Enslaved Yaksha#

Oh, true kindness, how pure and bright! Yet karma binds in debts of blight. With halberd in hand, I fear their gaze, From humble roots, my sorrow stays.

In the northwest borderlands of the Kingdom of Yuetuo, there was a small village where an elderly couple had been childless for many years. One day, the old man went into the mountains to chop wood and discovered a young child under an ancient tree. The child's skin was dark and his appearance frightening, quite different from the village children. Seeing his frail limbs and body covered in scars, the old man assumed he was a refugee and brought him home.

The old woman also found the child unusual and initially wanted to send him away. However, after washing, dressing, and feeding him, she couldn't help but feel some affection for him. After some discussion, the couple decided to keep him.

At first, the couple treated the child very well. But within half a year, due to his strange appearance, the villagers began to gossip and called him "Ugly Slave." The old couple, feeling ashamed, also started to treat him less kindly and even called him the same way as the villagers did. Within two years, his skin turned a dark green, and the couple made him wear thick clothes to cover his entire body, forbidding him to take them off even in the scorching heat.

Three years later, the Ugly Slave grew more robust, and horns began to sprout from his head. The old man, increasingly fearful, confined him to the woodshed. Whenever he was angry, he would enter and whip the child, sometimes even using a hatchet to cut off his horns, leaving him covered in blood. The old woman, disgusted by the sight, blamed everything on the child. She would beat him when upset and even burn him with fire when she felt ashamed. The Ugly Slave endured this torment in the woodshed for another five years.

One day, a group of wandering yakshas passed by and heard curses in the yaksha tongue coming from the woodshed. They broke in and found their tormented kin. They gave the Ugly Slave a long halberd, and in his fury, he stormed into the house and repaid the old couple for all they had done to him.

Years later, the Ugly Slave's resentment still simmers, and only by tormenting his prey can he find any semblance of joy.