The moment he heard my words, Captain Liang ran toward the wall and climbed it. It was good that he still had some conscience. Once he made it safely to the top of the wall, he stood up and reached down. “Quick, give me your hands. I’ll pull you up!”
He pulled me up first, then both of us helped Li Mazi. At this moment, two groups of villagers had gathered outside the house. They were like an army, shooting us hostile looks. All of them had weapons.
We had just pulled Li Mazi halfway when he screamed. “Damn, they cut me! They cut me!”
We hurried to pull him up. Li Mazi was pale and visibly panicked. A machete had been stuck deep in the sole of his sports shoe. He cussed as he plucked the blade off.
“Not good, they’re trying to climb the wall,” said Captain Liang.
I craned my neck and saw several men climbing their way up. That two-meter wall would not deter them for long. I handed the bag of bone powder to Li Mazi; I asked him to sprinkle some on the face of anyone who got close. Then, I took out some Corpse Subduing Talismans and stuck them on the wall. Several pairs of hands touching the wall jerked away. It seemed they were being controlled by some otherworldly item.
“Save us! Please save us!” Someone was shrieking like a pig being killed outside the wall. Li Mazi and I exchanged glances. We seized the chance to take a look. The scene outside the wall was incredibly chaotic.
Two groups of villagers were killing each other. One man used a brick to pound at another’s forehead. That poor fellow was bleeding a lot. Another villager chopped off his opponent’s fingers with a machete. The rest of the villagers without a weapon simply pounced over other people to bite them. I got to see a man biting off another man’s ear.
As odd as it was, they screamed for help while killing themselves. They apparently couldn’t control their bodies.
Rolling with the night wind, I heard the sounds of the Courtier Drum echoing from inside the house. I turned and saw Captain Liang already rushing into the western-style house.
“Is that the way our police work?” Li Mazi scolded, then turned to me to ask, “Little Brother Zhang, should we save them or not?”
I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t just stand and watch them die, could I? I could ignore otherworldly items, but I had to save people.
I said through gritted teeth, “Let’s save them!”
“How?” asked Li Mazi.
I looked around and found an empty pigpen. There was a pile of dung that seemed to have been there for quite a long time and also a white iron bucket on the ground. Since it was an emergency situation, I told Li Mazi to quickly fill the bucket with dung.
“What should we use to scoop the dung?” asked Li Mazi.
“Our hands!” I answered.
“This is really disgusting. I can’t do that!” Li Mazi felt like retching.
“Damn, I’ll do it then!” I rolled my sleeves and scooped the dung to fill the bucket. I asked Li Mazi to spray bone powder into the dung before I stirred it with my bare hand. The stench was unbearable, and I almost puked.
I asked Li Mazi to look around to see if he could find any garlic or onion. Soon, Li Mazi came back with a few dried green onions. I could only frown and say, “Crush them and squeeze the juice into this bucket!”
Filthy substances could be used to expel evil. However, I wondered if the pig dung could create an effect similar to the one produced by human feces. However, as it had onion and bone powder, it could work somehow.
Next, I asked Li Mazi to open the gate. We stood there and splashed the dung on anybody who rushed in. At one point, the villagers killing each other had become a group of dung-covered humans. Li Mazi couldn’t hold it anymore. He ran to the side and retched.
However, my plan worked, and the villagers finally stopped fighting. As many of them were wounded, I asked Li Mazi to call an ambulance.
I shook the bucket. There wasn’t much dung left; I had to be careful with the splashes.
Right when I thought I could exhale in relief, a cold light flashed in front of me; I stepped aside out of reflex.
I had missed one of the villagers. He was the idler that had talked to us at the village entrance. He was holding a long knife and had red eyes. His jaw was clenched so hard that I could hear his teeth grinding.
I felt a hot twinge in my shoulder, so I turned to check. There was a bloody gash roughly ten centimeters long on my shoulder. Blood dyed my entire arm red.
As both of my hands were covered in dung, neither the Sirius Whip nor the Corpse Subduing Talisman would work. I could only call Li Mazi for help.
Li Mazi had picked up a rake from somewhere; he screamed and rushed forward. Since the rake had better reach, the other man couldn’t approach us for the time being.
“Little Brother Zhang, look at my three-meter rake! Don’t I look awesome with it?” Li Mazi bragged. Then, we all heard a crack, and the rake in his hand was cut into two halves.
Li Mazi was panic-stricken. He threw the rake away and ran around the courtyard.
I cursed at him loudly. He wasn’t serious at all!
Anyway, that man was too scary. I could only follow Li Mazi and run away.
We got into the house and slammed the anti-theft door shut, but the sharp machete pierced through the door slit and scared us to death. The machete was swept back and forth through the slit for quite a long time before it was retracted. I asked Li Mazi to peep out through the door, but he shook his head hard, not daring to approach the door to check. Then, we heard a loud boom, and the anti-theft door shook once more. The idler was kicking the door from the outside.
A crack appeared in the anti-theft door after it was kicked three times. That man’s strength was really shocking.
The proverb said that a single man could hold the pass against ten thousand enemies.
People’s potential was much greater than what we could imagine. I used to watch a TV program where a master hypnotized a man then placed him on two chairs with his body suspended in the middle. Then, the master asked three people to sit on him. The hypnotized man was as still as an iron sheet and didn’t waver in the slightest, even with three people sitting on him.
The Courtier Drum was the same. It could control people’s bodies and bring out all of their potential!
Just as the anti-theft door was about to give in, we heard a gunshot coming from the house. The drumbeat gradually stopped. I gathered my courage and peeped through the door slit. The idler was clutching his head in pain.
I took the chance and opened the door, pressing the man on the ground. Li Mazi kicked his knife away.
The drumbeat sounded inside the house again. The man wiggled so hard that the two of us weren’t enough to suppress him. I asked Li Mazi to take out the Corpse Subduing Talisman in my clothes. He thrust his hand into my shirt and took out a handful of talismans. Just then, as the man was struggling hard, Li Mazi’s hand shook, and all the talismans flew into the pile of pig dung.
At this time, I really wanted to stab him to death!
The idler struggled hard, and I felt as if I was subduing a wild horse. When we couldn’t hold him any longer, a Corpse Subduing Talisman was slapped onto his forehead. The man immediately stopped moving as if he was paralyzed.
I lifted my head and saw that it was Yin Xinyue. I was both happy and worried.
“How are you going to thank me? Do you still think that I’m useless?” Yin Xinyue felt quite proud of herself.
I asked, “Why are you here? How about those two inflatable dolls?”
“Not long after you guys left, the two dolls began to move. It was scary, but when I asked them if they were Ao Bai and Young Master Ao, they nodded to me.”
She then did as I had ordered. She used the hemp rope to tie up the two inflatable dolls. The two spirits weren’t willing to let her tie them and struggled quite a bit. However, she still completed her task.
Once she was done, she heard the loud noise coming from the house, so she rushed to see. She arrived right when Li Mazi and I were pressing that villager on the ground. Not giving it much thought, she stuck the Corpse Subduing Talisman I had given her before on the man’s forehead.
I couldn’t imagine the consequences if she hadn’t shown up. My anger rose again when I thought about Li Mazi’s incompetence.
I deliberately said, “Li Mazi, there’s something behind you!”
“Oh? What is it?” Li Mazi hurried to turn around.
I took this chance to squarely kick his butt, which helped me vent my anger a little bit.