I Am a Cryer

When my mother was seven months pregnant with me, she went to the Hun River to wash clothes and became hysterical when she came back. The midwife said that I would not cry when I was born, that I was covered in bruises and looked like a stillborn fetus, and that the umbilical cord was not cut, but cut by myself. It was my grandpa who used three life-extending incense sticks and knelt in front of the hall to kowtow all night long, and then he pulled my life back from the Palace of Hell. I am alive, but my mother is gone. Hemorrhage, blood flowed all over. Grandpa put me into a big cotton-padded jacket and said with a sullen expression: "I'll take care of you. I have a tough life, let's see who can defeat whom." My grandfather's surname was Ma, and he was the most famous Ma Immortal from all over the country. He was the one who offered sacrifices to the Hu family. When I was six years old, I was kneeling in the mourning hall and heard the person in the coffin talking to me - my grandfather said that I was born to cry in the spirit, with a half-yin and half-yang fate, and was born with yin and yang. Keeping vigil, mourning, clearing the way, saying unfinished words for the deceased, and lighting the way to hell for the deceased. From then on, I learned how to play from my grandfather. Invite gods, draw talismans, look at incense, walk in the yin, learn everything one by one. Hang the open money around your neck, hold the ever-burning lantern in your hand, and put the red cloth on your head - bow your head when you see the living, open your eyes when you see the dead. I watched over an old lady who passed away on her deathbed, and I spoke for the grandmother of the Zhao family who was ripped off by her daughter-in-law. I cried over Zhou Xiao'e who had been made into "medicine" under the old locust tree, and I also sent Xiao Suo on the road after being trapped for countless years in a tree hole in the back mountain. I cleared the aisle for the Meng family's father, and stayed at the funeral for the Qian family's grandma—she kept her eyes open when she left, and she didn't close them until I lit a permanent lamp. Grandpa said that the voice of a weeping person is the voice of a dead person. During the wake, the lamp must not be extinguished and the incense must not be cut off.