C1 Siren

On the day I was born, it was Lunar New Year's Day, Half-Death. The night walk was full of ghosts, and the door was wide open. The midwife was my aged grandmother. My mother was pregnant for seven months, and with my grandmother's help, she gave birth to me.

Grandmother picked me up, who was still in my infancy, and when she saw that I had a pair of clear, watery, blue eyes, she was so happy that she immediately started to tell me fortune telling my mother that my fate was incomplete and that I was doomed to die in seven days.

My mother immediately fainted. I was not the only guy in the fourth hall, my dad was the second oldest, there was no money in the house, my dad only married my mom when he was thirty. With me at the age of thirty-seven, I could be considered the son of an old man. I have three brothers, and even if I die, the old man won't feel sorry for me.

But my grandmother loved me, she said that I was born with a Yin Yang Eye, she waited for her entire life, and finally waited for her own offspring to produce a grandson who could inherit her legacy.

In order to let me avoid the calamity of seven words, my grandmother named Wu and named me Wu Qia. Wu character and no homonym, Qi and seven homonyms, the profound meaning of the name is that there is no seven. My parents had no doubt about what my grandmother had said, so they agreed.

The first time I saw a ghost was when I was seven years old, before I went to school. The first time there was a ghost in the village, and I almost lost my life.

I remember the three older brothers, jealous that my grandmother favored me and always bullied me. One afternoon, the three brothers said they wanted to bring me to a fun place with a playful smile on their faces. Back then, they were still young, and didn't have as many schemes as the three brothers.

So, the fun part of the brothers' talk was that there were dozens of ancestral shrines in the middle of the village, where ancestral tablets were kept. If an old man were to die, he would stop his cultivation there and take care of things. He had to burn some paper money to pay respects to his ancestors on New Year's Day. However, the children of the village were most afraid of entering the ancestral temple, because in the hearts of children, it was a haunted house, a source of terror.

My three brothers would usually ignore me, so the lonely me could only play with my grandmother's little black cat. The three brothers finally agreed to play with me, saying that as long as I stayed in the ancestral hall for an hour, they would prove that I was not a coward and that they would bring me wherever they went in the future. Under their nagging, I nodded in agreement.

I pushed open the ancestral hall's wooden door and hesitantly looked back at the three elder brothers who were rushing me before running in. This wasn't the first time I had entered that place, as every year, on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, my grandma would bring me back to pay my respects to the ancestors. Be it day or night, the interior was dark and gloomy, giving off a suffocating feeling, making one's entire body feel uncomfortable.

When I entered the inner part of the ancestral hall, there was still a 30-watt red light bulb hanging from the ceiling. When the wind blew, the light bulb would shake the shadow of a dozen beams.

I pointed to the coffin and asked my grandmother, meaning to say why there was a coffin in the ancestral hall. After my grandmother understood what I meant, her face turned ashen, and she quickly reached out her hand to teach me a lesson. I cried in pain, but my grandmother ignored me and pulled me to my knees in front of the coffin with a wrinkled face, saying with a commanding tone and an apologetic tone, she kowtowed three times to the coffin and said:

"Child, you don't understand. Don't blame me, don't blame me …"

Just as my grandma finished speaking, a cold breeze blew by. After that, I could clearly hear that in the empty ancestral hall, other than my grandma and I, the voice of a young girl was heard.

"Not like a boy, who likes to cry like a ghost... "Hmph …"

Memories made my whole body feel creeped out. I looked at the ancestral tablet in the middle of the ancestral hall, which flashed with light. It was very scary. And then there was what I thought was the most horrible part, and at first I thought it was something on my mind, but then I asked the people who went in how they felt, and they all admitted that they did feel a little bit chilly after they went in.

In addition to the ancestral tablets, there was also a painting hanging on the wall of the Great Ancestral Temple that no one knew about. This painting was said to have existed since the ancestral hall, but no one knew where it came from.

The painting was hung on the right side of the ancestral hall and had a censer attached to it. Clearly, the painting was not a simple decoration.

The villagers all knew that it was a painting, but no one had seen its contents. Because the painting had been wrapped in a piece of red cloth. According to the older generation, they had seen it before. It was a Yin-Yang Eight Trigram Diagram.

There was a rule in the village that nothing in the ancestral hall was to be touched. Unless a natural disaster or the ancestral hall was rebuilt, it would offend the ancestors. Rural people's thoughts are more feudal, remember the teachings of ancestors, no one has ever had the wrong idea.

I stood in the middle of the ancestral hall with my eyes closed in fear, perhaps because of the concentration of my spiritual high school and the rumbling sound coming from my stomach. I admit that I am a glutton, and my grandparents at home always serve me less food than my three elder brothers, afraid that I will be poor.

After entering the ancestral hall for more than ten minutes, apart from feeling strangely quiet, nothing happened. Hunger made me bolder, and when I saw the large pile of fruits on the ancestral hall counter, I hesitated for a moment before climbing onto the counter. The child wasn't tall, so I couldn't find the plate of fruits on the counter. Four or five bright red apples fell on the ground and rolled around. I quickly caught up with the largest one and, as if it had a life of its own, teased me. I flew over and grabbed it, ignoring everything else, then sat down on the ground and picked up the apple with both hands and took a bite.

As I ate, I habitually looked behind me for something to lean on. I felt a chill on my back, something that really did exist. I turned my head in a daze, thinking to myself, I'm sitting in the middle of the ancestral hall, how can there be something to lean on?

At one glance, I was frightened. Why didn't I hear a sound when the coffin fell from the beam? I was leaning on it with my back.

Ah!" This time I actually cried out and retreated in a state of terror, my heart trembling as I stared at the coffin.

"Coward!" You dropped your apple. " A chill came from behind me, and a small white hand grabbed my hand and held it out to me, biting the apple that had fallen to the ground.

I turned around and saw a little girl wearing a beautiful fiery-red dress. Her waist-length hair was red and her face was delicate. Her ears were on her head and her tail was waving behind her bare feet.

"Why are you staring at me? You're so annoying!"

After saying that, she took two steps forward barefooted and forced the apple in her hand into my mouth. Just like that, I was forced to bite down on the apple. At that time, I was still young and didn't know what a monster was. I also knew a lot of little girls in the village.

"Do you want to speak? I can make you talk. " she asked, blinking like glass beads.

At first, I was stunned, but soon after, I nodded my head with all my might. Seeing that I had agreed, she leaned over and placed her face against mine, I could clearly see her exhaling a ball of red breath from her mouth. After that, I could feel a foreign object blocking my throat, causing it to disappear. You are... Who? Why... You... You have a tail, and your ears look so weird. "

"Hmm?" She looked at me blankly, then opened her little pink mouth and said, "Aren't you afraid of me? I am a monster! "

In my heart, I was muttering about what a monster was. I only knew that her appearance in the ancestral hall gave me a sense of security, so I replied, "You are the most adorable girl I've ever seen in the village. Why should I be afraid of you? You haven't told me your name yet."

I stood up and proudly told her what my grandmother had taught me.

"Pfft!" The little girl couldn't help but laugh as she covered her small mouth. "My mother and brother have always called me Little Fox. Little Fox is probably the name of your human race."

"You … What are you doing! "

I saw that Little Fox seemed to be laughing at me, so I angrily went up to her and pinched the beast ears on her head. "Why are your ears on her head? You look so funny."

Little Fox slapped my hand away and pouted with dissatisfaction. "You're the one who's funny. The first time I saw you, I saw you crying. You're so timid. You don't look like my brother at all. My brother is much braver than you. Hmph."

I was just about to ask Little Fox when the wooden door of the ancestral hall creaked. In the blink of an eye, the sun had set in the west and three tall shadows appeared on my body. "Fourth brother, where are you?"

The one who called me 'big brother' quickly turned around and waved his small hand in joy, "Big brother, I'm here!"

When the three brothers saw that I was fine standing alone in the middle of the ancestral hall, they looked at each other and entered the ancestral hall together, trembling with fear.

The three elder brothers walked up to me and looked at me with surprised expressions. The elder brother excitedly reached out his hands to press on my shoulders and said, "How can you speak? Aren't you a mute? "

I turned my body slightly, wanting to tell my three brothers that Little Fox was the only one who could make me speak. But when I turned my head, only the coffin with the hanging beam was left, and the coffin lid had been lifted a corner, Little Fox had long since disappeared.

"Fourth brother, to tell you the truth, are you pretending to be mute?" Big brother didn't believe me. He felt that I had cheated his grandma by pretending to be mute since I was young. No matter how hard I tried to explain it, my three elder brothers wouldn't believe me. Later on, I found out that my three elder brothers had tricked me into the ancestral hall to scare me, so they could teach me a lesson.

"If you're not telling the truth, I'll let you sleep in a coffin tonight!" The three elder brothers surrounded me and threatened me with unfriendly gazes.