The Bowl of Yin Destiny
In a quiet village alley late at night, young villager Erhua is drawn by eerie knocking and sobbing sounds as she returns home. There, she discovers a red porcelain bowl placed on red paper—filled with rice, holding three incense sticks, and surrounded by a lit candle. Greedy for the beautifully crafted bowl, Erhua ignores its mysterious origin, pours out the rice, discards the incense and candle, and secretly takes it home. Unaware that this is a "Yin Bowl" used in funeral rites to send the soul of the deceased into the afterlife, she unknowingly sets off a chain of events involving a ghostly wedding. After returning home, Erhua proudly showed her grandfather and eldest brother Dazhu the "treasure" she had picked up. Upon seeing the bowl, Grandpa turned pale with shock and warned them that it was a vessel used to offer food to the deceased's soul on the seventh day after death, and taking it away carelessly would bring upon them vengeful spirits. No sooner had he spoken than strange events began to unfold: the red porcelain bowl inexplicably overturned itself and moved on its own; chickens in the yard were found with their necks twisted; the bowl filled with blood-stained paper money. A paper figure dressed as a groom repeatedly appeared beneath Erhua’s bed, by the window, and even entered her dreams, where he performed a wedding ceremony with her. In the dead of night, the mad old woman’s eerie chant—“Sending joy to the underworld, sending sorrow to the grave, turn around and eat a bowl of funeral meal, leading your bride to the wedding hall”—echoed constantly, tormenting Erhua beyond endurance.
