Ma's wife died a most peculiar death.
According to her husband, they had gone to bed as usual, their child sleeping soundly beside them.
He vaguely recalled hearing noises in the night, someone calling his wife's name, but he was exhausted from a long day working in the fields, and barely stirred. He dismissed it as a dream.
Later, he felt his wife sit up in bed. He mumbled, "Where are you going?", but she didn't answer. Assuming she was going to the outhouse, he drifted back to sleep.
The next morning, his wife was gone.
He searched. Neighbors helped. Soon, the whole village joined the hunt, ultimately discovering her body on the back hill.
What they found was terrifying. The woman's body was a mangled mess of bite marks.
One leg was stripped to the bone. Most unsettling of all: her lips were curved in a strange smile, her eyes wide open.
She had died a gruesome death, yet wore a serene expression.
The sight sent shivers down their spines.
Ma was devastated. The villagers helped him prepare the body and lay her in state in their home.
Tradition in Jiushan Village dictated that a body must be kept at home for three days before burial.
For those three days, a steady stream of mourners visited, paying their respects.
It was a small village. Everyone knew each other.
My father dutifully went to offer his condolences, bringing joss paper to burn in the brazier before the coffin.
As he placed the paper in the flames, something strange happened.
While everyone else's offerings burned readily, turning to ash, my father's refused to catch.
He even doused it with strong liquor, but it only flickered briefly before extinguishing.
At that moment, a strange gust of wind swept through the room, scattering the ashes from the brazier, coating my father.
He tried burning incense instead, but as soon as he lit it, two of the three incense sticks snapped in two.
The center stick remained intact – a classic "three long, two short" configuration.
The onlookers gasped, faces draining of color.
It was a clear message: the deceased harbored resentment towards my father. She refused his offerings.
My father, shaken, rushed home.
My grandfather, upon hearing the tale, sighed.
This was no ordinary occurrence.
Anyone who stopped to think about it arrived at the same conclusion: Ma's wife's death was connected to me.
I had, after all, given her son blood to drink.
She had beaten me for it, and that very night, she had died.
Fortune Teller Wu's prediction echoed in their minds: a tribulation every three years, claiming a life - mine or someone else's.
The numerous wounds on the woman's body were undeniably from an animal – a yellow weasel or a fox, judging by the teeth marks.
And everyone knew about the strange events surrounding my birth: the hundreds of weasels and foxes, their daily offerings of wild game.
Whispers filled the village: *I was responsible for her death*.
At first, it was just suspicion.
The next day, it was confirmed.
That night, every member of my family, except me, was plagued by a horrific dream.
Ma's wife, hopping on one foot, the other leg nothing but bone, a cruel smile twisting her lips, told them that I had killed her and demanded my life in return. Kill me, or the entire Wu family would be buried with her.
Even Ma dreamt of his wife. She wept, pleading with him to avenge her death and kill me.
Only then would she find peace and be reborn.
The next morning, Ma, his eyes blazing with fury and a cleaver in hand, stormed into our home, demanding an explanation.
Panic seized my parents. My grandfather stepped forward, shoving me towards Ma.
"If you believe my grandson killed your wife," he said, his voice as cold as ice, "then avenge her death. Kill him. DO IT NOW."
Ma faltered. Murder carried a hefty price, one he wasn't willing to pay. Defeated, he left.
After three days, the day of Ma's wife's funeral arrived.
The sky was heavy and overcast, strangely still.
As the young men from the village lifted the coffin, carrying it towards the door, the ropes suddenly snapped.
It was a terrible omen.
Tradition held that once the coffin left the home, it couldn't touch the ground until it reached the grave.
Now, barely out the door, it lay upon the earth. Bad luck. Disaster.
Ma, witnessing this, was beside himself with grief.
"My wife!" he sobbed, collapsing onto the coffin. "You died a wrongful death and cannot find peace. If you harbor anger, seek out the one who wronged you. Do not torment us!"
As he clung to the coffin, a chattering sound filled the air.
Just like the day of my birth, a flood of yellow weasels and foxes materialized near Ma's front door.
At their head was a massive yellow weasel, a stripe of white fur running down its back.
The villagers, terrified, backed away, some collapsing in fright as the animals swarmed around the coffin.
The large weasel approached the coffin, circled it three times, then extended a paw, tapping it three times.
*Thump. Thump. Thump.*
And just as quickly as they appeared, the animals vanished.
The young men cautiously approached the coffin, lifting it once more. This time, it held.
After the white-striped weasel's ritual, Ma's wife could finally be laid to rest. Or so they thought.
The next morning, the grave was found disturbed, the body gone.