Chapter Sixteen: Entering the West Alley Entrance

Inside the house, Cai Zhongsheng was currently casting an unusual gaze upon the pheasant clinging to her like a shadow. Ever since awakening from that dream, a silent voice seemed to reproach her in her ear: marrying him has truly enraged me...

Cai Zhongsheng stroked the pheasant’s brilliantly colored feathers, silently thinking: If you really are the reincarnation of my ex-husband Liu Sanjun, I would treat you well. Don’t blame me for marrying Wu Zidan. If Liu Sanjun hadn’t left, how could I have changed my tune?

She did not speak these words aloud, nor did she know if the pheasant beside her understood her meaning.

Then she recalled the plan she had discussed with Wu Zidan and decided to put it into action. She caught the pheasant and released it outside the door, called Wu Zidan in, then said to the pheasant, “Handsome fellow, wait just outside the bedroom for a while. We’ll be out soon.”

She then closed the door. The pheasant was reluctant; as Cai Zhongsheng gently let it go, it flapped its heavy wings and reluctantly moved around the middle room, waiting with a restless, human-like impatience.

After a moment, the bedroom door opened. Cai Zhongsheng stepped out, wearing a floral jacket and an exquisitely patterned, dazzling skirt.

The pheasant prepared to fly forward to greet her affectionately but suddenly sensed something was amiss. It stepped back several paces and observed carefully for a few seconds. It realized the person before it was Wu Zidan, not Cai Zhongsheng—just dressed in her clothes. Furious, it flew up, stretched its neck, and pecked sharply at the back of Wu Zidan’s head with its pointed beak.

Wu Zidan clasped his head with both hands, bent down, grabbed a bamboo pole from the corner, and retaliated against the pheasant’s fierce pecking.

Seeing this, the pheasant fled straight for the door. The bamboo pole, however, seemed to have eyes of its own; Wu Zidan struck forcefully and precisely, knocking the pheasant down near the doorway.

The pheasant twitched a few times on the threshold before succumbing.

Wu Zidan looked down and saw that his bamboo pole had struck the small, beautifully feathered head of the pheasant, and blood was oozing from it.

He placed the bamboo pole back in the corner and called out to Cai Zhongsheng, who was hiding in the bedroom, saying, “I’ve killed the pheasant. When I changed into your clothes, it recognized me and pecked at my head.” He rubbed the back of his head as he spoke.

Cai Zhongsheng frowned and scolded him, “If I had known you would kill it, I really shouldn’t have listened to you.”

She knelt silently before the dead pheasant, gazing at it with a mixture of regret and mourning.

Recalling the dream from the night before, she felt a chill run down her spine. She sensed that the pheasant killed by Wu Zidan was not just any bird, but her ex-husband, and that this was the second unnatural death he had suffered.

In her heart, Cai Zhongsheng whispered, “Ex-husband, please don’t blame me.”

She then found a cloth bag, placed the stiffening pheasant inside, and took a hoe up the mountain. Before her ex-husband’s grave, she knelt and prayed for a while, speaking softly, asking him not to hold her responsible. Then she dug a pit beside the grave and buried the pheasant.

She piled a small mound over the grave and bowed several times before quietly departing.

One year later, on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month at noon, Cai Zhongsheng gave birth to a baby girl with Wu Zidan, naming her Wu Ying. Shortly after birth, the child was frail and sickly, requiring hospitalization every two or three days.

On the night of the full-month celebration feast, Wu Zidan smiled brightly as he stood at the door lighting firecrackers, the loud bangs echoing through the mountains in festive cheer.

Suddenly, an accident occurred. Wu Zidan clutched his left eye, which was bleeding from the corner. Guests congratulating them asked what had happened. He explained that during the firecrackers, one of the flower bombs had exploded near his left eye.

Though a father now, the injured eye caused him great pain, yet he said nothing. Neighbors helped him to the town hospital.

The celebration proceeded as planned, with bright lights illuminating the feast’s dishes and guests digging in. But everyone knew about Wu Zidan’s injured eye, and the mood was somber. No one toasted or played drinking games; the joyous atmosphere was noticeably absent.

Some guests whispered among themselves, “Look, this child has a tough fate. Anyone with a bit of knowledge in astrology knows that a girl born on the triple ‘Wu (Horse)’ days is unlucky. If it were a boy, it would be better. They say: boys should not be born during Wu hours, girls should not be born during Chou hours, and girls are best born during the Chou hour at midnight.”

Many more guests worried that Wu Zidan’s injured left eye might go blind. Some relatives and friends, even while eating flavorful dishes, found no pleasure in their food.

Fortunately, Wu Zidan recovered and was discharged from the hospital within a few days.

However, baby Wu Ying was hospitalized again in the town clinic, cared for by her mother.

Once, Wu Zidan brewed a pot of soybeans with pork trotters and brought it to the clinic for Cai Zhongsheng, saying it would help increase her milk supply.

Cai Zhongsheng glanced at Wu Ying, who had just finished an IV drip and had fallen asleep quietly, exhausted from crying. She then turned to Wu Zidan and said, “Did you know? When you were at the hospital for your eye treatment, Wu Ying was perfectly fine at home. But as soon as you returned, she fell ill. I don’t know why.”

Wu Zidan said, “That’s just a coincidence. This time, if you cure Wu Ying and bring her home, I’ll stay here and see if she gets sick again.”

Unfortunately, Wu Ying’s fever persisted stubbornly. After a long hospital stay of over ten days without fully subsiding, she was not allowed to be discharged.

The doctors pressed for medical fees, which were substantial—several thousand yuan.

Anxious, Cai Zhongsheng asked Wu Zidan for money when he brought lunch.

Where could the family find so much money? Wu Zidan was also worried. On the way back, walking and thinking, he realized there was no other way but to sell the family’s heavy yellow ox to raise funds.

The next day, Wu Zidan led the ox to the slaughterhouse and sold it for 2,500 yuan, just enough to settle the medical bills.

On the third day, with Wu Ying’s condition slightly improved, Cai Zhongsheng took her home from the hospital.

On the fourth night, the child’s forehead felt warm again—a low-grade fever.

Cai Zhongsheng decided to delay returning to the hospital. First, the illness had relapsed repeatedly, shaking her confidence in the hospital’s treatment. Second, the financial burden was heavy. Continuously pouring money into the hospital was unbearable, especially after selling their only ox. Wu Zidan had been melancholy these days. If the child’s illness persisted, the family would be impoverished beyond measure.

Cai Zhongsheng also wondered if some malevolent influence was afflicting the child and resolved to seek a monk at the nearby Eastern Mountain’s Oriental Temple.

On the fifth morning, she brought the still feverish child to the Oriental Temple.

The monk, upon seeing the child, clasped his hands and chanted “Amitabha,” instructing her to hold the child and enter the main hall to offer incense and pray to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Then he led them to the monastery’s quarters and listened as Cai Zhongsheng recounted the child’s illness.

He then prepared a cup of blessed water for the child to drink.

Cai Zhongsheng asked the monk to add some sugar to the water.

She borrowed a spoon from the temple’s Five Precepts Hall and slowly fed the child, knowing that without the sweetness, the child would refuse the pure water or spit it out.

While administering the water, the monk told Cai Zhongsheng that the child bore heavy karmic burdens, making her prone to illness. Drinking the blessed water would bring healing; there was no need to fear.

Sure enough, after leaving the Oriental Temple and descending Eastern Mountain, the child’s fever subsided.

Cai Zhongsheng took the opportunity to visit a blind fortune teller at the western alley entrance of the town to have Wu Ying’s birth chart read.

The fortune teller asked about the child’s father’s birth time and then exclaimed in surprise, “Oh no, this child has a tough fate, clashing with the father’s chart. The father’s chart is also strong. It’s like two tigers battling; one must be injured. So either the child or the father will fall ill.”

This news made Cai Zhongsheng anxious, and she asked if there was any way to resolve this predicament.