A bowl of pheasant blood

The year I turned three, a severe drought struck. On my third birthday, practically all the adults in the village went out to water the fields. My family did too, leaving me home alone.

They left me a bowl of pheasant blood to drink if I got hungry.

Although I was only three, I was brighter than most children and well-behaved, too. I played by myself in the courtyard.

All those years, I had always been alone. No children wanted to play with me, mainly because their families forbade it, saying I was a born freak. Everyone in the village also knew that I never ate food, only drank blood, and that weasels and foxes came to our house every night to deliver things. They avoided me like the plague.

On my birthday, I played alone in the courtyard as usual. Just as I was peeing on an anthill, I suddenly heard children laughing and playing outside, and it immediately caught my attention.

In those three years, I had rarely left the courtyard. After all, the villagers despised me, and everyone avoided me whenever they saw me.

But I wanted a playmate so badly. Even having another child say a few words to me would have been enough.

Hearing the commotion outside, I ran to the courtyard gate and peered through the crack.

In front of our courtyard was a small mound of sand that our next-door neighbor had stockpiled to build a house. Four or five children were playing on it, laughing and chatting. Watching them, I ached to join in.

I was only three and didn't think much of it. I ran straight over, wanting to play with them.

But the moment one of the children saw me, a terrified look crossed his face. An older child pointed at me and shouted, "The freak's here! The blood-drinking freak's here! Anyone who talks to him will have bad luck!"

At that shout, all the children playing in the sand scattered out of sight, leaving me standing there alone.

They ran so fast that they left all their sand toys behind on the mound. I felt miserable watching them flee, but it was all right. If they ran away, I could play by myself.

I picked up the sand toys and squatted on the mound to play alone. Just then, a voice suddenly came from the other side. "Want to play in the sand together?"

I looked up and saw a chubby little boy about my age. Two thick trails of snot hung from his nose, though his clothes were quite clean.

I smiled at him and said, "Sure, let's play together. We can build a big house."

Everyone else had run away, leaving only this little chubby boy. He was about my age, and neither of us was old enough to know fear.

The two of us had a wonderful time on the sand mound, sticking our bottoms up in our split-crotch pants as we played.

After a while, the chubby boy suddenly pulled out a piece of candy and handed it to me. "Candy. Sweet..."

I had never eaten candy, since I had never consumed anything except blood. Still, I took it and put it in my mouth, though I couldn't taste much of anything.

Having eaten his candy, I felt that he had been good to me, so I should be good to him, too. As I sucked on the candy, I told him, "I've got something tasty, too. I'll get it for you. Wait here."

With that, I scampered into the house and brought out the bowl of pheasant blood my parents had left me.

The chubby boy didn't know what it was, so I took a drink to show him. One mouthful left my lips bright red. He giggled, and I laughed along with him. He picked up the bowl to drink, too, but after just one sip, he lost his grip and spilled the entire bowl of blood over himself.

That was my food. Seeing it all spilled, I was heartbroken.

While I stood there not knowing what to do, a hysterical shriek suddenly rang out behind me.

"You freak! You damned little monster! How dare you hurt my son!" A vicious woman suddenly rushed over. Without another word, she grabbed me by the collar and flung me far away. I slammed hard into the ground. It hurt so much that I lay there bawling.

As I cried, I suddenly noticed several pairs of glowing green eyes watching me from nearby. They were watching that vicious woman, too.

She scooped up the chubby boy and anxiously checked him all over. She found that he wasn't hurt; blood had merely spilled over his clothes.

But she still wasn't satisfied. She ran over to where I lay bawling and kicked me twice more. "You damned little beast! How dare you feed my son blood! I'll beat you to death!"

I was only three. One kick sent me flying, and I hurt so badly that I couldn't even cry anymore.

Luckily, Grandpa came back just then with a hoe over his shoulder. Seeing that vicious woman still beating me, he immediately rushed over and shoved her away. "Third Brother's wife, why are you hitting my grandson?" he demanded angrily.

"You have the nerve to ask? Ask this freak what he did! He actually fed my son blood! If anything happens to him, I'll make your whole Wu family pay with your lives!" The vicious woman planted her hands on her hips, beside herself with rage.

Grandpa scooped me up from the ground, heartbroken at the sight of my tear-drenched face.

Then he looked at the chubby boy and got quite a fright. The whole bowl of blood had spilled over the boy, leaving him smeared with blood and looking horrifying.

Drinking that blood did me no harm, but it would certainly cause problems for an ordinary child. Knowing we were in the wrong, Grandpa couldn't say much. After apologizing repeatedly, he carried me home.

But the vicious woman still wouldn't let it go. She stood outside our gate, hurling abuse and drawing a crowd of neighbors.

Even as Grandpa picked me up, I could still see glowing green eyes hidden in the grass, watching me and that vicious woman.

"Little Jie, didn't I tell you to stay home and behave? Why did you run outside?" Grandpa asked as he set me down.

Little Jie was my nickname; my full name was Wu Jie. Wu Banxian had said that I was destined to face calamities, eighteen of them over my lifetime, so Grandpa had given me that name.

"Play... I wanted to play with them. He gave me candy, so I gave him something tasty..." I said between sobs.

At that, Grandpa let out a long sigh, but there was nothing he could do.

It was a child's way of thinking: I simply thought giving another child my most precious possession was a good thing. There had been no malice in it at all.

When my parents returned and heard what had happened, they gave me a harsh scolding and said they would never let me go outside again.

My family thought that was the end of it, but it had only just begun.

The next morning, someone found the body of Third Brother's wife in the hills behind the village. Her death had been horrific. Some unknown wild beast had mauled her corpse, leaving it riddled with wounds. There wasn't a single patch of intact flesh anywhere on her body. One foot, in particular, had been gnawed down to the bone.

And the foot that had been gnawed away was the very one she had kicked me with.