I looked at these three broken pieces of incense and whispered to myself, “Whatever.” Then each of us took a piece and took out our lighters, trying to ignite them. However, no matter how we tried, we couldn’t ignite the incense. When it touched the flame from the lighter, it gave out smoke. But once it left the flame, it went out. I looked at the others and found that the same happened to them. How strange that was!

At this moment, we heard someone talking at the door. Then we saw a middle-aged man who was around 50 coming in. He was wearing clothes of famous brands and leather sandals, holding an iPhone in luxury gold color in his hand. Talking through his phone, he passed between us directly as if he didn’t see us and sat on the couch. We all got stupefied.

Chong Xi asked him suspiciously, “Are you in the wrong house?” The middle-aged man hung up, put back his phone on his waist, raised his head and asked, “What do you want from me?” Chong Xi replied with a stunned face, “Nothing…” Then he stood up and said, “Why did you ignite the incense and make me come then? For god’s sake!” We were all flabbergasted. Man, that was Master Six! While speaking, Master Six wanted to leave! We walked up to him hurriedly and stopped him. I apologized sincerely, “I didn’t know that Master Six would show up as a common man. I thought you would wear a wide-sleeved gown and come riding on the clouds with a horsetail whisk in your hand! I am very sorry that we treated you with disregard, please accept our apologies!” After I made a bow with my hands folded in front, Master Six looked at me and said with a smile, “I am not a monk nor a Taoist and won’t hold a horsetail whisk in my hand. I have already reincarnated for decades!” Until then I remembered, Mr. Chen had told me that in 27 years after the tomb robbery event, Master Six would reincarnate. No wonder he looked like an ordinary person.

When we were hurriedly about to brew some tea, Master Six waved his hand and said, “Let’s cut the pleasantries and move!” We asked hastily, “Where are we going?” Master Six glared at me, “We are going to check on a patient!” It turned out Master Six was short-tempered. “You guys follow me behind my car!” Then Master Six walked out. We brought our tools in a rush, got in our car and drove forward following Master Six’s car.

Halfway through, we saw Master Six’s car turn into a village. We didn’t ask for a reason and just followed. Then we kept going in and out of villages under the lead of Master Six. When we finally went back on the highway, I found out that the previous part of it was damaged, and it was under maintenance. No wonder Master Six kept detouring. He was surely a deity! When we arrived in the village, we parked our cars on the empty ground. Then we turned around and walked up to the patient’s house. We were in the front with Master Six behind us. I walked into the yard first. The patient’s family saw us and immediately came to greet us. And I walked into the house first. As soon as the female patient saw me, she said sarcastically with a twisted smile, “How dare you come again, you didn’t get burned enough?” Before I could answer, Master Six’s voice came through from outside, “They are with me. We are here to treat the patient!” It turned out that Master Six was explaining to the family! However, when the patient heard Master Six’s voice, she panicked immediately. With a swoosh, she passed between us and hid behind the door.

Master Six entered the room, sat down, and pointed to a seat inside, indicating to the patient to sit down. After she sat down, she was still trembling. Master Six said slowly, “What should I do with you! Yesterday, I had a drink with Huangshigong (fabled deity; master military strategist and legendary teacher of Zhang Liang, one of the Three Heroes of Early Han). If I turn you over to him, it would make me look like someone who takes advantage of his status to bully a yellow weasel goblin like you. If I kill you with a slap, people would say I bully the weak by being strong. If I forgive you, it would be impossible for someone who has cultivation like you to know that she is the reincarnation of my concubine…”

Master Six thought for a moment and threw out a knife that was thin and small. With a crack, it stabbed in the table in front of the patient, wobbling with buzz. Master Six said, “Forget about it, cut off your tail end for me to make a brush pen. And then you can run. The female patient, or the yellow weasel goblin to be exact, waved her hand and summoned out a little girl holding a tray full of tail ends of yellow weasels on her hands from nowhere. The yellow weasel said, “I heard a lot about you, my lord. And I knew someday we would meet. I knew you like brush pens. Therefore, every year I collected the tail ends of my offspring who died from coldness to prepare this gift for our first meeting, my lord! I was defeated in the family battle and lost my territory. Life was very hard for me. I happened to find that a superior possessed this woman. Then I dared to follow to make a living. Please pardon me, my lord!” Master Six laughed out loud and said, “No wonder you could cultivate for so many years. Keep your tail and leave! Go to Huangtu Hill and look for Tao, he will help you find a place to stay!” After the yellow weasel goblin thanked him, the patient’s face changed. The yellow weasel goblin was gone.

Then Master Six waved his hand. With a thud, a man was pulled out of the patient’s body. Taking a closer look, we found out that it was a young Taoist who was around 12 years old. He had bright eyes, graceful eyebrows, white teeth, and red lips. Holding a horsetail whisk in his hand, he made a bow to Master Six and said, “Best regards to you!” Master Six returned a salute and said, “A Taoist also possesses people?” The young Taoist blushed and said, “I feared that she would get hurt from evils. So I did it to protect her!” Master Six said, “Chun Yangzi sent you, right?!” The young Taoist didn’t answer. Master Six went on and said, “I entrusted it to the wrong guy!” The young Taoist said hastily, “He really meant…” Master Six interrupted him, “I didn’t mean me, I mean that he entrusted the wrong guy! How could he entrust it to someone who gets drunk all the time? That old mudfish! Before when he found that things went wrong, he directly did…” Master Six then pointed at the patient’s family, said, “He turned two shrimp soldiers and crab generals into humans, and ordered them to murder the family. I had no other way but to rescue them. Ahem!”

Here I need to make an explanation. This patient was possessed by three spirits. The first one was the yellow weasel goblin, who was already sent away by Master Six. The second one was Celestial Master Zhang, who possessed the patient to protect her from getting hurt from the other two evil spirits. The third one was an evil spirit. She was the first one to possess the patient. I haven’t started to introduce her yet.

The patient was Master Six’s concubine who descended to the earth. She was sent by heaven to descend to follow Master Six. A mistake might have happened during her descending trip after Master Six. Then she was arranged to descend again. Therefore, Master Six should have entrusted Chun Yangzi to do this. Chun Yangzi was otherwise known as Lyu Dongbin (infamous Taoist priest and leader of the Eight Immortals of Chinese mythology). However, Lyu Dongbin had to quit the escort mission because of an emergency. Thus he entrusted another deity to do it for him. From Master Six’s words, it seemed to be a dragon. However, this dragon was a drunkard. He got drunk and escorted her to the wrong place. After he realized his mistake, he wanted to kill the three people in the family to do it again. Master Six predicted that his concubine was in danger at that time. So he went to rescue them. After Lyu Dongbin finished his errand, a month in the heaven had passed already, which amounted to 30 years on the earth. Lyu Dongbin felt embarrassed to go visit Master Six. So he implored the help of Celestial Master Zhang (fabled Chinese Taoist figure) to help him through. At that time the concubine was possessed by evil spirits. Celestial Master Zhang interfered, waiting for Master Six to make a decision to solve the problem. That’s why the woman let out a stinky smell when we came for the first time. It was actually the doing of the yellow weasel goblin. Seeing that the yellow weasel goblin was no match with us, Celestial Master Zhang took part in the fight and used holy fire to drive us away, in order to make us turn to Master Six. Therefore, what happened earlier was bound to happen. I didn’t know until later, that the dragon that Immortal Chun Yang entrusted was in fact the “Dongting Monarch (supernatural being from the Strange Tales from Liaozhai)”. In my father’s words, that was a long drunk worm.

At this moment, Master Six said to Celestial Master Zhang, “Now I will handle it by myself. You can leave now.” Therefore Celestial Master Zhang said his goodbyes and flew away. The next would be handling the last evil spirit. Master Six turned around and asked the family, “Who is her husband?” A middle-aged man walked up to him. Master Six said, “Come inside, let us talk alone!” So the man entered the room. Master Six said to the man with his back to us, “I talk in a straightforward manner, I hope you don’t mind. This woman from Xin Jiang, I don’t know her name. You flirted with her on a drive together when you lost control of the steering wheel and ran over this cat.” Master Six reached out and showed the man his palm. We didn’t get to see it clearly from our direction. I guessed that was the scene when the incident happened.

Master Six continued and said, “The cat was a virgin body with the cultivation of seven lives. She surely wouldn’t be accepting of this. Now she has possessed your wife with the intention to make you spend everything to cure her, then…” We couldn’t see Master Six’s palm. But we were told later that other than running the cat over, this man also ran over a mother and a daughter. Master Six said, “If I cure her now, she will no longer be your wife. And I just need one word from you, to cure her or not!” The man was so scared that he trembled, and said, “If she’s cured, would I be redeemed and freed from calamity?” Master Six nodded and said, “Yes!” “Okay, please cure her!” The man said in an affirmative voice. Master Six said, “You can leave the room now.” And then he asked, “Who are her parents?” A couple who are in the middle of their 50s came in. Master Six took out a necklace, fiddling with it, and asked, “Do you still remember Anhua County in Hunan province?” The couple clearly showed a surprised expression!

It turned out the couple resold tea back in the years when the reform and opening-up policy just started. They needed to go to Anhua County, where was surrounded by lakes and rivers, to replenish their stock. When they went, they needed to take a boat. At that time, the man couldn’t handle everything by himself. And their baby hadn’t weaned yet. Therefore, the couple went with their baby.

Back in those days, the financial instruments were a lot less diversified than today. People needed to pay in cash to buy tea from retail investors. The evil intent of the two boatmen emerged. And they asked the family if they wanted “Chopped noodles” or “Wonton” (Allegories from the story Water Margin; the former refers to “death by being hacked” while the later refers to “death by drowning”). The couple begged for mercy hastily. And the baby cried very loudly. At that moment, a piece of reed in the water moved, making a rattle. With a fishing rod raised, a young man walked up from it. He was around 17 years old (his actual age was 20), walking up to the boat leisurely with a fishing rod and a fish basket in each of his hands. What amazed the couple and the boatmen was, the man was walking on the water, with a steady pace.

When he reached the boat, he put down the fish basket. Instead of talking to the four adults, he swung a necklace in front of the baby, muttering incantations. The baby immediately stopped crying and chuckled.