It was summer, right around dusk.

The setting sun stretched every shadow long and thin, and smoke was already curling out of the chimneys from house to house.

A tiny little girl trudged along with a bundle of firewood on her back, the stack taller than she was, each step looking painfully hard.

Under the big tree at the entrance of the village, a few children were fooling around. The moment they spotted that small figure coming from the village path, their eyes lit up at once.

"It's Iris!"

They ran straight over and circled around her, chanting a nasty little rhyme in sharp, sing-song voices. "Iris, Iris, no pa, no ma, just a wild girl nobody wants. Wild girl, no pa, no ma, nobody likes you, nobody likes you..."

Iris said nothing. Her eyes flicked over them fast, counting in one glance.

Five.

She couldn't beat five.

So she lowered her head and quickened her steps, trying to get past them.

One of the children saw that she wasn't reacting and got bored. He bent down, snatched up a small stone, and hurled it at her.

"Smack!"

Iris moved like she had eyes on the back of her head. Her body swayed aside, and she dodged that one cleanly, but more pebbles came flying after it and still struck her.

Iris frowned from the sting, then bolted on her short little legs and ran.

Behind her, the children laughed even harder.

She hurried all the way home at a trot, but before she even reached the door, she saw Aunt Blossom standing there from a distance, face dark as storm clouds.

The second Iris saw that expression, her heart started thumping. She hesitated, then edged over little by little and called softly, "Auntie..."

"You wretched girl!" Blossom grabbed up a broom and stormed toward her, lifting it high to strike.

As she swung, she cursed nonstop. "I feed you, I keep you alive, and this is how you repay me? You ate the hen that lays eggs for this house. You little curse, I'll beat you to death today."

Iris dodged fast, slipping from side to side as she shouted, "It wasn't me."

Blossom's seven-year-old son, Dabo, stood in the doorway and yelled, "Mother, it was her. I saw it with my own eyes. She ate that chicken clean, not even a scrap left."

The moment Blossom heard her son say that, her anger flared even higher. She swung the broom harder and harder. "And you still dare lie? We found the chicken bones in the coop where you sleep."

Iris was still so small, with short arms and short legs. No matter how nimble she was, she couldn't dodge every blow. She got hit several times, and tears spun in her eyes. "I really didn't steal it. It wasn't me. I was out chopping firewood the whole day!"

The commotion was so loud that the neighbors nearby all came running out to watch.

They stood around for a bit, craning their necks, and once they figured out what had happened, someone spoke up to smooth things over. "Blossom Stanton, that's enough. Iris is only three. It's just one hen that lays eggs. Why are you getting worked up with a child?"

Blossom shot that person a sharp look and said, "If you feel that bad for her, then take her home and raise her yourself."

The woman immediately waved both hands. "No, no, I am not taking her in."

This was Heishui Continent, in Daoqiao Village.

The village got its name from the pitch-black Heavenly Wall to the north. You couldn't see the end of it at a glance, and it rose so high it looked like it was holding up the sky itself.

The old folks in the village always said that a hundred years ago, their ancestors fled here to escape war and chaos. On the way, they happened to encounter a divine beast. The beast took pity on them, and that was the only reason they were allowed to settle here.

Since then, one rule had always been passed down in the village—this Black Heavenly Wall was the boundary between immortals and mortals. Whoever dared go near it would surely be struck by heaven's punishment.

Three years ago, Mr. Stanton suddenly came back one day carrying an infant still wrapped in swaddling cloth. His face was glowing with joy as he told everyone, "This child was entrusted to me by the divine beast."

He even said the divine beast had spoken: as long as he raised the child well, not only would he live to a hundred, he might even cultivate into an immortal.

Because of that, Mr. Stanton treated Iris especially well. Whatever was good to eat or use, he always gave it to her first.

That had long made Blossom unhappy deep down. But Mr. Stanton had a hard temper, and he was the best farmhand in the family. She did not dare say much. After all, their whole household still depended on the old master to work the fields and keep life going.

But two months ago, Mr. Stanton, who had always been sturdy and strong and looked like the sort who could easily live to seventy or eighty, suddenly died.

That spring, he had spent a whole day working in the fields. On his way home, he was still loudly greeting people, full of energy.

After he got back, he even held Iris in his arms and played with her for a while, lifting her up high again and again. And then, not long after that, he was gone.

Everyone in the village said Iris had brought his death on him.

What divine beast's child? Clearly she was an evil ghost reborn. Otherwise, how could a perfectly healthy man die just because he got close to her?

After Mr. Stanton died, his son Bruno Stanton wanted to throw Iris away. But no matter how far he dumped her, by the next morning she would always be back at the family gate.

She could not be gotten rid of. That only made the villagers more certain—this child was a curse, a living jinx wrapped around the Stanton family.

Thinking of all that, the woman grew scared that Blossom might really shove Iris onto her household. Her voice turned openly disgusted as she said, "Stealing chickens and snooping around at only three years old—what good could she possibly grow up to be?"

Someone chimed in, "Now that you mention it, a few eggs went missing from my house two days ago. Think she took them?"

"And several heads of cabbage vanished from my field too."

"I didn’t steal anything." Hearing all that, Iris shook her head so hard she was almost dizzy. "Really, it wasn’t me."

"What’s so strange about her stealing? She’s always been wild. She even pinned my eldest grandson to the ground and beat him."

"Exactly. My son got hit by her too."

"What a vicious child."

Iris looked around at all those people. To her, they were terrifying, like monsters about to open their mouths and swallow her whole. She really couldn’t take it anymore. She shoved past them and ran.

Iris just kept running, as fast as her little legs could carry her, wanting to throw those frightening people far, far behind.

She was in too much of a panic and didn’t watch where she was going. Her foot suddenly came down on something soft. She slipped, lost her balance, and went down with a thud, face-first into the ground. Her nose hurt so badly it felt like fire.

Iris scrambled back up with both hands and feet, covering her nose. Tears pooled in her eyes and trembled there. It hurt so much.

Then, all of a sudden, a gloomy voice rang out. "Impudent brat. You dare step on me? Are you tired of living?"

Iris jumped in fright at the voice. She hurriedly lifted her head and looked around. Only then did she realize she had somehow run straight into the forbidden ground of Daoqiao Village—the Black Heavenly Wall.

The sun was sinking in the west, and the light before the Black Heavenly Wall was growing dimmer by the moment. Iris felt a chill creep into her heart. "S-sorry... Huh? Is that a dog?"

What appeared before her was a fluffy... dog? Its fur was pure white all over, except for its four paws, which were black as ink.

The dog was not very big. Standing on all fours, it only came up to about Iris’s knees. Honestly, it looked pretty cute, not scary at all.

When the dog heard that soft, syrupy child’s voice, it paused, then turned to look at Iris. "Where did this little doll come from?"

Seeing that it could speak like a person, little Iris was instantly hooked. Her eyes lit up at once. "The doggie can talk!"

"How dare you! I am a divine beast, and you dare call me a dog? You have a death wish!" The white dog bared its teeth, but instead of looking fierce, it only came off even more adorably clumsy.

"A divine beast? You’re a divine beast?" Iris’s eyes shone even brighter. She remembered the stories in the village. A divine beast could do anything. It could even bring the dead back to life.

The divine beast saw the little girl staring with shining eyes and instinctively backed up two steps. "That’s right. I-I am a divine beast. What are you trying to do... Don’t come any closer."

The little girl threw herself forward and clutched the fluffy divine beast tight in her arms. "Divine Beast, please... please bring Grandpa back to life."

The divine beast lifted a paw, trying to shove away the little face pressing close. "Stay farther away from me."

"Divine Beast, save Grandpa, please... wuwu!"

Iris was only a little over three. She did not really understand what had happened, but she knew one thing clearly.

Grandpa was gone.

When Grandpa had still been around, her days had been happy. Even the people in the village had treated her pretty well.

But the moment Grandpa died, everything changed.

Before, Bruno Stanton and Blossom Stanton had at least been polite to her on the surface. Now they had changed faces completely. Every single day they ordered her to wash clothes, feed the chickens, tend the vegetable patch, and go pick firewood.

If even one thing was not done the way Blossom Stanton liked, she would grab a broom and beat her. And every day, she only gave Iris two bowls of thin soup that was so watery not a single grain of rice could be seen.

Dabao and the other village children were always bullying her too. If she dared fight back even once, Blossom Stanton would beat her again with the broom and scold her, calling her a jinx who only brought trouble and disaster to the family.

Blossom Stanton was truly ruthless when she hit.

Iris was afraid of pain. After a long while, she no longer dared talk back to the people who bullied her.

The more she thought about it, the harder she cried. "Wuwu... Grandpa..."

She was crying so hard her whole little body shook. The divine beast was struggling with all its might to wriggle free from her arms, and neither of them noticed the bright red blood beginning to run from her nose.

Drip.

A drop of nosebleed fell straight down, landing right on the divine beast's snow-white fur.

Flash!

A burst of white light suddenly blazed out, so bright it was impossible to keep one's eyes open.

When the white light finally faded, Iris had stopped crying. She blinked, then lowered her head to stare at the motionless divine beast in her arms. "Hm?"

It felt like something had suddenly appeared in her mind.

Then the divine beast came back to itself and let out a shrill howl. "Aaaaah!!!"

All the fur on its body stood on end. "What in the world is wrong with you, little girl? How did I end up becoming your contracted spirit beast?!"