説明
Long ago, in a distant kingdom, there lived a prosperous king whose daughter, Afiong, was as beautiful as the moon in a cloudless sky. Every young man in the land admired her, but Afiong was not interested. She rejected every suitor, calling them old, ugly, or unworthy of her beauty. She was proud and vain, her heart set on marrying a prince who could match her grandeur. Afiong’s parents pleaded with her to choose a suitor from their land, but she refused. She wanted a prince from a faraway kingdom, a man who was not only rich and powerful but also perfect in every way. Her dreams were filled with visions of the handsomest, strongest man alive—a man who would love her deeply and fulfill all her desires. One day, news spread throughout the village of a fine stranger who had appeared at the market. He was taller and more handsome than any of the young men in the kingdom, and Afiong could not resist. She hurried to the market, and when she saw him, her heart skipped a beat. He was indeed the perfect prince, the man she had imagined in her dreams. Afiong invited him to her home, and her parents, though hesitant, agreed to meet him. The prince immediately asked for Afiong’s hand in marriage, and after much consideration, the king and queen consented. Despite their concerns, they could see that Afiong had already fallen in love, and so, they allowed her to go with the prince to his faraway land. The journey was long, and after many days of travel, Afiong and her husband crossed the boundary between the human world and the spirit world. No sooner had they entered the land of spirits than strange things began to happen. The prince suddenly changed before her eyes. First, a man appeared, demanding the prince's legs. Then, another demanded his arms, followed by someone else who claimed his torso. Finally, the prince was reduced to nothing but a human skull. Afiong stood in shock, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. The prince, now nothing more than a skull, looked at her and laughed. He told her the truth—he had borrowed every part of his body from spirits, so he could appear human in her eyes. All that remained of him now was the skull, his true form. The princess was horrified. She wanted to return to her homeland, but the skull commanded her to follow him. With no choice, Afiong accompanied the prince, now a skull, to his home. There, she was greeted by an eerie silence. It was a place unlike anything she had ever seen, full of strange and unsettling sights. As the days passed, Afiong felt more and more trapped. She begged the skull to let her go, but it refused, knowing she could not leave until all the body parts she had seen had been returned to their rightful owners. In the meantime, Afiong had no choice but to tend to the skull, feeding it and carrying out tasks she had never imagined herself doing. Though the prince had shown her beauty and grandeur, Afiong now found herself in a strange land, bound to a creature she had thought perfect. The dreams of her former life seemed far away, and regret began to stir in her hearts