They Say I Can Curse People (4)

Chapter 35

When the Old Lady heard words like “cursing people” and “fate,” she was truly so angry she laughed.

Her father-in-law had been a famous Bazi Master across ten villages and eight shops, and he had even taught her husband how to calculate such things. When her two children were born, their bone weights had been calculated; both were five liang¹. Her father-in-law had even said they would both be successful in the future.

The people here in Tonglin Town did not actually calculate birth charts using the Eight Characters method. Although the practitioners here were called Bazi Masters, everyone used the Bone Weight Fortune Telling² method established by Yuan Tiangang of the Tang Dynasty. Yuan Tiangang was from Yizhou, which is modern-day Chengdu, Sichuan. His method of fortune telling had a massive influence on the entire Southwest region. Consequently, the Bazi Masters from Yulan Town all the way to Xiangjin Town all used Bone Weight Fortune Telling.

Bone Weight Fortune Telling assigned a weight to the year, month, day, and hour of birth. The lowest was five mace³, and the highest was one liang and nine mace. Finally, all the weights were added together to get a total, which corresponded to a specific interpretation.

Anything over four liang was considered a decent fate.

Back then, both of the Old Lady’s children were five liang, which was a good destiny. Yet, they were gone just like that. Because of this, she didn’t believe in any of it.

“Since ancient times, I’ve only heard of people blaming the latrine because they couldn’t take a shit. This is the first time I’ve heard of someone blaming a curse because they didn’t have a son. Why don’t they just say it’s because they weren’t destined to have a son in their lives?”

Chang Fang couldn’t explain what was happening to her, but facing this Old Lady, she became much more talkative.

Listening to the Old Lady scold her parents, she felt on one hand that it was wrong, but on the other hand, she felt a sense of relief.

This uncontrollable relief made her loathe herself even more, so she quickly spoke up for her family again: “It’s not their fault. I really do curse people. I…”

“Oh, you’re quite proud of it, aren’t you? If you’re that capable, the King of Hell should step down and let you take over his job.” The Old Lady thought this girl had a screw loose.

“I’m not proud. I cursed my Second Aunt’s youngest son to death…” Chang Fang lowered her head, her nose stinging and her eyes turning red again.

“Did you feed him poison? If so, then that is your fault,” the Old Lady said.

“No…” Ever since that day, Chang Fang had been repeating this one thing. Perhaps deep down, she really wanted to say it: “That day, my Eldest Cousin took his younger brother to the pond to catch fish, and then his brother was gone…”

The Old Lady paused. Her heart felt a sharp, sudden pang, followed immediately by a curse: “Did you make them go?”

“No…”

The Old Lady asked, “And then they just claimed out of thin air that you cursed him to death?”

Before Chang Fang could speak, Huanhuan nodded vigorously: “Everyone says so!”

The Old Lady stamped her foot in anger: “A bunch of rotten-hearted dogs!”

She thought back to the past. When she and her husband suddenly lost two children, there were naturally people behind their backs comforting that murderous third brother. They said things like the couple must have offended some god, otherwise, out of three children, why would specifically their two children be gone? Some even remembered the children’s five-liang fate, saying that in a poor place like this, such a fate was bound to be cut short. Not a single kind word was spoken.

She truly hated it! The more she thought, the more she hated!

Fortunately, at that moment, the Old Lady’s husband returned. Frozen mushrooms had sprouted in the nearby fields, and he had gone to gather them.

Now he was carrying a basket of frozen mushrooms back, looking a bit puzzled by the two young strangers at his door.

“Old man, tell me if this isn’t hilarious. This girl says she killed her relative’s son. I thought it was some kind of poisoning or murder, or at the very least a case of watching someone die without helping. Turns out, she says she killed him just by having a cursed fate.”

“A fate that powerful is wasted here in our mountain nook. Has the government been notified? What does the state have to say about it?” the old man said with a straight face.

Chang Fang felt both ashamed and relieved. She stammered, “Second Aunt… Second Aunt…”

“Your Second Aunt’s family is simply afraid that her eldest son killed the younger one and that his reputation would be ruined. Since you were there, they just let you take the fall. And here you are, ‘Second Aunt… Second Aunt’…” the Old Lady said.

“That’s impossible. Second Aunt is a good person…”

“A good person, huh.” The Old Lady had seen all kinds of people. She was willing to temporarily believe the girl’s claim about her being a good person, so she asked—

“After that incident with your cousin, did he scold you often? Did he remind you every day that you killed his brother? And did your Second Aunt tell him to stop saying it?”

Chang Fang remembered the events of that time. In the beginning, her Second Uncle had been beating her kneeling Eldest Cousin with a bamboo switch, and the whole family was crying hysterically.

Later, they discovered it wasn’t the Eldest Cousin’s fault, but that she had cursed him to death. The Eldest Cousin wasn’t beaten anymore, but he would hit her and say she was a jinx who killed people.

One time, Second Aunt saw it. She cried as she hit the Eldest Cousin, but in the end, she still sent Chang Fang away.

She felt that Second Aunt had always been the person who treated her best, and that she had let Second Aunt down. Later, she was sent to Third Aunt’s house, and because of this incident, she often woke up crying from her dreams.

“So my Second Aunt is a very good person. When my Eldest Cousin bullied me, she even hit him.”

The Old Lady replied, “Then she still has a sliver of a conscience. She clearly knew her eldest son caused the younger one’s death, yet she let you carry that reputation. Then, seeing that her eldest son felt no guilt and instead pushed everything onto you, she got angry and hit her own son.”

The Old Lady saw through it all.

To many adults, this was something that could be seen through at a glance. They probably thought that since the family had already lost a child, and since this girl didn’t matter much—her own parents didn’t even raise her, and she relied entirely on these relatives—no one would ever expose the truth.

“It wasn’t like that…”

“Then why did she hit her eldest son?”

“Anyway, it’s not like that! I just have a fate that kills people! They even found a Bazi Master to look at it, and this is my fate!” This time, Chang Fang was truly angry. She instinctively rejected the idea that she hadn’t cursed anyone to death. It was as if she were searching for her own faults to prove that others treated her this way not because they didn’t love her, but because she had made a mistake—a terrible mistake.

The Old Lady, a woman who looked down on everyone in Tonglin Town, felt at this moment that this girl was truly miserable.

The girl was so anxious she was stomping her feet, insisting the Old Lady was wrong. “You don’t know, you just don’t know. She isn’t that kind of person. This is just my fate…”

The Old Lady had rarely misjudged a person in all her years. Seeing the girl so stubbornly set in her ways, her own temper flared up. “Come, come, come. Tell me your birth details. I want to hear exactly how much of a jinx you are! I want to see if just hearing it is enough to kill a person!”

Chang Fang refused to speak.

Huanhuan had been listening to her sister argue. Although she was young, she had lived under the roofs of others for many years and understood one thing: her sister believed she had cursed people to death, but the old woman thought otherwise.

So, Huanhuan hurriedly said, “Sister, hurry and tell her! Hurry and tell her!”

Chang Fang remained silent.

Huanhuan could only think hard. “Sister is seventeen years old today…”

The Old Lady prepared to write it down.

Chang Fang couldn’t allow that. She couldn’t quite explain what she wanted, but she certainly couldn’t let a wrong birth date be recorded. Thus, she gave her actual birth details.

The Old Lady never lost an argument. She had no children of her own, so she usually didn’t let anyone give her grief.

Today, she was trying to talk sense into this girl and failing to get through. She couldn’t swallow this insult.

She turned to the sisters and said, “You two sit right there and don’t move. Old man, get inside!”

“Old man, where is that bone-weighting book of yours? I refuse to believe I can’t convince her today.”

“She’s just a child and doesn’t understand the almanac. We’ll find a way to explain it to her properly.”

The old man knew what she intended to do. He searched the cabinet and quickly found it at the very bottom.

“1984, 3rd month, 26th day, Hour of the Rat…”

“1984, the Year of Jiazi⁴, one tael and two mace. The weight for the third month is one tael and eight mace.”

The Old Lady, driven by her competitive spirit, stared until her eyes were nearly blind as she continued searching.

“26 is here, one tael and eight mace.”

Even before adding them up, the old couple began to feel that something was slightly off.

“There is still the Hour of the Rat.”

“How much is the Hour of the Rat?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find it in a second.”

“The Hour of the Rat is one tael and six mace…”

The Old Lady couldn’t help but remark, “This isn’t right. Why do I feel like none of these numbers are small?”

In many cases, the weights for the year, month, day, or hour were only a few mace. Reaching one tael was considered quite good, but now it seemed none of the numbers were low.

The old couple hurried to add the numbers, finally arriving at a total-

Six Taels and Four Mace.

They flipped to the corresponding fate-

When the old couple saw the description of this fate, they were truly shocked.

Chang Fang and her sister were in the clearing not far from the door, sorting through the Lime Mushrooms and picking off the pine needles. The old couple had no interest in Lime Mushrooms. Every year, they didn’t even bother to pick the Sanba Mushrooms or winter mushrooms behind their house, so they naturally wouldn’t pick these.

But the sisters seemed to love them, carefully picking off the stuck leaves and mud and setting them aside.

The old couple now knew her fate. In truth, neither of them believed in this much, but the girl did.

So, the Old Lady sat down beside her.

The old man asked, “Chang Fang, the birth details your family gave you, are you certain it’s the Hour of the Rat on the 26th day of the 3rd month, 1984?”

“Yes.”

“Is that the lunar calendar⁵?”

“Yes.”

The Old Lady said, “Can you read?”

Chang Fang had attended school, so she was naturally literate.

“You should look for yourself.”

Chang Fang’s hands trembled as she took the yellowed paper. She had known since childhood that her fate was bad, but she didn’t know exactly what was written in the books.

Then… she recognized the words, but she couldn’t quite understand them.

The old man said, “Match your birth year, month, day, and hour to the numbers following them. Then add all the numbers together. Once you have the total, flip to the back, and there will be a corresponding fate.”

Chang Fang recited her birthday. This was the hour she had entered this world, and because of it, she had been sent away as a child. She had caused the brother her mother was supposed to have to become a sister, and she had jinxed her Second Aunt’s son to death. She carried a monstrous sin…

Chang Fang hated herself, hated her birth date, and hated that she had been born.

She imitated the adults who had read her fortune years ago, interpreting her own birth. She expected to see words like “Lone Star of Heavenly Terror” or “ill-fated.”

Her heart pounded violently.

She flipped to the section for Six Taels and Four Mace.

There stood the prophecy that had accompanied her birth-

“This destiny possesses authority beyond compare, sitting in the high hall in purple robes and golden belt⁶. Who can match such glory, wealth, and rank? With jade and gold piled high, filling the storehouse to the brim.”

Translator’s Notes