That day, Sihuang came to Yatou's home with a pheasant in his jaws as usual, only to step into a trap. Someone had dug a deep pit along the route he always took and concealed it beneath a woven-vine trapdoor. Bamboo stakes lined the bottom, every point aimed upward, as though determined to kill whoever fell inside.
Sihuang gripped the edge of the pit with both forepaws, his hind legs scrabbling against the wall. But his body was enormous, and he was about to lose his hold.
Inside the house, Yatou had felt strangely uneasy all evening. Suddenly, she heard an odd sound not far from the wooden hut. She hurriedly set down what she was holding and ran outside.
From several paces away, Yatou saw Sihuang with only half his body aboveground, and her face drained of color. She immediately reached for his forepaws, but Sihuang was a tiger, after all. His weight was far beyond what a frail woman like her could move.
But how could she give up? Sihuang was her only reason to keep living!
She clutched his forepaws and strained with every ounce of strength, even cracking her own teeth as she clenched them.
"Yatou, go. Hurry and go," Sihuang roared.
"I won't go! I won't!" Yatou shouted, but she could feel Sihuang slipping downward, and despair flooded her heart.
What do I do? In that moment, she completely lost her bearings.
Suddenly, Yatou thought of a way!
She let go, looked down into the pit, which was not terribly deep, and carefully jumped in.
"Yatou, what are you doing?"
Dodging the bamboo stakes, Yatou made her way beneath Sihuang. She lifted his hind paws onto her shoulders and forced herself to stand.
"Sihuang! Step on me and get out!"
Sihuang suddenly felt something beneath his feet. In his panic, he leaped with all his strength, vaulting out of the pit. But an elderly woman could never withstand those hundreds of pounds. Yatou heard a sharp crack and felt as though her shoulders had shattered.
The agony throughout her body nearly made her pass out.
"Yatou!" Sihuang turned back and reached down with a paw, trying to pull her up.
Yatou stretched out her hand with all her remaining strength, but she could not reach Sihuang, who seemed so close. Sihuang frantically waved his paw, even raking cuts across her hand.
"Forget it..." Yatou said, despair written across her face. "Go, Sihuang..."
"No... I have to save you," Sihuang said anxiously.
"There's no need... Mengshan must have dug this trap. When he comes back, let him rescue me... Hurry and go..." Yatou said weakly.
Only after Yatou urged him again and again did Sihuang finally leave with tears in his eyes.
Yatou did not know how much time passed before she fell asleep against the wall. When she opened her eyes again, Mengshan was standing above the pit.
"Mengshan...?" Enduring the agony throughout her body, Yatou slowly raised her head. "Mengshan... Help your mother out... I'm hurt..."
"Help you?" Mengshan looked at his mother in puzzlement. "If I help you, wouldn't I have dug this trap for nothing? I wanted to skin a tiger and sell its hide for some money, but you ruined everything."
"You...!" Yatou had never imagined that the son she had raised through more than forty years of bitter hardship could care so little whether she lived or died.
"But I've always wanted to see what happens when someone dies and nobody touches the body. People say it gets covered in worms. I'll try it with you this time. I'm going to bed. Don't forget to call me when you die." Mengshan turned and went back into the wooden hut.
Yatou was left sobbing in the pit. "Heavens above... What sin did I commit to deserve this...?"
Yatou spent an entire day in the pit without food or water. Fortunately, Sihuang came the next day. He had found a rope somewhere, tossed one end into the pit, and held the other in his jaws. At last, he pulled Yatou out.
Sihuang wanted to take Yatou to his cave on Cloud Dream Mountain to recover, but she adamantly refused. She told him to return to the mountain, then dragged her exhausted body all the way to the Qi County yamen to beat the grievance drum!
Because of her shoulder injuries, she could not raise either hand. Instead, she struck the grievance drum again and again with her silver-haired head.
Every beat of the drum seemed to echo the sound of her heart breaking over all those years.
In that moment, she no longer regarded Mengshan as her son. In that moment, she would sever this accursed bond of more than forty years.
An elderly woman over sixty had accused her own son, Mengshan, of attempting to murder his mother.
County Magistrate Cui Jue was horrified when he heard. He hastily convened court to hear the case and sent men to arrest the elderly woman's son, Mengshan.
Before everyone present, the elderly woman recounted her son Mengshan's crimes one by one. Cui Jue listened with a grave expression, repeatedly looking toward the unfilial son.
"Mengshan, you and I are both sons, yet everything you have done fills me with shame!" Cui Jue slammed his gavel down. "Your mother has now detailed every crime you committed, you unfilial wretch. Do you admit your guilt?"
The evidence had seemed conclusive. With the elderly woman there to testify and the injuries covering her body, Mengshan would surely be unable to escape imprisonment.
But just as Cui Jue was about to issue his order, Mengshan burst into loud sobs. His crying stopped Cui Jue in his tracks and even startled the elderly woman.
"Your Honor! I... I've been wronged!" Mengshan wailed.
"Wronged...?" The moment Cui Jue heard those words, his expression changed completely. Like a child whose mistake had been exposed in public, he hurriedly asked, "How have you been wronged?"
"Your Honor!" Mengshan wiped his tears as he spoke to Cui Jue. "The truth is, my mother has grown old and lost her wits... She's mad now, and all day long she thinks I'm trying to hurt her! She thinks I'm a beast, yet takes a tiger on the mountain for her son. With her so deranged, I truly don't know what to do!"
"You... You vile beast, what nonsense are you spouting?!" The elderly woman's voice trembled with rage.
"Oh?" Cui Jue considered this carefully, then said, "Mengshan, that is only your side of the story. You claim your mother has gone mad and taken a tiger for her son. Do you have any evidence?"
"I do, Your Honor!" Mengshan pointed at the elderly woman. "You can summon a physician to examine my mother's injuries and see whether I inflicted all those wounds or a tiger did!"
The elderly woman sat there as though struck by thunder from a clear sky!
"No... You can't examine my injuries!" she screamed as though she had lost her mind. "The wounds on my body... The wounds on my body were..."
That cry all but convinced Cui Jue that the elderly woman truly was not in her right mind.
Watching from the side, Constable Li had grasped what was happening. He stepped directly forward and said to Cui Jue, "Your Honor, there is no need to summon a physician for an ordinary examination of injuries. I can do it."
"Very well, Constable Li... Go and examine her at once. See exactly what injuries this elderly woman has suffered."
Li Neng agreed with a nod, then ordered men to restrain the elderly woman. Despite her desperate struggles, he carefully examined her injuries. After a long while, he gave a quiet sigh.
"Reporting to Your Honor, this elderly woman's palms are covered in bloody wounds inflicted by sharp claws. Both shoulders are dislocated, but not by human hands. They appear to have been trampled by a massive body. If I may venture a guess, a wild beast pinned her shoulders and knocked her to the ground. When it tried to attack with its forepaws, she blocked them with her hands."
"What...?" The elderly woman could scarcely believe her ears. What kind of judgment was this? Was this the fair and impartial officer everyone spoke of?
"Y-Your Honor!" Still unwilling to give up, the elderly woman continued, "I... I have many old scars on my body! They are enough to prove that Mengshan had already tried to harm me years ago! I have knife wounds, burns, and wounds from sharp blades!"
"Your Honor! I also have further evidence that my mother went mad long ago and took that tiger for her son years ago!"
Cui Jue thought for a moment, looking at both the elderly woman and Mengshan. He still felt that Mengshan's account sounded closer to the truth.
"Mengshan, tell me what this evidence is."
"Your Honor, if you go up the mountain to find the tiger, just shout, 'Sihuang, Yatou has come to see you,' and that tiger will surely appear. Sihuang is my childhood name. As a child, I was dim-witted and always called my mother Yatou. Seeing how sallow and thin I was, she gave me the childhood name Sihuang. As the years passed, that stayed fixed in her mind. Please, go up the mountain and call that tiger 'Sihuang.' If it responds, that will prove I am telling the truth!"
"You...! You beast! You beast!" the elderly woman roared through her tears. "How can your heart be so vicious?"
"Mother, you're mistaken. I'm not the beast. I'm your son. The one on the mountain is the beast," Mengshan said coldly.
"Ah... That was close. I nearly delivered a wrongful judgment." Cui Jue shook his head. "Li Neng, I order you to gather brave men from within the county at once. Offer a reward of two taels of silver. Tomorrow, go up the mountain and kill the tiger."
"As you command."
"No!" The elderly woman's loneliness and helplessness were beyond words. She screamed in the courtroom, "You absolutely must not go up the mountain to kill the tiger!"
"Ah." Cui Jue sighed and said to Mengshan, "Mengshan, you must take good care of your mother. Leave the matter of the tiger to me."
"As you command!"
"As for you, old woman, I have a word of advice. Recognize who your family is and who the beast is before you end up hurting yourself."
"You dog of an official!" the elderly woman screamed. "You dog of an official, you can't distinguish right from wrong! I curse you to remain in hell forever after you die!"
Cui Jue exclaimed at how dreadful that was. He had clearly made the wisest possible judgment, so why did this mad old woman keep leaving his heart so unsettled?
With a show of false concern, Mengshan helped the elderly woman out of the courtroom and whispered, "Just wait. One day, I'll kill you with my own hands."
The elderly woman bit down so hard that she cracked a tooth, then swallowed it.
"You beast. I won't die so easily."
The elderly woman struggled to keep herself from crying, her heart filled with fury. Had the world truly changed? Or had it always been like this?
After returning home, the elderly woman went up the mountain under cover of darkness and called Sihuang out. She told him in utter earnestness that no matter who came looking for him, he must never show himself. She also told him not to visit her for the next few months. Though Sihuang did not understand why, he always believed what Yatou told him.
Once she had done all this, the elderly woman returned home and hid a pair of sharp scissors beneath her pillow. A few days later, she saw a group of people heading up the mountain with weapons. Though worried, she could not let it show. She could only pray that Sihuang would escape this calamity.
In the days that followed, the elderly woman lived almost entirely in fear. She could neither sleep at night nor rest by day. Whenever she closed her eyes, she seemed to see Mengshan as a child, standing beside her with scissors in his hand.
Mengshan no longer made any effort to conceal his twisted heart. He cut off the elderly woman's food, wanting to watch her starve to death. Refusing to surrender, she could only slip outside each night to pull up plants she could not identify and stuff them into her mouth by the handful.
These hellish days went on for three years.
Before you continue