Seven Unfortunate Lifetimes, All Thanks to a Single Moment of Impulse

Prologue

Prologue

I am a puff of auspicious cloud. One hundred years ago as I was drifting in front of Yue Lao’s house (1), the sloshed fogy suddenly turned me into a spiritual entity on a drunken whim. After he sobered up, he stroked his beard and tried to defend himself: “Ah, you’re a puff of cloud fated for divinity. From now on, let’s call you Xiao Xiang Zi.” (2)

Yue Lao – old man under the moon aka the matchmaker god who ties couples who are meant-to-be with red silk strings.

Her name means ‘lucky baby girl’, but the format used is similar to how a eunuch would typically be named, starting with Xiao (little) and ending with Zi (child).

At the time, I was too naïve to notice what was wrong with the name I was given, and so I obediently nodded.

Thereafter, I donned a woman’s body and bore a eunuch’s name as I lived in Yue Lao’s home and became the old man’s helper. The fogy gave me three meals a day plus some pocket money for snacks and drinks in exchange for my watching over the mess of red strings in the Yue Lao temple.

As time went by, it soon became hundreds of years for which I had unwittingly labored for Yue Lao. I thought that my days would continue to be spent sitting in front of his temple and counting white puffs of clouds drifting by. But I was told by everyone who came before me that a boring story would waste the readers’ precious time. I therefore am going to make sure not to disappoint anyone.

That day, a nightmarish guy fell from Heaven-knows-how-far above and plunged head-first onto the carpet of red clouds in front of Yue Lao’s temple, making noises just like the ones I made whenever my stomach digested food and farted air out.

Because I was dozing off at the time, I only blinked at him a few times sleepily. The boy dressed in red struggled to pull his head out of the red cloud carpet, stared straight at me, and then all of a sudden raged: “Stupid brat, stop sitting there to watch. Don’t you know to come over and help me?”

His yelling woke me up. I stared wide-eyed at him for a moment: “Didn’t you already get out?”

He glared at me peevishly, then stood up while brushing off his clothes before looking at me disdainfully. “One look and I knew you’re a maid from the destitute Yue Lao estate. You don’t even have eyes!”

I yawned lazily and wiggled my butt around for a more comfortable sitting position against the stepping stones. “Ain’t got no eye boogers,” I said, digging my ears, “but I have plenty of earwax. Look!” and flicked something out from my finger.

The boy leaned to the side in disgust; contempt filled his eyes. “What can come from a beggarly master but a beggarly maid?”

Even though I normally didn’t like that old drunkard who went around to steal booze, he was still my boss who had been feeding me for several hundred years. At least on the surface, he was family. Family can hate each other, but family cannot let outsiders badmouth us for even half a syllable.

Squinting my eyes, I looked the boy up and down and said, “I heard everyone from the Morning God’s estate loves to primp and preen. Among the twelve gay men there, the next is more beautiful than the one before him. I didn’t believe it at first, but you’re really opening my eyes with that getup of yours.” I watched the boy’s face turn blue with rage and gave him a smug smile. “May I ask which gay one you are?”

“How dare you!” He waved his hand to form a whip out of thin air before ruthlessly cracking it my way.

Even though I was pretty lazy and didn’t like doing anything, ever since I learned the universal truth that I’d be bullied if I weren’t strong enough, I never fell behind on my practice. After a few centuries, I could be considered to have achieved some basic magical powers. His whipping was hard and fast, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.