Granny Tang wore coarse cloth clothes, her silver-white hair neatly coiled, and her turbid eyes seemed to see through the vicissitudes of the world.
She hurried over in a few quick steps, grabbed my hand, and asked urgently, "What did you run into?"
My heart tightened, and I asked hastily, "What's wrong with me?"
Granny Tang's face darkened as she pulled me toward the temple. "Let's get inside first and talk."
Once inside the temple, Granny Tang told me to wait outside while she went to fetch a yin egg to see what was going on.
A yin egg is simply an egg a hen lays without having mated with a rooster, so it has not been eroded by yang energy.
While I waited by the doorway for Granny Tang, my gaze happened to sweep over the temple hall, and I suddenly caught sight of a man standing before the statue of a deity.
He wore a long black robe, his figure was tall and upright, and a cold aura radiated from his entire body.
Most striking of all, he wore a mask shaped like a ghost or spirit on his face, mysterious and imposing.
He sensed my gaze and slowly turned his head.
Behind the mask, his eyes were as deep as an abyss, as if they could swallow everything.
Just then, Granny Tang came over holding an egg covered in runes.
She told me not to move, then gently rolled the egg across my forehead.
The egg still carried residual warmth. After several rolls, I gradually began to feel warm all over, while the egg itself turned icy cold.
Granny Tang anxiously asked, "Do you feel better?"
I nodded. Only then did she remove the egg, and said gravely, "What did you do? There's so much ghost energy on you!"
"Ghost energy?" I now felt warm and comfortable all over, much better.
Granny Tang's expression was grim as she handed me the egg. "Crack it open and look."
Suspiciously, I cracked the egg and peeled it open. It was half-cooked and rather springy.
Once peeled, it was still slightly warm. The moment I split it open, I was startled: the yolk had turned into black water, which seeped out emitting black vapor.
"Granny Tang!" At this sight, I was so frightened that my hand shook and I nearly dropped the egg on the ground.
Granny Tang said solemnly that this was ghost energy, and that a living person's forehead and both shoulders hold yang fire.
The yang fire on my forehead had nearly been extinguished by the ghost energy, and the ghost energy entering my body was why I felt so cold all over.
She had just used the yin egg to draw the ghost energy out.
Granny Tang paused, her tone serious. "Tell Granny what happened. Did you provoke something?"
I thought carefully. I had been at school almost the entire month, and had only been home a few days. The only unusual thing was the black jar my grandmother had brought back.
So I recounted everything in full, including how Grandmother had made me drip blood into the jar to "connect" with the bed.
After hearing this, Granny Tang frowned deeply. "What does that jar look like?"
I said, "That jar is very strange. I don't know what's inside it, but just one glance made my skin crawl."
Then I described the shape of the black jar and the yellow cloth covered in runes sealing its mouth.
After I finished describing it, particularly the yellow cloth covered in runes that sealed the mouth of the jar,
Granny Tang's face grew increasingly grim, and she remained silent for a long while.
"Granny... do you know something?" I noticed her abnormal expression and asked tentatively.
Granny Tang sighed. "I can't be certain, but if it really is what I think, we're in serious trouble."
Hearing this, I felt both curious and frightened.
Taking a deep breath, I asked Granny Tang what she knew and urged her to tell me exactly what that jar was about.
Granny Tang glanced at me and spoke four words: "Borrowing a Fetus to Bear a Child."
My heart tightened, and I hastily asked what that meant.
Granny Tang explained that this was in fact a ghost art of borrowing a yin fetus.
Inside that jar was indeed a male fetal spirit, either never born or having died shortly after birth.
The black jar contained fetal fluid, that is, amniotic fluid.
Sealing the fetal spirit inside was essentially the same as placing it inside a womb.
Through the pull of close blood ties, after seven days, if one drinks the fetal fluid in the jar into one's belly, the fetal spirit inside would naturally be transferred into one's own womb.
This is called Borrowing a Fetus to Bear a Child.
I felt a little nauseated, but from Granny Tang's implication, it did seem that this method could indeed produce a son.
I couldn't help asking, "Can this really produce a son?"
Granny Tang gave a cold snort. "When a living person borrows a yin fetus, the child who died young enters the living person's body and will first drain the mother's essence, qi, blood, and flesh dry. Even if the fetus is eventually delivered alive, a dead fetal spirit can't be a normal child! It's a ghost infant!"
I had only been tainted by a bit of ghost energy, and already my eyes were malfunctioning and my yang fire was nearly extinguished.
If I had drunk that fetal spirit, could I possibly have survived?
So that's why.
Clearly it was my father who was the problem, unable to conceive at all.
Why else would Grandmother bring back a jar and be so certain my mother would bear a son?
So they skipped the entire "little tadpole searching for mama" stage and simply had the fetal spirit drunk straight into her belly.
Granny Tang added that if it really was this, then someone intended to use my mother's womb to raise a ghost infant.
Hearing this, I could no longer remain calm at all.
That old crone must have gone so crazy wanting a grandson that she'd gotten a blood clot in her brain.
Doing such wicked, despicable things.
I couldn't bear it any longer and said, "I'm going to smash that cursed jar as soon as I get home."
"Don't act rashly!" Granny Tang hurriedly stopped me. "Although it hasn't become a ghost infant yet, there's a fetal spirit in that jar, and since you've already drawn blood to it, if you smash the jar, the fetal spirit will cling to you."
As the saying goes, the King of Hell is easy to face, but little ghosts are hard to deal with.
Granny Tang explained that the fetal spirit was currently sealed inside the jar by the yellow talisman cloth. Once released, it would certainly cling to me relentlessly.
Halfway home, my eyes had malfunctioned and I couldn't even tell the traffic lights apart.
All of this was because the ghost energy had overwhelmed my yang fire.
Thinking of this, I again couldn't help cursing that old crone several times over.
Granny Tang had guarded the temple for most of her life and understood quite a few things.
I hurriedly begged her to think of a way to save me.
Granny Tang said, however, that she hadn't personally seen the black jar and couldn't be one hundred percent certain, nor could she suggest a countermeasure.
For now, all I had to do was not recklessly touch that jar, and above all, never drip any more blood into it.
I nodded solemnly when suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the temple hall.
The strange man who had been standing inside just moments ago had vanished.
Granny Tang and I were blocking the doorway, and there was no other way out of the temple hall.
"Granny Tang!" I called out in a low, very tense voice.
"What is it?"
I pointed toward the temple hall. "Where's that worshipper from before? Why is he gone?"
Granny Tang looked into the temple, her expression puzzled. "Child, what are you talking about? Where would a worshipper come from in this old temple of mine?"
"..."
I could tell from Granny Tang's expression that she was not lying, and she had no reason to lie.
However, before I could say anything more, Granny Tang's expression shifted subtly again, and with a flicker in her eyes she asked, "You really saw him?"
I nodded and firmly said that a man in a long black coat had been standing in the temple hall just now, and that he wore a mask covered with the faces of deities.
Hearing this, Granny Tang's expression became complicated and hard to read, and a flicker of profound meaning that was impossible to put into words passed through her eyes.