"Guests have arrived."
"Lord Tian, magistrate of Luting County, leads all the County Yamen staff in paying respects to Old Master Zhang. First bow, second bow, third bow!"
"The filial son returns the courtesy!"
"Guests have arrived."
"Manager Zhou of the Chain Wharf in Jianghuai pays respects to Old Master Zhang on behalf of the young master, Li Jincheng. First bow, second bow, third bow!"
"The filial son returns the courtesy!"
"Chief Steward Hong Gang of the Fengyang Yang Family pays respects to Old Master Zhang on behalf of the eldest young master, Yang Tiansheng..."
Liu Mang greeted the guests outside the mourning hall, while Yang Ge kowtowed inside.
The greeter shouted himself hoarse, and the one kowtowing broke the skin on his forehead.
In the broad clearing outside the mourning hall, where the courtyard walls had been leveled, fifty tables began serving guests in continuous rounds amid the horns and percussion of funeral music. Heads crowded together in a dense throng, the warmth of food, smoke, and human company dispelling both the late spring chill and the acrid smell of burning paper ingots, candles, and incense.
Beyond the banquet, the mourners lined up from the end of the village to its entrance, then stretched away along the riverbank, a dark mass with no end in sight. Many squeezed their way up to the hall without ever joining the banquet. They simply left a small token at the unattended gift table that had sprung up outside the mourning hall, bowed three times toward the hall from afar, and departed.
Some left a dozen or so copper coins.
Some left a small packet of millet.
Without anyone organizing it, their offerings still gathered like grains of sand building a tower, piling into two tall little hills...
They were all people of