Ghost-Blocking Wood

Poor Xiao Pang couldn't speak or explain himself. Seeing his tear-streaked face, Second Brother Liu snapped, "Kid, it's just a little injury. Do you really need to cry like this? Hold on. I'll be done once I've applied the antiseptic."

I went over and explained, "Second Brother, that big rooster came back just now and pecked Xiao Pang three more times."

Second Brother Liu glanced around but saw no sign of the rooster. "What rooster? There's none here."

"It ran off," I said.

"Never mind that for now. Go feed the dog. I'll be finished here soon."

With that, Second Brother Liu focused on applying antiseptic to Xiao Pang.

I sighed helplessly and glanced at Xiao Pang. Despair was already creeping into his eyes.

Then I tossed the dry, hard steamed bun I'd found inside to the big yellow dog.

The dog clearly wasn't interested. He sniffed it, then went off to lie down.

To my utter surprise, that damned rooster appeared again from who knew where, walked straight up to the dry bun, snatched it in its beak, and ran.

Big Yellow might not have wanted the bun, but he wasn't about to let the rooster steal what belonged to him. He immediately gave chase.

In its panic, the rooster ran straight toward Second Brother Liu and darted underneath him.

Focused entirely on chasing the rooster, Big Yellow slammed straight into Second Brother Liu.

The dog weighed dozens of kilograms, and the force of his headlong charge was tremendous.

Second Brother Liu had been using tweezers to hold a wad of cotton as he applied antiseptic to Xiao Pang.

That collision caused the tweezers to inflict yet another deep wound on Xiao Pang.

His poor backside was utterly ravaged. Just looking at it hurt, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

Having just been pecked three times in a row by the rooster, Xiao Pang couldn't withstand another brutal blow. His vision went black, and he passed out on the spot.

For the first time in our village's history, an ambulance drove in and took Xiao Pang away.

I also had the privilege of riding in an ambulance for the first time, accompanying Second Brother Liu to the county hospital.

After treatment, Xiao Pang was assigned a bed in a ward. He looked terribly weak when he woke up, but thankfully, he had survived those repeated brutal blows. It seemed he wasn't my Tribulation-Bound Person after all, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Unexpectedly, someone else was staying in Xiao Pang's ward: Grandpa Wang, who had been thrown from the donkey cart by Xiao Pang's agonized scream earlier.

The old man was badly injured. He lay motionless in his hospital bed, though he was awake.

When I looked over at him, Grandpa Wang was looking at me too.

For some reason, I felt there was something strange about the way Grandpa Wang looked at me. He smiled at me, but his smile was eerie.

At the same time, I saw a faint red glow swirling above his head.

I didn't know why I could see these things, but I had a very bad feeling.

Meanwhile, Mom, Dad, and Grandpa had been frantically searching for me. They had looked all over the village without finding me. When they heard that I'd gone to the county hospital in an ambulance with Second Brother Liu, they were terrified, thinking something had happened to me.

As it happened, Granny Liu from Thirty-Li Hamlet had also come looking for me that day.

She had calculated that today was the day of my tribulation, so she had come specifically to help me through it.

When she heard I'd gone to the hospital, she came there with Mom, Dad, and Grandpa.

Only when they saw that I was perfectly fine, that Xiao Pang was the one in the hospital bed, and that even he wasn't in serious danger did they feel a little relieved.

Grandpa blamed himself for my sneaking out. He said it was all his fault for having a little drink; he'd only closed his eyes for a moment, and I'd vanished.

Naturally, Dad wasn't going to let me off over this. The moment he saw me, he grabbed me and was about to give me a beating, but Granny Liu stopped him.

"You mustn't hit him, you mustn't... Have you forgotten what happened to the fifth son of the Zhang Family and Ma Laosan's wife?"

In the end, Dad didn't hit me. He was frightened too. No one who had hit me had come to a good end, so even my own father had to be wary.

Just then, Granny Liu glanced around and suddenly noticed Grandpa Wang lying in the other hospital bed. Fear flickered in her eyes. She seemed to have noticed something too and hurriedly urged us to get me out of there.

My parents and Grandpa had no idea what was going on, but they followed Granny Liu's instructions and took me home.

Only after we got home did Granny Liu explain that Old Man Wang, who had been sharing a ward with Xiao Pang, was already at death's door. A thick aura of death clung to him, and he probably wouldn't last much longer.

Only then did I learn that the red glow I'd seen floating above Old Man Wang's head was actually an aura of death.

Today was already the day of my tribulation. Granny Liu had worried that if I stayed in that ward too long, the aura of death would cling to me, which was why she'd wanted me home as soon as possible.

After we got home, everything was fine and nothing happened. Our whole family even shared a meal with Granny Liu.

But not long after dark, bad news spread through the village: Old Man Wang had died in the hospital.

No one knew exactly how he'd died. The villagers guessed that he had been too old to survive the injuries from falling off the donkey cart.

When Granny Liu heard the news, however, she became extremely anxious. She immediately told Dad to find a piece of wood from a peach tree at least ten years old. She also told him to slaughter a rooster that had been raised for at least three years and sprinkle its blood across the doorway.

Dad did everything she asked.

Once he brought the peach wood back, Granny Liu stripped off its bark and drew all sorts of crooked symbols on it using rooster blood. Only then did Dad place it at our front door.

The peach-wood stick covered in talismanic symbols written in rooster blood was called Ghost-Blocking Wood. Placed at the entrance, it could keep ghosts from coming inside.

The rooster blood at the doorway was pure yang and could also keep ghosts out.

With that, Granny Liu had set up two barriers around our home.

Today was my ninth birthday, as well as the day of my third tribulation. Granny Liu had once said that the third tribulation would be the greatest ordeal I would face. If I couldn't make it through, I might lose my life.

And Granny Liu had a nagging feeling that Grandpa Wang was the Tribulation-Bound Person for my third tribulation.

How could it be such a coincidence that we received the news of Grandpa Wang's death not long after returning home?

Whatever happened, Granny Liu had to be prepared.

I didn't take any of this to heart. After eating and drinking my fill, I suddenly felt sleepy and went straight to my room to bed. But not long after I lay down, I sensed another person in the room.