We rushed up the stairs. My second aunt’s house was a complete mess. The front door was open and you could see many things knocked over onto the floor and there was intermittent yelling and high pitched screaming from within.

“What’s going on?!” I squeezed past the mess on the floor and then saw a scene that would be hard to forget.

My grandmother’s eyes were wide open and there was a bloody patch to the side of her forehead as if she had hit something. The blood had run from her forehead all the way to the corner of her eye and she was holding on with all four limbs to my second aunt’s refrigerator, mumbling something. Her nails had sunk in a bit and she was unwilling to let go. The three of them together, my second aunt, my mom, and my uncle were holding her and yet still couldn’t drag her away.

“Mom, you— let go!” My second aunt was pulling on my grandmother desperately, the tendons on the back of her hands bulging. But the old lady refused to let go, even turning her head around to bite my second aunt. My mom and my uncle, standing to the side, were unable to help, instead, they had several bloody scratch marks courtesy of the old lady.

I gaped, staring at it all, not understand what had happened. My own grandmother was currently like an enraged wild beast, even her eyes were red.

“All of you, get out of the way!”

Just when everyone was at the end of their rope, a resonant voice cut through. Everyone in the room automatically moved out of the way. Wen Jiubo’s hand reached out, a yellow charm held between two fingers. With a flick of his hand, the paper charm flew towards my grandmother.

“This spell commands, that which is evil be put to sleep!”

The paper charm stuck onto my grandmother’s body tightly, as if it had a life of its own. Following that, my grandmother made a pained moan from her throat and the hands grabbing hold of the fridge slowly relaxed. She seemed to want to continue to struggle and ended up looking towards me.

I don’t know if it was just my imagination or not, but the expression in my grandmother’s eyes as she looked at me was extremely pained, even giving off the feeling of hopelessness.

In the end, my grandmother closed her eyes and collapsed beneath the fridge, breathing regularly.

Seeing her movements stop, everyone in my family seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. My second aunt, who had put in the most work, was covered in sweat, breathing hard like she had just finished a marathon. My mother grabbed my elbow and pulled me into her arms, stroking my head, again and again, her eyes red, as if doing this would calm her down.

Only Wen Jiubo was calm in the entire room. He walked up and removed the charm from my grandmother, putting it away. His gaze swept everyone in the room and he asked, “What on earth happened?”

My relatives standing in the room all exchanged a glance, looking at each other, but no one spoke.

Wen Jiubo raised his voice, startling everyone, including me. “What on earth happened?!”

His brows were creased, eyes narrowed and his expression was sharp. I had never seen Wen Jiubo with this expression. Was he.. angry?

What sort of thing could make this man, who could kill without blinking, angry?

“T-that’s..” In the end, it was my second aunt who started speaking uneasily. She coughed dryly and ran her bloody hand through her hair.

“It’s like this – the old lady started having a fit again tonight, running around the house and running into things and even slammed her head against the wall. I finally thought that enough was enough and wanted to take her to hospital. Coincidentally, Xiping and Wenshan returned then and we all just wanted to take her to hospital. But, it was as if my mom realized that we were going to send her away, so she just grabbed onto the refrigerator for dear life. We weren’t able to move her, no matter what. She even bit us or scratched us with her nails.”

Xiping and Wenshan were my mom and my uncle’s names respectively. Looking at it, it seemed that they all had put in quite a bit of effort. I looked towards my grandmother and found to my surprise that the huge fridge in my second aunt’s kitchen, which normally couldn’t be moved by even two men, had been dragged out by my grandmother by more than two meters.

“Have you called 120?” Wen Jiubo continued to ask and everyone nodded in response, trembling. It was then that the sound of an ambulance sounded outside the window.

“Okay, quickly take the old lady to the hospital.” Wen Jiubo walked forward, assisting my grandmother up. I hurried over to help. It wasn’t until the two of us had lifted my grandmother up that the rest of the room seemed to realize what was happening and hurriedly came over to help.

The paramedics soon had my grandmother on a stretcher and all of us followed the ambulance to the hospital. However, during the course of this entire time, the frown between Wen Jiubo’s brows had not smoothed at all.

“What on earth.. happened?” On the way, I couldn’t help my curiosity. I was also worried about my grandmother, so I opened my mouth to ask.

“What do you mean what happened?” Wen Jiubo replied, distracted.

“My grandmother, of course. Didn’t you see as well? She suddenly looked like she had gone insane..” I said, the fear still lingering. Even though I had heard my second aunt speak of the situation already, but it wasn’t the same as seeing it for myself. The sight of my grandmother like that was burnt into my mind, as soon as I closed my eyes, I could see the image of her looking demonically insane.

Seeing Wen Jiubo remain silent, I couldn’t help but continue asking, “Didn’t you calm her down with a charm? What was possessing her? Is it exorcised now?”

Wen Jiubo suddenly turned his head to look at me, his expression serious. “Don’t you think it’s very strange?”

I paused. “What’s strange?”

“Blood.” Wen Jiubo said. “That patch of blood on your grandmother’s forehead was to the side. She would’ve had to turn her head to get that injury.”

I was confused. “I guess..”

“When you’re hitting your head on a wall, would you specifically turn your head around to do it?” Wen Jiubo looked at me.

“How would I know.. I’ve never used my head to hit a wall.” I rolled my eyes at him.

Wen Jiubo seemingly sighed and then turned his head around, clasping his hands together and looking out into the darkness through the window, suddenly speaking out loud.

“That charm would even control a crazy cat, and there’s not much difference between it and a tranquilizer. It wasn’t for exorcising a demon.”

What? I immediately looked at Wen Jiubo.

“Then.. you didn’t exorcise the demon?”

“I did not.”

“Then why didn’t you exorcise it?!” I couldn’t help but raise my voice, anxiety burning in my heart. “Weren’t you all smug as if victory was in your grasp? Don’t you already know what sort of demon it is?”

“Knowing what it is and exorcising it are two different things.” Wen Jiubo said blandly, “For the time being, there isn’t a way to get rid of the demon.”

“How can there be such thing?!”

“There just is.”

“Then what sort of demon is it? You can tell me that at least!” I glared at him angrily.