At that time, I looked up to see a black bird, similar to a crow, perched on the branch above. Despite the pouring rain, not a single feather on its body was wet, but instead, glistened with a dark luster. It had a human-like face, as small as a baby's hand, with purplish-black complexion and blood-red eyes. A pair of pointed, buckteeth stuck out from its lips, which curled up in a cold and eerie grin. It looked terrifying—an absolute nightmare. I was so scared, I immediately wet my pants.

Following a loud scream, I frantically ran towards the depth of the forest. The ground, filled with pits and soaked in muddy water, caused me to stumble multiple times. But I got up each time, gritting my teeth as I tried to put as much distance between us as possible. The only thing on my mind was, "I have to get home, my grandma is waiting for me!"

However, in my panic, I had run in the wrong direction. The more frightened I was, the further up the mountain I ran, eventually straying away from the path back to the village.

I didn't know how far I had run, but I knew it was not far behind me. The chilly air felt as if it was pressing against my spine, causing me to shiver uncontrollably. Clenching my teeth, I covered my face with my fertilizer bag and kept repeating to myself, "it can't see me, it can't see me!"

Visibility was zero, and so in my misfortune, my foot missed the ground beneath me and I suddenly fell into water.

Our region, being a poor and rugged mountain area, doesn't have many streams or rivers, but it does have one perennial pond. I had seen it previously when I sneaked out to play in the woods, but it completely slipped from my mind in the throes of panic. This pond is shrouded in eerie mystery among the locals. Despite its small size and the lack of any fresh water source, the water level remains constant, not increasing during the rainy season nor decreasing during the droughts.

People have claimed to see ghosts in this pond and several children have drowned here. The villagers forbid their children from playing in this particular area of the forest, let alone getting close to this pond. My grandma also warned me about it, but every time it rained and I wanted to play outside, the forest was the only place where no one would discover or hear me. Hence, I invariably ended up there but never dared to approach the pond.

As I fell into the water, my first reaction was realizing I had fallen into that dreaded pond. Not knowing how to swim and panicked, I gulped down several mouthfuls of the stale, foul-smelling water. The pungent taste nearly choked me, causing me to struggle and thrash about in the water. The more I struggled, the more water I swallowed until I felt as if my lungs were about to burst.

Yet, the suffocating sensation seemed to ease up suddenly and it wasn't as uncomfortable as before. My mind was in a fog, I couldn't quite put into words what I was feeling, nor determine if I was dead or alive. In my hand, I was clenching something cold and not too large. It seemed like it was providing me with oxygen, allowing me to survive in the putrid water.

Slowly opening my eyes, I realized there was no water, only endless darkness. I felt like I was in a cold, dark world, where there was no sense of suffocation or fear, just an eerie tranquility.

Subsequently, an old, decrepit door slowly opened before my eyes. In this darkness, I could see it clearly, just as in a dream. A middle-aged man with greenish skin and bulging eyes appeared before me as the door opened. He extended a skeletal hand, his intention clear—he wanted to help me.

Without hesitation, I extended my hand to his. As I was about to step through the doorway with his guidance, something solid suddenly hit me on the back of my head. The shock woke me up in an instant.

The first thing I saw was my Grandma's kind wrinkled face. Turning my head I realized an elderly strange man was holding me in his arms, pressing paper talisman on my forehead with one hand and tapping my back head with the other. Realizing I was saved, I relaxed and fell back into deep sleep. In the following days, I had recurring nightmares of the middle-aged man glaring at me resentfully from the open doorway, but after three days, I finally woke up unharmed.

Waking up, I found myself not in my home but in a house in the neighboring Tian Tai Village. It was my Grandpa's old friend's house. Since that rainy day, we never returned to our village, Shiyan, because a child of the same age as me had been brutally killed there. The villagers declared that I had brought catastrophe on them, leading not only to the loss of a child but also many livestock.

Grandmother couldn't bear the humiliation anymore, so she took me and sought help from Grandpa’s old friend, Liu Kui. The old man I saw when I first woke up, was him. I asked my grandma, how she had been able to save me from the pond, and what was with the large door and the middle-aged man I had seen.

The old lady told me that she knew I had run off to play in the forest when she discovered I wasn't home that day. But she was deeply worried, feeling as though something ominous was about to occur. When she ran to the forest behind the hill, she found me sunk to the bottom of a large water hole, stubbornly burrowing into the mud. It was fortunate that she dragged me out in time, or else I would have surely perished. However, even after she brought me home, I didn't wake up. My arm was stretched out as though someone was pulling on it, which frightened her. She braved the rain to run to Tiantai Village and fetched Grandpa Liu Kui, only then was I pulled back from the brink of death.

As for the large gate and the middle-aged man, grandma refused to talk about them, no matter how much I asked. I also asked about that terrifying face of the black bird, but my grandma glared at me and said: "What black bird? Are you hallucinating? How can a bird fly in the rain?" I was quite unconvinced then, I clearly saw it, how could it be a hallucination?

But I knew my grandma's temperament best. Sometimes when she was determined, even three oxen couldn't pull her back. If she didn't want to talk about something, she would absolutely not tell me, and I could only keep this question in my heart.

Ever since I began living at Liu Kui's, I gradually learned that, like my grandfather, he too was a folk healer. He was a warm-hearted man with an excellent reputation in Tiantai village. However, he had never married and was raising a girl, who was around my age and he had found and adopted in his youth. This girl, Xiaoling, was quite introverted and rarely spoke. I had never seen her smile. Worst of all, us two kids—one who did not cry, the other who did not laugh, both temperamental—could not play together at all.

Yet, life lightened up for Liu Kui since my grandmother moved in. Someone helped him cook and wash, and someone else took care of Xiaoling. Life seemed quite joyful. He was particularly affectionate towards me and sometimes I felt he treated me better than how he treated Xiaoling.

A year flew by and on this stormy day, Grandpa Liu Kui went out to visit a patient. With my grandma busy cooking in the kitchen, I, having learned my lesson, dared not sneak out. I sat at the door, staring blankly at the rain when Xiaoling walked over and poked me in the back. Startled, I quickly turned around only to meet her glaring at me with her usual icy eyes.

Our relationship didn't improve over the year, it only worsened to the point where we were practically enemies. As soon as we saw each other, we'd exchange glares. Today, for the first time, she even dared to provoke me physically. I snorted and ignored her. A good man does not fight with a woman, a good dog does not engage with a chicken.

"Do you know you were holding onto something during the three days you were unconscious?" Xiaoling said coldly.

I was startled. The three days I was unconscious? Was she talking about last year? As I was about to ask her what she meant, she held out her right hand, and in her small, translucent like jade hand was a piece of grimy, blackened bone!

"What's this?" I asked, scratching my head.

"It's a human finger bone," she said.