What do you think of the first chapter?
Chapter 1: Born Into a Strange World
Cao had a long dream in which he watched the reel of his life play out from birth, until he saw his mother's face twist and contort, her lips parting to let out a scream. But he was startled to find he could no longer hear anything at all. The last thing he felt was a hot tear falling onto his face from his mother's eyes. He tried to rise, but white, glowing threads began wrapping around him until his consciousness went still.
...
\*A powerful beam of light.\*
Cao was startled by the light and shut his eyes — but he had barely closed them for two seconds when he felt enormous hands wrapping him in a red silk cloth. He thought to himself, \*"Wait a moment — what in hell is this? Have I been reborn?"\*
He opened his eyes and saw those hands carrying him toward a tall man with a long beard, strange robes, and a smiling face. The midwife who had delivered him said, "Congratulations, my lord — heaven has blessed you with a plump, healthy boy." The man replied, "You are a bearer of good fortune, Huang. Here — this is your reward for the blessed luck you've brought us." The midwife, Huang, replied in shock at the amount of gold in the pouch, "No, no, my lord, this is far more than someone as lowly as I deserve — I cannot accept all of this." The man smiled, took the pouch, and pressed it into her hands regardless. "You deserve it, truly," he said. Huang thanked him and asked leave to exit the room.
The man began studying the features of his firstborn's face, which resembled his own so closely, and said, a smile filling his face, "My dear, at last — at last God has blessed us and granted us this child. Thank you so much for carrying the fruit of our love after all these years." The mother replied, exhausted, sweat covering her brow and her hair sticking to her face, "Praise God, my love, for this blessing. We have been granted one who will carry our blood into the future."
The father said, holding his child, filled with excitement, "Tonight I will hold a feast and we will honor the ancestors for this blessing, and invite the whole family to celebrate this joyous occasion." She said shyly, "Yes, my love — our ancestors have blessed us with this gift, and we must celebrate. Please, hand me my son so I may see him."
The father moved toward the mother and handed her the child. She began gazing intently at her baby's face, whom she had waited for so desperately to end her loneliness in this house. She laughed, remembered something, and began unfastening her top.
Cao saw what his mother was doing and began to feel embarrassed, his temperature rising. \*"You — wait, woman, what are you doing?!"\* But a moment later he remembered that without his mother's milk he would not grow healthy — and besides, he wanted to experience this feeling again after twenty years without any such closeness. He began smiling and laughing wickedly, thinking to himself, \*"Sorry, Father, but I have no other choice."\* He took hold of his mother's breast and lunged toward it.
As Cao began nursing, the father remembered something and said to his wife, "What name should we give him? Have you thought of a name you'd like to call your son?" She replied, puzzled, "I haven't really thought of a name — you name him, my love." After a moment of thought, a bright smile spread across the father's face, and he said to her, "What do you think of calling him Ling Hua?" She nodded, smiling, and said, "A beautiful name," lowering her head toward her newborn and saying to him, "Ling Hua."
...
\~Day and night alternated, and ten years flew by like the wind.
On a mountainside rich with plants, trees, and cranes soaring in the sky, a woman in her early thirties, her face flushed red, stood holding a bamboo cane and calling out forcefully: \*"Ling Hua! Ling Hua! Where are you, you little rascal! Your father and I have truly failed at raising you!"\* She walked toward the stream, cursing her little one, and when she arrived she found her son swimming in the stream without a care in the world, enjoying himself in the water because of the heat, mimicking his mother's angry expression as he swam and saying, \*"Ling Hua, come here. Ling Hua, don't do that. Don't eat that. What a boring mother, really — I wish I'd been born into Aunt Bai's family, she'd be showering me with delicious peach candy right now. I really have no luck in this world."\*
All this mimicry was happening right under Beifeng's nose, and her face began to redden with fury. She grabbed him hard by the ear and yanked him out of the water, saying, with every demon of the earth now occupying her thoughts, "\*I'm\* boring, you ungrateful wretch?"
Ling Hua turned, wishing this were a dream and that he hadn't heard that particular voice, and replied, terrified, "I— I didn't say that." The mother's fury grew at her son's blatant lie, and she snapped, "Yes, you did, you wretch!" Ling Hua's tension mounted, his words stumbling, all the confidence he'd had while imitating her evaporating. "Maybe— maybe it was the stream that said it." The mother stared in disbelief at her son's foolishness. "The stream?" He knew he'd made a mistake blaming the stream, but there was no way back now, so he said, "Yes." She replied, incredulous, barely containing her fury, "And does the stream know how to talk?" Ling Hua added, his legs now trembling and his teeth chattering, "Well— clearly it's smarter than me."
That was the final straw. Feng screamed, "Today I will break both your legs for this insolence — I swear nothing will save you from my hands today except the ancestor himself!" And she began striking him hard with the bamboo cane, saying, "This one's because I'm boring, and this one's because I failed to raise you, and this one's for skipping school." He began wailing, snot and tears mixing on his face. "Please, Mother, I won't do it again — I'll be a pig in my next life if I do!" When he saw his pleading wasn't working, he began calling out to his father: "Father! Save me from your wife's claws! Hurry, Father, I can't take it anymore!"
In the midst of this beautiful scene, the father was hiding among the surrounding bushes, secretly egging the mother on — though he couldn't deny feeling for his son's plight. But if he intervened, he'd be the one to suffer for it.
No relief came, until the father noticed the atmosphere shift and heard the rustle of trees accompanied by a deep voice: "Let the child go, Feng. He doesn't deserve all this — he's had more than enough punishment." The bamboo cane, which had been aimed at Ling Hua's backside, froze mid-air. Feng turned toward the voice and saw a tall man with a powerful aura, snow-white hair, and a few wrinkles on his face, his expression full of pity and affection for Hua. He looked toward Hua and said, "And you... what have you done this time?"
The father emerged from the bushes and told her the ancestor was right, Feng — let him go, he's had his punishment.
So Feng let him run to the ancestor, and he embraced him. "Thank God you're here, my ancestor — if it weren't for you, all my bones would be broken today." He turned his face toward his father and thought to himself, \*"That wretch — he was watching me get beaten by his wife and just stood there. He really is a bad father."\* When the father saw his son's look, he turned his face away and began admiring the scenery, saying, "This little vagabond has exposed me — sorry, son, but there's nothing I could have done."