After my grandfather died, I returned to the village to attend the funeral.
The whole village is abiding by a set of old unwritten rules - enter the door with your left foot, use three incense sticks, bow and close your eyes, and keep vigil without crying.
No one told me.
When I broke the first rule, my neighbor who was still talking to me the day before was bitten to death by the whole village the next day: "This person never existed."
I discovered that the old rules in the village were not just for keeping - they were for locking.
What was locked was the eighty-six people who entered the village in the winter of the 33rd year of the Republic of China and never left.
The price is: no one has ever left the village.
Including me.
