April 5, 2026 · Qingming Festival
Qiao Yujie slammed the brakes, and the SUV kicked up a cloud of dust on the mountain road to her hometown.
She’d been on shift all night, and first thing that morning her mom had blown up her phone. The second she got off, she’d floored the gas and raced the whole way.
She burst onto the hilltop, gasping for breath.
The work was already done.
Weeds cleared from the grave. Offerings laid out. Incense and candles crackling, wisps of blue smoke curling upward.
In front of the tomb knelt rows of people. Unmarried younger cousins, childless older cousins with their wives, lined up like lambs to the slaughter.
Qiao Yujie stood with one hand on her hip, the other braced against a pine trunk, wheezing like a broken bellows, just about to catch her breath.
“Quick, quick! The auspicious hour is almost here.”
“Come on! This spot was saved just for you!”
“You’re the one who needs Great-Great-Grandfather’s blessing the most!”
The aunties chattered all at once. Before she could react, two sturdy aunts had grabbed her by either arm and marched her to the very front row, dead center, the C position.
Qiao Yujie tried to struggle. “I… I’m fine in the back…”
“Fine? Like hell you’re fine!”
Third Aunt slapped her on the shoulder.
“Of all the unmarried women in the Qiao family, you’ve got the highest degree and you’re the oldest. Thirty-six, and you still haven’t married yourself off!”
“Can’t get married? Fine,” Fourth Aunt added, twisting the knife. “You don’t even have one child.”
Fifth Aunt was harsher still, delivering the grand finale.
“Don’t want to marry? Fine. Find someone with good genes and get pregnant! Otherwise, what a waste of the old ancestor’s genes!”
Second Aunt closed it out, bringing out her trump card, her tone as earnest and weighty as a leader giving a speech.
“Xiaoyu, you’re a Party member! Listen to the Party, follow the Party. Have more kids, contribute to society!”
Qiao Yujie didn’t know what to say.
She opened her mouth.
She wanted to correct them. Your “traditional age” math is way off. I just turned thirty-four.
She wanted even more to argue back. A Party member’s duty is to serve the people wholeheartedly, not to breed wholeheartedly.
But the two aunts didn’t give her a chance to speak. Deftly, they pressed down on her shoulders.
Thump.
Her knees hit the muddy ground.
Good thing the weeds had just been cleared. The soil was soft. Otherwise, that would’ve really hurt.
Then came the standard procedure.
Tea and wine offerings, burning paper money, three bows and nine kowtows. The whole routine flowed like water, clearly rehearsed through generations.
Qiao Yujie finished the last kowtow and straightened up, dizzy, finally having a moment to look around.
Then her gaze landed on the pile of bright red firecrackers.
She froze.
Those firecrackers were stacked like a small mountain. Wrapped tight in red paper, fuses as thick as hemp rope.
What kind of firecrackers were these?
This was a small arsenal.
It would take a good hour to set them all off.
Would her knees survive?
She turned her head and lowered her voice to ask the younger cousin beside her, “Why so many firecrackers this year?”
Her cousin gave her a long look.
That look contained resentment, sympathy, resignation, and a hint of shock. You actually don’t know?
“Weren’t you the one who donated fifty thousand to lead it off?”
Her cousin whispered, “Besides you, everyone in the front row was forced to cough up ten thousand…”
Qiao Yujie’s eyes went wide.
“Donations… donations? Weren’t the donations for repairing the ancestral tomb?”
The aunt burning paper money up front didn’t even turn around. Her voice carried loud and clear.
“Why repair the ancestral tomb at all? You won’t marry, you won’t have kids. One day there won’t even be anyone left to pull the weeds. What’s the point of repairing it?”
“Exactly!”
Another aunt chimed in, hands clasped, chanting piously at the tombstone. Her sincerity was on par with a Spring Festival Gala poetry recitation.
“Great Ancestor, you must bless your descendants with more children! Just this one wish. Nothing more!”
“Yes, yes, yes! Not greedy. Just more children!”
“More children! More descendants!”
The aunties and uncles all echoed in unison. For a moment, it was quite a sight.
Qiao Yujie had the vague feeling she wasn’t at an ancestor worship ceremony, but at some ancient fertility ritual.
She looked at the pile of firecrackers waiting to go off, then at the pious faces of her aunts. One thought filled her mind.
You’re trying to blast Great Ancestor straight out of his grave so he can nag me about marriage and kids in person, aren’t you?
The uncles stepped forward, incense in hand.
Crackle crackle crackle!
The deafening explosion tore through the air. The whole hilltop shook.
The thick smell of sulfur mixed with the smoke of burning paper money, crashing down over everyone.
The unmarried, childless descendants knelt before the grave, backs straight, expressions solemn, as if undergoing some kind of torture-ritual baptism.
Qiao Yujie felt like her eardrums were experiencing a nuclear blast.
Instinctively, she closed her eyes, held her breath, and counted silently. One second, two seconds, three…
She didn’t know how long it went on.
Crackle crackle… boom! Crash!
Through the impenetrable sulfur smoke and the red paper scraps swirling through the air, Qiao Yujie felt her organs shaken out of place, her consciousness like a kite with a cut string, drifting upward…
No.
She really was floating.
Her body lost all weight. The earth-shattering firecrackers faded rapidly, distorting, turning into a hollow, continuous ringing in her ears.
“Little Sister Xiaoyu, once we get to the military district, don’t you dare act all disgusted in front of your brother-in-law.”
A soft, syrupy female voice sounded by her ear, sweet enough to give her goosebumps.
“Mom and Dad said if we three sisters don’t go find our fiancés and marry them, we’ll have to go to the countryside for re-education…”
Qiao Yujie’s ears were buzzing. Her eyelids were heavy. Her head was splitting.
“Go to the countryside… for re-education?”
That phrase, steeped in the constraints of a bygone era, struck her muddled consciousness like a chunk of ice.
Wasn’t she kneeling in front of her family’s ancestral grave, getting bombed by a “small arsenal”?
She forced her eyes open. Her vision went from blurry to clear.
First, she felt the cold. Bone-chilling, all-pervasive cold, seeping in through her pant legs, sleeves, and collar.
Then the jolting. The hard wooden boards beneath her knocked against her tailbone in a steady rhythm, jolting her until her very bones ached.
She was sitting on a…
Wooden cart?
No roof, no cover. Crude wooden planks nailed into a cart bed, edges worn smooth.
A bony old ox plodded along, the bell around its neck clanking feebly.
The wheels rolled over a pitted dirt road, kicking up fine, gray-yellow dust.
The air was thick with a complex mix of smells. The musk of livestock, the mustiness of haystacks, the earthy tang of soil, and the biting chill of a northern winter.
Across from her sat two girls in faded military coats, scarves wrapped tight around their heads, faces, and necks, leaving only their eyes visible.
Qiao Yujie glanced at them, then immediately shut her eyes again.
She screamed silently.
Great… Great-Great-Grandfather!
Wrong! Wrong set!
I asked for a good match, not a cold one!
I’m not going to the countryside! Not getting re-educated! And definitely not marrying some stranger!
Let me go back! I’ll go back and do blind dates right now! Immediately! This instant!
Go back, go back, go back!