Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I was born at dawn on the First Day of the Eighth Month, in the Year of the Wood Rooster.

As the midwife busied herself cutting my umbilical cord, she praised me as the reincarnation of the Star Official of the Pleiades, claiming I was destined for greatness.

That was until she looked up and saw a tuft of white hair on my forehead. Her expression shifted instantly.

She began counting frantically on her fingers, shaking her head as she calculated. Finally, she shoved me into my mother’s arms, her face pale as she turned to leave.

She didn’t even stay for her payment.

My grandmother hurried after her, asking repeatedly what was wrong.

“A solitary Yan bringing mourning clothes… sister, a great disaster is coming to your house!” the midwife said, her voice trembling. “No, not just your house. No one in Tafeng Village will escape!”

My grandmother was stunned. “A… a what?”

“A Yan. It’s a large bird that looks much like a wild goose, but while geese live in flocks, the Yan is the exact opposite.”

The midwife explained impatiently, “Every year on the First Day of the Eighth Month, the geese fly south. The Yan flies against the flock, killing every goose it sees. Those with white feathers on their heads are the most vicious.

“To have such a fate born into a family is an omen of extreme misfortune. Sister, I’m not just being alarmist. If this child stays, one person in your family will die every three years.

“Once your family is wiped out, it will be the turn of the other villagers in Tafeng Village. And as long as she is here, no other children will ever be born in this family, or even the entire village.”

My grandmother and father were both stunned.

My grandfather stood in the courtyard, the rhythmic puffing of his tobacco pipe the only sound.

For a moment, the room was so silent you could hear a pin drop.

Boom!

Suddenly, a thunderclap exploded, shaking the entire village to its foundations.

Immediately after, the shouts of villagers rang out from outside: “The Qilin Temple has been struck by lightning! There’s a fire on the back mountain! Everyone, go help put it out!”

There was a Qilin Temple on the mountain behind Tafeng Village.

Inside the temple stood a Qilin Statue depicting the deity carrying a hundred children on its back and treading upon a golden phoenix.

The Qilin brings children, treading upon the phoenix as it arrives.

Every child in our village was a gift prayed for at that temple.

By some cruel coincidence, the moment I was born, the temple was struck by lightning. It truly seemed as though the lineage of Tafeng Village was being severed…

The midwife glanced back at me with eyes full of terror and fled.

Everyone else was busy fighting the mountain fire.

My mother forced herself up to dress me, but before she could finish, my grandfather burst in. He grabbed me by my two small legs and carried me out upside down.

My mother chased after him in her weakened state. By the time she finally reached the back mountain, she saw my grandfather raise his hand and throw me into the sea of fire without a moment’s hesitation.

“Jinx! Die early so you can find a better reincarnation!”

The fire burned from dawn until dusk. My mother fainted from crying several times. The entire back mountain was scorched bare, and the Qilin Statue was covered in cracks.

Yet, to the south of the temple, a tall parasol tree remained lush and green; not a single leaf had been singed.

Lying beneath that tree was me, sucking on my fingers.

The fragmented light of the sunset filtered through the branches and fell upon me. My mother said dazed, “Wantong. Let’s call the child Jiang Wantong.”

My mother carried me home.

My grandfather looked at me as if he were seeing a ghost, then left with his tobacco pipe.

He didn’t return all night.

Early the next morning, the craftsmen hired to repair the Qilin Statue found my grandfather under the parasol tree to the south of the temple.

He had hanged himself from that tree.

Rumors began to fly.

Some said I was a Jinx, a murderous Yan who had cursed my grandfather to death the moment I was born.

Others said I was a child protected by the Qilin Deity, which was why I hadn’t died in the fire.

They claimed my grandfather had angered the Qilin Deity by trying to kill me because he despised that I was a girl, and thus received this punishment.

No one knew the truth.

Strangely, following my grandfather’s death, the tuft of white hair on my forehead vanished.

Three years passed in a flash.

Just as everyone was beginning to forget the rumors, on the day before my third birthday, the white hair grew back on my forehead.

And there was twice as much as when I was born!
That evening, my grandma disappeared.

My dad searched the entire village and finally found her under the parasol tree south of the Qilin Temple.

She was in the middle of tying a rope to a branch, preparing to hang herself, when my dad forcibly tied her up and carried her back on his back.

Just as everyone was celebrating Grandma’s narrow escape, the very next morning, my dad fell from the construction site. He broke a leg and slipped into a coma.

The doctor issued a critical condition notice immediately, saying that even if they saved him, he would likely remain in a vegetative state.

Grandma wailed in grief, cursing me for being a Jinx. She screamed that if I couldn’t kill her, I was going to kill my father, and she lunged at me, trying to strangle me.

My mom held me tightly in her arms, sobbing uncontrollably, unable to offer a single word of rebuttal.

After all, the midwife had said back then that if I were kept, a member of our family would die every three years.

It was a prophecy fulfilled.

Grandma went to see the midwife, begging her to show our family a way to survive.

Harassed until she had no choice, the midwife finally offered a suggestion: “Sister, Tafeng Village is protected by the Qilin Deity. If you can bring yourself to gild a golden body for him, perhaps he can help your family through this disaster.”

Gilding the Qilin Statue was an enormous expense, but her son was lying in the hospital, his life hanging by a thread.

Grandma gritted her teeth and sold the family’s only old ox used for plowing.

The day the Qilin Statue was gilded in gold, my father miraculously woke up. He wasn’t a vegetable, nor was he brain-damaged; he was merely left with a limp.

And the white hair on my head turned back to black.

After my dad was safely discharged from the hospital, Grandma tried everything she could to get rid of me.

But my reputation preceded me, and no family was willing to take me in.

So, Grandma would carry me on her back and travel far away.

She abandoned me in graveyards.

She dumped me in drainage ditches.

She ‘accidentally’ forgot me at the bus station…

But no matter how far she sent me, I would always appear under that parasol tree south of the Qilin Temple the very next morning.

She kept this up for nearly three years, yet she still couldn’t get rid of me.

The day before my sixth birthday, white hair grew on my forehead again.

This time, there was twice as much as before.

My family looked at the white hair on my head with a mixture of shock and terror.

Grandma went to see the midwife again.

The midwife simply shook her head. This time, there truly was nothing she could do.

Grandma returned home full of dread. She grabbed me, carried me to the back mountain, tied me to the parasol tree, and lit a pile of firewood beneath my feet.

She screamed at me like a woman possessed, “Tongtong, just die! Only if you die can we live!”

“Be a good girl and die! Die!”

She screamed while piling more wood onto the fire.

A sudden whirlwind rose from the flat ground, sending tongues of fire dancing wildly.

Instead of leaping upward, the flames suddenly ignited the dry leaves nearby. In the blink of an eye, the entire area was ablaze.

The villagers rushed over to put out the fire, but no matter what they did, the flames wouldn’t die down.

It seemed as though the forest fire from six years ago was about to return.

In the midst of the blazing light, an old woman dressed in black cloth walked toward us with long strides. She casually tossed a Yellow Talisman into the fire, and the raging inferno was extinguished instantly.

Everyone was stunned.

The old woman turned to look at my grandma and said in a resonant voice, “I’ll take your child.”

Grandma scrambled to untie me from the parasol tree and pushed me toward the old woman’s legs, her voice filled with desperate urgency. “Take her! Not a penny required! Just take her away, quickly!”

The old woman was in no rush. She pulled an ancient, yellowed Pawn Ticket from her black cloth bag and said to my grandma, “Today, the Jiang Family enters Jiang Wantong into my Pawnshop as a Dead Pawn. This Pawn Ticket shall serve as proof, made in duplicate. Once signed and sealed, the deal is final. Once pawned, all kin ties are severed, and there shall be no further contact. Can you do this?”

Grandma nodded repeatedly. She grabbed my hand and wrote the three characters for ‘Jiang Wantong’ at the bottom of the Pawn Ticket, then immediately cut my finger and pressed a bloody thumbprint over the name.

The old woman took out a private seal and pressed it firmly onto my name.

The seal did not belong to the Pawnshop.

Nor did it bear the words ‘Dead Pawn’.

Instead, it was a man’s name-Liu Junyan.