Good news never left the house, but bad news traveled a thousand miles.
Nezha's already poor reputation only grew worse.
Pick anyone in Chentang Pass—from an eighty-year-old elder to a three-year-old toddler—and they might not know their own relatives' names, but they had definitely heard of Nezha.
At street corners and in back alleys, over tea and after meals, people were always talking.
A butcher slammed his cleaver onto the chopping block, spittle flying.
"Have you heard? General Li's son was a lump of flesh when he was born!
A lump of flesh, understand? That wasn't human!"
An old woman selling vegetables leaned closer and lowered her voice.
"My cousin's brother-in-law works at Li Mansion. He said that kid smashed a mountain when he was only three!"
"More than that!"
A scholar beside them took up the conversation, fanning himself.
"I also heard there was a bloody glow in the sky when that child was born, and dogs within a hundred miles barked all night."
The butcher slapped his thigh.
"Isn't that a monster? If he stays in Chentang Pass, he'll bring disaster sooner or later!"
"Shh—keep it down. What if someone from Li Mansion hears you?"
"What am I afraid of? It's not just me saying it!"
The gossip spread like a plague. Cloth sellers, fishmongers, and candied hawthorn vendors gathered in twos and threes, repeating the same few words over and over.
Monster, ill omen, disaster.
The people of Chentang Pass even went out of their way to avoid Li Mansion, as though the residence housed not the General, but a powder keg that could explode at any moment.
Some particularly bold people even joined several friends and visited under the guise of good intentions, suggesting that Yin Shi invite a venerable monk or Daoist priest to exorcise