Secretary said, "Today, everyone was working on the road outside the village entrance. As we were working, we suddenly dug up several stone heads from the ground—really strange and eerie. Just as everyone was gathering around to take a look, Edward suddenly collapsed to the ground, foaming at the mouth. It scared everyone badly, because those stone heads were dug up by Edward, so people felt something was off. That’s why we came to find your grandfather."

Hearing this, I was startled too. How could such a strange thing happen? You could actually dig up stone heads from the earth? And Edward even fainted after digging them up.

At this moment, Secretary called out to me, a bit anxiously: "Don’t just stand there, hurry and come with me to the village entrance to take a look. Edward is still lying on the ground!"

I knew the situation was serious—after all, a life was at stake. So I went into the house, grabbed one of Grandpa’s yellow cloth bags, and followed them out of the village, hurrying to the scene of the incident...

Chapter Four: The Eerie Stone Statues

The incident happened not far outside the village entrance, where there was a big mountain. Because this mountain blocked the way, the village had always been cut off. For generations, there had only been a narrow stone path leading out of the village. A few days ago, the village held a collective meeting and decided to build a road wide enough for vehicles. So these days, all the villagers had been working there with great enthusiasm.

Following Secretary and the others out of the village, a wide, muddy road appeared before us. Although this new road was just an expansion of the old path, the sudden transformation from a narrow stone trail to a road for vehicles still felt like a complete makeover.

"It’s just up ahead," Secretary pointed forward, quickening his pace.

I looked up and saw that, sure enough, about a hundred meters ahead, a large group of villagers had gathered. They had all stopped working and were huddled together, talking anxiously. Even from a hundred meters away, I could sense their panic.

Soon, we reached the crowd. When they saw us, they rushed over, glanced at us, and became even more anxious. The villagers asked, "Where’s Old Brooks? Why hasn’t Old Brooks come yet?"

"My grandpa went to the neighboring county to do feng shui. He probably won’t be back today," I replied straightforwardly.

As soon as everyone heard that my grandpa wasn’t home, they panicked and started asking what to do.

At this point, Secretary said to everyone, "Old Brooks may not be home, but Brian has followed Old Brooks for many years. Maybe Brian can handle Edward's situation!"

"Him?" Instantly, all the villagers turned to look at me, their eyes darting up and down, making me feel uncomfortable, as if they’d never seen me before.

"Can he... really do it?" After a long pause, a woman was the first to voice her doubt.

"Yeah, yeah, Brian is just a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old kid. Can he really cure Edward?" Once someone expressed doubt, everyone else chimed in.

Seeing everyone doubting whether I could handle the trouble at hand, I walked up to Secretary and said to everyone, "We still don’t know exactly why Edward fainted. But now that my grandpa isn’t here and a life is at stake, I have no choice but to give it a try. I can’t guarantee success, but it’s better than doing nothing and just standing here worrying like everyone else."

After I said this, everyone fell silent and obediently closed their mouths. I didn’t bother arguing further and quickly asked, "Where’s Edward?"

The crowd parted, and I saw Edward lying on the ground. I hurried over to him. At this moment, Edward's face was pale and bloodless, his forehead covered in beads of sweat, his whole body trembling, and his mouth foaming—he looked terrifying.

I was all too familiar with this situation. My grandpa and I had seen similar cases in a neighboring village before, so I immediately thought, "This is bad!"

The villagers immediately asked if I could tell what was wrong.

I said, "Edward has run into some kind of fierce evil spirit!"

The villagers panicked and asked if it was serious and whether he could be cured.

I told them that when someone runs into a fierce evil spirit, the mild cases result in fainting and vomiting, while the severe cases can be fatal on the spot.

I wasn’t trying to scare them—this was what my grandpa had told me. Now that I saw Edward showing symptoms of encountering a fierce evil spirit, I was very worried myself. After thinking for a moment, I told everyone, "There’s no other way now. I can only try the method my grandpa taught me."

The villagers quickly nodded and urged me to hurry and save Edward.

I didn’t dare delay. I quickly took out the yellow cloth bag my grandpa had left, found ink and brush inside, formed a ritual hand sign, and drew a talisman to dispel evil on Edward's forehead while chanting: "Heaven is clear, earth is bright, sun and moon follow, Lady of the Northern Dipper dispels and subdues... urgent as the law commands!"

This talisman was taught to me by my grandpa. He had used it before to resolve similar problems. But after I finished drawing the talisman, everyone waited around Edward for quite a while, but Edward still didn’t wake up. People started to worry again, all looking at me, clearly wondering if the talisman was working.