood on a nearby rooftop, letting out strange cries as he threw various old clothes into the fire.

The Moon Festival meant burning the earthen kiln. Bai Lingmiao remembered it was the same every year. But this was always something for the elder and younger brothers of the village to enjoy—the girls never cared much for it.

Watching the towering flames in the distance, Bai Lingmiao thought of her own troublesome younger brother.

The eldest sister is like a mother. With their parents busy every day, her little brother had basically been raised by her alone.

She had watched the infant in the cradle slowly grow into a boy who could run and jump. But then everything came to a sudden halt.

Her longing for her family reached its peak. At last, with trembling hands, she reached for the drum at her waist and began to beat it.

Thump, thump, thump—thump, thump, thump— The rhythmic drumming echoed through the desolate village.

After a moment of hesitation, she opened her trembling mouth and began to sing. The tears she had held back all night finally fell.

She used the Bei School’s Crying Smoke-Soul Tune. The melody seemed to carry a sorrow of such depth that everything around her trembled along with it.

“The clear wind… oh… the smoke-soul… wu wu wu…”

At that moment, she resonated with the lyrics. If before she had only been mimicking the spirit-summoning verses under the Immortal’s coercion, now she suddenly gained a deeper understanding and connection to them.

Only when you have lost enough family members do you truly understand the feeling the Crying Smoke-Soul Tune demands.

She felt her own emotions infecting the Immortal. The sensation was very strange.

One could even say that Bai Lingmiao, at least in the Bei School’s domain, was now far stronger than Li Zhi had ever been. But this price was one Bai Lingmiao never wanted to pay.

The drumming continued. The utterly desolate spirit-tune still played on.

“Smoke-soul… In the sunny world of three realms you were human, wu wu wu… In the yin underworld’s three cities you are a smoke-soul.”

“They say heaven is a precious canopy and earth is a pond. People are like muddy fish in the sunny, three-realm pond, wu wu wu…”

“One moment you’re murky, the next you’re clear. One moment clears, the next murky again, oh…”

This time, it was the Da Shen who stood by, watching Bai Lingmiao sing the soul-summoning spirit-tune. Wisp after wisp of yin wind blew through the gate of the Bai family ancestral hall, blew past the Da Shen’s red bridal veil, and finally extinguished the white lanterns, beginning to circle slowly around Bai Lingmiao.

As if sensing something, Bai Lingmiao could barely continue singing. But in the end, she gritted her teeth and struck the drum at her waist with all her might.

“Hearing the smoke-soul’s falling tears of sorrow, my heart feels like it’s eaten bitter goldthread! If you have a grievance, smoke-soul, nowhere to tell it! If you have a wrong, nowhere to cry out for justice!”

The yin wind grew stronger. The spirit tablets inside the hall rattled violently. The tiles on the roof of the entire hall shook and clattered, as if the whole Bai family ancestral hall had come alive in that instant.

As she sang, a gust of yin wind gently brushed past the hem of the Da Shen’s dress and burrowed under the blood-red bridal veil.

A burnt smell began to emanate from the Da Shen. She raised her trembling hands, moving sluggishly toward Bai Lingmiao. “Little one…”

The moment she heard that voice, Bai Lingmiao’s heart clenched. She threw caution to the wind, spreading her arms and lunging toward the Da Shen. “Mom!!”

As she embraced the Da Shen, Bai Lingmiao felt she had found her anchor again. She poured out everything she had bottled up inside.

She closed her eyes and spoke for a long, long time. But when she finally stopped, she received no response at all.

When she looked up at the Da Shen’s red bridal veil with her red-rimmed eyes, she got a disappointing result. The moment she stopped the spirit-tune, she was already gone.

“When my mom left… did she say anything?” Bai Lingmiao asked softly.

The Da Shen stared at Bai Lingmiao through the red bridal veil for a long time, then finally said slowly, “She wasn’t your mother…”

“No, she was my mom! My dad and grandpa—they all came back just now! They all blame me!” Bai Lingmiao shook her head, refuting loudly.

The Da Shen said nothing. She simply opened her arms and pulled the other woman back into her embrace. She bent down, lifted Bai Lingmiao entirely, held her in her arms, and gently rocked her.

Bai Lingmiao’s eyes were open. With the slight rocking, she silently stared at the roof beam above the hall, as if she were considering something.

The earthen kiln outside had gone out at some point. The two of them sat in the dark ancestral hall in silence.

“If I leave… can you stay with Senior Brother Li? He really can’t be without someone by his side,” Bai Lingmiao suddenly spoke.

The Da Shen only held her, giving no reaction.

“I’m sorry. But I really can’t hold on anymore. I can’t do anything. I can’t even avenge my family!”

In tears, Bai Lingmiao struggled free from the other’s embrace, pulling out a rope she had prepared long ago from her bosom.

She walked to the center of the ancestral hall and threw the rope over the roof beam, beginning to tie it.

The Da Shen stood up. She walked behind Bai Lingmiao and wrapped her arms around her slender calves, helping her complete the next steps.

When the Da Shen gently let go and took a step back, the creak of the rope tightening began, along with the sound of uncontrollable, gasping breaths.

The Da Shen ignored these sounds. She silently walked back to the steps of the ancestral hall, sat down, and continued to admire the full moon in the sky.

Behind her red bridal veil were Bai Lingmiao’s small white shoes, gently swaying. And behind the white shoes was the pitch-black wall of densely packed spirit tablets, like a wall of darkness.