The Drought Demon Baby Farms, and Beasts Bow at Her Feet!

After three years of severe drought, the people of Shanao Village were so hungry they resorted to eating dirt. The hunter Chen Laosan and his wife, Madam Liu, went into the mountains to set traps. At the bottom of a pit, cracked like a tortoise shell, they found a three-year-old girl. The couple was so poor they counted every grain of rice before cooking, and so stingy they kept track of every piece of firewood. Still, they took the child home and named her Chen Xiaoman. They had no idea that the girl they found was the drought demon who had been offered up on an altar ten thousand years ago. The eldest uncle’s family came to steal their food, cursing, “A bastard child thinks she can eat the Chens’ food?” Xiaoman tossed a thousand-catty stone mill three zhang with one hand, smashing half the courtyard wall. Then she licked her fingers. A pack of wolves descended from the back mountain and surrounded the village. The villagers wanted to sacrifice her to ward off evil. The wolf king walked past everyone and knelt at her feet. The village wells dried up and the ponds cracked. She stamped her foot in her family’s hillside field, and a spring burst forth. By morning, the crops bowed beneath their own weight. From then on, people knelt outside this family’s gate by day, begging for a way to survive, while beasts squatted there at night to guard the house. When corrupt officials and grain merchants tried to make a move, the beasts of the mountains lined up on their own. Only Xiaoman knew that every time she summoned water, the earth beneath her feet dried out a little more. She also knew she was all bark and no bite. “It’s not like I feel sorry for you. If you die, who’ll steam my white buns?”