I heard a scream coming from a great distance, but my master and mother, with their less acute hearing, didn't notice it. Without hesitation, I immediately dashed out of the house and ran towards the direction of the scream.
The scream didn't stop; it kept coming, and it grew louder and more hysterical: "It hurts so much, don't hit me! Please spare my life!"
I recognized the voice; it was Fan Qiang's. The screams were coming from his house. At first, I thought it was his father fiercely beating him, but as I approached his doorstep, I saw many people running out of his house in extreme terror, as if chased by ghosts. This told me it couldn't possibly be Old Fan beating him. Given Fan Qiang's personality, being beaten wouldn't cause him to scream in such terror. Over the years, Old Fan wouldn't dare beat his now powerful son.
I peeked through the door of Fan Qiang's house and saw him lying on the ground, twitching and screaming shrilly. His father, Old Fan, was frantically injecting him with something, while Sheng Yu Po was pinching her fingers and continuously gesturing over him, to no avail.
The heart-stopping screams, mixed with the mad barking of dogs and the chaos of various animals running and crying out, seemed like the end of the world. I felt a chill run through me and hurriedly ran home, quickly shutting the door behind me.
My master asked what had happened, and I described what I had seen. His brows furrowed even more tightly, and he sighed repeatedly.
"How could this happen?" Grandma asked, her voice trembling with fear.
My master looked at me, shaking his head and sighing, before finally speaking: "I've felt something was off since half a year ago, but I couldn't pinpoint the problem. I cast a divination, and it was a sign of great misfortune, so I've been cautious not to provoke those evil spirits. I suspected that the root of the trouble was attached to Sheng Yu Po, but until this morning, I thought the large camphor tree was a positive deity, the guardian spirit of the village. I never expected that the tree was the biggest potential threat, and I didn't expect things to escalate to this point."
I was puzzled: "Can a tree really be that powerful?"
"Yes!" my master said very seriously, "Because it has lived for a very long time and can channel spiritual energy from both heaven and earth. Once it gains power, it can be more terrifying than ordinary demons. According to the 'Book of the Later Han Dynasty · Treatise on the Five Elements,' in the twenty-fifth year of the Jian'an era, Cao Cao (Emperor Wu of Wei) was building the Jianshi Hall in Luoyang. When he cut down the Zuo Long tree, blood spewed out, and when he dug up the pear tree, the roots were damaged and blood flowed. Cao Cao disliked this omen and soon fell ill, dying in that month. 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' also has a similar record. Cao Cao wanted to cut down a large pear tree to build the Jianshi Hall, but axes couldn't penetrate it. He personally took a sword to chop it, and blood gushed out. That night, he dreamed that a divine being slashed his head with a sword, and when he woke up, his head hurt terribly. In the end, he died from this. Think about it, Cao Cao was a formidable hero of his time, controlling the emperor and issuing decrees to the vassal states, killing countless people across the land. Even he was plagued to death by a tree, so how much more dangerous could it be for us ordinary people?"
"The Book of the Later Han Dynasty" is a historical text, and the content it records is somewhat credible, so I had no words to refute my master. In fact, there's no need for argument. The whole village is in chaos now, Fan Qiang has suffered a terrible punishment, and the large camphor tree has already shown its astonishing demonic aura.
My mother asked tremblingly, "Is it because Fan Qiang offended it? It won't harm others, will it?"
I immediately shook my head. I could feel its anger surging like a towering wave, not so easily appeased. My master also shook his head vigorously: "This is an evil deity. Once it is angered, it will mercilessly retaliate against everyone, just like a person with a hot temper who is drunk. If bitten by an ant, he would stomp on the entire nest of ants, and even stomp on every ant he sees."
My whole family, including me, was terrified. Is this going to be a situation where not even a chicken or a dog is spared?
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, followed by Sheng Yu Po's hoarse screams: "Savior, please save me, I'm kneeling down for you. If you save my son, I'll do anything you ask. Your great kindness, I can't repay in this life, but I'll be a cow or a horse in my next life to repay you."
My master walked to the door, sighing: "It's not that I won't save your son, but that I can't. I told you long ago that whether it's the Queen Mother of the West or He Xiangu, real immortals don't have time for you. What communicates with you are evil spirits, but you wouldn't believe me."
Sheng Yu Po knelt outside, kowtowing with her head hitting the stone slab, making a loud sound, begging desperately. My master was a kind-hearted person and didn't take the opportunity to scold her or blame her, but simply stated again that he didn't have the ability to help. Then he asked: "Do you know the origin of that large camphor tree?"
"I don't know," Sheng Yu Po hesitated. "It seems to have some hostility towards me, and it enjoys blood sacrifices, so I found excuses to hold grand ceremonies. I didn't expect that after it enjoyed them, it would want more."
My master asked, "What exactly is it?"
"It's very tall and large, with red light soaring into the sky. I really don't know its origin. Sir, please save my son, I beg you!"
The master said in a deep voice, "I really don't have the ability to save your son. I'm afraid not only your family, but the whole village will be affected by the disaster. If I had that ability, I wouldn't need you to beg. I would have already taken action
Sheng Yupo turned to beg me, my mother, and grandmother. My mother and grandmother had a look of pity on their faces, but I retaliated without hesitation: "What's the point of begging me? Even if I have the ability, I won't save your son. Have you forgotten how you tricked me? I can ignore you for repeatedly spreading rumors and framing me. I can forgive you for instigating the Butterfly Gang from another village to smash, rob, and burn me, but if you used evil methods to harm me, if I hadn't died early in the morning, would it have been possible to save your son today? If you killed Ah Tong, can you still resurrect him? Your son is a son, isn't someone else's son
Sheng Yupo lost her voice, but soon she jumped and cursed again. She was extremely vicious, such as a short-lived ghost, being struck by lightning, or having her whole family die badly. I was too embarrassed to repeat it. She completely forgot how she had harmed others, and also forgot that the whole village was in danger because of her son's misconduct. In her eyes, only others had wronged her, and those who had opposite opinions to her were all bad people and deserved to die.
I gave my master a contemptuous look and said, "Master, kindness has a bottom line. A mad dog is a mad dog. Don't think it won't bite just because it wags its tail a few times
Master felt a little ashamed, but not because he was "taught" by me, but because he was too soft hearted and forgot about right and wrong.
Sheng Yu Po cursed for a while, then switched to a different tone and started chanting spells, gesturing towards my gate. Though she lacked education, the words she spoke were archaic and obscure, her pronunciation resembling the declamation in opera, likely an ancient language. My master, tense, also began to perform magical gestures and chant spells towards the gate. His chants were mostly urgent commands like "hasten," "break," and "dispel," spoken with authority and determination.
I widened my eyes, but saw nothing. Real magical battles are somewhat mysterious and not at all spectacular. If it were spectacular, it would probably mean someone had gone mad or died.
Sheng Yu Po caused a commotion for a few minutes, cursing as she left. I looked at my master anxiously, and he sighed with relief, "It's nothing serious. Most of what she used were methods to curse people, causing illnesses, weakening fortune, and disturbing the peace of the household. The principle of such spells is like marking your house to attract all sorts of bad things, so as long as you erase the mark, it's fine. She's also very weak now, and the evil entities on her are suppressed, so they're no threat to us. But that tree spirit or demon, it's really beyond my capabilities, alas!"
I had a sudden idea, "Let's report it to the police tomorrow, get the public security involved. They represent the law of the country. No matter how rampant this tree demon is, it can't go against the law and fortune of the nation, right?"
My master nodded, "We can try, but it might not be effective."
The reason for waiting until tomorrow to call the police is that now, with every household closed, I have nowhere to make a call. Back then, there wasn't a saying like "call the police when in trouble." Only major events like murders or robberies would warrant a call to the public security bureau. Without a life-threatening situation, the police generally wouldn't rush over in the middle of the night, so I thought calling at night would be useless.
In fact, when Sheng Yu Po was causing a scene at my doorstep, Lao Fan had already called the police and the emergency services. Later, the police car and ambulance arrived, but they didn't enter the village. It's said that when the police were almost at our village, they encountered something strange. Even though they knew the village was just a kilometer or two ahead, the police car drove for more than half an hour without reaching it, on a straight road without a single turn, straighter than a highway. By the time they realized something was wrong and hit the brakes, the car had already plunged into the rice field by the roadside and was stuck.
After that, the phone just gave a busy tone, and all the phones in the village were unreachable. Even the few mobile phones (Global System for Mobile Communications) lost signal, so no one knew where the police officers ended up.
Furthermore, when I was at home, I heard chaotic chicken cries coming from the backyard, so I hurriedly opened the back door to check. I saw the four remaining chickens flapping their wings and kicking their legs in a desperate struggle, screaming and spraying blood, splattering it everywhere. The scene was quite terrifying; my scalp numbed, and I didn't know what to do. At that moment, I heard my mother's screams from inside the house.
I was shocked and rushed into the house as fast as I could. I saw my mother holding a large white rabbit by the rabbit hutch in the courtyard. The rabbit was struggling violently, with blood flowing from its eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. Another large white rabbit in the cage was also emitting sharp, shrill screams, constantly ramming its head against the cage and rolling on the ground, with blood oozing from all seven orifices. I had never heard a rabbit scream so loudly and so horribly in all my life.
It wasn't just our livestock that suffered. I heard the chickens, ducks, pigs, and dogs of our neighbors and even people from farther away screaming in agony, along with many humans screaming and crying out in fear. This scene was like the legendary Asura Hell. At this point, I really started to resent my own exceptional hearing, which had a broader range than others, making the sounds more vivid and layered. This was truly Torture.
"My master suddenly shouted in a strange voice, 'Not a single chicken or dog left, not a single chicken or dog left,'" his face was extremely ugly, his voice was trembling, and so was he.
"Can you stop causing trouble!" I roared, not knowing why I became irritable, unable to control my desire to get angry. "You always tolerate, tolerate. If you had acted earlier, it wouldn't have come to this point. Now think of a solution to the problem!"
My master looked desperate: "There is no other way but to cut down the tree."
Hell, can this even be called a solution? Now everyone is struggling to save themselves, who dares to cut down the tree?