I was born in the Mass Grave, and from the moment I came into the world, I was already half a dead person.
The night Mom carried me back into the house, the sky bloomed with rosy light, and Myriad Ghosts Paying Homage filled the air.
Seventy-two immortal families from beyond the village all gathered at once, and countless crows wheeled and cried out over the village sky.
Wails of ghosts and howls of spirits rose and fell through the crimson-lit night, echoing one another like ten thousand mourners at a funeral.
The villagers of Baihe Village were thoroughly terrified by the hundred immortals crying out together and the heavenly portents of Myriad Ghosts Paying Homage.
Grandmother cursed Mom outright, saying she had brought home a monster.
Not until dawn did the immortal families and the people reeking of ghost energy finally disperse.
The next day, an old monk came to the village collecting alms, and Mom, holding me, gave him a bowl of white rice.
The moment the old monk saw me, his expression changed. He said there was heavy yin energy on me, as if a ghost immortal were following me.
Seeing that the old monk wore a patchwork robe and must be a high-ranking monk, Mom quickly carried me back from the Mass Grave Mound and told him about the heavenly portents that had appeared over Baihe Village the night before.
The old monk did not seem surprised. He looked at me and then said to Mom, "The gathering of ten thousand ghosts last night was because her previous life was the Empress of the Underworld. Those immortals and ghosts meant her no harm; they were drawn by the joyous energy to come and congratulate the Empress of the Underworld's reincarnation."
"Empress of the Underworld?" Mom looked bewildered.
The old monk smiled and said, "In her previous life she was the Mother of Ten Thousand Ghosts, and in this life she bears the Fate of a Phoenix. She is not of this world, yet she must walk the path of this world."
Though Mom did not fully understand these words, she was astonished and, seeing that the old monk was a man of attainment, said, "The child has not yet been given a name. Could the master bestow one on her?"
The old monk pondered briefly, then said with a kindly gaze, "Call her Fan Yin."
He said that although I bore the Fate of a Phoenix, I was also a half-yin body born that way, and with the sins of my past life not yet dissipated, I would surely have to endure hardships in this life before I could become great.
The two characters of Fan Yin signified cultivating pure and sacred conduct, delivering both others and oneself.
"Fan Yin." Mom murmured it once and then nodded with a smile. "Good, her name is Fan Yin!"
The old monk also said that I would have to endure three Death Tribulations before I could nirvana into a phoenix. As he departed, he handed me a Buddha Jade, saying it could shield me from one Death Tribulation.
When Mom went back inside to eat, she told my father and Grandmother about the old monk's claim that I bore the Fate of a Phoenix.
As she spoke, Mom kept smiling and teasing me.
Grandmother, who held a severe preference for sons, did not care in the least. Seeing Mom laughing and teasing me, her face instantly darkened. She threw down her chopsticks and said, "You gave birth to a little girl, and you can still laugh about it?"
Grandmother snorted, then stormed out, slamming the door so hard it made a tremendous crash...
Though my father said nothing, he did not like me in his heart either. He never held me or soothed me.
Other children began babbling and learning to speak at six or seven months, but I was like a mute, refusing to open my mouth no matter what anyone did.
When I was three and still could not speak, Mom, frantic, carried me back and forth to the hospital, but they could find nothing wrong.
Grandmother coldly told Mom to stop taking me for checkups. What did it matter whether a daughter could speak or not? It was just a waste of money.
Looking at me only made her angrier. She cursed under her breath, "Can't walk steadily, can't open her mouth. What Fate of a Phoenix? I say she's just an idiot."
Apart from Mom, I was even more neglected at home. If Mom had not wept and argued with Grandmother and my father several times, they would have given me away long ago.
At age five, I finally let out a faint, muddled cry: "Mom, Mama..."
Mom froze for a moment, dropping what she held, and rushed over to hug me. "Xiao Yin, what did you just call out? What did you just call me?"
Staring at her, I stammered, "Mama..."
Mom pulled me into her arms at once, weeping with joy.
Later, when I started primary school, I still spoke indistinctly, and no one wanted to play with me.
When I was nine, a young woman in her early twenties in the village was killed in a car accident.
I joined the crowd to watch, standing beside the grave pit, and when the coffin was lowered, my shadow was pressed into the grave.
After returning home, I fell ill and ran a high fever.
On the seventh night, half-conscious, I saw a young woman sitting at the head of my bed, constantly urging me to turn around and look at her.
But I stared at the shadow on the wall and refused to turn my head.
She coaxed me, "Turn and look, sister's dress today is so pretty."
"Quick, just turn and look once!"
"..."
I was burning up, too weak to move, and had no wish to turn my head.
Seeing that I remained as stubborn as a block of wood, her tone changed, and she barked, "Turn around! Turn around right now!"
At that moment, I seemed to glimpse, in the reflection on the wall, her utterly hideous face.
After a while, the shadow on the wall vanished.
Then Mom suddenly called my name from behind, and I hurriedly turned around to look.
Mom was sitting at the head of the bed, eyes wide open, motionless, smiling as she stared at me.
She faced the window, moonlight making her face look snow-white.
My body instantly grew even more rigid, and deep down I felt she was not my mother.
After staring at each other for several seconds, I timidly called out, "Mama."
She answered, then said, "Get up quickly. Mama will take you somewhere."
Having said that, she smiled and reached out to grab me.
But as soon as her hand touched me, she suddenly burst into flames all over, as if she were on fire.
Though I could not sense it directly, her expression was twisted and agonized.
In my ears I heard a rhythmic "bang bang bang bang bang..."
Like the tapping of a wooden fish, accompanied by the sound of chanting scriptures.
Then she vanished in an instant.
Right after, the door was pushed open, and Mom came in carrying a bowl of freshly brewed medicinal soup.
I told her everything that had just happened.
Mom went pale with fright, then seemed to recall something.
She hurriedly took the Buddha Jade from around my neck and looked at it, only to find that the jade had cracked.
Strangely enough, my illness was completely cured the next day.
Though I had spoken late, my grades were at the very top of my class, and each time Mom pinned my certificates to the wall, she praised me a little.
But when Grandmother heard, she sniffed with disdain and said, "What's the use of a girl reading so many books? She'll marry out and belong to someone else anyway. She'd do better to go out and earn money early."
In junior high, my father and Mom went to work in the provincial capital, and I became a left-behind child, living with Grandmother in the countryside.
Grandmother often cursed me, saying I had taken the Zhou family's descendant fortune and blocked her grandson's path to rebirth.
Although I did the laundry and cooked, obeyed and behaved well, no matter how good I was, I could not move the mountain of prejudice in Grandmother's heart.
Instead, Granny Tang, who lived outside the village, loved me dearly and was more like a grandmother to me.
She was a Temple Keeper.
Every time I saw her, she gave me something good to eat.
When I reached senior high, my parents had earned some money and opened a mountain-goods shop in the county town.
Though it was not too far from the countryside, I rarely went back to Grandmother's house, and instead, on holidays, I went to keep Granny Tang company and chat.
However, as Grandmother grew older, her obsession with having a grandson grew stronger, and she became more stubborn and unreasonable.
In the end, she was so consumed by the desire for a grandson that she came to our door in a frenzy, demanding a child, saying she was nearly in her grave yet still had no grandson, and the Zhou family's incense would be cut off.
Even dying, she would be a sinner of the Zhou family, unable to close her eyes in peace, and so on and so forth.
My father was soft-hearted, and whenever Grandmother stirred up trouble with a few words, he quarreled with Mom. Deep down he too preferred boys, and he hardly spoke to me.
I had heard from villagers that over the years my father had tried hard to have a son, only his condition was not good, and he could never conceive.
Grandmother prayed to gods and Buddhas and searched everywhere for remedies for conception, while my father began taking all sorts of Chinese medicine, filling the house with a foul, smoky haze.
I once said to their faces, "Whether you raise sons or daughters, aren't they the same?"
But Grandmother's face darkened at once, and she cursed me without mercy: "How could they be the same? A son carries on the family line and sees to our burial rites. Could you? Look at how wronged you feel! After raising you all these years, you're just raising you for someone else!"
From then on, I never said another word.
Then, at nineteen, I was admitted to university in the provincial capital, and I had already decided.
I would live on campus, find a part-time job during breaks, and try not to come back at all.
But less than a month after the semester began, Grandmother somehow brought back a black jar covered in mud and muck.
The earthen jar looked just like the pickle jars used for salted vegetables in the countryside. As she carried the black jar through the door, Grandmother kept calling, "Sheng Bao, Sheng Bao! Come home with Nainai, come home with Nainai..."
None of us understood. My father stepped forward and asked, and only then did Grandmother say it was an ancestral urn she had invited from someone called Immortal Maiden Cui, and that it was very efficacious.
Grandmother beamed with joy and said, "We've invited it back, and now the Zhou family's incense will continue."
By now I had grown numb to all these matters, so I told Mom I would return to school the next day and would not come back again next month.
Just as I turned to go back to my room, Grandmother unexpectedly stopped me.
She said the ancestral urn required the blood of the Zhou family's descendants and needed a drop of blood offered every day. She also said I had to put the black jar under my bed so I could "receive" my younger brother into the bed...