The rains fell heavily during the Qingming Festival.
It drizzled that day, so the traveler did not go out. Instead, he stayed home and read.
At around ten in the morning, he stretched, glanced at the gloomy sky outside, and prepared to buy ingredients for lunch.
But just as he reached the doorway, he suddenly saw an unusually tall man standing beneath the large tree in the courtyard. The man wore hemp clothing and appeared to be nearly three meters tall—taller even than the courtyard wall beside him.
The traveler was badly startled, only to find that the man had vanished in the blink of an eye.
Had his eyes deceived him?
He went into the courtyard to investigate, but found no footprints in the muddy ground, nor any signs of trampling nearby. He felt slightly relieved. It seemed that reading for too long had dried out his eyes and caused a hallucination.
And so, the matter passed.
For several days afterward, he encountered no more strange incidents.
Suspecting that there were many mice in the house, he borrowed a cat from a nearby neighbor. While he was at it, he also adopted a half-grown stray dog from the roadside.
He gave the dog a name: Million.
Living alone was rather lonely, and having a pet for company made him feel much better.
And so it went.
In the blink of an eye, another seven or eight days passed.
That morning, he was busy making breakfast in the kitchen when he suddenly heard the dog barking loudly in the bedroom—"Woof, woof, woof!" Its cries were mixed with fearful whimpering, as though something had frightened it.
And not just the dog.
The usually quiet cat was also behaving strangely, meowing nonstop.
Soon.
The cat and dog both ran out of the