Zheng Shuang came for another visit after a few days. Mr. Kang, the village councilman who had tricked us, was found dead. His body was found at only a few kilometers from where we were kidnapped, with a scraper blade buried into his back. The police had found fingerprints on the knife but they did not match anything on their system. So far, our leads had all reached a dead end.

“But according to word on the streets,” Zheng Shuang continued, “The eldest and second of the Wang brothers intend to lodge a report against you for excessive self-defense! You must be ready! I have tried my best to keep the news from leaking, but it seems that the family of the dead man does not want to let things go…” My companions, Lin Feng and Yuan Chongxi, looked at me, and I looked back. An impish smile slowly formed on our faces and we erupted into guffaws of laughter. “So be it then!” I said. Zheng Shuang was bewildered, shocked beyond words at us. “Wh-what… Y-you…” I steered the subject away from his stammers and asked instead, “So have you tried tracing the origins of the scraper blade? That should have been controlled items that could never have been sold without permits from the local police!” “Investigations into that is still ongoing, might take some time!” Zheng Shuang replied.

After Zheng Shuang left, we had another discussion of our own. Yuan Chongxi was oddly excited. It was his turn to act, he said as he rubbed his chin, “I still have yet to fully vent my anger! Let me have a go!” I shot a glare at him but I said nothing to stop him, merely warning him to spill no more blood. “Relax!” he said to me, “This is so much more vanilla to the things I had done before! Trust me!” He dragged Lin Feng off with him out the door, fully unaware that what he said betrayed his guilt over his past. I shook my head wearily as the door closed behind them.

I waited at the Center until the clock showed a little more than eleven and my companions returned. “Was everything well?” I asked, and they replied, sniggering, “Of course! Heh heh heh!” We closed the Center and adjourned to our usual haunt for barbecue skewers.

Zheng Shuang came to the Center again the following evening. Only this time, he did not come alone. He introduced one of the men as a friend of his from school, and another two men behind as one of the elder brothers of Wang Laosan and his nephew. The two latter men immediately collapsed to their knees and began howling tearfully, begging us for mercy! Mad with fright, the two men stammered in a cluster of moans and wails for us to spare them.

Later I found out: The elder and second of the Wang brothers were at the home of the former to discuss the matter of charging us with excessive self-defense, when the elder brother rose from his chair suddenly. With a blank face, he stepped away. The second brother, puzzled and confused, asked him, “Where are you going to?” But his brother made no reply, instead, he went to the kitchen to look for a rolling pin and began hitting wildly at everything in sight! In a mad hysteria, the elder brother flailed the wooden pin in his hands furiously and whacked at the refrigerator, the washing machine, the kitchen cabinets and everything else he could find, as he mumbled profusely, “You want an inquiry! An inquiry upon the victims! …” “What is wrong with you?” His brother screamed and pounced at his suddenly-insane brother, pinning him to the floor and wrestled the rolling pin away from him. The latter’s daughter, witnessing the entire episode, became frightened and cried! As the two men tangled with each other on the floor, the wife of the elder brother, rushed out of the kitchen with a huge meat cleaver. She was also in a maddened streak, her eyes bloodshot with rage, her face glowing with insanity. Through gritted teeth, she howled savagely with the same raving grin as her husband’s, “You want an inquiry! An inquiry! I’ll butcher you all!…”

The elder of the Wang brothers did not find himself a wife until he met a divorced woman. Younger than he was, the woman had a daughter from her previous marriage. After their marriage, the elder brother’s wife bore him another daughter and a son, the former now in her early teens and the latter now about six or seven years old. The elder brother’s wife caught sight of her own daughter and sneered viciously, “Heh heh heh! I’ll start by first butchering this daughter of a bitch!” She threw herself forward, swinging her cleaver so dangerously at her own offspring and nearly killed her if not for the second brother who dove frantically into her to pull her aside!

Amidst the pandemonium, the youngest son came into the sitting area and whisked away a lighter. He ran off, and, much to the horror of his second uncle, he began setting the bedsheets alight! The second Wang brother released his deranged sister-in-law and chased after his nephew who was having a fun time with the lighter. The commotion attracted a mob of curious neighbors crowding outside their house and some helped to restrain the eldest Wang brother, his wife and his son. But that was not all! His daughter began grinning and giggling maniacally before she began stripping herself! Aghast at her boldness, two female neighbors immediately lunged at her and pinned her down before she could fully unclothe herself!

Suddenly, another neighbor came screaming at the door, calling for the second brother. Come quickly, he shouted, for the second brother’s wife was trying to hang herself! In another fit of panic, the second brother ran all the way home to find his wife already been rescued by good samaritans, sitting on her floor with her hair unkempt and wild. His daughters were beside her; one of them was massaging his wife’s back while the other was kneading gently at her legs and arms. For reasons unknown, their hairs were entangled together that they could only sit back-to-back. Their father scrambled for a pair of scissors and immediately sheared off the entangled part to free them, without any more regard for appearance.

Aside from two daughters, the second brother had another son, a student of law in university. It was him who had riled up his uncles to force a police inquiry into the death of Wang Laosan, his youngest uncle! He came home in the nick of time to discover the mess and ruckus befalling his home and bellowed, “Impossible! I do not believe in myths and superstitions! Come at me if you will, I am the one who suggested the idea to lodge the inquiry!” His mother, still sitting on the floor, cracked into a frosty sneer, “So you are the bastard son of the bitch who had come up with the idea!” She pushed off everyone and leaped to her feet, much to everyone’s shock and surprise, and gave her son two powerful slaps to his cheeks that his eyes instantly welled with tears. But he could not lay a hand to his own mother! Desperate for help, the young man scurried off and made a call to his girlfriend. His girlfriend had a set of Buddhist prayer beads blessed by priests at a temple. Believing that the item might protect him from evil, he immediately asked that his girlfriend to come with the beads immediately.

But his girlfriend had never once come to his house before. Without any knowledge of how to come, she took a taxi and he went out to wait for her. The boy had just stepped out of his home when an auto rickshaw came storming at him, threatening to trample him to death. With quick and agile movements, he leaped out of the vehicle’s way. But just when he thought everything was fine, an unseen force tripped his legs, causing him to fall face-first to the ground that his face became swollen green and blue! His spectacles clattered to the ground and the nearsighted boy had to crawl on the ground, feeling around for his spectacles for quite some time before he found them. Relieved at finding back his glasses, he clambered up from his miserable posture. An old lady with a walking stick was just passing by, and his foot suddenly threw a kick at the old woman! The young man struggled to control his own limb that seemed to have a mind of its own! In his panic, he threw himself to the ground and tried to hold back his leg with his hands! Fearful that he might do anything else stupid, he sat by the pavement, waiting for his girlfriend’s arrival.

He waited long for his girlfriend, who arrived to see him sitting miserably in an undignified manner at the sidewalk. She walked to him. She extended an arm to hand him the prayer beads but she froze suddenly. With another hand, she snatched the beads from her opened hand and tore the string that held the beads and the beads fell all over the floor in a mess. The young woman crouched in front of her boyfriend, now agape with shock, and picked up a bead from the floor and put it into her mouth and chew on it! Frozen with despair and disbelief, the young man could hardly move a finger as he watched his girlfriend scoffed, “There’s nothing to save you now! You’ll never live past three days!” The girl collapsed to the ground and only woke up after about an hour later. Together, the young couple helped each other up and meandered back home together pitifully.

They reached home to find that the rest of their family all recovered. The sisters-in-law, the wives of the eldest and the second Wang brothers, were in each other’s arms, sobbing and whimpering in tears by the stove! A fellow villager told them that they were possessed by spirits or ghosts. He assured them that a medium that he should be able to help. The eldest Wang brother immediately begged for the villager to summon the medium. But to their dismay, the medium, who had traveled far at the villager’s behest, refused to help them after hearing their case. “Do not look for me again!” He warned them, “Or rather, speak nothing of my visit here! I do not wish for my death so soon!”

Face with anguish, the Wang brothers became despondent. The girlfriend of the second brother’s son then mentioned of a relative who worked as a police officer. He might have an idea, she said. By a stroke of the devil’s own luck, that relative of hers was Zheng Shuang’s friend from school. The friend posted the plight of the Wang brothers on Moments, only for Zheng Shuang to reply with the whole story of how the third of the Wang brothers had tried to trick, drug, and murder others after chasing them down when they escaped. He also remembered to include the parts about how he was struck to death during the chase of his victims with an armed mob and how his family intended to lodge an inquiry to avenge him! The friend, realizing that Zheng Shuang knew the whole story, knew that he might be able to mediate things, requested Zheng Shuang’s help and hence their visit today.

It would hardly take a rocket scientist to know that the mess and ruckus were caused by none other than Xiao Qi and the Sisters! Even after our guests had left, I did not delve into the details of the ruckus they inflicted. The accounts of the Wang brother and his nephew was enough to tell me that it must be Xiao San who had possessed the wife of the elder Wang brother; she was the only one among the Sisters who displayed the very same propensity and temperament as described. Xiao Si would have to be the one who possessed the wife of the second Wang brother who tried to hang herself; the wife’s attempt to hang herself had as good as signed it as her work! Xiao Qi would have to be the one who possessed the elder Wang brother’s daughter who had tried to strip herself naked, for she seemed to fit the bill as one of the more vulgarly bold ones among the Sisters…

As we listened to the recounts of the incident, Yuan Chongxi and Lin Feng were struggling to stifle their laughs. So was Zheng Shuang, who was trying his best to put on an impassive expression. Xiao Qi, who was already laughing her head off, accidentally landed a kick into the bum of one of the men who were behind Zheng Shuang that he screamed “Ah!” in pain!

An amused smile lined across my face. Time for me to be the hero again, I mused quietly.