In a rural village in China, there's a man known as "东头" (Dongtou) who used to visit the salt shop by the river to buy pork for his butchering business. He'd strap half a pig to the back of his motorcycle, making this trip every other day. One December night in 2006, two days before the Lunar New Year, he decided to purchase a larger quantity of pork to bring home, totaling 170 pounds.
On his way back home with the meat strapped to his motorcycle, an eerie incident occurred. His motorcycle unexpectedly stalled. Dongtou stopped and tinkered with the spark plug, eventually managing to restart the vehicle. However, what followed was even more bizarre. It was well past 2 a.m., and there was no one else on the road. Dongtou figured he needed to get going, but the motorcycle was acting strangely. He shifted the gears to third, but for some inexplicable reason, it moved at a snail's pace, as though someone or something was holding it back.
Dongtou quickly realized something was amiss, but he was not one to be easily frightened. After all, he was a butcher. He stopped the motorcycle, retrieved two large cleavers from the basket behind him, spat on the ground, and pointed at the tail of the motorcycle, loudly cursing, "You **** (profanity), get lost!" After his expletives, he spat twice more, then got back on the motorcycle. This time, it smoothly picked up speed, and he made it home without further incident. It's often said that butchers and their cleavers exude an aura of fearlessness, and a typical person might not have fared as well in that situation.
Story 2: The Misfortunate Master Butcher
This second story doesn't involve Dongtou directly but rather his master, a skilled butcher. When he was in his 40s, he once went to help a family slaughter a pig for their Chinese New Year celebration. But something unusual happened during the process. During the initial incision to bleed the pig, the animal suddenly went into a frenzy, struggling violently. It was as if the butcher's knife had missed its mark and caused minimal blood loss.
The family was understandably upset, but they knew it wasn't the butcher's fault. Nevertheless, they proceeded with a second incision. As fate would have it, a few years later, misfortune befell that family. They lost their son, their wife, and the man himself fell ill, leaving only their two-year-old grandson untouched, a stroke of luck that might be attributed to divine intervention.
As for the butcher, he wasn't hit with major calamities, but his health began to deteriorate over the next few years, particularly from severe rheumatism. This condition limited his physical abilities, forcing him to seek an apprentice and train him as his successor. And that's how Dongtou became the butcher of the village, continuing the lineage of his master.