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Grandpa felt somewhat conflicted.
The weasel spirits had done the Wu Family a great favor. If it were not for them, there was no way I would have survived until now. Forget all the disasters I had encountered, even hunger alone would have been enough to starve me to death.
But the five Zhang brothers were also people Grandpa had watched grow up from childhood. When they were young, they would run around him, calling him Uncle and Great-Uncle. Although the five Zhang brothers had bullied his son, those incidents had only been minor squabbles that could be settled with a few words. They would still have to live in the same village in the future, seeing each other every day.
Grandpa did not want them to die either.
The reason Grandpa was caught in such a difficult position this time, and had even developed some resentment toward the weasel spirits, was because he felt that they had gone too far. Zhang's Fifth Brother had merely slapped me once. Although he had been in the wrong first, that still did not warrant taking his life.
Yet after the weasel spirit had exchanged his life, it still refused to leave his corpse alone and continued tormenting it here.
But then again, Zhang's Second Brother had also tormented the corpse of that weasel spirit.
So perhaps this really was a case of one wrong being repaid with another.
There was an old saying, ‘When a person dies, their life is of the utmost importance.’
No matter what, Grandpa felt that a human life was certainly more precious than the life of a weasel spirit.
Fearing that Grandpa might cause some huge trouble, Granny Liu hurriedly said to him, “Brother Wu, tell the Zhang Family to bring over a few chickens.”
“What if it asks for something else after eating the chickens?” Grandpa asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Don't worry about it. This old woman knows what she's doing.”
Granny Liu mysteriously winked at Grandpa with her one eye.
Helpless, Grandpa had no choice but to walk outside the courtyard and tell the Zhang Family what Granny Liu had said.
Zhang's Eldest Brother immediately ran back home, intending to catch a few chickens from his own house and bring them over.
As a disciple of a Horseback Immortal, Granny Liu was no stranger to weasel spirits.
Weasel spirits were also one of the most mysterious creatures among the Five Great Immortal Families.
In fact, Granny Liu had encountered several cases in the past where people had been possessed by weasel spirits.
Weasel possession happened from time to time in our area, and most cases occurred while people were keeping vigil over the dead.
During a funeral vigil, the deceased's filial sons and grandsons had to stay up all night inside the mourning tent. They were especially wary of certain “furry” animals approaching the corpse, because this could easily result in what was known as corpse resurrection.
This so-called corpse resurrection did not mean that a person turned into a zombie and began hopping around chasing people.
Rather, it meant that an animal possessed the corpse.
And among such creatures, weasel spirits especially loved possessing human bodies. They would use the possessed person's body to demand things from the living.
When a weasel spirit possessed a dead person, it could control the corpse, making it sit cross-legged on top of the coffin while presenting demands to the people around it.
If its demands were not met, it would control the corpse and make it roll around all over the ground. It would refuse to leave the dead person's body, making it extremely troublesome to deal with.
Whenever something like this happened, people from villages within a ten-li radius would invite Granny Liu over to drive the weasel spirit out of the corpse.
When a weasel spirit had possessed a dead person's body, one could not use brute force against it.
If everyone acted like Grandpa and went up and gave it a couple of hard slaps across the face, the weasel spirit would not only damage the dead person's corpse, but could even control that corpse to attack the living.
Normally, when such a situation occurred, before a Horseback Immortal could be invited over, the deceased's filial sons and grandsons could only carefully plead with the weasel spirit and try their best to satisfy every demand it made.
In most cases, the only thing weasel spirits wanted was food.
They especially loved eating chickens, ducks, and other domestic livestock. If people gave them what they wanted, then after eating and drinking their fill, the weasel spirit would leave.
At that point, the dead person would collapse back onto the coffin and become completely motionless once again.
However, there were exceptions.
Just like the weasel spirit before them.
Its purpose was not entirely to obtain food.
Its ultimate goal was to make the Zhang Family suffer chaos at home and eventually be left completely broken and ruined.
At times like this, they needed to call in a Horseback Immortal to negotiate with the weasel spirit.
It was just like bargaining at a market.
While negotiating, the Horseback Immortal also had to determine how powerful the weasel spirit was so that they could figure out how to deal with it.
There was actually a particular method for determining the strength of a weasel spirit.
It was to analyze what exactly the weasel spirit demanded from them.
In general, the more advanced a weasel spirit's cultivation was, the more valuable the things it would demand. It might even ask for medicinal herbs such as wild ginseng, which could help increase its cultivation.
Weasel spirits with weaker cultivation would usually ask for food. They might demand live chickens, ducks, or even live fish.
There were also some weasel spirits with such low cultivation that they could not even speak human language. They could only try their best to describe what they wanted. For example, they might imitate a hen's call, clucking over and over again. At that point, people would realize that it wanted to eat a hen.
In short, when a weasel spirit with low cultivation wanted something, it could only describe it through sounds and gestures. Whether the people involved could understand it depended entirely on their ability to figure out what it meant.
As for the weasel spirit currently possessing Zhang's Fifth Brother, Granny Liu could not determine its level of cultivation for the time being. She could only satisfy its demands at first and see whether there was still room to resolve the matter peacefully.
The immortal spirit Granny Liu worshiped was a Willow Immortal, meaning a snake that had cultivated until it became an immortal spirit. Therefore, she did not have too many taboos regarding weasel spirits.
Before long, Zhang's Eldest Brother returned carrying several chickens. He handed them to Grandpa but did not dare enter the courtyard.
Grandpa had no choice but to take the hens and walk into the house, where he handed them over to Granny Liu.
At this point, Grandpa did not hurry to leave. He was quite curious about what Granny Liu was going to do next.
However, the scene that followed nearly made Grandpa vomit.
After Granny Liu took the chickens, she directly handed them to Zhang's Fifth Brother, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed.
“Second Master Huang, I've brought the chickens you wanted. Once you've eaten and had your fill, will you leave?” Granny Liu said as she tossed the chickens onto the bed.
“Hehe… We'll talk about leaving after I've eaten my fill.”
As Zhang's Fifth Brother spoke, he grabbed one of the lively hens. He immediately shoved it toward his mouth.
With one bite, he sank his teeth into the chicken's neck, biting the live hen to death on the spot before gulping down its blood.
Grandpa watched Zhang's Fifth Brother, his mouth covered in chicken feathers as he devoured the bird raw and drank its blood. A chill of disgust ran through him, and he also felt nauseated, his stomach churning uncontrollably.
Grandpa had been on battlefields before and had witnessed plenty of bloody scenes.
But seeing a dead person eating a live chicken still sent shivers down his spine.
Before long, Zhang's Fifth Brother had completely torn apart and swallowed one hen alive.
Then he reached out, grabbed another hen, and shoved it toward his mouth.
At some point, Granny Liu had lit a pipe and was sitting there puffing away, her expression constantly shifting between dark and bright.
This weasel spirit had immediately asked for food upon appearing, yet it was capable of speaking human language. It seemed that its cultivation was not particularly high.
Watching Zhang's Fifth Brother eat with such relish, Granny Liu had already begun preparing to make her move.
After taking several deep drags from her pipe, Granny Liu suddenly stood up and blew a mouthful of smoke directly into Zhang's Fifth Brother's face.
In the very next moment, she swung the pipe bowl in her hand and struck Zhang's Fifth Brother hard on the head.
Zhang's Fifth Brother, who had been gnawing on the live chicken, suddenly lurched violently. A strange cry escaped his throat, shrill and extremely mournful.
Before anyone could react, Granny Liu reached out with one hand and grabbed Zhang's Fifth Brother by the neck.
Her eyes once again turned a ghostly green.
“Bold Second Master Huang! This immortal is here. Why haven't you withdrawn immediately?”
Even Granny Liu's voice had changed. It had become the voice of a woman who sounded extremely young.
With his neck firmly gripped, Zhang's Fifth Brother's eyes suddenly rolled upward. His entire body trembled violently as though he were suffering from an epileptic seizure, and he cried out in a shrill voice:
“I won't leave… I won't leave…”
“You refuse to leave? Then this immortal will send you away!”
As Granny Liu spoke, she knocked some of the ashes out of her pipe bowl. She dipped her finger into the ashes and began drawing on Zhang's Fifth Brother's forehead.