The Beauty in the Sunken Coffin

During the Ghost Festival in 1998, the rain fell with an eerie fury. Zhang Qinyuan's mother lay in bed, her waters having broken three days earlier. Blood-soaked bedding steamed in the earthen house, giving off a hot, sickly-sweet stench. Floodwaters had already spilled over the threshold. Straw and dead pigs drifted in the muddy yellow water, while his grandfather, Zhang Shouyi, crouched in the main room, drawing crooked talismans on yellow paper with cinnabar.