Zhou Laoban had fallen into the water more than once,
Especially in waters like ponds;
In Hell,
In dreams,
It had happened,
But this was the first time he'd fallen into the water in reality, and it was all thanks to a crazy old man headbutting him.

If he'd known,
He wouldn't have been so mouthy.
Why did he have to argue with a madman?
He needlessly suffered that "savage collision."
What shocked Zhou Ze even more was that the old man, after falling into the water, actually grabbed his shoulders tightly while hooking his legs around his shins, intending to drown them both!

Some villagers above were preparing to jump in to save them, but Zhou Ze didn't dare entrust his fate to those villagers. Instead, he extended his fingernails and stabbed the old man in the back.

The old man, who had been gripping him tightly,
Shuddered instantly,
And went limp.

Zhou Ze hauled the old man to the surface. Zhou Laoban's swimming skills were only so-so, but this wasn't a vast river; it was just a small pond, so pulling up an old man who didn't weigh much wasn't a big problem.

After getting ashore, Xu Qinglang rushed up to Zhou Ze and roared:
"What happened to you? What happened?"

"That crazy Cui pushed this young man into the pond. This Cui is always raving like a lunatic, and now he's trying to kill people."

"Call the police. He has no children or family, so he doesn't care. But what if he pushes someone else down next time?"

"Yes, call the police. It's best if they send him to a mental hospital; he's getting out of hand."

The little girl knelt beside her grandfather, watching him unconscious and wiping away tears, calling for him to wake up quickly.

"Take him back; he has clues."
Zhou Ze said to Xu Qinglang.

Xu Qinglang nodded, without any doubts, and went over to carry the old man.
"I'll take him back first. Calling the police can wait. Let's deal with the immediate matter first; everyone, don't panic."

With that, Xu Qinglang carried Old Cui out of the crowd.
Zhou Ze and the little girl followed behind.

The little girl was still crying all the way. Zhou Ze felt a little guilty; he was the one who made the joke, and it was that kind of joke. He deserved to be headbutted into the water with the old man.

"Where is your home?" Zhou Ze asked the little girl.

"His home is in the mud house at the intersection ahead. The old man has no children or family, and he likes to drink, so he has some mental problems, and his life isn't very good."
Xu Qinglang was very familiar with the village's situation.

Soon, the group arrived at the location of the mud house.
Surrounded by two-story, even three or four-story small western-style buildings, the old mud house from a long time ago in the last century stood out.

The door wasn't closed, perhaps because there was nothing worth stealing in the house.

The mud house had three rooms. The middle room was the living room, one half filled with recyclables like cans and bottles that the old man had recently collected, and the other half with a shrine, the altar of which was clean.

To the left was the bedroom, with an old-fashioned wooden bed, and to the right was the kitchen, which still used an earthen stove.

Xu Qinglang settled Old Cui on the bed first, then looked at Zhou Ze and said, "Wake him up now?"

There was a hint of distrust in his words.
It wasn't that he didn't trust Zhou Ze; Xu Qinglang didn't believe that this old man, who had been crazy since he was little, could have any clues.

This wasn't some novel on a bookstore shelf.
Finding a ring in the wilderness that had an old grandpa living inside,
Or the most awesome guy in Shaolin Temple being the Sweeping Monk in the Sutra Depository.

"He has yin-yang eyes."
Zhou Ze said.

Being able to see that he was a ghost at a glance,
There was no other explanation besides yin-yang eyes.
Moreover, Zhou Ze didn't sense any other aura fluctuations on the old man. If the old man was a Xuanxue practitioner, he wouldn't have needed to headbutt him into the pond and try to die together.

"Yin-yang eyes?"
Xu Qinglang looked at the old man lying on the bed, still unconscious, with some surprise.
"I didn't expect that."

"He can see my identity at a glance."
Zhou Ze walked to the doorstep and sat down.

"I'll go out and buy some food for dinner," Xu Qinglang said, walking out of the house.

Zhou Ze waved to the little girl beside him, who looked a little timid, signaling her to come over.

The little girl was a little shy, and it took several calls before she came over, saying apologetically:

"Uncle, my grandpa didn't do it on purpose; he really didn't do it on purpose."

"Mm-hmm, I know. It was uncle's fault; I took the joke too far.
By the way, do you know what's been happening in the village recently?"

The little girl nodded.
"Did your grandpa say what the reason was?"

"Grandpa said, Grandpa said..."
The little girl was hesitant, twisting her fingers, as if hesitating whether to speak or not.

"Don't worry, tell uncle; uncle won't tell anyone else."

"Grandpa said that the people in the village are greedy for compensation money. For that little money, they don't even want their ancestral graves anymore. The ancestors in the afterlife must be furious.
Grandpa also said,
Originally, the location of our village's ancestral graves was excellent. This demolition shouldn't have affected us this time, but the village chief colluded with someone above and forced this line toward us.
A few years ago, West Village was demolished, and the people in West Village were compensated with many houses and money. Everyone moved into the city, and the villagers were so envious that they all wanted demolition."

Zhou Ze nodded upon hearing this.
The ancestors might have opinions, but the ones causing trouble probably weren't those "returning souls."

"What else did your grandpa say?"

"He told me not to run around at night, saying it's been uneasy recently, with dirty things running around in the village. I asked Grandpa what they were, whether they were foxes or wild dogs, but Grandpa wouldn't tell me."

Dirty things,
Running around?
Only coming out at night?

Zhou Ze lit a cigarette, pondering slowly in his heart.

What the girl said about West Village should be Old Xu's former village. East Village and West Village should share the same surname, and everyone's ancestral graves should also be grouped together. With Old Xu's current wealth, he shouldn't be interested in this little compensation money. The reason he took on this matter was also because his own ancestors were lying there.

If it wasn't ghosts causing trouble,
Could it be something that had become an essence causing mischief?
If it was an essence, then everything would make sense, but dealing with essences was actually more troublesome than dealing with ghosts.

At this moment, there was a coughing sound from the room. The old man had woken up.
Zhou Ze walked to the bedroom door, looking at the old man who had sat up.

The old man glanced at the little girl standing beside Zhou Ze and immediately cursed, "You damned little ghost, you dare to harm my granddaughter, I'll...
I'll... I'll..."

After thinking for a long time, Old Cui couldn't think of any further threats.

"I'm here to solve problems on behalf of someone else. I don't have time to mess around with you. If you continue to be unreasonable, I'll use my connections to send this girl to an orphanage. Anyway, looking at your appearance and condition, you don't seem like you can take good care of a child."

"You... you dare..."
The old man's arrogance immediately weakened a bit.

The little girl was clever and brought a small wooden stool for Zhou Ze to sit on. Zhou Ze said thank you, exhaled a smoke ring, pointed at the old man, and said:

"Tell me, what's the situation? You have yin-yang eyes, right? You should be able to see things that those villagers can't see."

Old Cui hesitated for a few moments, asking tentatively, "Are you really here to help?"

"Would I gain anything by lying to you?"

"Okay, I'll tell you. This is a sin, a sin committed by later generations! This bunch of ungrateful things, this bunch of..."

"Get to the point. Is it the souls of the ancestors causing trouble in the village?"

"No... no," Old Cui shook his head.
"Then why are you cursing them?"

"I'm just angry. Such good ancestral graves, such good feng shui locations! My parents, my grandparents, are all buried there, but they dug it up, and everyone's corpses rolled together.

You're in me, I'm in you.
No one can tell who belongs to which family!
Isn't this a sin?"

Zhou Ze nodded. "Continue, what exactly is it?"

"Did you see the threshold of my house?"
"I saw it, it's high."
"Be specific."

Zhou Ze stood up and walked to the threshold of the living room. The threshold was old, like the old mud house, but on the outside, there were two recently rubbed marks.

"That night, it came, broke open my door, wanting to come in.
But the threshold was too high,
It couldn't jump over it."

Zhou Ze looked up at Old Cui, still sitting on the bed, and said in a deep voice:
"Jiangshi (僵屍) (Chinese hopping vampire/zombie)?"

"Cough, cough, cough..." Old Cui coughed. "Besides a jiangshi, what else could it be?"

"Then why didn't you say anything?"

"That day, it was wearing clothes..." Old Cui's face was contorted with fear. "It was wearing the clothes of a local. How would I know which person it had disguised itself as? It was dark, I couldn't see its face clearly, and I didn't dare to run outside to look."

"I'm back."
Xu Qinglang came back with some cooked dishes and a few boxed lunches.

"You're awake," Xu Qinglang glanced at Old Cui.

"Hehe." Old Cui smiled, not saying anything more. He recognized Xu Qinglang; after all, he was a child who grew up in this area. Without anyone helping him, Old Cui slowly walked to the living room.

Xu Qinglang put the dishes on the small table and brought over a few stools.
The boxed lunches were placed on the table, and the cooked dishes were spread out on the plastic bags.

Zhou Ze sat down next to them, glanced at the small dining table, and asked strangely:
"Why did you only buy three boxed lunches?"

"What do you mean, only three?
There are only three of us, so I bought three.
Are you hungrier today?
I can give you some of my rice."