The Eighteenth of the Twelfth Month

Hearing Li Huowang say this, Wu Qing, half his face still swollen, gave a cold snort. He shifted his stool, turning his back on the young man who had just walked out of the western wing room.

"Hah. Makes me look petty, doesn't it, Brother Li? Must have cost you a pretty penny to talk him around, didn't it?"

He strode straight into the main hall, grabbed a pale-yellow cornbread from the bowl, and took a bite.

"Hey! You little brat! Is that how you talk? Did your mother raise you to have no manners, or did she just not raise you at all?"

Backed by Li Huowang, Wu Qing's demeanor was markedly different from the night before, when he had been tied up.

Hearing this old man dare to insult his mother again, the anger he could barely contain erupted. With a sharp clang! he drew the sword that could cut through iron like mud, leveling it at Wu Qing's goatee. "Say that again! I dare you!"

"What's this? What's this!" Wu Qing's six sons and eight grandsons set down their bowls, rolled up their sleeves, and swarmed forward, bristling with menace.

"Screw your grandmother! You think I'm scared of you? C'mon! Try it! I've got hundreds of kills under my belt! A few more won't make a difference! Come on! One more step!"

Facing the hostile stares around him, an intense irritation surged through him instinctively, his heartbeat hammering faster.

"Put the sword down. Go stand outside the door. Now."

A sharp command cut through the tense atmosphere.

Seeing Li Huowang's expression harden, he knew his senior brother was genuinely angry. He shot a contemptuous glare at the Wu family gathered around, sheathed his sword, and turned to walk toward the entrance.

From behind, Li Huowang's voice reached his ears. "Elder, young men have no hair on their lips. They all like to brag and talk tough. It's all bluster. This kid hasn't killed a single person."

"Hmph, do you think I can't see right through that hollow bravado, boy? Little whelps like him, thinking they're something special. Just a greenhorn with yellow hair. I've eaten more salt than he's eaten rice."

Hearing this, he spun around in fury. So what if he was young? Was fourteen not old enough to be a man? This old geezer just liked throwing his age around.

But when he felt Li Huowang's icy gaze land on him, his heart lurched. He scrambled out the door.

It was early morning. A thin white mist hung over the village paths, the air bracingly fresh. He stretched his arms wide in a lazy yawn, then rolled up his patched sleeves, crouched down, and started watching the ants.

"Hey, monk. Whatcha kneeling for?"

He stood up, smoothed his yellow robe, and folded his hands piously before the white-haired girl in front of him. "Amitabha. Good, good. This humble monk is observing a meditation on zen."

"Heh heh, you're funny, monk. Just like a little kid. Watching ants move their nest and calling it 'contemplating zen.'"

Looking at the girl's gently trembling white eyelashes, the monk was momentarily distracted, as if remembering something.

But snapping back to himself, he immediately bowed his head and began reciting a sutra, no longer daring to meet the gaze of this girl who could so easily shake his Buddhist resolve.

"You keep on with your zen contemplation. See you around."

Watching the girl enter the Wu family compound, he noticed many unfamiliar faces inside the yard. "The village chief Wu has guests? How come I hadn't heard anything about it before today?"

The monk stood where he was, staring at these strange-looking outsiders. Then he slapped his own forehead.

"What's wrong with me? Since when did I become a gossipy old hen, prying into other people's family affairs? A monk should not cling to worldly matters. I should go recite my sutras."

He turned swiftly, spinning his prayer beads, and headed back toward his temple.

As he walked, he spotted a pile of dung on the ground. Before he could get close, a kid carrying a bamboo basket on his back rushed over, scooped up the cow pat, and tossed it into his basket. "That's my cow's dung! It's mine!"

Upon hearing this, the monk panicked. "What do you mean, your cow's dung? I was about to say it was my cow's dung! No way! That cow dung is mine!"

The kid pulled down his eyelid and made a face at him. "Shame, shame, shame! An old man as old as you, fighting a kid over cow dung?"

The old monk's face flushed red. He raised his walking stick to teach this disrespectful brat a lesson.

Seeing the kid make another face and run off, he let out a wry chuckle. "Look at me, all grown up, and still getting into a huff with a child."

Leaning on his cane, he slowly made his way to the small yard where he had lived his entire life. He sat down gingerly in his rocking chair, quietly watching the leaves fall from the tree in the yard, reminiscing about his ordinary life.

Just then, a teasing voice came from the doorway. "Old bones! You're eighty-four this year! You know what they say—at seventy-three and eighty-four, the King of Hell comes knocking without a summons! So, when you gonna go? Hahaha!"

"Hey! You old bastard! Always trying to jinx me! Just wait till I get you back!"

But just as he was about to sit up from the rocking chair, a feeling came over him. His time had come. He had often heard the old folks say there was a premonition before death. He never thought it would be real.

He felt everything around him growing smaller and smaller. He seemed to be rising, his body light and airy, feeling wonderful. "So... this is what dying feels like?"

But in the next instant, everything around him suddenly twisted and warped. Even his own, deeply wrinkled face contorted rapidly.

It shifted into the face of a teenager, then into a monk with ordination scars on his head, and then struggled to transform into an old woman.

After shifting rapidly several times, his face finally settled back into the form of a young boy.

Staring at the familiar yet strange white walls before him, he froze. The three ultimate questions blazed in his mind.

"Who am I? Where is this? What was I doing?"

Just then, two people in hospital gowns walked past the window beside him, chatting as they went.

"I keep telling you guys, I have a neurological disorder, not a psychiatric illness. 'Neurological' means there's a pathological change in the central or peripheral nervous tissue. Psychiatric illnesses are totally different! Neurological disorders get stigmatized because people lump them together with psychiatric ones! Look—take little Li over there. He's the real psychiatric case. Babbling nonsense and hurting himself every day."

"Hey, cut it out now. The kid's pitiful enough. Striking down with a big illness at such a young age."

"You think Li Huowang could jump up and cuss me out? Hah, I'd almost welcome it. I'd rather take a cussing."

"...Li Huowang?"

In that instant, Li Huowang remembered everything.

After rapidly reviewing everything that had just happened in his mind, he immediately understood it all.

The confusion on Li Huowang's face was swiftly replaced by a savage snarl. He let out a furious roar.

"I was never some monk! And I was never some old man! I am Li Huowang! The Eighteenth of the Twelfth Month stole my name!!"