Chapter 2: The Chubby Boy

A deafening crash rang out. Then another, and another, until ten bolts of heavenly lightning came tearing down onto a solitary grave in the back hills, blasting the weathered wooden headstone atop it into powder and scattering it without a trace.

Not a single strike touched any other grave.

The back hill was called Green Fox Hill. It had long been used by nearby villagers to bury their dead, and because of that, White Dragon Mountain was said to be a mountain of immortals. The villagers all wanted to borrow a little of that immortal fortune for themselves. In time, Green Fox Hill became known as the Grave Hill.

Even so, the villagers kept the burials in order, ranking the graves by seniority and placing them with care. No one buried recklessly there.

But this solitary grave, struck by lightning, had no known origin.

It had been there before anyone in the village ever began burying their dead.

Even the oldest people in the village had no idea who lay inside it.

Those well over eighty, trembling as they spoke, could only say, "As long as I can remember, it was already there..."

And the owner of that grave was indeed a woman.

There was even a portrait of her carved upon the headstone.

In the portrait, she wore a blue robe, her long hair flowing down her back. Her beauty was striking, but her gaze held a cold and distant edge, as though no one could ever enter her heart.

The likeness was astonishingly vivid, though it had been rendered in only a few simple strokes. It looked almost alive.

But just now, that portrait-bearing headstone had been shattered by the thunderbolt.

The face of that beautiful woman was gone, and the weed-choked grave mound had been blasted open into a pitch-black hole.

With the lightning gone, the hill fell silent again.

In the darkness of the back hill, a cold wind suddenly rose, stirring the willow leaves softly.

Then a chilling, clear voice sounded.

"He has come... this time, will you... betray me again?"

...

Down in the village at the foot of the mountain, the villagers were all clutching their quilts and hiding under the blankets, trembling as they stared into the night outside.

"This is evil! Something's wrong! It's only two in the afternoon, and it looks just like two in the morning!"

With the thunder, everyone felt as if the world itself were ending.

This was what it meant for heaven and earth to go dark.

Yet in one house in the village, the whole family was smiling.

Because I had been born.

As the baby cried out, a very big, very fat boy came into the world.

And no, that was not a figure of speech.

He really was that fat. At first, the midwife thought my mother was waiting for something, because the child simply would not come out. She had received the message in the morning, and by noon, after lunch, she was still dragging things out. But the baby just would not budge.

Now that she saw me, she kept exclaiming to the grandmother beside me, "I've been delivering babies for so many years, and I've never seen one this fat. This has to be more than ten pounds, it has to be. This... this is like a little piglet, this..."

By the end, the midwife truly had no words left.

So she simply fell silent.

A normal newborn usually weighed around five or six pounds, and if one was on the heavy side, seven or eight at most.

I was born weighing thirteen pounds.

My little arms were like lotus roots, with flesh packed so tightly around the joints that the body’s contours could barely be seen at all.

And my skin was snow-white.

White as snow.

My mother had long since gone weak and fainted.

When my father and grandfather saw me, both burst out laughing.

Any family holding a fair, plump baby like that would be grinning from ear to ear.

But their smiles did not last long.

Because of my unusual nature, everything that happened afterward robbed me of my wits.

Years later, my father would often look at me as I stood there with green snot streaming down my nose, gazing up at him with a perfectly innocent expression.

He would only sigh.

Only when I stuffed that green mucus into my mouth would his expression change.

Usually, he would slap his forehead and cry, "What a sin!"

Of course, that was all later.

When I was first born, apart from being fat and pale, I looked no different from any other child.

The only difference was that I had six toes on my left foot, and seven black dots on the sole.

They looked like a spoon.

The whole family was overjoyed.

Just then, someone arrived at the gate of the courtyard.

It was the village leader, the village chief.

The village chief had brought with him a half-crazed old man, ragged and filthy, his coarse hemp clothes frayed open at the seams. Even where they had not torn, they were so thin they seemed ready to split apart at any moment, with only a few rough strands hanging from his shoulders.

His name was Master Zha, the Madman.

He was one of the village's odd talents. Though he seemed deranged, whenever there was something the villagers could not handle, or when someone suffered from a fit of madness, they went to Master Zha to deal with it.

The two of them had barely entered when Master Zha dropped to the ground like a dog, sniffing the air and crawling about as he searched.

He crawled and sniffed at the same time.

The only difference between him and a dog was that he did not lift his leg.

And the white, hairlike things on the mud wall of the courtyard had somehow all disappeared.

Now the courtyard was filled with fluttering feathers from chickens.

Nothing else.

Yet Master Zha kept sniffing all the harder, and at last he cried out in a hoarse voice, "Hahaha, the smell of musk! Such a strong musk smell!"

The commotion in the courtyard also drew my grandfather and the others out from inside.

The moment my grandfather saw Master Zha, the smile on his face vanished, replaced by irritation. "Master Zha, what the hell are you doing in my house? Get lost right now, and don't blame me if I stop being polite!"

Master Zha and my grandfather were mortal enemies.

There was no great feud between them, nothing like that.

It was simply that my grandfather read fortunes and examined feng shui, and Master Zha did the same. The difference was that my grandfather was only a half-baked amateur. His skill was poor, and he often made the wrong prediction. Coincidentally, Master Zha was the one who got it right.

Little by little, no one came to my grandfather for fortunes or feng shui anymore. They all went to Master Zha instead.

And the biggest difference of all was this: my grandfather charged money, while Master Zha only asked for one meal.

When people compared the two, who would willingly pay money to consult someone inaccurate?

So the moment my grandfather saw Master Zha, he began cursing at him.

This time, Master Zha got up from the ground, his face smeared black, grinning widely as he said, "Hahaha, old man Han, didn't expect that even in your old age you'd still be fooling around with fox spirits!"

As he spoke, he even glanced toward my grandfather's lower body.

Seeing this, my grandfather quickly covered himself with his clothes and snapped, "Get the hell out! Wan-shan! See the guest out!"

Han Wan-shan was my father's full name.

My father had no remarkable traits. He was honest, dutiful, and lived an ordinary life. If there was one thing worth mentioning, it was that he was obedient and filial.

My father grabbed the iron shovel by the doorway and was about to rush over and drive Master Zha away.

Seeing this, the village chief hurriedly said, "Old Han, don't be so hot-tempered. I brought Master Zha here because we need to understand what's going on!"

My grandfather gave a cold snort. "Understand what? My daughter-in-law gave birth, and I became a grandfather. What, was I supposed to report that to your village committee the moment the baby was born?"

That was my grandfather's temper.

Stubborn and foul, hard as a nail.

He was not one to give the village chief any face.

Master Zha was now sitting on the ground, picking mud from his toenails as he spoke. "Earth immortals come to deliver the bride, and the dark spirits come to send the child. For both to arrive together... your Han family simply cannot bear such overwhelming blessing!"