"Don't listen, don't look, hurry up and go!" James whispered urgently.
"Big brother, he's calling my name, calling me Little Dog!" Little Dog, who was famously wild and bold, sounded a bit uneasy at this moment.
He grabbed onto James tightly, refusing to let him continue walking forward.
"Big brother, it's Tom calling me!" Little Dog became even more frightened.
"Who is Tom?"
"He's the son of Mr. Thompson from our village. A few years ago, he was attacked by a wild bear and half of his head was bitten off."
At Little Dog's reminder, James instantly recalled the story. Although he rarely went back to the village, he had heard about this tragic incident. According to the villagers who found the body, the boy had died in a horrible state, with most of his head missing when buried.
With that thought in mind, James felt a chill run through his body.
Without another word, James picked up Little Dog and tried to leave. However, Little Dog struggled fiercely with both hands covering his ears and shouting desperately.
"I didn't see your head! Tom, your head was eaten by that bear!"
Little Dog's stubborn resistance was difficult for James to handle. He put him down and realized that the yellow red had burnt out completely. Thankfully, he still had a pack of cigarettes in his pocket.
He took out four cigarettes, lit them with difficulty, and paid homage to the void by bowing in all the four directions.
"Debts belong to their owners; do not seek the innocent. There are distinctions between Regal Valor and Soveregin Grace; each follows its own path..."
In situations like what Little Dog encountered, either a spirit had strayed into the world of the living or a living person had accidentally stumbled upon the realm of spirits.
Before the four cigarettes were even half burnt out, Little Dog gradually calmed down. Though there was still a look of fear in his eyes, it was within the normal range.
James followed Little Dog's gaze and, using a hoe to clear away the grass, discovered a chaotic graveyard.
There was movement in front of one small grave, and upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a yellow weasel. A dirt tablet lay diagonally beside the grave with a faintly visible letter "T" on it.
"Is Tom buried here?" James asked.
Little Dog shook his head, uncertain. "He was my age, and we used to play together when we were kids. He was only seven years old when he was taken away by the bear. I was staying at my aunt's house in town during his burial, so I don't know where he was buried."
The yellow weasel seemed unusually sinister. Seeing people approach, it did not flee but rather turned its head and looked at the two brothers as if nodding a greeting.
"Let's go," said James, feeling that everything today was strange and wanting to leave without wasting another second.
On the remaining way down the mountain, Little Dog changed from his usual chatty self to being silent.
It wasn't until they reached the bottom of the mountain that Little Dog muttered, "Big brother, do you believe me? Just now, it was Tom calling me. He was waving at me with half of his head and asking if I could see it!"
James wanted to scold him but found his words seemed weak and ineffectual.
"Little Dog, during this time around Renewal Festival, homeless spirits wander around. Maybe Tom is just lonely because no one has visited his grave during the festival, so he wanted to say hi to you."
After saying this, James felt like slapping himself for trying to comfort a child like that.
Unexpectedly, Little Dog immediately cheered up. "Big brother, only you would believe me. If I told my aunt or older sister, they would slap me."
Oh well!
This child's thinking wasn't like that of a normal child, and he didn't seem like he needed comforting. Those empty words probably wouldn't have any effect on him.
The two brothers continued talking and joking, lightening the oppressive atmosphere.
Just as James was about to speak again, he suddenly pulled Little Dog towards him.
At the same moment that Little Dog's body lurched forward, a large white cat darted out from the grass where he had been standing. Even in broad daylight, its green eyes were eerie enough to send shivers down one's spine.
Fortunately, the white cat's sudden movement wasn't aimed at them.
On the other side of the grass, a large snake had appeared, its triangular head raised high. The snake flicked its tongue at the white cat continuously, clearly ready for battle.
It was a viper, locally known as the "Dragon Scale Blossom" – highly venomous and extremely aggressive!
In front of the Pheonix Pavilion, a white cat was fighting a venomous snake.
It was another scene that made people's hearts tremble.
From a biological perspective, a cat fighting a snake was not unusual.
However, in a place like Pheonix Pavilion that already had an air of mystery, both the white cat and the green snake seemed to be part of something greater. If seen by those who believed in Regal Valor and Sovereign Grace, this would definitely be considered a significant event.
There was an old saying about this:
When the White Tiger fights the Green Dragon, it shakes heaven and earth!
Little Dog was fearless. Although he had been startled by the snake earlier, he quickly forgot and was now watching the battle between the cat and the snake with great interest.
This time, James didn't indulge Little Dog's curiosity and dragged him away from the scene.
Seeing James' serious expression, Little Dog seemed to sense something was wrong and didn't insist on staying. Reluctantly, he followed James away from the pavilion.
However, he couldn't help but look back every few steps, still curious about what was happening there.
"James! Wait up."
After walking about a hundred meters away, Little Dog noticed something strange again.
"What's wrong now? This isn't some treasure trove for you to cause mischief."
Little Dog stared blankly at the Pheonix Pavilion they had left behind.
"James, look! Is the main beam of the Pheonix Pavilion broken?" Usually laid-back Little Dog suddenly looked serious.
The Pheonix Pavilion had a wing-like structure with a high middle section and lower sides. The main beam in the middle was like the backbone of the building, while the smaller beams on either side were like ribs.
If the main beam had indeed broken, it meant that the building's structural integrity had been compromised.
Looking back at the pavilion which resembled a phoenix taking flight, James noticed that the top of the structure had indeed sagged. The once majestic phoenix now looked sickly.
From a distance, there appeared to be a faint black and green mist hovering above the pavilion, like a lid covering it.
If one were to stretch their imagination, the mist could be seen as a heavy hammer hanging over the Pheonix Pavilion.
"What's going on? Strange things happen every year, but why so many today?"
The Pheonix Pavilion had stood for many years, weathering numerous storms.
Why would the main beam suddenly break?
Though James didn't completely believe in Anglo-Sync and such things, he couldn't help but feel a deep sense of reverence for the forces of nature.
These strange occurrences kept happening one after another.
It was clear that something was very wrong!
His mother appearing in a dream, a picture frame falling to the ground, a woman in a flower dress, burning paper money spontaneously igniting, searching for soup, cat and snake fighting, and now a broken main beam...
Any one of these incidents would have been shocking enough on its own.
Although Renewal Festival was indeed a special day, it was hard to believe that all these events were just coincidences with no connections between them.
As they walked away from the pavilion, Little Dog seemed to vaguely understand what was going through James' mind.
"James, are you worried about what happened with the snake earlier? I've heard from older people that if you encounter unclean things, burning some paper money and offering prayers is enough to keep them at bay. That snake was close to me when it was alive; it wouldn't bother me after its death."
Little Dog's thoughts were simple. He didn't understand the concepts of cat and snake fighting or phoenix losing its strength. He thought of the snake incident as an isolated event.
Growing up in the mountains, who hadn't encountered strange events? There were even local sayings about restless spirits wandering during the Renewal Festival. Little Dog had grown up with these sayings, so he was mentally prepared for such occurrences.
Therefore, although the incident with the snake was strange, Little Dog didn't think too much about it. He didn't have the ability to analyze the situation.
In other words, he knew how to observe but not analyze the overall situation.
While earlier events could be seen as isolated incidents or "forms," the cat and snake fighting and the broken main beam seemed to hint at an underlying force or "trend."
Of course, this was just James' instinct based on his family's teachings.
Although he had a feeling that something was amiss, dealing with forces beyond human understanding was beyond his capabilities.
Seeing that James wasn't responding to him, Little Dog continued talking: "James, was that snake we saw earlier a green-scaled Dragon-Scale Blossom snake? It must have weighed over thieteen pounds! If we caught it and cooked it in a big pot, it would be delicious!"
Little Dog was a mountain boy at heart, possessing the boldness typical of people from the mountains.
Traditional mountain dwellers had only two ways of living: either conquer nature or be conquered by it.
Catching snakes and cooking them in a pot was just a simple part of their daily life.