Summary
Upset by Fan’s betrayal, Li Lan feels hopeless. While she eventually finds out how to ride back to Malacca, she appears to be getting weaker all the time. On the way back, she enters Tian Bai’s dreams again, only for him to tell her that they have met in person over the past week and are now engaged. Shocked, Li Lan returns to her house to find that Fan has taken over her body. Fan reveals that she has been guided by the advice of Master Awyoung.
Li Lan finds Old Wong and asks for an exorcism, but Old Wong argues that no one will perform one so close to a wedding and that they might end up killing Li Lan in the process. Seeing Tian Bai and Fan together makes Li Lan feel hopeless, so she decides to seek out the medium, wandering in the graveyard and blowing on Er Lang’s scale on impulse.
Surprisingly, Er Lang comes, sharing with Li Lan that he almost died but also telling her that she is dying. He has reported the Lim family and so is unaware of the events that have happened since he was gone. Li Lan fills him in and asks that he take care of her family after she is gone, also asking to see his face as a last request. He obliges the second request (and is revealed to be beautiful) but offers to save her life by giving her some of his life force. Li Lan then takes his breath into her body by kissing him, which Er Lang warns her might have future consequences.
Li Lan goes back home to find Fan screaming as Amah offers her a herb mixture meant to drive out demons, with Fan accusing Amah of trying to poison her. Suddenly, an ox demon appears, announcing to Fan (who is in Li Lan’s body) that he is here to capture Li Lan. Amah takes the opportunity to slap a spell paper on Fan’s forehead, which casts Fan out of Li Lan’s body, after which the demon leaps forwards and takes her away. Li Lan’s body then pulls Li Lan’s spirit back towards itself. Even after returning to her body, however, Li Lan feels caught between the physical and the spiritual world, wishing she could see Er Lang again and fruitlessly waiting for him to come again.
Li Lan and Tian Bai are supposed to be married in two months, but Li Lan wants to delay the ceremony. Li Lan wants to see Yan Hong again, and despite Tian Bai’s subtle discouraging, eventually accompanies Old Wong to the Lim mansion so she can. When she meets up with Yan Hong, Li Lan tells her about her dreams of Lim Tian Ching and his accusations against Tian Bai, as well as about the teacup. In response, Yan Hong implies that she did kill him. Madame Lim overhears them and becomes furious, shoving Yan Hong and Li Lan over the edge of a crumbling well.
Managing to help Yan Hong out of the well, Li Lan, unfortunately, ends up falling to the bottom herself in the process. Yan Hong runs off to get help, and in the meantime, Li Lan unsuccessfully attempts to scale the well. Calling out for Er Lang until she is almost hysterical, Li Lan's voice grows almost hoarse before he arrives. Furious, she fights with him but then kisses him impulsively. Afterward, he carries her out of the well and updates her on the court proceedings. He tells her that she will not age normally, and he gives her two options: to live with Tian Bai and have a family for fifty years until the people around her start to die, and then become Er Lang's wife, or to come with him immediately.
After Er Lang leaves, Tian Bai takes her home in a rickshaw, and when she arrives home, Li Lan learns that Madame Lim tried to kill him as well. Over the next few days, visitors and gifts from the Lim family keep coming in, ending in a visit from Lim Tieck Kiong himself, who tells Li Lan that he will sponsor her education in England, which is a transparent way to get rid of her. Yan Hong comes to visit and thanks Li Lan for saving her and asks her to take care of Tian Bai, and Li Lan finds herself increasingly torn between her two options.
The narration moves to the present tense, where Li Lan’s two weeks are almost up. Li Lan concludes that being in the spirit world has changed her, and that while marrying Tian Bai is the easy way out, that she must go to Er Lang. She doesn’t want to wait for him or to cheat Tian Bai, who she believes does not truly know her, out of love. To end the novel, she muses on how even though she didn’t want to become a ghost bride, she is now in love with something entirely inhuman.
Analysis
The fourth section opens with Li Lan having to quickly re-adjust. Even though she managed to succeed in her quest in the Plains of the Dead, she has lost a friend and has been stranded in the middle of nowhere. And then when she makes it back to Malacca, she finds out that she can't even return to her body. Fan's betrayal runs deeper than just abandoning her: she has stolen Li Lan's body too, a sort of final revenge from Master Awyoung, who was defeated in the previous section. For a good amount of time, it appears that there's nothing Li Lan can do. Here, it's telling that she turns to Er Lang, who she believes is dead, instead of Tian Bai, who is supposedly in love with her. Tian Bai may be the man she was initially infatuated with but Er Lang is the person that she trusts.
When Er Lang arrives, it becomes clear that, in the aftermath of the events in the Plains of the Dead, it is Er Lang she has become attached to. This attachment is mutual, considering that Er Lang actually blames himself for not being more considerate of Li Lan's situation with her body and offers her some of his life in turn. The kiss they share might technically be for the purpose of tranferring some of Er Lang's life-force to Li Lan but there are feelings involved too—something that is supported by the fact that the kiss goes on much longer than Er Lang or Li Lan meant for it to.
Li Lan's new lease on life is juxtaposed with Fan's demise. Right after Li Lan gains more years, she comes home to find Fan being exorcised by Amah. Ironically, if Fan had not stolen Li Lan's body, everything would have been fine: the ox demon would have left Li Lan alone by virtue of the fact that she was alive, and Fan could have gotten away with avoiding the authorities. But her choice actually destroyed her, speaking to how the spirit world always comes out to a balance.
But now that Li Lan has seen the spirit world, the physical world isn't enough for her anymore. Having pushed herself to her limits and seen wonderful things, the ordinary can't satisfy her anymore, which includes Tian Bai. This doesn't prevent her from following up with Yan Hong, however, who she realizes is also not blameless. Lim Tian Ching was a boor, but Yan Hong's treatment of him, as well as her lack of remorse, are not excusable. Li Lan's close brush with death at the hands of Madame Lim is followed by Er Lang's rescue and offer of marriage.
The fact that Li Lan will end up with Er Lang regardless of which option she initially chooses makes their relationship seem like something that was almost fated to happen: while the more modern-leaning Tian Bai secures a betrothal from Li Lan through negotiation between their families, Er Lang and Li Lan almost fall into their romance. In the end, the choice between Tian Bai and Er Lang is obvious for Li Lan. While she still has affection for Tian Bai, she simply isn't the same person that longed for the boy that made the clocks. Learning what love is with Er Lang means that she cannot cheat Tian Bai out of it, so she makes the kind and brave choice to stay with Er Lang instead of trying to do the easy thing for herself. And in the process of all this, she has learned to embrace the unknown—instead of shying away a bit from the spiritual like she did at the beginning of the novel, she now welcomes it with open arms.
