My name is Li An, though my grandfather called me Ergou. I was born in a remote mountain village in northeastern China. Yet when the villagers looked at me, it wasn't dogs they thought of. It was snakes. On the day I was born, green snakes swarmed our ancestral graves.
There were so many, so closely packed, that the sight made your skin crawl.
Some said they had seen another snake near our house that night, its body as thick around as a bucket.
Its eyes were like lanterns. It kept them fixed on our house.
Only when I cried did it withdraw.
About two weeks after my birth, snakes overran the village. They were everywhere, inside it and out.
Terrified, the villagers fled into the mountains that night and dared not return. By the next day, every snake had gone.
The rumors grew stranger with each telling. In the end, people said I was a child of ill omen. I could not be allowed to stay. If I did, disaster would follow.
Fortunately, Grandfather commanded respect in the village. He had long overseen its weddings and funerals, and was well known as a yin-yang master, versed in the affairs of both the living and the dead.
He told them none of it had anything to do with me. A great snake in the hills behind the village was to blame.
That night, he went into the mountains alone.
The next day, he threw an enormous snake's head down before the assembled villagers. The sight cowed them. After that, they left me alone.
Grandfather believed deeply in the will of Heaven. Hoping a humble name would make me easier to keep alive, he called me Ergou—'Second Dog.'
I hated the name. From my first days at primary school, the other children never stopped making fun of it.
Grandfather had always tried to teach me feng shui and the occult arts. I had never taken my lessons seriously.
Then, one day, I saw a ghost clinging to Xiaohua, who lived in our village—the spirit of someone who had died by hanging. Right in front of me, it strangled her.
I was devastated. If I had been stronger, if I had possessed even a little of Grandfather's skill, could I have saved her?
After that, I stopped treating everything as a joke. I began studying the arts of yin and yang in earnest.
The years slipped by. Before I knew it, I was eighteen, about to leave for university in town.
Grandfather's health, meanwhile, had grown steadily worse. One day, he called me to his bedside.
He had always been a sturdy man. Now he was little more than skin and bone. Looking at him hurt in a way I could not put into words.
He said this was his allotted fate. Nothing could change it.
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'Ergou, there are a few things you must remember after I'm gone.'
He took my hand and spoke with great solemnity.
'After I die, you may remain at home for only one day. Whatever happens that night, however strange it seems, you must not act. You must not resist.'
'The next day, at the zi hour—the night watch that spans midnight—open the courtyard gate. Send everyone else out. You alone must stay.'
'Third, when you reach the county town, go to the address in my letter. Find the man there and stay with him. He'll see to your schooling, and everything else.'
For a moment, he looked at me with something unresolved in his eyes. Then his expression softened. He breathed his last.
Everything happened as he had said it would. I made no elaborate arrangements for his funeral.
Not a single villager came to pay their respects. It was as though they had all agreed to stay away.
I resented them for it. Only later did I learn that this, too, had been part of Grandfather's plan.
He had told me to stay for just one day. Whatever happened that night, I was not to intervene.
That evening, as I kept vigil beside his coffin, two dark figures appeared at the courtyard gate.
They came to the coffin, seized Grandfather and pulled him out. Then they took him toward the gate.
I started to rise. Grandfather turned, smiled at me, and shook his head. He was telling me to do nothing.
The figures did not look like the Underworld's soul escorts. They were something I could not name, and that frightened me.
Watching him go, I broke into sobs. I knew that from this day on, Grandfather would truly be gone from my life.
There would be no grandfather left in this world to love me as he had.
Despite my grief, I did everything I could to carry out his instructions.
At the zi hour the next day, several shapes came gliding through the gate.
I looked up. Every one of them was a snake as thick around as a bucket.
Each was a different color: red, green, white, and a deep, inky black.
They watched me with a look that was almost human.
They gathered beside Grandfather's coffin, lifted it on their bodies, and slowly carried it out of sight.
When the coffin had vanished, I felt hollow, as though some part of me had gone with it.
I drew a book from inside my clothes: The Secret Arts of Eight and Nine. It was the only thing Grandfather had left me.
He had said that everything I would need to learn could be found within its pages.
Two days after his death, I told my parents what he had arranged for me, and that I meant to leave for town.
Perhaps he had already spoken to them before he died. They did not try to stop me. Instead, they gave me some parting advice and a little money, then saw me onto the bus.
Before leaving, I looked back toward the village entrance. My parents stood close together, watching me go.
Their eyes shone with tears. I knew they were worried about me.
I turned, dropped to my knees, and bowed three times, touching my forehead to the ground.
It was my first time leaving the village, and the first time I had felt the grief of losing someone in my family.
Those bows were not only for my parents. They were for Grandfather, too. I believed he would know I was setting out.
The county town was crowded with traffic. Newly arrived, I was not yet accustomed to its bustle.
The young men and women passing me were smartly dressed, their clothes immaculate. They looked at me with open disdain.
I paid them no mind. After so many years of training with Grandfather, my outlook was already different from theirs.
At times, I almost felt we inhabited different worlds.
With Grandfather's address in hand, I hailed a taxi.
The driver was a friendly middle-aged man. Perhaps he could tell it was my first visit. He eagerly pointed out places to have fun, places to eat, and places I should never go.
'First time here, young man? Mind yourself if you're looking for work. Stay away from that employment agency on the east side. They're crooks, every last one. They'll take all your money if you let them.'
'For a bit of fun, there's the Shuanglong Night Market in the town center. You'll find everything there—a whole street of bars, plenty to eat, and more pretty women than you can count. Earn yourself some money first, though.'
'And out on the far west side, there's an abandoned amusement park. A lot of strange things have happened there. There's a square beside it, too. People say they see things there after dark. You could take a look, if you've got the nerve. But I wouldn't, if I were you.'