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As mentioned earlier, my younger brother, Wenyin died at the age of 6.Originally, he was in good health.
He liked to play in pond naked.When he was 6, he had chicken pox, and then recovered.One day, I took him fishing in a pond in Xialishu.A lot of the fish were too small, and not very easy to catch.I told my younger brother to sit on a fish basket and not to go anywhere.That day, he seemed very quiet, very obedient to me, sitting naked on the fish basket right in the sun without a word.After a long time without a fish on the hook I put up the fishing rod and said: “Let’s go home!” He didn’t reply.As I pulled him up, he was still silent.After I let go of his hand, he immediately collapsed and fell into the ditch.I jumped in immediately, picked him up and ran home.When we passed the church, which was about 200 meters away from my home, he’d gone limp, with his eyes closed and his face pale.I called his name and slapped him twice, to no avail.His eyes remained closed.I was scared, and sped up, yelling for my mom even before I got home.
Mother hurriedly put my younger brother to bed.The adults said he was overheated.
Some fanned him, some wiped his face.Mother told me to go to Zhangshanwu and invite the doctor.It was seven or eight li .I ran all the way to get the doctor.The doctor said he was overheated too.After treatment and pills, my brother woke up.After that, my brother kept fainting now and then.
My father was very superstitious.He insisted that my brother was possessed by the wild cat spirit.He could only get better after the wild cat spirit was driven away.My father invited witches to exorcise the ghost from my brother.The witches burned incense in my home, chanting and burning spells tags, but my brother didn’t get better.He died anyway.I was so sad; I always thought it was my fault that my brother died.
My father said the wild cat spirit was still lingering in the house.It was going to hurt the rest of the family.That night, he invited a Taoist priest and master to set up an altar in the house to drive out the ghosts.The priest held a sword and a picture symbol, half rolling his eyes, chanting spells, burning spell tags, bugling the horn, and flailing the whip.My father was told to light firecrackers in front of the house to drive away the ghosts too.I was hiding at the corner of the back door, trembling with fear.
Perhaps it was the days of fatigue, tension, sadness, and panic, but I got very weak.After the Taoist priest drove away the wild cat spirit, I became sick.I couldn’t stop trembling while lying in bed.My dad was scared.He believed the wild cat spirit must have possessed me.
My father had heard somewhere that there was a small temple in Jinhua where the gods would drive away the wild cat spirits.Early the very next morning, he put me on a wheelbarrow and carried me to Jinhua himself.We arrived at Fu Village in the evening and stayed in an ancestral temple, where a pair of stone lions guarded the door.My dad said they would guard me against the wild cat spirit.
The next day, we left when it was still dark.When we finally found the temple, which was too small for even a child to get in.My father sent me inside and told me that I had to come out in the middle of the night without making a sound, and left my two shoes there.
This night, the wind howled in the dark.I was lying on a bed of straw in a daze.I was scared yet dared not speak.All I longed for was that my father would come to carry me away.I didn’t know how long I had waited.My father came to get me.I followed his words, bare feet and keeping silent, tightly clinging to his back.My father carried me down the mountain under the cover of darkness.
We arrived at Xiaoshun after dawn.My father told me we’d take the train back so the wild cat spirit wouldn’t catch up with me.The clattering sound would drive the wild cat spirit away.I was half-convinced, but it was my first time to take the train.I was so excited about the train that I believed what my father said.“Crash! Crash!” The trees and fields outside my window flashed back.Before I knew it, I was getting better.
But when I returned to Dongyang, the ghastly scene of driving away the ghosts in my house occurred to me.I didn’t want to go home.My father sent me to Xiwu Village, where my grandmother lived.Although my grandmother had died, my uncle and my aunt treated me very well.I stayed there for over one and a half months until I got better.It was the wild cat spirit that took my younger brother away and made me sick, which cause my absence in school for an entire year all together.I remember this particularly clearly.