In 1989, an era when the blazing sun seemed fickle, my mother lost her way on the road to the hospital and gave birth to me in a graveyard in the dead of night.
People said that if a child was born with a life as cheap as a dog's, he would grow up to become a dragon or tiger.
Yet after I was born, I kept falling sick for no reason. Even the biggest hospitals could do nothing about me. I received so many critical-condition notices that I folded them up and bound them into an exercise book.
To keep me alive, my mother visited countless people and tried every folk remedy and secret prescription she could think of. In the end, she found a fortune-teller who could read a person's fate with a pinch of his fingers.
The fortune-teller said that someone had calculated my fate before I was even born: a yin year, a yin lunar date, a yin hour, a yin place, and a yin ghost acting as midwife. I was born with an overwhelming yin aura, attracting fierce ghosts. He said that such a fate was called a "Yin Corpse Ghost Fate." There was no cure. Even if every possible method were exhausted, I absolutely would not live past seven. After death, I would be raised into a "Blood-Robed Little Ghost" by someone with evil intentions and driven to harm others.
My mother was dumbfounded. Thinking that I would turn into a ghost and harm people after I died, she felt every hair on her body stand on end. She hurriedly begged the fortune-teller to save me. He had originally still possessed some compassion, but after counting on his fingers, he immediately shouldered his bundle and fled as fast as his legs could carry him.
My mother cried herself unconscious several times. In the end, she remembered my grandmother, who could drive out ghosts and cure illnesses.
My grandmother had once been a famous spirit medium. During the Cultural Revolution, when every ghost and monster was being purged, she had hidden in the deep mountains and primeval forests to evade struggle sessions, disappearing without a trace.
My mother was stubborn. She picked up her critically ill son and followed the old path into the deep mountains where my grandmother had once gone. She walked for three days and three nights, suffering every hardship imaginable. Thankfully, Heaven took pity on her, and she eventually found the place where my grandmother lived.
My grandmother took her grandson from my mother's hands and was so delighted that tears shimmered in her eyes. But after pinching her fingers to calculate my fate, she immediately stamped her feet and began cursing.
"Which little bastard dares to plot against my precious grandson's life?"
My mother thought she was being scolded. Frightened, she collapsed onto the ground and cried her eyes out. Of course, that was how my mother described it later. Given my grandmother's steady temperament, whether things had truly happened that way was impossible to know. Still, whenever she embellished the story, I would be fired up by the overbearing majesty of my grandmother back then and feel a surge of admiration for her. Perhaps that was also why I liked staying close to her.
After realizing that someone had placed a curse on me, my grandmother immediately set up an altar and performed a ritual. But this was not to drive out ghosts or cure my illness. Instead, she "took matters into her own hands" and found me a child bride.
Whether my grandmother's method was right or wrong, I never suffered disasters or illnesses again and began living in peace.
Many people might say that I was ungrateful for using the phrase "took matters into her own hands." But one had to understand that in this day and age, there were plenty of people in their thirties or forties who had never even had a girlfriend. Kid, you hadn't even grown all your hair yet and already had a wife. What more could you possibly be dissatisfied with?
Actually, I had my reasons. My "child bride" was not quite what everyone imagined—not because she was unattractive or old and faded, but because I had never seen her at all in all those years!
But my grandmother said that she had always been by my side.
Later, the household next door installed an iron pot-shaped satellite dish, and several television channels became available. After watching quite a few period dramas, I gradually learned what a child bride was.
A child bride was part of the deformed arranged marriages of old, when ordinary people who could not afford to raise their daughters sold them to wealthy families to become wives for their sons. The age gap was usually considerable; the girl was both wife and elder sister. Still, the boys who married child brides were generally very well cared for.
But my child bride could not be seen. Now that was truly eerie!
At only seven or eight years old, I already felt that if I had a wife-sister, then surely she ought to let me see her, right?
So I pestered my grandmother with questions about my invisible wife-sister. Yet my grandmother always gazed tenderly at the empty space beside me, leaving people utterly baffled.
Once, after I had fallen while walking and no one had helped me up, I jokingly complained to my grandmother, "Grandma, you say I have a child bride, a wife I married properly. But I've never even seen her. I fell flat on the ground and no one helped me up. That means we have the name but not the reality. If I meet someone I like in the future, I'll definitely marry her as my real wife!"
I remembered that my grandmother's expression changed at once. She hurriedly told me not to talk nonsense, saying that even if I found someone I liked, I could only take her as a concubine, never marry her as my wife.
Naturally, stubborn as I was, I refused to accept that. "If I can't marry her and can only take her as a concubine, what girl would be willing to become my concubine?"
My normally quiet grandmother saw me being obstinate and frightened me so badly that I was left completely bewildered.
But I suffered for it right away. Suddenly, gusts of sinister wind blew around me. Looking back, I had nearly been scared to death. I hurried over and clung to my grandmother.
In the end, my grandmother made me say, "I was only joking." Only then did the eerie feeling disappear.
From that moment on, I began to feel that there really was some invisible "thing" beside me, and I truly spent quite a few nights unable to sleep.
As for the first time I saw her, I think it must have been when I went to the town to attend school at the age of twelve.
Southern summers were especially scorching. The little town was like a steamer basket, and after class, our group of children loved carrying our schoolbags and heading together to the nearby rivers and streams to swim.
That day, Zhang Yidan and I, along with six or seven children from the neighboring class, went to race-swim at a small river near the home of a boy named Huang Dong, at his suggestion.
Zhang Yidan was from Little Yi Village, where my grandmother lived, just like me. His original name was Zhang Yuanyi. When he was little, he had been a cheeky rascal who loved running around bare-assed. His friends noticed that one of his testicles was especially large and covered the other, so they jokingly called him Zhang Yidan. He did not mind in the slightest and even took pride in it.
His broad-brained, foolish personality had its advantages. Zhang Yidan made quite a few friends in our grade.
I was the opposite. I had inherited my mother's stubborn streak, though being raised and influenced by my grandmother had made me calmer and less impatient than her in how I handled things. As a result, the mature-minded me had little in common with my friends.
But Zhang Yidan was sharp. Growing up constantly hearing about me had taught him that I was famously uncanny, always turning disasters into blessings whenever danger arose. So he loved sticking around and playing with me, and he certainly could not leave me out of a swimming trip.
After passing through dense orchards, our group of children arrived at the little river not far from Huang Dong's home.
This stream was a branch flowing from Vietnam. Its current was calm, but it was broad and deep. Still, that was no challenge for children as skilled at swimming as we were.
The moment we arrived, everyone stripped completely naked.
I was getting ready to take off my clothes and enter the river when, halfway through undressing, I felt a sinister wind blow from behind. I shuddered violently.
This had not happened many times since I had become sensible, but every time it did, it made my body hair stand on end and filled me with vigilance.
Yet when I watched two or three children enter the water and play joyfully on its tranquil surface, the heat made even my normally good temper grow restless.
Zhang Yidan was already stark naked. He tugged at me and urged, "Brother Tian, let's go too!"
Normally, if a sinister wind blew from behind, I should have turned around and left immediately. But today I was unhappy. At twelve or thirteen, teachers said we were at the age of rebellion. Why couldn't I be willful just once?
Huang Dong was the little king of the neighboring class. When he saw that the leader of our class, Zhang Yidan, actually called me "Brother Tian, Brother Tian," he looked down on me for hesitating to enter the water. "Xia Yitian, what's wrong? You can't swim, or are you a coward afraid to die?"
"Huang Dong, are you looking for a beating? My Brother Tian is afraid of dying?" Zhang Yidan said with a glare, though he still glanced at me cautiously.
I thought I couldn't show weakness. After hesitating, I looked back, took off my clothes, and followed Zhang Yidan into the water. But I did not start swimming immediately. Instead, I stood in the water, which was only shin-deep, and watched them play.
"Damn, this kid's actually just afraid of dying, right, Brother Dong? Brother Dong's the brave one."
"Heh, do you even need to ask?" Huang Dong glanced at me disdainfully, then swam toward deeper water with the other children. He even looked back and called, "Zhang Yidan, you're scared because this isn't your territory? Dare you and your Brother Tian team up and race us across the river?"
"Moron, you dare race me and Brother Tian across the river?" Zhang Yidan was annoyed. He was famous in the village as a "flying fish" and swam incredibly fast, while I was also an excellent swimmer. The two of us had never lost a river-crossing race, so he immediately wanted to drag me over and compete with them.
I was just about to go with Zhang Yidan when an eerie force suddenly yanked me back. I even felt a cold hand pulling my little underpants out of shape.
I reached both hands behind me to cover my nearly exposed buttocks. With a sharp rip, my underpants almost tore apart. Furious, I turned around, ready to curse whoever had messed with me, but there was nothing behind me.
Yet when I turned back again, I immediately saw a red figure in the water behind me, tugging at me. The surface rippled beneath the children's splashing, making it impossible to see her clearly, but it was more than enough to frighten me.
I immediately tried to hold Zhang Yidan back and stop him from going down. "Y-Yidan, don't go over there. Quick, quick, get back to shore."
Zhang Yidan, who had already started heading over, saw my face turn ashen and immediately ran back. "What's wrong, Brother Tian? Are you all right?"
"I feel like something's wrong. Don't you think this river is too quiet?" I casually made up an excuse and looked around the riverbank, but I saw nothing that could have stopped me from entering the water.
Little Yi Village had a small population, and Zhang Yidan naturally knew about my grandmother's deeds. So he obeyed me without question and asked fearfully, "Brother Tian, what did you see?"
"I don't know. Anyway, we should get back to shore right now." I repeated myself.
"Hey, people from our class! Get out of the water!" Zhang Yidan immediately waved to the other two children from our class.
"Haha, everyone from Class 138 is a bunch of cowards!" Huang Dong mocked us as soon as he saw our classmates climb ashore.
"You said you'd have a water battle with us? Battle my ass. Go home and suckle milk!" Huang Dong's friends also sneered at us.
The two children from our class looked down on me a little because of this, but they did not dare object to Zhang Yidan. They hurriedly made their way to the riverbank.
I ignored the mockery. Once I reached shore, the sinister chill dissipated considerably. I panted and looked toward the river, only to see a pair of ghastly white hands suddenly rise from the riverbed not far from Huang Dong, bobbing up and down in the water like someone surrendering.