Nine Ghosts Snatch the Soul

There is a mountain in the territory of Huzhou, Zhejiang, named Modu Mountain. In the late Spring and Autumn period, a couple was ordered by King Helü of Wu to forge a sword there, but the gold was too hard to melt. After three years, the wife of the swordsmith was forced to jump into the furnace to sacrifice herself for the sword, and finally helped her husband forge a pair of precious swords: Gan Jiang and Mo Ye. The swordsmith presented the Mo Ye sword to King Helü of Wu. However, King Helü blamed him for being too slow in forging the swords and beheaded him on the top of the mountain. Later, King Helü ordered people to dig for gold and forge hooks on this mountain. A wicked hookmaker killed two children and used their blood to forge a pair of deadly chasing soul hooks: Wu Hong and Hu Ji. Although King Helü had passed away, the four restless souls still haunted Modu Mountain, making it an exceptionally evil place of the Nine Yin Ghosts with thick blood and heavy malevolent energy.

Over two thousand years later, in Liu Family Village of Shuhe County, northern Jiangsu, a baby was born in the chilly weather of October. The midwife picked up the baby from the bed, but she was so scared that she dropped him before she could take a closer look. "Oh dear, this baby is a white tooth ghost-" The baby had grown teeth in the womb, and rural people believed that such a child was inauspicious, and would be afflicted with countless diseases and be difficult to raise. Even if they survived to adulthood, they would consume all the family's blessings and bring calamities upon their relatives. The midwife's trembling caused the baby's head to hit the bedside, leaving a three-inch-long scar that bled profusely, almost killing him on the spot. Fortunately, the child's parents were more enlightened and did not believe in those superstitious ghost stories. They rescued the baby in time, otherwise, we would not be able to tell this story. Due to his difficult birth, the child had a scar on his forehead, and his parents named him Liu Yihen.

I am the unfortunate child Liu Yihen. I have had a life full of misfortunes since birth. The fortune teller said that I was born with the five evils and nine ghosts, and predicted that I would not live past the age of 18. But my parents managed to raise me until I was 12 years old, and then something even more terrifying happened. That was the year I saw a dead person for the first time.

It was none other than Little Hutoo. It was dusk and the sky was still red. I was tending the cows at the village entrance when I heard a commotion. Looking up, I saw a group of people gathered near the smelly ditch on the west side of the village. They were making a lot of noise and I didn't know what had happened. I was curious and so I tied up the old yellow cow and ran over to see what was going on.

As I got closer, I saw that almost the entire village had gathered there. Men, women, old and young, they were all crowded around the smelly ditch. It was quite a spectacle. In the middle of the crowd, there was a woman crying and wailing. 'My daughter, my little Hutoo, why did you have to go like this? How can I go on living? Waaahhh...' The woman was quite old, and I recognized the name 'Little Hutoo' that she was calling out.

Little Hutoo was a little girl who lived at the west end of the village. Her full name was Hu Tutoo and she was only five or six years old. She was a pale and skinny girl, with a high-pitched voice and a timid look in her eyes. She always seemed weak and helpless, and gave people the impression that she was very timid. I used to play with her a lot and she had a very sweet voice. She always called me 'Big Brother Yihen', and I nicknamed her 'Little Hutoo'. Just a few days ago, we went to the fields together to roast sweet potatoes, and she was still full of life and energy. But now, what had happened to her? Could she be the one who was in trouble?

As soon as I thought about these things, I became very worried and asked around, only to find out that Little Muddled had actually died. She had fallen into a stinky drain and drowned! This situation shocked me, and I squeezed my way into the crowd to see what was going on.

Then, for the first time, I saw the body of a dead person. It was a strange sight because I never imagined that a dead person would look like that. Little Muddled was wearing her usual outfit, a light yellow jacket, brown open-crotch pants, and a pair of faded plastic sandals on her small feet. Her five toes were white and peeling from being soaked in water, like a layer of shredded paper.

Her whole body was soaked, and her clothes were sticking to her wrinkled body. Her hair was messy, and her pigtails were long gone. Many stray hairs stuck to her small face, which exposed only half of it, so I couldn't see her eyes, only her mouth. Her mouth was shaped strangely, wide open, which allowed me to see clearly what was inside her mouth. Her tongue was sticking out, and there was a lot of mud and sand in her throat. This made me feel like she was struggling and wanted to scream out loud, but halfway through, she was blocked by the mud and sand.

Other than that, Little Muddled's appearance was not much different from usual. If I had to say what was different, it might be because she was lying on the ground, and her legs were slightly apart, so I could see what was inside her open-crotch pants. It was a bright pink and red flesh with a thin seam in the middle, covered in water marks, shiny and glittering.

When I saw all this, my first reaction was shock. I couldn't believe that such a lively person, who used to talk and laugh, had died like this. Many people around me had the same feeling, so the people around us were all sighing. Little Muddled's parents were sitting next to her body, crying hysterically, their voices hoarse. Especially her mother, who looked frightening with her hair scattered all over the place.

Not long after, everyone saw the parents of little Hutoo crying uncontrollably. People stepped forward to console them, and the elders urged them to bury the child quickly to prevent the body from decomposing.

At that moment, for some inexplicable reason, I felt compelled to move forward and see if Hutoo had really died. I couldn't believe that a healthy person could die so suddenly.

As I was moving forward, someone behind me suddenly pushed me, causing me to stumble and fall forward onto Hutoo's body. I even touched her hand, which was icy cold. Her hand was tightly clenched into a fist, which was clearly due to her struggle for breath while drowning.

To my surprise, when my hand touched hers, her fist suddenly loosened, and she grabbed my wrist with her other hand. It happened so quickly that only I noticed it, and no one else paid any attention.

I was shocked and couldn't help shouting, "She's not dead yet, she moved, did you see that?!"

"Get out of here, don't stir up trouble! After being in the water for a day, if she can survive, she's not human, she's a god!"

At that moment, several older people scolded me and grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me out of the crowd.

Afterwards, they brought a mat and wrapped up Little Huto's body before carrying it away. I stood there, staring blankly as they took Little Huto away, my mind in chaos. I couldn't help but feel that she wasn't really dead; otherwise, who grabbed my wrist? However, since everyone said that Little Huto was dead, there was nothing I could do. I ended up walking alone towards where the cows were tied up, preparing to lead them home. By then, the sun had set, and the world was dark. As I walked, I felt something cold and sticky on my right wrist. I raised my wrist to take a look, and what I saw made my heart skip a beat: there were five black bloody fingerprints on my wrist!