My name is Chen Yu, a planner at an advertising company. My salary is mediocre, my mortgage is manageable, and my life is unremarkable. My wife Lin Wan is a kindergarten teacher with an impossibly good temper. We've been together for six years, and I can count our arguments on one hand.
We saved for three years, plus contributions from both sets of parents, and finally booked the banquet hall at that four-star hotel by the river.
The date was chosen by my mother-in-law's fortune teller—September 16th, an auspicious day for marriage.
During that period, I drove my second-hand Corolla to the hotel every day after work, going over menus, procedures, and seating arrangements with the sales manager.
The sales manager was surnamed Wu, in his forties, with smooth talk and a permanent professional smile. He looked like a seasoned veteran who'd been in the hotel industry for decades.
We had four meetings, going through every detail imaginable—even deciding what wine to serve at each table and where to place the dessert station.
At our fourth meeting, Manager Wu spread the final seating chart on the table for me to sign. I glanced at it—twenty-eight tables total. The main table was in the center, with relatives on both sides. The layout was conventional. But as I counted, I frowned.
"Manager Wu, twenty-eight tables? We invited at most twenty-seven tables worth of guests. Is this extra one a backup?"
Manager Wu smiled—a standard service industry smile, but his eyes didn't crinkle with it.
"Mr. Chen, that table isn't a backup. It's our tradition here—you must leave one empty table at wedding banquets. Set the chopsticks and bowls, but no one sits there. It stays untouched throughout the ceremony."
I was stunned. Honestly, my first thought was that this tradition was absurd. A table cost over three thousand yuan, plus drinks and service fees it was closer to four thousand. Leave one empty? I wasn't made of money.
"What kind of tradition? I've never heard of it."
"Passed down from the older generation," Manager Wu said evenly, as if stating an obvious fact. "It's for good luck—reserving a seat for relatives and friends who can't make it. Don't worry, the dishes will still be served, the table set properly—just no one sits there."
"What happens to the food? Thrown away?"
"Yes, we'll handle it after."
I laughed then—the kind of laugh when you find something ridiculous but can't argue. I told him our family had no such tradition, neither set of parents had mentioned it, and I didn't want that table. Change twenty-eight to twenty-seven, and I wasn't paying for it.
Manager Wu's smile didn't falter, but his eyes froze for two seconds, as if weighing something. Then he quickly recovered his professional grin. "Of course, Mr. Chen. I'll make the change right away."
He revised it quickly, printed a new chart, I signed, and that was that. I didn't think much of it at the time—figured it was just the hotel's way of making extra money, "tradition" just being sales talk.
A week before the wedding, Lin Wan and I went to the hotel for the final rehearsal. The emcee was a round-faced man in his thirties, surnamed Zhou, with a magnetic voice and a hint of northern accent. He was quite enthusiastic.
Halfway through rehearsal, he suddenly asked about the toast route. I said we'd follow the seating chart—start with the main table, then work our way through the sides.
Emcee Zhou nodded, then casually asked, "What about the empty table? Will you toast there?"
I stopped walking.
"We canceled the empty table," I said. "There is no empty table."
Emcee Zhou froze, then glanced at Manager Wu. Manager Wu was standing by the banquet hall entrance, looking at his phone. Feeling the gaze, he looked up and smiled at Emcee Zhou, saying nothing.
Emcee Zhou looked back, scratched his head, and laughed awkwardly. "Alright, whatever you say. After all, these things—believe them or not, it's up to you."
I should have pressed him. What did he mean by "these things"? What did "believe them or not" imply? Why would an emcee say such a thing?
But I didn't. My mind was filled with the next day's wedding schedule—when the bride would arrive, when I'd leave, who'd hold the rings, who'd collect the red envelopes. These trivial "big things" had completely occupied my attention. Emcee Zhou's words were like a small stone dropped into a lake—ripples spread twice and then vanished. I didn't give it another thought.
My wife did mention it, though. On the drive back after rehearsal, she said Emcee Zhou had a strange expression, like he wanted to say something but held back.
I said wedding planners see all kinds of weird traditions, probably just talking casually. Lin Wan thought about it and agreed, then started scrolling through her phone to check the weather for the next day.
September 16th was impossibly clear—not a single cloud in the sky, the blue so vivid it looked fake.
The wedding went smoothly overall. I wore a rented suit and stood at the banquet hall entrance greeting guests, my cheeks almost cramping from smiling. Relatives and friends arrived one by one—handing over red envelopes, signing the guest book, taking photos. The process flowed like an assembly line.
My mom wore that deep red cheongsam she'd bought a month earlier, grinning from ear to ear. My dad rarely wore a suit, and I'd helped him tie his tie—it was crooked.
When Lin Wan walked out of the dressing room in her wedding dress, I almost didn't recognize her. With her bridal makeup and hair styled up, she looked like a different person—beautifully unreal.
She walked over arm-in-arm with her dad, blinked at me, and whispered, "The makeup's so thick, my face feels heavy." I couldn't help but laugh, and most of my nervousness melted away.
The ceremony went without a hitch—ring exchange, vows, first kiss. Emcee Zhou kept the mood lively, with applause and laughter echoing through the hall. My mom wiped away tears several times, and Lin Wan's mom had red eyes too. Everything was perfectly normal, so normal that I thought all my previous worries had been unnecessary.
Then came the toast session.
Waiters brought out decanters filled with baijiu mixed with Sprite. It looked like baijiu but tasted almost alcohol-free—a common wedding trick, everyone knew it.
I held my glass, Lin Wan on my arm, bridesmaids and groomsmen following behind. We made our way from table to table.
Starting with the main table—parents and close relatives, all familiar faces. My father-in-law stood up to clink glasses, saying, "Take good care of my daughter." I said, "Don't worry, Dad," and downed it in one go.
The atmosphere was relaxed, everyone laughing and joking. Everything was under control.
After the main table, I followed the seating chart in my mind, preparing to head to the first table on the left. But as I turned, something caught my eye, and my steps froze.
To the right of the main table, about three or four meters away, there was an extra table.
I stood there, stunned, my glass almost slipping from my hand.
The table was full—all ten seats occupied. Everyone wore dark clothing, a peculiar gray-black color with subtle patterns, like old-style Zhongshan suits or traditional jackets. The style was ancient, nothing I'd ever seen in modern stores.
Strangest of all, their outfits were almost identical. The men wore those gray-black tops, the women similar ones with faint white trim at the collars and cuffs.
Their posture was unnaturally straight—unlike other guests who slouched or chatted. Ten people sat silently, chopsticks and bowls perfectly arranged before them. The food hadn't been touched, no wine poured, glasses empty.
But their plates were wet. Not from spilled soup—like they'd just been washed and not dried. Each plate surface glistened with a thin layer of water, reflecting the banquet hall lights.
My mind went blank for three or four seconds. I quickly recalled the seating chart I'd signed. That spot should have been empty—shouldn't have had a table there at all.
During the planning, that area beside the main table was left blank for photographers to move around and the newlyweds to stand. No table was ever placed there.
"What's wrong?" Lin Wan noticed me stop, followed my gaze, but just glanced at the table and showed no reaction—as if nothing was amiss.
"That table..." I whispered, "Where did that table come from? We didn't plan for it."
Lin Wan blinked, looked at me, then at the table, a confused expression on her face. "Aren't those your relatives? I thought they were from your side."
A chill ran down my spine.
I turned to find Emcee Zhou. He was standing by the stage drinking water. I walked over quickly, trying to keep my expression normal, and whispered, "Brother Zhou, what's with that table to the right of the main table? I didn't plan for it."
Emcee Zhou put down his water bottle, glanced in the direction I pointed, then turned back with a casual tone. "Oh, those are your relatives."
"What relatives?"
"I'm not sure," Emcee Zhou shrugged, sounding as casual as talking about the weather. "They're from your side—been there since the ceremony started."
"Since the ceremony?"
"Yeah, I noticed them when I opened. They were sitting so neatly, I thought they were elders you'd specially invited." Emcee Zhou smiled and patted my shoulder. "Don't be nervous, groom. It's normal to have too many relatives to remember. Just toast them and move on."
He walked off to adjust the sound system, leaving me standing there, palms sweating.
I was certain I hadn't invited these people. Lin Wan and I had checked the guest list one by one. Twelve tables for the groom's side—I remembered exactly who sat at each one.
My dad's side: three uncles, two aunts, plus their families—exactly two tables. My mom's side: two uncles, one aunt—one and a half tables. The rest were classmates, colleagues, friends—over eight tables. No omissions, no blanks. I was a hundred percent sure.
Who were these people?
I walked back to Lin Wan, who was chatting with the bridesmaid. She saw my pale face and asked what was wrong. Before I could answer, my mom came over from the main table, took my hand, and said, "Son, it's time—go toast your friends' table. They came all this way, don't keep them waiting."
"My friends?" I pointed at the gray-black clad people. "Mom, who is that table?"
My mom followed my finger, showing no surprise. She even smiled at the table, then turned back and patted me. "Your friends and you're asking me? You invited them, don't you know them?"
"I don't know them."
"Nonsense," my mom frowned, that familiar tone of exasperation in her voice. "Don't talk nonsense at the wedding—it's bad luck. Go toast them now, don't dawdle."
She went back to the main table, her movements natural, her expression normal. Too normal—it scared me.
I grabbed Lin Wan's wrist and said in a voice only she could hear, "I really don't know those people. Not a single one."
Lin Wan stared at me for two seconds, pulled her wrist free, stepped back half a step, and tilted her head, looking like she'd heard something unbelievable.
She said, "Honey, don't scare me. Didn't you reserve that table yourself?"
"When did I reserve it?"
"That empty table," Lin Wan said matter-of-factly. "You said the hotel suggested leaving an empty table. Didn't you end up keeping it? Right there."
My blood froze in that moment.
I had told Lin Wan about the empty table. That night after signing the seating chart, I'd mentioned it in bed—that the hotel had this weird tradition of leaving an empty table, but I thought it was wasteful and canceled it.
Lin Wan had said, "Good, four thousand yuan is better spent elsewhere." I remembered every word of that conversation clearly.
But now Lin Wan had no memory of me canceling it. In her mind, I'd kept the table.
"I canceled it," my voice trembled. "The chart I signed had twenty-seven tables. I removed that table."
Lin Wan's expression grew complicated. She stared at me for a long time, then whispered, "Are you too nervous? Maybe take a break before continuing?"
She didn't believe me.
I took a deep breath and told myself to calm down.
Maybe I'd misremembered. Maybe the hotel had made a mistake. Maybe some error had occurred, an extra table set up, and some strangers had wandered in for a free meal. The explanation was full of holes, but it was better than the alternative.
Either way, the wedding was ongoing. I couldn't lose my composure now. Toasts had to continue—it was protocol, it was face, it was the result of six months of preparation by both families. I forced myself to pick up my glass, pulled Lin Wan along, and walked toward that table of gray-black clad people.
As I approached, that unsettling feeling grew stronger.
The banquet hall was lively—other guests laughing loudly, playing drinking games, teasing the newlyweds. But that table seemed enclosed in an invisible glass bubble; outside sounds vanished when they reached them.
Ten people sat silently—no talking, no phones, no eating, barely looking at each other. They just sat upright, as if waiting for something.
When I reached the table, all ten turned to look at me.
Their movements were too synchronized for living people.
Those ten faces—I didn't recognize a single one. There was an old man, middle-aged people, a young woman in her twenties, and a teenager.
Their features were ordinary—so ordinary they'd disappear in a crowd—but together, there was an indescribable wrongness about them.
It took me a long time to figure out what that wrongness was. Their skin was too uniform—no blood, no shine, like paper that had been soaked in water and dried. Pale, with a faint grayish tinge.
And their hair was wet.
Not sweat-wet—like they'd just been pulled from water. Fine droplets clung to the ends, dripping down their temples, darkening their gray-black collars.
The teenager even had a small piece of green stuck behind his ear—it looked like seaweed.
I stood before them, my glass trembling, the Sprite-baijiu mixture sloshing in ripples.
All ten stood up simultaneously.
No scraping of chair legs. Ten chairs moved back at the same time, ten people rose together—their movements silent, as if rehearsed countless times.
They picked up their glasses. Wine had appeared in them somehow, but it wasn't clear—it was a thick black, like ink, but shinier than ink, glistening under the lights like oil.
The oldest-looking man stood at the front. He raised his glass of black wine, and the other nine followed. The old man's lips moved, making a sound.
The voice came from deep underwater—muffled, with a gurgling bubble quality. I couldn't make out what he said, but it pressed against my eardrums, like the pressure you feel diving too deep.
All ten raised their glasses toward me.
I froze, unable to lift my own glass.
"Drink," Lin Wan nudged me gently. "They're toasting you—don't just stand there."
I turned to her. Her expression was still normal, even a little impatient, as if I wasn't facing a table of mysteriously appearing, soaking-wet strangers, but just ordinary guests.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Their wine is black."
Lin Wan glanced at my decanter, then at their glasses, then looked back at me with that "have you had too much to drink" look. "Black? Honey, have you had too many toasts?"
She couldn't see it.
I looked at the groomsman beside me—Zhao Feng, my college roommate, my closest friend. He was holding a wine bottle, looking a bit impatient after toasting so many tables. I whispered, "Zhao Feng, what color is the wine in their glasses?"
Zhao Feng glanced at the table, confused. "White, what else? Same as your decanter."
He couldn't see it either.
Under the warm yellow banquet lights, those ten glasses held liquid as thick as solidified oil—black, still, unmoving. But everyone except me saw ordinary white wine.
The old man still held his glass, his cloudy eyes fixed on me. His eyes were wet too—not tears, but a sheen seeping from within, like his eyeballs had been soaked and might slide from their sockets at any moment.
I forced myself to raise my glass, forced a stiff smile, touched my lips to the rim, and made a drinking motion—without swallowing a drop.
Then I grabbed Lin Wan and turned to leave, practically fleeing to the next table.
After toasting the whole round and returning to the main table, I looked back.
The table was empty.
All ten people had vanished without a sound. The food remained untouched, chopsticks and bowls neatly arranged, chairs pushed back in place.
The table surface was covered in water marks, like someone had wiped it down with a wet cloth. The water glistened coldly under the lights.
I walked over and touched one of the chairs.
My fingertip met cold, damp velvet. Not just damp—like something pulled from water, left to air for a while, surface moisture evaporating but the interior still saturated. I brought my fingers to my nose.
A smell of mud, mixed with that indistinct scent of rotting seaweed.
Waiters were already clearing tables. A young waitress pushed her cart over and started collecting the tableware. She worked quickly, stacking ten plates together with a clink. I stood beside her, hesitated, then asked, "When did these people leave?"
The waitress looked up, confused. "Sorry sir, I just got here—I didn't notice. But why are these chairs so wet? Did someone spill wine?"
She hadn't seen them either.
The wedding ended around two in the afternoon. Guests dispersed, leaving only hotel staff cleaning up. I stood at the door to see off the last of the relatives, then returned to the hall to retrieve my things.
Manager Wu was there too, directing staff with a walkie-talkie.
He saw me and approached, still wearing that professional smile. "Mr. Chen, everything went well today—congratulations."
I looked at him, silent for a few seconds, then asked a question that sounded absurd even to me: "Manager Wu, that tradition you mentioned—the empty table... what happens if you don't leave it?"
Manager Wu's smile faltered. The pause was so brief I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been staring at his eyes. But he recovered quickly, his tone as smooth as a rehearsed line: "Mr. Chen, these things—believe them or not, it's up to you. Your wedding went smoothly, and that's all that matters, right?"
He didn't answer directly. He didn't even leave that hint of hesitation in his voice.
I tried a different angle: "Who is that empty table normally reserved for?"
Manager Wu looked at me, his eyes holding something new—like he was assessing how much I knew. Then he smiled and said something that made my scalp prickle: "Mr. Chen, the empty table is for relatives from 'over there.' If you don't reserve it, they won't mind—they'll just come sit themselves, share a little joy."
"Over where?"
He didn't answer, turning to direct the table moving instead.
My wife's parents lived in the suburbs. After the wedding, we stayed there for two days. During those two days, I didn't mention the incident to anyone.
Lin Wan was immersed in the joy of a perfect wedding, scrolling through wedding photos on her phone and sending voice messages to her best friend.
I sat beside her, watching her phone screen scroll past photo after photo, then suddenly held her hand.
"Wait, scroll back."
She scrolled back one photo. It was a panoramic shot from when Emcee Zhou opened the ceremony—taken from the stage, overlooking the entire banquet hall, all twenty-eight tables visible.
I zoomed in, scanning section by section.
To the right of the main table, that spot was empty. No table, no people—just clean beige carpet, not even a chair mark.
The timestamp read 11:48 AM, right when the ceremony started.
But I'd seen those people around 12:30 PM during the toasts.
"What is it?" Lin Wan leaned over to look.
"Nothing," I handed the phone back. "This one's nice."
She didn't think much of it, scrolling to the next photo. I leaned back on the sofa, closed my eyes, and that image played on a loop in my mind—ten people standing in unison, raising black wine, the old man opening his mouth to speak that muffled underwater sound.
I tried to recall his mouth shape. Replaying it again and again in my head, slowing it down, dissecting each moment.
Slowly, the mouth shape formed a word.
Not a complicated sentence—just three characters.
"You came."
I didn't go with them. I didn't drink that black wine. But what if I had? What would have happened if I'd touched that wine? I don't know, and I never want to find out.
Life returned to normal after the wedding. We couldn't go on our honeymoon—I'd used up all my annual leave, had to wait until the end of the year.
We went back to our two-bedroom apartment with the mortgage. Up at seven, home at seven, eat, watch TV, sleep. Days passed just like before the wedding.
That incident became a brief, bizarre interlude, quickly submerged by the tide of daily life. Even I started to wonder if it had been a hallucination from being too nervous.
Until a month and a half later.
Early November, the weather turned cold in Binjiang, with rain falling for a week straight. It was Saturday, Lin Wan was working overtime at the kindergarten, and I was home alone playing games.
Around three in the afternoon, a WeChat message popped up. The sender's name was unfamiliar, the avatar a solid gray.
I opened it.
The message was short, just one line: "Xiao Yu, you didn't drink last time. Remember to make it up next time."
I stared at the screen for a long time, my fingers hovering above the phone, frozen.
Outside, the rain suddenly intensified, beating against the window with a dense, muffled sound—like someone was patting the glass with wet palms, again and again.
I slowly lifted my head and looked out the window.
Through the rain, the opposite building's exterior wall was gray and indistinct. But I smelled something—a faint scent seeping through the window crack.
The smell of mud, mixed with rotting seaweed.
The phone beeped again. A second message from that gray avatar.
"It's okay. We can wait."
I grabbed the phone, wanting to reply and ask who they were. But after sending, a red exclamation mark appeared—the other party had blocked me.
I'd been deleted.
That night, I called my mom, beating around the bush to ask if our family had any water-related relatives or old stories.
My mom said I had too much free time and told me to hurry up and have a baby for her to take care of. I asked my dad, who thought for a long time and said there was a cousin on my grandpa's side who'd drowned as a child, but nothing else special.
After hanging up, I pulled out the hotel bill from the wedding day, flipping through page after page. When I reached the last page, my fingers stopped.
In the remarks section, there was a small printed line I hadn't noticed when signing:
"Per client request, one empty table has been reserved. Food and beverages will be served as usual. Thank you."
I had never requested an empty table.
I picked up my phone and dialed Manager Wu's number. It rang three times before he answered.
"Manager Wu, this is Chen Yu—the one who had the wedding on September 16th."
"Hello Mr. Chen, how can I help you?" Manager Wu's voice was as steady as ever.
"The bill says 'per client request, empty table reserved.' I never made that request."
There was a moment of silence on the line. Then Manager Wu said in a slow, soft voice: "Mr. Chen, that request didn't come from you. It was from the old gentleman sitting at that table—he came to the front desk the night before the wedding and left the message. He said he was your elder, and he signed his name."
"What name did he sign?"
"He signed your surname," Manager Wu paused, and for the first time, there was a faint tremor in his voice, "Mr. Chen, I thought he was your father."
My dad had been at home helping me decorate the wedding room that night—over a dozen neighbors had been there. He hadn't left the house once.
"What did that old gentleman look like?"
"I don't remember clearly," Manager Wu said. "Just that he seemed to have been caught in the rain—he was wet. He stood at the front desk for a while, leaving a puddle of water on the floor."
I was silent for a long time, finally saying "I see" before hanging up.
The living room light flickered once, then brightened again. Outside, the rain continued, water streaking down the glass like ten wet fingers.
I sat on the sofa, the phone screen dimming and brightening. The notification bar was quiet, no new messages.
But I couldn't shake the feeling that those people with gray avatars were sitting somewhere I couldn't see—sitting upright, before them plates wet with condensation, glasses filled with black wine, waiting silently for me.
They said they could wait.
I don't know when "next time" will be, or what "making it up" means.
All I know is that in this world, there are certain traditions. You can choose not to believe them, not to follow them—but the things behind those traditions don't disappear just because you cancel a banquet table.
They'll come anyway.
Take their seats themselves.
Pour their own wine.
And wait for you.