In that unsteady, blazing-sun era, Mother lost her way on the road to the hospital and gave birth to me in a graveyard in the dead of night.
They said a person born with a life as cheap as a dog's would grow up to become a dragon or tiger.
Yet after I was born, I kept falling inexplicably ill. Even the major hospitals could do nothing about it. The critical-condition notices piled up until Mother folded them into exercise books.
To keep me alive, Mother visited countless people and tried every strange folk remedy and unorthodox treatment she could find. In the end, she located a fortune-teller who could read the signs and calculate fate.
The fortune-teller said someone had schemed against me before I was born: born in a yin year, yin month, yin hour, and yin place, delivered by a yin ghost. I was naturally saturated with yin energy and would attract fierce ghosts. He said this fate was called an "Yin Corpse Ghost Fate," and there was no cure. Even if every method were exhausted, I absolutely would not live past seven. After my death, those evil-minded people would turn me into a "Blood-Clothed Little Ghost" and send me out to harm others.
Mother was dumbstruck. The thought of me becoming a ghost and harming people after death made her whole body prickle. She hurriedly begged the fortune-teller to save me. He had originally felt some pity, but after counting on his fingers, he immediately slung his bag over his shoulder and fled as fast as his feet could carry him.
Mother cried herself unconscious several times. At last, she remembered her mother, who could drive out ghosts and cure illnesses.
Grandmother was a renowned spirit medium. When the Cultural Revolution swept away all "ox ghosts