"Huzi, you're messing around!"
Uncle Laogen slammed the medicine oil on the table, pulled Huzi aside, and lowered his voice.
"Do you have any idea how strange and sinister this matter in our village is? Your boss looks as clean and scholarly as a scholar, but he's the kind of city person who doesn't even dare to kill a chicken. What can he do? Don't harm him!"
"Uncle, am I that kind of person?" Huzi said forcefully, "My boss is a truly extraordinary and powerful man! We came here to find you to ask about the dry bone burial. Grandma's grave wasn't..."
"Huzi, what do you mean by that?" Uncle Laogen reacted strongly, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, and pushed Huzi away.
"They dug up my mother's grave and burned her bones, and now you want to blame these village matters on my family?"
"Uncle, that's not what I meant. We just want to get to the bottom of things, to save people...." Hus hurriedly explained.
"You guys saving people?" Uncle Laogen wouldn't believe it, "Hus! You went to the city once and didn't learn anything else but to brag?"
"Uncle..." Hus got anxious.
Lu Fei waved at Hus and stepped forward with a smile, "Uncle Laogen, recently you must have felt very thirsty and as if there's a fire in your belly, no matter how much water you drink, it doesn't quench your thirst, right?"
"So what?" Uncle Laogen snorted coldly, "Our village is suffering from a drought, and everyone is thirsty because there isn't enough water!"
"Your thirst is different! As soon as you drink water, you start sweating immediately, like pouring water into dry land; it's completely ineffective." Lu Fei still spoke calmly with a smile.
"You probably haven't urinated in days, have you?"
Uncle Laogen's expression turned surprised, and he looked at Hus, "Did you tell him that?"
Hus shook his head repeatedly, "Uncle, I've been at the hospital with my parents these past few days. How would I know if you've urinated or not?"
"Uncle Laogen, I'm not trying to scare you, but this is a precursor to a fever!" Lu Fei's smile faded, and his expression became serious, "It won't be long before you, like the others, suffer from a high fever and dehydration, leading to death."
Uncle Laogen's body trembled, and a look of panic appeared in his slightly sunken eyes.
His mother and wife were both gone, was it now his turn?
"But don't be afraid, there's still a chance to save you," Lu Fei said, taking out a ghost-repelling talisman and handing it to Uncle Laogen, "Carry this with you, and try drinking some water."
Seeing that Uncle Laogen was still hesitant, Hu Zi snatched the talisman and stuffed it into his hand. Then, he opened a bottle of mineral water and handed it to him.
"Uncle, you'll see how powerful my boss is once you try it."
The water in the bottle was clear and transparent.
Uncle Laogen's throat moved as he took the mineral water and sipped it. Feeling the long-awaited moisture, he couldn't help but chug down the entire bottle in one go.
After finishing the water, he let out a long breath.
It had been so long since he felt such relief from thirst, as if his parched body was being nourished by a sweet spring, even the dry pain in his nose eased considerably.
He waited for a few minutes, touching his face and neck, and found that he wasn't sweating. He was both shocked and delighted.
"Really, it's really good?"
He had previously lain by the riverside to drink water, but it didn't alleviate his thirst. Could a talisman on him solve the problem?
This young boss really has some skills, doesn't he?
"It just temporarily suppresses the malevolent energy in your body. To be fully cured, you need to thoroughly remove the impurities." Lu Fei said with a smile.
When he was observing the old man earlier, he noticed that the old man also harbored malevolent energy.
"Uncle! I wasn't exaggerating, my boss is truly extraordinary! So many people in the city offer large sums of money for my boss to look into matters, and he doesn't always go." Huzi, full of pride, took the opportunity to urge.
"Uncle, tell my boss all about the drought bone burial in our village! He will definitely save us!"
"But what can I say?" Old Gen Uncle now held Lu Fei in high regard, but he looked bitter and helpless, "That one-eyed old Taoist said my mother was a drought bone burial, and I agreed to dig up the grave for the sake of the village."
"My mother's remains were burned... I cooperated with everything I could. What else can I say?"
Lu Fei thought for a moment and said, "Becoming a drought bone burial usually happens because the deceased is buried in the wrong location, causing an abnormal transformation in the corpse."
Uncle Laogen was taken aback, his eyes dodging. "My old mother passed away suddenly, and we didn't have time to arrange a grand funeral, so she was buried in the village's ancestral graveyard. According to custom, there shouldn't be any problems with the ancestral graveyard."
"I heard that Aunt and Mother-in-law didn't get along well, and Mother-in-law was angered to death..." Hu Zi blurted out without thinking.
"That's all nonsense!" Uncle Laogen immediately frowned, his expression turning ugly. "Now my old mother's remains have been burned, and my wife is missing. What's the point of talking about this?"
Lu Fei began to understand.
There wasn't even an incense stick in front of the memorial portrait, which suggested that the family probably didn't give the elder a proper burial, just burying her hastily.
It was likely that the burial location was incorrect, and the elder harbored resentment, leading to the transformation into a drought-bone burial.
But the problem was, why wasn't it raining in the village even after the drought-bone burial?
So he asked again, "Since the drought-bone burial didn't work, why did the village still pay the old Taoist?"
"Right after my old mother's remains were burned, dark clouds appeared in the sky, and there was thunder," Uncle Laogen sighed heavily.
"One-eyed Dragon said it would rain at night, and the villagers thought it seemed that way, so they gave him the money. But not a drop of rain fell that night. The next day, the dark clouds disappeared, and the village became even drier."
"Even the old well that hasn't been used for decades has only a little water left."
"Some people even fought over the water."
"What's the point of fighting over it? The next day, they still get sick and have fevers!"
Uncle Lao Gen sat on the bench, fiddling with a mineral water bottle in his hand, looking worried. Seeing that there were still a few drops of water left, he tilted his head back and drank it.
"It was supposed to rain, but the next day it changed again... Could it be because of some other dirty things?" Lu Fei mused.
"The old well dried up, and the next day people got sick and had fevers..."
Lu Fei's eyes suddenly lit up, and he eagerly asked, "Uncle Lao Gen, did those people in the village who had fevers drink the water from the old well before it dried up?"
"I think so... The water was already muddy, but who cared at that time? Any water was better than no water. Now, if you want to drink water, you have to walk several miles to fetch it." Uncle Lao Gen shook his head with a bitter expression.
Lu Fei made a quick decision: "Tiger, while it's not too late, let's go to the old well first."
"You're going out this late at night?" Uncle Lao Gen's face turned pale, "That thing could appear at any time..."
"It's okay, Uncle Lao Gen, my boss isn't afraid of these things. You just stay at home and wait for our good news."
Hu Zi offered a few words of comfort, and under Uncle Lao Gen's anxious gaze, he and Lu Fei climbed over the wall and left the courtyard, heading straight for the old well at the east end of the village.
But they hadn't even reached the location of the old well.
"Moo—"
A terrified moo broke the silence of the village.
The small black dog in the backpack immediately turned its head in that direction, its dark eyes filled with alarm.