Mr. Kang was one of the councilmen of a village from Fengrun District. His mother was in hysteria over the disappearance of his neighbor’s chicken. A simple matter of a missing chicken would not have a councilman traveled so far for help; but the owner of the chicken was a shrew, a termagant with an intolerable streak of temper that would embitter anyone who would dare commit the folly of antagonizing her. She was known to everyone in the village to sit and pout at the gates of anyone who had offended her, wearing the person down until apologies were tendered and disdainfully accepted by her. As it turned out, she woke up one day and found her chicken missing. But she had not even the slightest inkling of who to look for, sitting outside her house and began grumbling that her chicken must have been poached by weasels. Coincidentally, her angered complaints were heard by Mr. Kang’s mother, who succumbed into fits of rage and anger herself. The old lady took to the streets, storming to her son’s office as she began muttering as she limped step by step, “I must speak to the village committee! How dare them! Blaming me for the disappearance of their chicken! It was the urchin of the Zhang family who had taken her chicken…”

The old lady caused quite a ruckus that news of what she said reached the ears of her shrew of a neighbor. Now that the true perpetrator was known to her, the ill-tempered crone marched to the home of the Zhang family. With each step, she seethed with rage until she came to the house of the young urchin, who was living at his new house. He was enjoying a binge of liquor with a couple of his friends after an entire night-out at the nearby Internet café. The house was a shambles, the bones and the rest of what was left of the chicken were still strewn around, with feathers and blood still scattered around the compound outside. The shrew reached the new dwelling of the young urchin and caught him red-handed, recognizing the blood and feathers were that of her own chicken’s. She fell to a squat outside the house and began wailing, howling her plight to whomever who would listen. Well acquainted to the termagant’s notoriety, the young rascal Zhang and his friends immediately put on their clothes and fled away. The parents of the young truant heard of the shrew causing a brouhaha just outside their son’s new home and came immediately. With the help of the neighbors and fellow villagers, the parents did their best to console the clamorous hag, finally resolving the matter after the mother of the boy rushed home and grabbed her fattest chicken and offered it to her. “The boy’s only fifteen or sixteen! Please do not mind his ill manners and mischiefs! There’s no need to fret with things which value we can easily measure!” They pleaded and begged her. With as much effort as moving mountains, the women was finally assuaged and only left when she felt she was duly decompensated.

But that was hardly the ending of the story. The termagant began crying foul again after a few days. Her entire flock of chickens was poisoned to death this time! Doggedly persistent in clamoring for justice, the woman bombarded her protests to everyone; from the village committee to the school of the boy. She was certain that the boy was the perpetrator of the poisoning, feeling that he wanted revenge for the fracas of the stolen chicken before. She pushed her agenda to the school board, forcing them to expel the boy. But he denied flatly of any involvement, backed by the claims of his schoolmates who alibied him! Frustrated that she was not given her way, the woman stomped through the doors of the local police station, demanding that they arrest the boy. The police began a thorough investigation by first determining the origin of the poison. The poison was taken for a test and was found to be sold at the market. But hardly a rare and expensive poison widely used in the village, the shopkeepers could not remember any of the customers who had bought the poison recently. But the residence of Mr. Kang’s family sat just in front of a factory which had CCTV of their own. The CCTV footage, although not covering the neighbor’s compound entirely, revealed enough to convince the police that only one person had ever come close to the neighbor’s chicken shed: Mr. Kang’s mother. Becoming the prime suspect, the police concentrated their investigations and began building the case around her. But she had been partially insane ever since she felt herself wronged when the termagant uttered the word “weasel” which seemed to frame her for poaching the chicken like a weasel, hence the police investigations became bogged down, especially when it was revealed that none of the shopkeepers remembered her buying the poison.

The entire fiasco caused quite a scandal for Mr. Kang. Even though the police could definitively pin the crime on his mother, he realized he ought to help calm the situation as councilman of the village. He repaid the neighbor a huge sum of money for the loss of her chickens and things began to die down. Still, he was worried about his mother, wondering if she might one day accidentally administering poison on the food they eat! He began scouring around for advice, and some favorable reviews about us pointed him our way.

Lin Feng was the only one of us present when Mr. Kang came. He was extremely skilled in combat and fighting, but he knew little about subduing evil spirits or ghosts. But he had watched me worked enough to learn a thing or two. He packed his gear and followed Mr. Kang back!

The journey was not really a long one; before long, they reached Mr. Kang’s home, and were just in time to catch Mr. Kang’s mother in another fit of hallucination. The old lady scratched her nose, and began speaking to the young about the Founding Fathers of the country, before ending with her own name as if she was one of them! Lin Feng followed behind Mr. Kang when he came in. She saw Lin Feng and immediately barked, “Come! I hereby appoint you as Premier of the country!” She turned to Mr. Kang and cried loudly, “And you! You shall be the Chairperson!” Lin Feng did the best he could from erupting into laughter, although he played along with her antics to great amusement. “But I know nothing of running the country even if you were to bestow upon me so important a position!” “Learn! Learn from me! I’m sure a young man like you are a fast learner!” The old lady snapped indignantly. Lin Feng asked again, “Where do you live?” To everyone’s surprise, the old lady answered, “I live in the Gourd Valley by the northern knolls!” But a cryptic smile lined across Lin Feng’s face. He took his leave and slipped out, going to the compound of Mr. Kang’s house for a look.

Mr. Kang’s home was one of ancient design with two entrances: a main gate at the front and a side door at the rear end of the compound. There was a shed there that functioned as an annex building to his home. Lin Feng walked around the shed and surveyed the surroundings. In the dialects of the locals, the side walls of a building were colloquially mentioned as “knolls”. Since annex buildings in older Chinese building were usually built to face east, the side walls would most definitely face north and south respectively, hence to the locals, one of the walls would be referred to as the “northern knoll”, while the other the “southern knoll”. Lin Feng circled around the shed, and found a calabash gourd hanging on the wall that faced north. “The so-called Gourd Valley must be this calabash gourd, I’ll hazard!” he thought, while trying his best to not reveal anything on his expression. He went into the vegetable patch just beside the shed and without a warning, he threw one of his poison darts. The dart shot and pierced through the gourd, snapping it into halves with a loud “Crack!” before getting lodged in the wall. Mr. Kang scurried away and came back with a ladder which Lin Feng used to retrieve his dart. They looked at the broken gourd, and found the carcass of a weasel hiding inside. Such was the strength of the poison that Lin Feng applied to his darts that even a weasel with magical powers could die instantly!

Since returning from our adventures at Inner Mongolia, Uncle Quan had forged another set of six poison darts for Lin Feng to replenish the first six which he had used during our escape from the wolf pack. There was no time for us to recollect the darts for reusing. But a staunch believer in the spirit of martial arts, Uncle Quan would permit only the use of poisoned weapons only in situations of grave danger, for even he himself did not have the antidote to the poison. Therefore in the new designs of the poison darts, Uncle Quan intentionally left a cavity in the ends of the dart. A strong spring mechanism was included in the design, to be fitted into the cavity in order for the darts to emit a whistling noise when cast into the air. Anyone adept in combat skills would be able to hear the noise and make evasive maneuvers, a sliver of mercy that Uncle Quan hoped to display in the spirit of chivalry. Uncle Quan would not have allowed Lin Feng to continue using poison darts altogether, if not for the concern that there might still be remnants of the evil cult that might wish to enact vengeance upon us. To think that the darts would come to be useful in dealing with a weasel demon.

Lin Feng hoisted the carcass of the animal over one shoulder, and trotted back to the house. Walking into the house, he could still hear the old lady babbling about herself, blubbering over some stupid heresy that not even my father would dare utter. Lin Feng walked up to her and asked her again, “Where did you say you live at earlier, old lady?” “The Gourd Valley by the northern knolls!” She repeated herself crossly. Lin Feng showed her the dead carcass of the weasel, and dangled it before her very eyes. “Is this it?” he said. Immediately the old lady fell into a seizure as soon as she saw the carcass, her body shaking and squirming violently before she fainted. It did not take long for her to recover. Only this time, she was fully conscious! She was no longer insane or delusional!

Swelling with pride and joy, Lin Feng returned to the Center like a triumphant hero! He was unsure of his success when he first decided to help Mr. Kang, for he knew nothing of curing odd ailments and strange sicknesses. But I was happy for him too as he related to me of his encounter. We waited for Yuan Chongxi to come back, where the three of us went for another dinner of barbecue skewers. Bolstered by Lin Feng’s achievement, Yuan Chongxi too wanted an opportunity to test his skills on his own as well!

Over a table full of food and drinks, we chatted about the past few days. Even without the bragging of his stories, we could clearly detect the signs of a man in love ever since his return from Inner Mongolia. The cheerfulness that practically permeated from every part of him, the spring in every step he took… all laid testament to how smitten he was with his sweetheart! Lin Feng returned to spending time with Yuanyuan, entertaining her with more of the tales of his adventures as they went around the city. I could have sworn that Lin Feng must have told Yuanyuan a heavily-fictionalized version of events that depicted him as a conquering hero in the end! But having witnessed what we were capable of with her own eyes, Yuanyuan knew full well that we were no ordinary young men and would believe whatever Lin Feng told her. Nevertheless, I would hope that Lin Feng did not recklessly shoot off his trap!

Yuan Chongxi reached for two mutton skewers and shoved them into his mouth. “What have you been doing for the past few days, Brother Yan?” I scratched my nose. “What else?” I said, “I either spend the day taking a nap or manning the Center. In the night, I’d go to the Internet cafe for some fun.” An “Oh” had barely escaped Yuan Chongxi’s mouth when I immediately continued, “But, I encountered something fun two days ago!” My companions’ eyes twinkled with interest and I extracted my Spirit Gourd from my pocket. I yanked off its cork and muttered a spell. A coal-black gush of fumes shot from the gourd and flew back down onto the table, materializing into a dark figure.

Yuan Chongxi and Lin Feng almost leaped with astonishment. They yelped with fright, “Oh! God! What is that?” But their fear subsided almost instantly, as they realized that it was a large black cat that had sprouted out of my gourd! The cat, covered in a glistening coat of black fur, peered at them curiously with its large green eyes that looked like they were marbles glowing in the dark. I placed a hand on the cat’s head and began scratching it gently, earning an approving purr from my new pet. Yuan Chongxi and Lin Feng stared at it. Almost together, they asked, “From where you did find such a large cat?”

“I chanced upon it! Just two days ago…” I giggled.