Changmei did not answer. Instead, she asked with reddened eyes:
"Miss! Do you really think it's right to force Chunlan to marry?"
Song Ning looked at her. "Forcing her to marry is certainly wrong. But as you said, Chunlan is the Medicine Master's successor, and she has a duty to fulfill. This is a Dong village, and an unusual one at that. Freedom to choose whom to marry is probably difficult to achieve here!"
Changmei said, "Do you know who Chunlan is supposed to marry?"
Song Ning watched her without speaking, waiting for her answer.
"In terms of family relationships, he's a cousin of Chunlan's mother!"
"What?" Song Ning was astonished. "That-that's completely messed up!"
Changmei gave a cold laugh. "There are only seven or eight hundred people in the entire village. Our ancestral rule is, 'No marrying anyone from outside.' I didn't understand before, but after leaving, I realized that after all these centuries, practically every marriage in the village counts as a marriage between close relatives!
"My surname is Hu, and so is my younger cousin's. More than half the village is surnamed Hu. The village elders and the Medicine Master carefully selected Chunlan's match through divination. He's fourteen years older than her, and he belongs to a different generation of the family. But then again, how many people in this whole village aren't closely related?"
"That's why Chunlan and I didn't want to come back! Besides, Chunlan already fell in love with someone outside. So when our clanspeople confronted her at the station and demanded that she marry, she jumped without hesitation!"
"They've locked Chunlan up now! Several people take turns watching her! They won't let her die, much less escape! I can't even see her anymore!"
Changmei said bitterly, "We hate this ignorant place!"
Just then,