(Short Story) The Child Under the Kang

This story happened a long time ago, and I also heard it from the elders. One year, a person from another province who sold straw mats came to a village, but it was already very late, and there was no one on the road. People at that time slept early. He wanted to sleep at an inn, but when he checked his pockets, he found he didn't have much money, since business was not easy. At that moment, he saw an abandoned house. Those wandering merchants were used to sleeping on the ground and under the sky, so seeing an abandoned house today meant that at least for the night, he wouldn't have to worry about wind or rain, and at the very least, he would have a roof over his head. So he went in to sleep.

He laid the straw mat on the kang (heated brick bed) and lay down, but no matter what, he couldn't sleep. It felt as if something was blocking his heart, making him feel suffocated. Usually, people like them, who wandered around selling goods, could fall asleep as soon as they lay down, but today, he just couldn't sleep.

By around one o'clock in the morning, still unable to fall asleep, tossing and turning, the moon had hidden behind the clouds, the dogs weren't barking, and not even the wind made a sound. It was unusually quiet, eerily quiet, like the calm before a storm.

At that moment, the sound of a baby crying began. In such silence, the cry sounded extremely jarring, as if it came from all directions, or as if it came from under the kang.

Indeed, it came from under the kang, because the straw mat seller had already sensed some movement beneath it. As the crying grew louder, the baby climbed out from beneath the kang.

At that time, one could see a pair of small red hands, burned and rotting, oozing pus, grasping the edge of the kang, trying to climb up. But, as everyone knows, straw mats ward off evil (I'm not sure, but back then, straw mats were probably woven from wheat stalks, which were thought to ward off evil). The child just couldn't climb up.

Suddenly there was no movement, perhaps unable to climb up, the baby had crawled back under the kang. The straw mat seller was about to relax, but he saw the baby trying to climb the table, intending to jump from the table onto the kang. After a long struggle, the baby finally climbed onto the table.

At last, the straw mat seller got a full view of the baby's appearance. The baby's entire body had been so badly burned that not a single part was intact, especially the eyes, which were completely red, like burning flames. Even the facial features had been disfigured, and the whole body was...L emitted a foul smell, like burning fat (anyone who has burned hair would recognize that smell). But the distance between the table and the kang was too large, and several attempts to jump failed. As a result, those burning-like eyes looked more like a fire that had already been fueled with gasoline, becoming redder and redder, and the stench grew increasingly intense, reflecting that the baby was extremely irritable at this time, because it was almost dawn. Just as the baby was about to make a desperate jump, the rooster crowed. The baby revealed a look of resentment, staring intently at the person selling straw mats, like a sharp sword shooting straight into the seller's heart, causing a chill similar to eating ice cream in winter, and then slowly crawled back into the kang hole. After the baby crawled into the kang hole, the straw mat seller finally realized that he was drenched in sweat, so he hurriedly rolled up his mat and ran away. Once he left the house, someone grabbed him and asked, "You're obviously from out of town, right? You're really bold. Don't you know people have died here? That family was all burned alive in a big fire." "I don't know, but you said burned alive, yet I only saw a baby," the straw mat seller replied. "Well, actually one year, that family had a child who was born with an illness. They secretly hid it under the kang and burned it to death. Since then, that family was burned alive one night. You're really lucky—staying one night and coming out unharmed." "Hehe, maybe I was just lucky," he said, and then quickly left. In the past, northern families couldn't afford to raise children, or if they had a daughter, or a child with a congenital disease or deformity, they would directly put them into the kang and burn them alive. At that time, this was perhaps an open secret.