Her body is young, aged somewhere between nineteen and twenty-two, but it is a farmer’s body—strong in the shoulders and legs, built for work, not for show. Her hands are chapped, her nails clipped short. Her face is plain, pretty in the way a wild, sturdy flower is pretty. But her eyes are her one striking feature. They are the color of dark, wet earth after a rain—not beautiful, but deep and fiercely intelligent. The eyes of someone who sees everything.

Today, those eyes are hidden behind a veil of thin, white gauze.

Her name is Ho Gam Dai. Gold for a younger brother. A prophecy. Today, the prophecy is fulfilled.

She wears red. A heavy, ornate gown that feels like a cage. The room is unnaturally quiet. There is no music, no laughter, only the low, monotonous drone of a Taoist priest and the soft, constant crackle of joss paper being fed into a brass brazier. The air is thick with the smells of cloying incense, melting wax, and ash.

On the dark wood of the walls, the “囍” (Double Happiness) character is pasted, but it is cut from stark white paper. A pair of tall candles burn on the main altar, their flames flickering weakly: one wedding red, one funeral white.

And next to the altar, where a groom should be, stands a life-sized paper effigy of a man. He is dressed in a fine suit, his face painted with a serene, placid smile. In the corner behind him, more paper offerings are stacked—a miniature house, two servants with blank, obedient faces. A whole life made of paper, waiting for the fire.

The Taoist priest steps forward, his droning chant suddenly shifting into a clear, commanding tone that echoes in the silent hall.

"吉時已到 (jí shí yǐ dào — The auspicious hour has arrived)," he declares.

He places a cold, heavy object into her hands. The spirit tablet.

Then he turns to Gam Dai and the paper effigy.

"一拜天地 (yī bài tiān dì) — First bow, to Heaven and Earth."

An old woman, a distant aunt, forces her to turn and kowtow towards the empty doorway. Her forehead touches the dusty floorboards. She is bowing to a concept, she thinks, to the air.

The priest's voice booms again.

"二拜高堂 (èr bài gāo táng) — Second bow, to the parents."

She is turned to face the groom's parents. She kowtows again, the white veil brushing against the floor. She sees the mother's silent tears, the father's grim, hollow-eyed expression. She is bowing to the people who bought her. Her owners.

Finally, the priest calls out the last, most grotesque command.

"夫妻对拜 (fū qī duì bài) — Husband and wife, bow to each other."

The aunt turns Gam Dai one last time, to face the smiling paper man. Her body is forced into a deep bow, her head moving towards the painted-on smile of her new husband. The smell of paper and glue fills her senses.

Her mind, however, is a separate, cold entity. It observes. It calculates. My husband. A man of paper and bamboo. My dowry, a world of ash. My marriage, a transaction paid for with my life, sealed by the weight of this dead wood in my hands.

Her eyes continue their sweep of the room. They pass over the priest pouring three cups of wine—one for the earth, one for the heavens, and one for the tablet she holds. They pass over the grieving parents, the solemn guests. All predictable. All useless. She feels like an object on display—an intact tile, being cemented into a tomb.

She is searching for a single, honest face in a room full of masks, a single note of truth in a chorus of lies. And then, she finds it.

The foreigner. The guest of honor. Her gaze locks onto yours. Her mind, which had categorized every other person in the room with cold precision, suddenly faltered. For the first time, she was looking at a person, and not a part of the grotesque play.

The other guests watch the spectacle. This woman watches her.

Through the hazy white gauze of the veil, Gam Dai sees your eyes. They hold no pity. No morbid curiosity. It is not a look she can categorize. There is a stillness in your gaze, an intensity. A question, perhaps. Or maybe... simple, profound confusion. It is something real. A flicker of genuine humanity in a room full of ghosts, actors, and paper dolls.

The priest's chant rises in pitch, a signal for the ritual to end. The aunt presses down on her shoulder, hard, forcing her head down to complete the final bow. Her body submits, the spirit tablet cold against her chest.

But her eyes do not leave you. Her sharp, stubborn, unbroken mind has latched onto the only thing in this room that does not make sense.

The only thing that feels alive.