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Seeing what I looked like at that moment, Granny Liu knew that the Immortal Entity inside my body had appeared. After being stunned for a moment, she also knelt on the ground, burying her head between her hands and not daring to raise it to look.
"X-Xiaojie..." Grandpa stared at me, completely dumbfounded.
At the time, I had absolutely no awareness of what was happening and had no idea what happened afterward. Everything I knew about it came from what Grandpa told me later.
When I was three years old, the soul of this Immortal Entity had appeared once before, but Grandpa had not seen it. This time, however, he had witnessed it with his own eyes. In particular, when he heard that my voice had suddenly changed into that of another person and saw the enormous shadow of a fox behind me, with eight tails constantly swaying, he was truly terrified.
Fortunately, this situation did not last long. After the Second Son of the Zhang Family collapsed unconscious on the ground, the enormous fox shadow behind me disappeared as well.
Immediately afterward, my body went limp, and I collapsed onto the ground.
Grandpa hurried over and scooped me up in his arms.
"Big Sister, hurry and take a look at Xiaojie! What happened to him?" Grandpa shouted in panic.
Only then did Granny Liu get up. She glanced at me and walked over, reassuring Grandpa, "Don't worry, Xiaojie is fine. Just like last time, he'll be all right after resting for a few days. The Fox Immortal inside Xiaojie already has eight tails. He's definitely a thousand-year-old great demon! To think this old woman would get to see one today. I can die without regrets!"
As she said this, Granny Liu looked somewhat excited, and her body was even trembling slightly.
Grandpa carried me home on his back. I slept for a full two days before waking up again.
After waking up, I was no different from usual. I was still lively and energetic.
As for the Second Son of the Zhang Family, he was fine as well. He had simply been tormented terribly by that weasel spirit and remained bedridden for three days before he could get out of bed. Later, however, he made a complete recovery.
Later, when Granny Liu talked about what had happened with the weasel spirit, she explained that the reason the weasel spirit was able to exchange its life for that of a human was because its body could release a certain kind of toxin.
In other words, the foul gas it released could cause people to experience hallucinations. Those hallucinations were extremely realistic and could frighten a person to death.
The Fifth Son of the Zhang Family and the Second Son had both been poisoned by the toxins released by the weasel spirit at the time.
The difference between them was that the Fifth Son of the Zhang Family lived alone, so there was no one around to notice that something was wrong with him. The Second Son of the Zhang Family was much luckier because he lived with his wife.
If his wife had not called Granny Liu and Grandpa over, I was afraid that the Second Son of the Zhang Family would not have escaped death either.
As for why the weasel spirit itself would die despite using its toxins to confuse others, Granny Liu explained that although the poisonous gas released by the weasel spirit could bewilder people, its effects were not actually that powerful.
The weasel spirit itself also had to become immersed in that same environment for the toxin to produce a much greater effect.
In order to kill someone, it had to put itself in danger of being killed as well. Only by temporarily entering that hallucinated environment could it unleash the toxins inside its body to their fullest extent and ultimately kill its target.
As for the white-tailed weasel spirit that had controlled the Second Son of the Zhang Family, that one was far from ordinary.
It was not merely capable of releasing poisonous gas. It had already cultivated a very high level of spiritual power and could control a living person and make them perform all sorts of complicated movements.
And so, this matter finally came to an end.
Every three years, I would face a calamity. Either I would die, or someone else would die. Those who died were certainly connected to me in some significant way.
Yet in the face of all this, I was always passive and powerless, completely unable to do anything about it.
Granny Liu said that this was my fate. There was simply no way for me to escape these calamities, and the people connected to them could not escape either.
Perhaps one day, I would encounter some great opportunity that would allow me to defy the heavens and change my fate.
But that day certainly had not arrived yet, and Granny Liu did not have the ability to change my fate either.
This time, Granny Liu stayed at my house for several more days, remaining there until I woke up before finally leaving.
Before she left, Granny Liu specifically warned my family that on the day I turned nine, I absolutely must not leave the house.
The calamity at the age of nine would be the most severe of the three. If things went badly, I could lose my life.
If I could survive the calamity at the age of nine, then perhaps life would become somewhat easier afterward.
She did not know how long she would be able to protect me, but she promised that she would definitely come when the time came.
After this matter was resolved, life at home returned to normal.
I was already no different from an ordinary child. I began eating regular meals together with my family and no longer drank blood.
However, those weasel spirits and foxes still brought some wild game to my family every few days, helping improve our living conditions.
Occasionally, when I was alone, I would still see those weasel spirits and foxes secretly watching me from a distance.
Before I knew it, another three years had passed.
Over the past three years, my life had been completely normal, and nothing had happened. Just like the other children, I had started elementary school. I was now in the second grade.
I had been born right in the middle of the busy farming season. The entire village had been bustling with activity, and my family simply did not have the time to look after the children.
Anyone with experience living in the countryside knew that during the autumn harvest, the wheat was harvested field by field. Harvesters did not wait for anyone. When it was a particular family's turn, someone had to go over immediately. Otherwise, someone else's family would harvest the wheat instead.
Back then, the entire family, young and old, depended on the harvest from those fields. Food was the most important thing in life, and nothing mattered more than that.
Besides, nothing had happened to me during those three years, so everyone's concern about my upcoming calamities had gradually faded.
However, my family still remembered Granny Liu's warning about the Three Calamities, so whenever my parents went out to work in the fields, they deliberately left Grandpa at home to keep an eye on me.
My ninth birthday happened to fall on a weekend. I was doing my homework at home. At noon, Grandpa and I had lunch together. He was getting old, and after eating his fill, he became extremely sleepy. He planned to take a short nap.
Before going to sleep, Grandpa deliberately put on a stern expression and warned me, "You absolutely cannot leave the house today, no matter what. Otherwise, I'll beat your butt until it's covered in welts."
However, before Grandpa had even fallen asleep, the village butcher suddenly came into the house and called for Grandpa to help slaughter a pig.
Apparently, the pig they had just bought was too big, and two or three people couldn't keep it under control.
Grandpa originally did not want to go. He was worried that I might sneak out while he was gone. But everyone in the village knew each other, and it would have seemed unreasonable not to help.
So Grandpa gave me one last warning not to leave the house under any circumstances, then hurried away with the butcher.
Not long after Grandpa left the house, the sound of a cuckoo came from outside the window.
That was the secret signal between Wei Feng and me.
Wei Feng was my elementary school classmate. Ever since we were little, none of the children in the village wanted to play with me. They all said I was a weirdo.
But Wei Feng was different. He had the best relationship with me, and the two of us always got along and had fun together.
Wei Feng was a chubby little kid. All our classmates called him Xiaopang, or Little Fatty.
Hearing Little Fatty's signal, I quietly walked over to the window and opened it.
Sure enough, I saw Little Fatty's big, chubby face appear in front of me. He grinned at me and whispered, "Xiaojie, come on. Let's go catch some grasshoppers!"
"Catch what grasshoppers? My grandpa won't let me leave the house. If he finds out, I'll definitely get punished. And can't you study properly for once? All you know how to do is play all day," I said unhappily.
"Xiaojie, I don't think you're qualified to lecture me, are you? I'm second-to-last in our class, while you're dead last. How can you have the nerve to tell me to study hard?" Little Fatty said.
There was actually some truth to what he said.
I really was the last-ranked student in our class. It wasn't because I was stupid. Mainly, I simply didn't like studying, and my family basically didn't care about my grades either.
At that point, my family's greatest wish was simply for me to grow up healthy and safe. As far as they were concerned, everything else was unimportant.
In the end, I still couldn't resist the temptation.
I secretly climbed out through the window and followed Little Fatty out of the village.
At that age, children were at their most mischievous and playful. The more adults forbade them from doing something, the more determined they were to do it anyway.
It was the age when children were at their naughtiest. I imagine many people have gone through the same thing and probably got quite a few beatings for it.
(End of Chapter)