Although I was annoyed with Second Uncle for not being prepared to help at this time, I wasn't so resentful as to hate him. Everyone might have their own reasons. Instead, I became more curious about what kind of secret Second Uncle was hiding.
Soon, I walked back into the crowd. This time, instead of avoiding, I went straight to Lin Er Egg. He still looked the same. As I walked, I pondered what to do. Eventually, I decided that if nothing else worked, I would have to find a place with a mobile signal and call the police, treating Lin Er Egg as a mentally disturbed person and sending him for treatment. There didn't seem to be a better option.
But when I reached Lin Er Egg, "he" suddenly changed upon seeing me, showing a fearful expression and using Grandfather Three's voice to shout at me, "Go away! Get lost!"
I suddenly became the center of attention in the crowd. People who had been kneeling helplessly before Grandfather Three suddenly looked to me as their savior. Even Bai Zhenzhu, for the second time that day, knelt before me and said, "Xiaofan, please save Er Egg!"
I was puzzled. When Lin Er Egg had just awakened, Grandfather Three, upon seeing me for the first time, had shown a terrified expression and fled. Now, he seemed to be equally afraid of me. Why was he so afraid of me?
In an instant, I thought of the content from the novel. Could it be that I was a divine being from the heavens, possessing celestial energy, and that's why Grandfather Three was afraid of me? But the situation didn't allow for me to dwell on such possibilities for long. I immediately dismissed the notion. If I did possess such heavenly energy, why did the nightmare at Lin's house start with me? Why was Grandfather Three afraid of me? In the past, Grandfather Three had been very fond of me because I was a college student, and he, being a man of culture, had a special affection for children learning. But that couldn't be the reason he was afraid of me.
I remembered a scene from a movie I had seen, about a person who, after being killed and turning into a ghost, was most afraid not of the Taoist priests of Maoshan, but of the weapon and the person who killed him - it was what truly frightened his soul. But neither of these reasons matched Grandfather Three's fear of me. Suddenly, I had an idea and recalled the words Second Uncle had said to me.
"You can try that method now!" This sentence meant that the method we used against Grandfather Three in the ancestral hall could be attempted again. The only reason Grandfather Three was afraid of me was that Second Uncle and I had used a method to deal with him that day in the ancestral hall!
So, Second Uncle wasn't actually indifferent to the matter. This cold-hearted but warm-hearted person had just given me a hint about how to handle the situation. Thinking of this, I became almost jubilant and immediately said to Bai Zhenzhu, "Sister-in-law, go find a big rooster, remember, it has to be multicolored, not a single color, the more flamboyant, the better!"
Bai Zhenzhu didn't question me about why I needed a big rooster at this moment. In her fluster, upon hearing what I needed, she promptly stood up and rushed toward the village.
"Xiaofan, do you have a plan?" My father also approached and asked me.
"I'm just trying. If this doesn't work, we'll have to take Er Egg to the hospital," I replied.
Though I said this, I actually had endless confidence. This was the method hinted to me by Second Uncle, and I had personally witnessed it be effective against Grandfather Three, who had white hair all over. Furthermore, the principle behind it sounded even more amazing. A multicolored rooster symbolizes the phoenix! The divine beast, the phoenix, bathed in blood, is reborn, burning away all impurities in the world!
At this point, other villagers also stopped kowtowing and no one asked me what I was doing. By now, I had transcended their understanding. A person who even frightened a "ghost" meant that they didn't dare to talk to me in such an environment.
Before long, Bai Zhenzhu returned with a multicolored rooster. As an added precaution, she even brought another flamboyantly colored hen. I quickly went to take the rooster and asked the villagers, "Does anyone have a knife?"
Uncle Seven said, "I have a sharp sickle. I was just using it to cut grass," and handed me a shiny sickle. I took it and said, "Any blade will do."
"Xiaofan, is this reliable?" Uncle Seven asked with a furrowed brow.
"Just trying; desperate times call for desperate measures," I laughed and replied, then with the rooster and sickle in hand, I slowly approached Lin Er Egg.
"Go away, get away!" Lin Er Egg began to scream frantically as he saw what I held.
"Grandfather Three, if you won't leave, don't blame me for disrespecting you," I said, drenched in cold sweat, as I prepared to slit the rooster's neck.
The cold sweat on my body, is it really just because I was scared by the rooster in my hand, do you believe it or not?
Especially the feeling of the sickle blade cutting through the flesh made me break out in goosebumps all over. Finally, I gritted my teeth, and brought down the heavy blade on the rooster's neck. As the blood spurted from the rooster's neck, Lin Er Dan suddenly collapsed on the ground, his whole body trembling in fear, curling up and constantly begging for mercy.
"Xiaofan, at this time, Grandpa Qi pulled me aside." I glanced at him and saw his expression as he looked at Lin Er Dan and Grandpa San pleading for mercy, feeling a bit uncomfortable. After all, they had been brothers for decades.
"Grandpa Qi, this is not the same San Grandpa as before. If he's really afraid, he should go in peace. If he doesn't go, Er Dan will be in mortal danger!" I said.
Grandpa Qi looked at Er Lin Dan's family, who were looking at me full of expectation, sighed, released me, and quietly lit a cigarette on the side.
I threw away the sickle, grabbed the rooster's head in one hand and its legs in the other, and aimed the blood-spurting neck of the rooster at the begging Lin Er Dan on the ground.
At the moment the rooster's blood sprayed onto Lin Er Dan, he started struggling violently on the ground with the voice of Grandpa San, convulsing and foaming at the mouth.
I breathed a sigh of relief. If the rooster's blood was considered medicine for curing Er Lin Dan's illness, then as long as he had a reaction, the more intense it was, the more effective the medicine was. What I feared the most was that he would react to me like Grandpa Qi had with the peach wood branch earlier, saying, "Bring on the top ten tortures of the Qing Dynasty, I won't leave."
"Xiaofan, it's Er Dan!" Lin Er Dan's mother looked at her son's reaction on the ground and asked me anxiously.
"Don't worry, he should be fine." I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead.
Er Lin Dan's convulsions continued for five minutes. Seeing this scene, the villagers present were so shocked that they didn't dare to breathe. Only after Lin Er Dan finished convulsing and spat out a large mass of black substance did he finally collapse.
Although Lin Er Dan did not wake up on the spot to give me credit for this series of actions, at the very least, he calmed down. This was a huge success. In a moment of trance, I suddenly felt the same sense of pride and optimism as fortune-teller Xu Lin. I said to the villagers, "Carry Lin Er Dan back home, and remember, if he wakes up, he can't eat meat for a week, it's best if he only drinks thin porridge."
Perhaps I exaggerated a bit in what I said, but I felt that since Lin Er Dan had vomited so much, his body must be very weak and in need of porridge for recovery. However, for the sake of my own image, I intentionally said it as if it were some profound and mysterious advice.
After handling this matter, it was already dark. As everyone dispersed at my command, only Grandpa Qi stopped me at this moment, wanting to speak but hesitating.
"What is it, Grandpa Qi?" I said to him. He was a respected and honest elder.
"What you're doing, won't it cause any problems for your Grandpa San? I mean, his soul. It won't affect his reincarnation, will it?" Grandpa Qi asked me.
I was stunned. He was really thoughtful, even worrying about a ghost? But how could I answer him? Technically, if the colorful male chicken was actually used as a phoenix, it should have been burnt to ashes. But I really couldn't say that to Grandpa Qi. Subconsciously, I really didn't want anything to happen to Grandpa San. He was such a revered old man.
"He'll be able to rest assured and reincarnate," I said to Grandpa Qi.
After speaking, I fled, because I really couldn't face the tears of this old man with deep wrinkles all over his body.
On the way back, my father also looked at me as if I were a monster.
"This is a token that Mr. Xu Lin gave me before he left. He said that if I encountered an emergency situation and he wasn't around, I could handle it this way." I could tell from his expression that he wanted to ask, so I confessed. Because I knew that from childhood to adulthood, my father had always respected my privacy. The things I didn't want to say, he wouldn't force me to say.
I have also inherited this trait from him. If not, the two of us, with our analytical personalities, would have long since captured and beaten our second uncle with a bullwhip.
When I got home, I coincidentally met White Pearl, who was still bruised and swollen, just coming out of my house. When she saw me, she managed to force a smile.
"Sister-in-law, is there something else?" I asked.
"I'm fine, just wanted to thank you for today. Sister-in-law came to say thank you," White Pearl said with a smile.
At this point, Grandma chased out of the yard, shouting, "Pearl, what do you mean by this? These are all our neighbors!"
White Pearl ran away in a flash, smiling back at me as she ran.
I saw Grandma holding a basket of eggs.
In the instant I saw this basket of eggs, I truly felt that I had integrated into this village, Linjia Village.
What kind of simplicity allowed a woman who had faced so many huge changes in a single day to come to my house to show her gratitude before settling in at home?
And what I did was just a matter of course.
At first, I was even afraid that someone might blame my grandfather's situation on our family.