I have a cousin with the ability to see things that most of us can't, commonly known as having "yin and yang eyes." Naturally, I always enjoy listening to his stories. What follows is a tale related to my cousin.
When my grandfather passed away, my cousin was responsible for setting off homemade fireworks (those really loud ones) as part of our customs. Making these fireworks was a bit of a hassle in our region. Since we fire them off in intervals over several days, they needed to be prepared well in advance.
Our traditional funeral lasts for seven days. The first few days were uneventful, but on the fourth day, my cousin approached my father and said, "These fireworks are unusually hard to ignite. I rarely face such difficulties." My father inquired about the issue, and my cousin explained that they managed to ignite two out of six rounds at best. My father initially thought it was a technical problem, but my cousin insisted that it was a spirit causing trouble. This spirit prevented him from lighting the fireworks, and even when ignited, they failed to explode.
My father grasped the situation and asked my cousin if he had seen anything unusual. My cousin described the spirit he saw, a short, chubby woman dressed in a blouse, who was causing mischief. My father informed my mother about this description, and she immediately connected it with my ailing grandmother, as her appearance and health matched the description quite well.
Following my cousin's suggestion, my mother consulted a Taoist priest (a common practice in our area), as it was believed that if you identified the spirit responsible, taking certain measures could extend a person's life by at least three years. After the ritual was performed, we all felt reassured. However, we had overlooked another person who also matched the description – my maternal grandmother, who was more fitting and had been visiting my grandmother and keeping her company during that period, out of concern for her well-being.