Wedding Incident

Quick Village has kept a custom for more than a hundred years in which the bridesmaid at a wedding is hazed by the guests. She has to accept every rule and every method they pick, and if she refuses, the groom's family is said to be struck with bad luck down the whole line and held in contempt by the village for the rest of their lives. A wedding party anywhere else blocks the door, plays small games, asks for red envelopes and calls down good fortune on the couple. A young woman comes to Quick Village as bridesmaid for her older sister and her sister's groom. Nobody had pushed the hazing as far as humiliating anyone before this. The richest man in the village arrives with two associates, and from the moment she gets out of the car they discuss how to get hold of her and settle on the bridesmaid custom as the way to do it. The groom's family cannot refuse a man like him and ask her to put up with a little of it. Her sister objects, then sees that the groom says nothing and takes it for ordinary teasing. The bridesmaid is told her sister's marriage will suffer if she does not cooperate, and she agrees. The three men take her into a room and assault her. Her sister works out that something is wrong and tries to get in, and the groom and his parents hold her back and tell her it will not come to anything. Her father is on the road to the wedding at the same time. He cannot get a call through, so he drives on toward the venue.