On the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, everyone in my family has to return to the ancestral hall to worship our ancestors for three days straight.
I had just turned eighteen, yet I was already the eldest great-grandmother by seniority.
Before leading the clan into the ancestral hall, I stressed again and again:
“Outsiders aren't allowed in the ancestral hall.”
“If you're not related to the Bai family by blood or marriage, leave now of your own accord.”
We were all relatives and knew one another.
We were also familiar with the ritual.
Even if they didn't understand why, one look at the elders' expressions was enough to make them comply.
But this year, a woman's voice rang out sharply:
“Those country bumpkins sure have a lot of rules.”
“You can barely afford to eat, and you still have the nerve to exclude people? What a joke.”
But she didn't know.
This year, the gates of the underworld had swung wide open, just as a total lunar eclipse cast its shadow over the moon.
If an outsider entered the Bai family's ancestral hall, everyone there would die!
