Winter Solstice, 1998. Tianjia Village in the Qinba Mountains.
After a night of difficult labor, the second son of the Tian family’s wife gave birth to a baby boy with a pair of eerie eyes: the left was lifeless and murky, while dark gold swirled in the right.
That night, the century-old locust tree swayed without a breeze, the village dogs fell deathly silent, and the kerosene lamp went out and relit three times.
Old Tian, the temple keeper, counted on his fingers, and his face changed dramatically.
“Conceived during Qingming, born at Winter Solstice. Seven months can live, eight months cannot... This is a ‘yin-born child with yang eyes, a form that invites the envy of ghosts’!”
The newborn grandson of the Tian family became irresistible prey to wandering ghosts and spirits.
To protect their bloodline, Grandma Tian traveled a hundred li to gather cloth from a hundred households and sew it into a protective vest.
Eight “Vajras” who carried coffins stood guard in the courtyard with butcher’s knives and hatchets, drinking through the night.
And in the dilapidated Xuanding Temple north of the village, the old Maoshan Taoist who had not descended the mountain in twenty years finally lifted his long-sealed peachwood sword...
As the midnight watchman’s clapper sounded,
whispers crept closer through the darkness. A Taoist claiming to be the apprentice-grandson of Master Four-Eyes arrived to pass on his master’s arts.
Your name and content have nothing to do with your four eyes.