Between the new baby sister, the rainbows, and rumors of someone activating the Falling Dragon Stone, I became the hot new word of the village.

Zhao Jie ran into my house after school and visibly paused at the sight of Wen sitting on the floor. He shook his head and muttered, “Weird!” beneath his breath. This time I was sitting right next to her.

“Oh come on, she’s cute!” I told him. “Check this out,” I turned to Wen and give her a big goofy big brother smile. “Who am I?”

“Brother!” She said in a tiny voice and started to giggle.

“Who are you?” I asked in my best cartoon voice, even raising my hands in an ‘I don't know’ gesture.

“Sister!” She giggled.

When my dad came in holding several bags of clothes for her, she pointed at him and uttered a semblance of ‘daddy’ before standing up and wobbling towards him. She was cute.

At the time of the Spring Dragon Festival I was in my second year at the junior high school. That first weekend dad was away for a work project, leaving Wen, mom, and myself at home.

Mom was bustling about in the kitchen. When we got in her way one too many times she ordered us to the another room. I gathered my things and made sure to poke Wen as annoyingly as possible, whispering, “Come on.”

When we got to my room, I said, "I need to do my homework. You can play."

Sister Wen nodded and sat on the bed. She kept quiet and simply folded her hands on her lap.

Her mom abandoned her. My mom adopted her. If I were mean to her, she’d probably be really sad. I cast a look at her sitting silently on the bed. Heaving a sigh, I folded one of my notebook papers into an airplane. I tossed it her way and said, “Here, you can play with this. And anything else in here, just don’t break anything.”

She picked up the paper airplane and said, "Brother is studying. I won’t bother you. Bothering is naughty!"

I smiled at her from the desk. "Okay. I need to do my homework. After that, I’ll take you out to play."

Sister Wen nodded with a smile. She looked very hopeful.

Zhao Jie showed up again, giving my mom a very quick hello and then darting into my room. He sat on the bed next to Wen and offered her a piece of candy. “Xiao Wen, do you remember Brother Jie?” He asked in a creepy sweet voice.

She made an uncomfortable “Eeeeee” sound and looked to me for help.

I smiled and nodded at her. “If Brother Jie gives it to you, its okay to take it.”

Xiao Wen stretched her hand to take the candy and her face wrinkled into a smile as she popped it into her mouth.

“I wonder if she’s as close to mom and dad as she is to me now..” I thought, watching Zhao Jie tease her. “I even named her.”

During the second half of the semester, my parents finalized the deal on a plot of land on the other side of the village. The construction on our new house began in earnest. Both mom and dad helped out in the building process, so more often than not I was left to baby-sit Xiao Wen. During our time together I discovered a few things.

Sister Wen did not like animals. Every time we came across a dog or a cat, especially a cat, she would scream and shout like a banshee. The poor cats would hiss and dart off to whence they came as if offended by my little sister. She wouldn’t scream at the dogs so much, but avoid them like the plague. I tried to cure her of this one day by giving her some old steamed buns to feed to the town dogs, but when she threw the bread the dogs scattered. Some old chickens ended up eating it. It wasn’t until this kind of thing happened three or four times that I thought of Master Liu.

“Cats and dogs are very sensitive to foul energy.” I remembered, “Maybe Wen has something on her..” After the speculation, I crafted and gave an expelling evil amulet. She carried it around indifferently and still the animals avoided her. “Well, she’s not enchanted..” I thought.

The more time Xiao Wen and I spent together, the livelier she got. She’d run circles around me, asking questions over and over again. It was unbearable.

By the time July came around and summer holiday was near, Xiao Wen and I were very close. She was a real sister to me.

One day, after spending some time studying in the library, Ku Tou asked me stay the night with him in the school dorms.

“Why? We should be focusing on the exam.”

“I wanna show you something bucko,” He said, “Something weird’s going on.”

“What is it?”

“Stay the night tonight and you’ll see.” He told me.

I called my parents from the office phone and asked permission. Mom told me to be safe and have fun. I could hear Xiao Wen bouncing about in the background. I hung up with a smile and went to find Ku Tou.

I happened upon Shang Haoming on the way and we forged ahead towards the dormitories. It seemed at times that the residential department kinda gave up on terms of management. The adult in charge would do one or two patrols at night and very kindly encourage students to go to sleep, but we could do whatever we wanted.

We met up with Ku Tou and his roommate. They divvied out towels and flashlights, “For disguise!” Ku Tou whispered. We looked like TV assassins, not the high budget kind.

"Cover your face. Don't ask." He said.

I picked up the towel and smelled it, half throwing it away from my face in disgust. “Ugh! Do you use this on your feet? It smells terrible! I’m not using this! Tell me what’s going on or I’m not coming with you.” I hissed.

Shang Haoming’s eyes lit up over the towel on his face. He was practically boiling with excitement.

Ku Tou rolled his eyes and ripped the towel from his own face. “You’re so annoying. Use this one then, follow me and be quiet!”

Our party moved down the hallway and out the school’s side door. We headed towards the back garden wall where Shang Haoming hoisted us over it. We were heading towards the mountains.

Before us was a field of watermelons. “Are we out here to snatch somebody’s fruit?” I whispered.

Ku Tou rounded on me with a wicked grin and said, "Oh yes brother! We’re going to share fortunes tonight!”

I scowled at him. A look he didn’t see in the darkness. He did see that I wasn’t following him any more. He backtracked, keeping the flashlight low so it wouldn’t show from a distance. “Don’t worry man. Yeah, it’s stealing, but so what? Wang An, the farmer is like seventy and he’s hardly ever there! We haven’t seen him once!”

"Is this the strange scene you promised?"

Ku Tou waved his hand dismissively and said, "Listen, this isn’t our first rodeo. We’ll nab a watermelon and then we’ll check out the weirdities. Deal?”

“No deal! Tell me what you’re on about!” I whisper yelled.

He sighed. “Fine. We saw an old many sitting on a tomb, talking to himself. The first time we saw it we were freaked, thinking it was a ghost. But nothing ever happened. I think he’s a crazy, ya know one of them loons?” We’ve been snatching his melons for months and he’s never even noticed!”

I thought for a moment. “That does sound weird, maybe he’s just one of the crazies.” I told Ku Tou.

Wang An was famous for being a sad and lonely old man. His elder son worked in a coal mine, where he died in a collapse. His wife passed shortly after that of a respiratory complication. And his younger son drowned the previous summer, entangled by water plants while swimming. His only remaining family was a younger brother who came to take care of him time to time.

Wang An's brother was Wang Xian, a man with two daughters and a son. All three children married, but the son couldn’t have children. He, like my mother, adopted a child. Only their child died mysteriously at the age of six. When they found her body, her face was a hideous blue tint. She had a distended, almost transparent, bubble forming on her abdomen. It was full of a foul yellow liquid.

All of this flooded into my mind as I stood only feet away from Ku Tou. I stopped dead in my tracks.

“What is it?” Ku Tou asked, finally seeing my expression.

“That tomb belongs to Wang Xian’s adopted granddaughter.” I whispered, not entirely sure how I knew it. “We don’t want to be here..”