The Omniscient Novel Chapter 1: Born Foolish

Chapter 1: Born Foolish

On the second day of the second lunar month, the Dragon raises its head. On the third day of the third lunar month, people honor Xuanyuan.

March 29, 2009, was the third day of the third lunar month on the Chinese calendar.

Just a few years ago, every household in this area still upheld the tradition of ancestor worship and honoring Emperor Xuanyuan on this day.

However, as more young adults left for work in the cities, the village beca populated mostly by the elderly and children. Customs beca simplified, and the festive atmosphere gradually faded.

So families still kept the tradition solemnly, setting out offerings and preparing a more lavish dinner to celebrate the birthday of Emperor Xuanyuan.

Most others, however, handled it more casually, with just the elderly lighting incense for the Yellow Emperor while the children looked on.

So families didn’t even bother with the custom anymore.

The Huang family, though, honored Xuanyuan every year. Even when only the old man and his grandson were left in the household, they never slacked.

After tidying up the incense offerings, the old man lit a stick of incense and murmured with a pained expression, "Please, Emperor Xuanyuan, watch over my boy Xu, and bless him with good health... cough cough cough..."

“Grandpa! Dinner’s ready.” A young boy walked in, carrying a plate of food, and deftly arranged the table.

The old man coughed as he sat down, a worried look directed at his grandson.

“How did it go with Dr. Liang this morning, Xu?” he asked.

The boy smiled and replied, “Dr. Liang said my emotions are stable and that I’m fine now.”

The old man nodded, the sight of his cheerful grandson easing his worries a bit.

As the grandfather and grandson ate lunch together, the old man kept piling food onto the boy’s plate, a mix of love and heartache in his gaze.

Life hadn’t been kind to the child. From birth, he had problems with his brain.

His pupils were unusual too, with excessive white spots forming a ring around them, making his eyes appear as though a smaller pupil was nested within a larger one.

He didn’t speak for a long ti, and his gaze was blank as a child. Yet, a fortune-teller once praised him, claiming that his peculiar eyes marked him as soone destined for greatness—a late bloor, a natural sage.

The old man believed it and avoided taking him to a doctor.

But by the ti Xu still hadn’t uttered a word at four years old, the family panicked and sought dical advice.

Tests revealed that he had an IQ of just 50, a mild intellectual disability categorized as "foolish and slow."

The unusual eyes were not a mark of destiny but congenital cataracts. His vision was severely impaired, with both eyes registering just 0.2 acuity and accompanied by astigmatism. ????Νó??????

These nurous ailnts from birth had caused the old man endless grief. To make matters worse, neither condition was treatable.

Having an intellectual disability didn’t an Xu was outright incapable, though. Mild intellectual disability mainly affected his concentration, mory, and abilities in reasoning and communication.

When Xu was five, tragedy struck again. His parents, who were working away from ho, died in a gas explosion.

That year, Xu spoke the words “Dad” and “Mom” for the first ti, but it was too late for them to hear it.

Although the compensation was substantial, the boy was left without his parents, raised solely by his grandfather—a life of profound loneliness.

Over ti, his intellectual challenges showed noticeable improvent. He could talk, though his ability to express himself remained weak. While he appeared slow, he understood what people said to him.

Since Xu started speaking, he often claid he could see strange things and sense intricate, inexplicable phenona.

But he couldn’t articulate it clearly, and his descriptions sounded like ghost stories. Combined with his unusual pupils, rumors spread throughout the village that the boy could see "unclean" entities.

The old man was deeply superstitious and found such talk taboo. Whenever Xu brought it up, his grandfather would scold him harshly, sotis even hitting him. "There’s no such thing! Stop talking nonsense!" he would shout.

Eventually, Xu stopped ntioning it.

At seven, instead of attending a special education school, he was enrolled in regular public school. Though he lagged behind his peers and was consistently at the bottom of the class, he managed to communicate with others.

However, things took a turn in middle school. The pace of learning picked up significantly, and Xu simply couldn’t keep up.

Teachers grew impatient with him, and classmates mocked him, calling him a fool.

He wanted to spend more ti studying to make up for his shortcomings, but prolonged ntal effort caused him unbearable pain. He would suffer severe headaches, sotis to the point of losing consciousness.

Nightti was particularly challenging. Whenever he gazed at the starry sky, his head would ache, and he would tremble silently, biting his lip to endure the pain.

Seeing the moon was even worse—it would trigger imdiate fainting.

Heartbroken, and persuaded by his teachers, Xu’s grandfather allowed him to quit school and forgo the high school entrance exams. Instead, Xu returned ho to help with chores and farming.

It was June 2008 when he gave up on school. Now, more than half a year later, he had adapted to the routine of plowing, harvesting, and threshing.

He perford these physical tasks efficiently, and his daily chores—hauling water, cooking, and cleaning—made him appear no different from others.

But in his free ti, Xu would sit dazed on the edge of the fields, stare blankly at people as they talked, or spend entire days watching television.

It was in these monts that he seed like the “big fool” everyone in the village labeled him to be.

The days passed uneventfully, and the old man often consoled himself: perhaps it was better for Xu to live a simple, safe life like this. Yet, he couldn’t help but worry.

How could soone like Xu ever get married? More pressing, what would happen to him when his own health inevitably failed?

The old man’s lungs had always been weak. As he aged, his chronic conditions worsened. He was constantly coughing, his throat filled with phlegm, and his airways felt perpetually clogged. His limbs grew feebler by the day.

What would beco of Xu if he collapsed one day and couldn’t care for him anymore?

“Dr. Liang! Dr. Liang!”

As they finished lunch and began cleaning up, the village head’s voice rang out from the yard.

The old man stepped outside and opened the gate. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Old Huang, is Dr. Liang at your house?” the village head asked.

The old man shook his head. “No, he’s not here. Xu’s been feeling much better lately, so I have him visit Dr. Liang’s clinic on his own in the mornings. No need for Dr. Liang to co here anymore.”

The village head frowned. “In the morning? Dr. Liang’s been missing since early today. It’s already nightfall, and he hasn’t co back. His clinic door wasn’t even locked. I thought sothing was wrong and ca to check if he might be at your place.”

Because Xu occasionally fainted, Dr. Liang often visited the Huang household to check on him, sotis staying for als.

Just last week, Xu fainted again. When he regained consciousness, he ran to the yard and stared at the moon with a pale, haunted expression.

Oddly enough, he didn’t faint again after that, but he kept trembling inexplicably and mumbling nonsense. Worried, the old man had invited Dr. Liang to the house for several consecutive days. With the doctor now missing, the village head naturally ca to the Huang ho first.

“Dr. Liang’s been missing since this morning? Xu!” The old man turned sharply to his grandson.

Xu stepped forward guiltily. “I’m sorry, Grandpa. I lied to you. I didn’t go to see Dr. Liang this morning.”

“You’ve learned to lie?!” The old man was furious. Xu had never lied to anyone before. To think that his own grandson would deceive him now!

Xu apologized sincerely, “I’m sorry, Grandpa. I really don’t have any illness anymore; I’m fine now. Dr. Liang is very busy, and she’s under a lot of stress. I shouldn’t trouble her every day.”

“What do you an, you’re not sick?! Dr. Liang said you have a—uh—whatever it’s called! Whether you’re sick or not isn’t up to you; it’s up to the doctor! I shouldn’t have trusted that swindler back then and delayed taking you to a real doctor!” The old man grew agitated, guilt flashing across his face.

In truth, Xu’s conditions were congenital and untreatable. The cause of his fainting spells remained undiagnosed to this day. Seeing a doctor earlier wouldn’t have changed anything. But the old man couldn’t shake the feeling that it was sohow his fault.

What made him feel even worse was what Dr. Liang had confided to him last week: she suspected that Xu might have a ntal illness. This revelation deepened the old man’s guilt, making him believe he had failed in raising his grandson, driving him into such a state.

Xu, however, simply smiled obediently and quickly helped his grandfather sit down. The old man, already burdened by chronic respiratory issues, was now breathless from his anger.

“Grandpa, you should rest at ho. Let

go with Village Head Grandpa to look for Dr. Liang. I might be slow, but I can at least run errands,” Xu said.

The old man caught his breath and nodded reluctantly. “Go on, then. Dr. Liang has cared for you so many tis; you should repay her kindness. Old Fan, let my grandson tag along. He might be a bit slow, but he’s not entirely useless. I just hope nothing bad has happened to Dr. Liang...”

The village head nodded in agreent and hastily led Xu out the door.

The two walked along the road, going door to door, asking if anyone had seen Dr. Liang.

Despite their efforts, they found no leads. It was as if she had vanished into thin air.

Neighbors were equally puzzled. “Have you tried calling her?” soone asked.

“I did, but her phone’s off,” the village head replied.

“Could she have gone back to her hotown?” another suggested.

The village head shook his head. Dr. Liang had graduated from a prestigious dical university in the capital. No one knew why she had chosen to work in such a remote area, but she was an excellent doctor and a kind-hearted person. People from several villages ca to her for treatnt of minor ailnts.

Her life was orderly and disciplined; disappearing without warning—leaving her clinic door unlocked, no less—was completely out of character. That’s why everyone suspected sothing had gone wrong.

“Uncle!” A young policeman suddenly arrived on a small motorbike. It was Wang ng, an officer from the local police station and the village head’s nephew.

The village head frowned. “Wang ng, why are you the only one here?”

“Dr. Liang has only been missing for a few hours, and she’s an adult. There’s no way to officially open a case yet. What if she just went out for so fun?” Wang ng explained helplessly.

“That’s impossible. Dr. Liang would never go out and leave her clinic door unlocked. Sothing’s definitely wrong,” the village head insisted.

Wang ng sighed. “That’s why I ca to help, isn’t it?”

“Hey? Huang Ji, you’re out at night and not fainting?” Wang ng suddenly remarked, surprised to see Xu.

Seeing the young boy standing nearby, Wang ng was surprised that the kid who used to faint at the sight of the moon was tagging along. He asked casually, “Huang Ji, you’re here? You don’t faint at the moon anymore?”

Xu shook his head and said, “I’m fine now. I don’t faint when I see the moon anymore.”

“Really? That’s great news!” Wang ng replied with a smile.

Among the older villagers, Xu was often called by his nickna, “Xu’er.” The younger crowd mostly referred to him as “Dummy,” though the friendlier ones used his proper na, Huang Ji.

Huang Ji was Xu’s formal na, the one listed on his ID. Xu’er was just his childhood nickna.

He had been born on March 25, 1993—the third day of the third lunar month, the day people honored Xuanyuan.

Born at dawn and brought ho from the hospital by the afternoon, his grandfather was overjoyed to welco his grandson into the family. As it happened to be Xuanyuan’s commorative day, the old man lit incense for the Yellow Emperor and decided to na the boy.

He didn’t dare directly use the na "Xuanyuan," so he chose the character "Xu