River Lanterns Cannot Ferry

On the seventh day after my grandmother died, I found more than twenty unsent letters among her belongings.

Every one of them was addressed to my mother.

My mother had been missing for twenty years, and everyone in the family said she had died long ago. Yet in an old notebook my grandmother left behind, two words were clearly written beside her name:

Not Returned.

And my name appeared on the final page of the notebook.

Beside it were just two words: Awaiting Guidance.

To uncover the truth about my mother's disappearance, I followed the old map my grandmother left behind and came to an ancient town that was nearly impossible to find on any map: Wuchuan.

It was made up of five interconnected places, and had many taboos that had been passed down for hundreds of years.

The five lamps in Luodeng Village, the old river in Huishui Town, the clan rules of Wuxing Village, the two family genealogies in Shuangci Town, and the extra set of bowls and chopsticks that always appeared at the homecoming banquet.

The locals said the rules must not be broken.

But no one told me whether those rules were meant to protect the living or to trap those who wanted to go home.

Then I discovered that my mother, who had vanished twenty years ago, seemed to have been waiting for me in Wuchuan all along.

And in my grandmother's final letter was one last warning:

If someone says she is your mother, whatever you do, don't believe her.