The king of the dead had just discovered that he had not fully got his revenge on the old scholar. Upon an examination of his victim it became clear to him that his soul had escaped and was occupying another being. In a fit of rage he stormed through the gateways of hell towards the pit of fire where his minions resided.
He stood looking down on them all. His face was a dull grey colour and his eyes bent his skull inwards projecting haunting, bright blue indents amongst his withering face. Parts of his flesh on his cheeks weren’t fully attached to the bone and so hung loosely in a sickening manner. His mouth acted as a haven for every imaginable kind of gum and tooth decay. The few teeth he had remaining were black stumps, one of which, was literally hanging out of its socket by a short nerve thread. He wore a long grey linen cloak over his body and his arms which were little more than skeletal poked out from underneath the fabric. He did not have legs, he simply hovered across the floor but from underneath his cloak there was always a dusty cloud which obviously was some by product of his movement. As he entered the area the demons who had been joking around with each other all snapped to attention sensing his anger.
He grabbed a small fire demon by the throat and ripped his head off with a burst of fire and fear before dispensing of his body onto the hard, stone floor. All the other demons fled from his presence fearing for their own miserable lives. However, shortly afterwards the king had calmed himself down. He sensed something significant had happened. He could feel it within, that the old scholar’s spirit was on the move again. He honed in on this supernatural feeling to see Dai with his wife, in bed together. The old scholar’s spirit that had been transferred to Dai was moving again, into the womb of Hao. A disturbing grin appeared in the corners of the king’s mouth as he hatched his plan.
* * *
That night Dai was taken in his sleep. Hao woke up to find him not breathing. Her devastation could not be described adequately in words but, little did she know, it was going to get even worse. She had been impregnated the night before and was now carrying Dai’s child with the spirit of the old scholar. The king of the dead had no business killing Hao but what he had planned was much, much worse.
That day Hao packed her things and left their home, she travelled to the other side of Beijing to her widowed mothers’ shack that was within another urban village. She asked to stay there and explained to her mother what had happened. That night neither of the women got a wink of sleep. There was a horrible sense that something was going to happen.
For the next nine months sleep became an unusual past time for Hao, who constantly sensed herself being watched. The king had his eye on her throughout her pregnancy and she had now become exhausted to an alarmingly dangerous level. Her mother had tried her best at looking after her but she did not expect her to live through labour. The day had finally come and Hao was weaker than ever but it was time for the baby to come.
The birth was one of the most horrific scenes her mother had ever witnessed. But, somehow, Hao and her healthy baby boy came out the other side. Once the six hours of labour had finally passed for the first time in nine months Hao felt like something good had happened. She was filled with a sense that things were going to be okay from now on. That this baby was going to help her through her grieving which had, so far, gotten the better of her. She felt undying love for her child and that first night she slept with him in her arms.
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