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The matter concerning Ma Laosan's wife was finally settled. The next day, someone discovered her corpse on the back mountain, where my father had thrown it the previous night. However, the corpse no longer had the horrifying appearance it had possessed the night before. The fangs were gone, and the sharp claws had disappeared as well. It had become an ordinary corpse, and Ma Laosan buried his wife again.
The commotion at my house that night had been enormous. In the middle of the night, there had been the sounds of ghosts wailing and wolves howling, along with all kinds of strange noises. Yet not a single person dared to come out and take a look. The sounds had simply been too terrifying. Even Ma Laosan, who suspected that his wife might have come to my house that night, did not dare come over and ask about it.
And so, the matter was left unresolved.
Three days later, I woke up, but I continued to suffer from a high fever for several days. I became so feverish that I was barely conscious, frightening my parents and grandfather terribly.
Whenever I had a high fever, a very beautiful white-furred fox would always appear in my mind. It would quietly lie there, with eight white tails behind it. From time to time, it would open its eyes, but it looked extremely weak.
Because of my high fever, Grandpa even made a special trip to the hospital in town to ask Granny Liu what was wrong with me.
Granny Liu merely reassured Grandpa and told him not to worry. She said that the immortal entity inside my body had already been extremely weak and had been nourishing itself within me. This time, in order to save me, it had suddenly manifested itself and damaged its own primordial essence.
That immortal entity and I possessed two souls within one body. If the immortal entity's primordial essence was injured, I would naturally become weak as well. After a few days, I would be fine.
Grandpa returned home half-believing her words. To his surprise, just as Granny Liu had said, after suffering from the high fever for several days, I quickly recovered and returned to normal.
After recovering this time, for some unknown reason, my dependence on blood was no longer as strong as before. I could also eat some other foods, which made my family extremely happy. They felt that perhaps something good had come out of the disaster.
When I had first been born, I had been almost impossible to look at. I had a fox-like face, white fur covering my entire body, and even small pointed fangs growing inside my mouth. Now that I was a little over three years old, all those previous characteristics had disappeared. The only thing that remained was my habit of drinking blood, and even that had now improved greatly.
My parents and grandfather did not have particularly high expectations for me. They simply hoped that I could grow up healthy and, most importantly, survive.
However, there was a heavy burden weighing on every one of their hearts.
Back then, Wu Banxian, and later Granny Liu, had both said that I was someone destined to undergo tribulations. Every three years, I would face a calamity. Either I would die, or someone else would die.
It was like an unavoidable curse, and it troubled every member of my family.
It had to be said that even after the incident involving Ma Laosan's wife, those weasels and foxes would still frequently come to my house in the middle of the night and leave wild animals behind for me.
They simply did not come as frequently as before.
Perhaps this was because my craving for blood was no longer as strong.
After I turned three, everything gradually returned to normal. I grew up healthy, just like an ordinary child.
However, the people in the village still regarded me as a freak. None of the other children were willing to play with me, which made me feel extremely lonely.
In the blink of an eye, another three years passed.
I had grown to six years old and had already become a very sensible child. I often helped my family with household chores.
This made my family believe that I had finally become a normal child.
By the time I was nearly six, I had completely stopped drinking blood and was eating normal meals just like everyone else in the family.
Sometimes, when my parents went out to work in the fields, they would take me with them. They did not feel comfortable leaving me home alone.
Whenever this happened, a group of foxes and weasels would appear from somewhere and gather around me.
In our area, weasels and foxes were considered spiritual creatures. Most people both respected and feared them, and whenever they encountered one, they would immediately keep their distance.
But I was not afraid of them at all.
In fact, I seemed to have an innate sense of familiarity with them.
Naturally, those weasels and foxes were not afraid of me either. One by one, they would lie down beside me, forming a circle around me. I could freely pet them and play with them, and they would not run away.
Even if I accidentally hurt them, they would not dare bare their teeth at me.
Only when they saw my parents returning would they quickly retreat into the distance.
Those weasels and foxes were basically my best playmates during my childhood.
Although everything about me had appeared completely normal during those three years, Grandpa still could not forget the matter of my three-year tribulation.
The day before my sixth birthday, Grandpa personally went to Sanshilipu Village to find Granny Liu. He intended to invite her over and have her help me survive the tribulation that awaited me at the age of six.
In fact, during these past few years, Granny Liu had never completely lost contact with my family.
Whenever there was a festival or holiday, my parents would bring gifts to her home to visit her.
After all, she had lost one of her eyes while trying to save our entire family back then.
Moreover, Granny Liu had neither children nor grandchildren. Her husband had died at an early age, leaving her all alone in her home.
In fact, Granny Liu had had children before, and not just one. However, none of them had survived past the age of three. They had all died young.
Because Granny Liu had once saved our entire family, Grandpa told my parents to treat the old woman with the same respect and devotion they would show their own biological mother.
With my sixth birthday coming the very next day, Grandpa was worried that something might happen that we would be unable to deal with. So he went to invite Granny Liu over and make preparations in advance.
Unexpectedly, the moment Grandpa left, trouble broke out at home.
The trouble began with the Zhang Family, one of the wealthiest families in the village. There were five brothers in the Zhang Family. The youngest, the fifth brother, had reached marriageable age and planned to build a new house so he could marry a wife.
He took over a piece of our family's private vegetable plot without even informing us.
When my father heard about it, he went to confront the fifth brother of the Zhang Family. The two of them exchanged a few words, and before long, they came to blows.
Although the fifth brother of the Zhang Family was young and strong, he was no match for my father.
My grandfather had served in the military when he was young and had trained in martial arts. He had also taught my father a little of what he knew.
After suffering a beating at my father's hands, the fifth brother of the Zhang Family returned that very afternoon with several of his brothers to cause trouble for my father.
They started fighting right in the courtyard of our house.
As the saying went, even two fists could not defeat four hands, let alone when all five brothers attacked together.
My father was quickly beaten to the ground.
The fifth brother of the Zhang Family was the most vicious of them all. He swung a metal shovel so violently that it was almost bent in half from the beating.
My mother rushed forward to stop them, but she was shoved to the ground as well and could only cry helplessly.
Six-year-old me saw my father being beaten. My blood boiled, and without thinking, I rushed forward, wrapped my arms around the fifth brother of the Zhang Family's leg, and bit down hard.
The fifth brother of the Zhang Family let out a terrible scream from the bite.
He cursed me, calling me a freak, and slapped me across the face, sending me crashing to the ground.
As I lay face-down on the ground, my face burning with pain, I suddenly saw several weasels and foxes appear on the wall surrounding our courtyard.
Their eyes were filled with venom as they stared viciously at the fifth brother of the Zhang Family.
The exact same thing had happened the last time Ma Laosan's wife had beaten me.
My father, whose head was covered in blood from the beating, saw me get struck as well.
He instantly flew into a rage.
Like a madman, he struggled to his feet, rushed into the house, and came back out carrying Grandpa's large broadsword...