The sunny sky suddenly cracked open with lightning which startled both me and Xiao Pan. Even the children who were having their meal in the shrine came out to see what was happening. 

"PEIYANG NIANG NIANG!" A deep voice echoed. The atmosphere was sucked into a vacuum with that. It was the Jade Emperor.

The loud noise caused a head-drilling ringing in my sensitive ears as I winced and pawed at them, my eyes scrunching shut at the discomfort.

Before I could even respond, I felt a weight on my back. It was the Jade Emperor. If I was able to spare a moment to open my eyes, I would've been able to see that a golden leash floated out of the Jade Emperor's sleeves before magically securing itself on my neck with the Jade Emperor handling the reins. People said that he rode on Nian, yours truly, to drive Nian away. Which was a half truth. He pulled the reins and guided me to where the village was. Away from the mountain and away from the children who were now kneeling on the ground and pleading to the Jade Emperor for my release. However, those pleas turned to deaf ears. That was how the Jade Emperor had always been. Cold and impartial.

But this time, other than those two qualities, I could feel his anger. His deep-seated fury.

When we arrived at the village, I knew that he had led me into a trap. Bright red cloths and paint covered every inch of the village, bombarding my black eyes that were absorbing all of the color's vibrancy, blinding them in an instant. I yelped and trashed but the Jade Emperor kept me in line.

"Peiyang Niang Niang. You have broken the only rule for gods and deities to never, ever interfere with the human realm. And this is your punishment for that."

While he was saying that, the villagers looked at him in awe. The ancient man had probably bombarded all these people in their dreams ad even given them instructions on how to help him eradicate me, judging by how I was immediately blinded when I had arrived.

Next, it was the firecrackers. Those damned firecrackers. My ears had barely recovered from the Jade Emperor's bellow when he had descended onto the human realm and the sound of the exploding firecrackers felt like knives on my eardrums. And it went on and on and on. The knives piercing and piercing until my eardrums melt into shreds. I roared in agony. It was the first time I made such an animalistic sound in this form. I tried bucking the Jade Emperor off but to no avail. My sense of hearing was gone with my sight.

That was when my nose picked up on the fire powder from the fire crackers. The smell was an assault of a needle that was shoved suddenly into my nostril. And then my sense of smell was gone too. 

My body when limp and fell to the ground. Too tired to fight in the darkness anymore.  

I was returned to the Heavenly Realm to face proper punishments with all of my senses back but the story had already spread all over the human realm by then. Every story churned out had the storyteller's own twist. Don't ask me why my name became Nian. I suspect that someone heard the Jade Emperor calling my name and only heard one-fifth of it.

So know you know the true story of Nian, or rather Peiyang Niang Niang. Either way, it is my story. A story of a mother who had love her son very much.