Chapter 8: A boy’s life haunted by ghosts

My mother didn’t stop him. After all, the chicken and snake were provided by others, so she had to show enough sincerity and get some eels.

That day, my father didn’t come back until midnight, covered in mud. He really managed to catch more than 20 eels.

My mother was worried about my father and quickly made hot water to wash him. My father was still complaining, “If I had to catch them in the summer, I would have caught several catties of eels by now! I would have given Master Jiang a real treat!”

“Okay, okay, you have to get up early tomorrow, so don’t get excited about it,” my mother scolded, not knowing why my father was so excited.

She has no idea about the pressure a man carries. These days, my father has been hoping to cure me, but he is suffering. It’s like a heavy stone weighing on his heart. The appearance of old man Jiang this time has given my father a sense of relief.

Everything was prepared for tomorrow.

The next day, a little after 11:30 a.m., the old man Jiang arrived as promised.

He was still in his usual disheveled state, giving the impression that he was still as carefree as ever. He walked into my house with his hands behind his back, looking like someone I knew very well. He was greeted by my warm-hearted parents and a large table full of food, as well as my two sisters, who were drooling over the table.

After entering the house, the old man didn’t look at the table of food, but walked around the rooms of my house, looking at it like a casual visit. My parents dared not neglect him, and followed him closely behind his butt.

After walking around the house, the old man shook his head and said, “It’s pretty ordinary. Not very rich.”

My parents almost fell over after hearing this. What did the old man mean? Was he here to visit?

The old man didn’t explain much. How did he explain to my parents that there was nothing wrong with the layout of our home? He just made up an excuse and let it go.

“Let’s eat.” After reading this, the old man went straight to the dinner table.

He sat down at the head of the table, and when he saw the dishes on the table, he couldn’t help but swallow two mouthfuls of saliva.

In the center was the pheasant and snake stew, with crisp white winter bamboo shoots and the perfect amount of heat in the soup. The aroma was so enticing that even immortals would be tempted to try it.

Next to it were also a few large porcelain bowls, one with shiny, crispy old bacon, one with stir-fried pork, and one with stir-fried eel. Next to it was a bowl of spicy, hot fish in chili sauce.

This is authentic Sichuan peasant cuisine, prepared in the traditional way, as fresh as it can be. Just look at the spicy dishes, the bright red Erjing strips, accompanied by the green onion flowers, are already making people’s appetites grow.

My mother also made a dish of shredded radish and pickled vegetables to prevent the old man from getting tired of the ginger.

My father didn’t say a word either, and he brought out the best rice wine, which he had exchanged for it with the best rice wine maker in the village.

Old Master Jiang was very grateful. After my father poured him some wine, he grabbed his chopsticks and started to eat. Before he had finished the dish, he took another sip of wine. He ate like a whirlwind, but he was also so spicy that he was spitting out his tongue.

My father saw something and asked directly, “Master Jiang is not from Sichuan?” If you want a Sichuanese, the spiciness is certainly spicy, but it’s not so bad that you’ll spit out your tongue.

The old man didn’t answer, but kept eating.

My father smiled awkwardly and didn’t pursue the matter. My father knew that the old man would generally avoid answering questions he didn’t want to answer.

However, at the dinner table, no matter how my parents tried to say something, the old man just ate and drank.

After nearly an hour, the old man was finally full and satisfied. He put down his chopsticks and cup, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and without waiting for my parents to say anything, he said, “Bring your son over and let me take a look.”

A real immortal! My parents were so surprised that my mother took my two sisters and left without saying a word, and my father went straight to hug me.

But in fact, was it really as magical as my parents thought? After a few years, my master told me that his face-reading skills were far inferior to those of a person who had met my father on the mountain by chance. Although his face-reading skills were not his forte, he could still tell at a glance that my father must have been seeking something.

As for the meal, my master looked closely at my parents’ faces and knew in his heart that they would have children who were not very fortunate. My two sisters were at the table, and my master looked closely at them and saw nothing wrong. So the only problem was with me.

There are only a few families in the village, and my master has been hanging around here for years. He knows who has a new baby, and when he was walking around the house, he saw me on the bed.

That was the whole story.

But that’s the way fate works. My master had predicted where he would find a disciple, and for some special and historical reasons, he came to this area and stayed for several years without looking for one. Taoism emphasizes nature, and if it’s really your disciple, you will bump into each other by chance.

In less than a minute, my father had brought me to the old man Jiang. He looked at me carefully, frowned slightly, and let out a soft “huh.”

Before my master could say anything, my father, anxious to get the conversation started, quickly turned me around and pointed to the birthmark on the back of my head and said, “Master Jiang, do you see anything wrong with this?”

After that, my father added mysteriously, “I heard that this is the mark of being targeted by that thing.”

My father’s words seemed to bring the old man back to his senses. He shouted, “Nonsense! Tell me the child’s birth date and time!”

“Yes, yes…” My father quickly told him my birth date and time.

The old man stood up, walked with his back bent, and began to walk back and forth, muttering words that my father couldn’t understand: “67 years, Tianhe water… day branch… at this time, tsk… how could that be?”

At the end, the old man even spoke in a Beijing dialect, showing how deeply he was absorbed in the task.

“No, no… that’s just a superficial view…” At the end, the old man asked my father to hold me in his arms so that he could take a closer look at my face, paying particular attention to my eyebrows and nose.

Finally, he was not at ease, grabbed my hand and looked at it, and then carefully touched my little arms and legs again.

After this, he couldn’t take his eyes off me. He stared at me for a while, then said to my father seriously, “This child is a true child of the gods, or a child of the Tao! He is destined to have little affinity with his parents. Can you bear it?”

“What do you mean, my son is going to die?” My father didn’t understand anything about fate, and when he heard that he didn’t have much affinity with his parents, he panicked.

“No, as long as I’m around, he won’t… I’ll tell you more about it later, but first I have a question for you. Think about it carefully before answering me.” Old Master Jiang said seriously.

“What is the problem? Master Jiang, just ask.” My father heard that he was there, and I would not die. I was relieved and my heart returned to the question of the old man Jiang.

“Was your son born at exactly 12 o’clock?”

“This? How do you calculate this?” My father didn’t quite understand. How exactly can you calculate birth? The whole body comes out, and so on and so forth… It’s quite unspeakable to pinpoint the exact moment.

“When the fetus is born, it is when the entire body is separated from the mother’s body.” My master was very serious and began to speak in a literary style.

“Master Jiang, I really don’t know. I can’t be sure if it was exactly on the hour. Is this really important?” My father asked cautiously.

Master Jiang had expected this, waved his hand, and ignored my father, instead walking back and forth in the room with his hands behind his back.

Sometimes, in order to calculate something, you don’t necessarily need to use divination. It’s like solving a math problem. Sometimes, you can solve a problem with the necessary conditions, which means that not every problem will use a math formula.

My situation has given the old man sufficient and satisfying conditions. After a long pause, he said, “I have figured it out. Your son was born on the hour. The problem is that he was born a child and on the hour.”

“At noon? Master Jiang, that’s broad daylight, the brightest time of day, how could it be affected by that thing?” My father’s thinking was simple. He felt that according to folk beliefs, this was definitely the most positive time of day, so how could it attract those things?

Old Jiang didn’t say anything, went out, picked up a branch in the yard, and started drawing. It just so happened that my mother had just seen this scene when she took my two sisters to play.

My father and mother thought that the old man would draw a profound formation, but he finished in a few strokes, and it turned out to be a Tai Chi diagram.

“Master Jiang, what is this?” my father asked.

“Noon is the brightest time of day? Who told you that noon is the darkest time of day? The darkest time of day is just before dawn, when the rooster crows for the first time.” Old Master Jiang said calmly.

“Why?” My mother couldn’t figure it out either. It was the middle of the day, but it was also the darkest time of the day.

“You wouldn’t understand if I explained it in detail, so let me explain it in a simple way. Look at this diagram. These two yin and yang fish…” Old Master Jiang pointed to the place where the yin and yang fish of the Taiji diagram intersected, and the place of intersection was precisely the two sharpest points.

“What I want to tell you is not about the yin and yang, but about the law of the rise and fall of everything. When everything reaches its peak, it will move in the opposite direction. The yin and yang symbol also contains this meaning. 12 o’clock is the peak, which is when the sun suddenly turns from bright to dark during the day. You can’t even say it’s dark. It just happens like that. People who step on this turning point are stepping on the darkest time.” Old Jiang tried to explain it as simply as possible. His explanation was amazing. At least my parents had never heard of such a thing.

The old man didn’t force them to believe him, and he threw the branch away and clapped his hands, saying, “Who says that ghosts only appear at night? They can also appear at noon, especially during that time period, which is the only time they can move during the day. They were all people in their previous lives, so of course they like the daytime.”

The old man’s words made my parents feel cold. My mother also remembered that she was easily mesmerized during her afternoon nap.