Actually, I pitied the young man. He had grown up in a bad environment since he was young, and now, even his only family member had left him. I supposed he didn’t even know how a normal man of his age should live in the world out there. His worldview was distorted, and no one had shown him the right way. I felt like giving him a quick civic lesson to fix his distorted worldview.

Anyway, the young man shivered and yawned continuously, his nasal fluid and tears rolling down his face. “I can’t control myself. I feel very bad…”

I looked at his appearance and was scared. Is this tobacco addiction? His reaction isn’t different from that of a drug addict!

I reminded him to stay in control, but he eventually failed. He tried to snatch the cigarette from me and almost attacked me. Left with no choice, I threw him the cigarette back and let him smoke.

After puffing a few times, he finally calmed down, slumping on the co-driver seat and dreamily looking outside the car window.

Our car eventually stopped at his place.

It was a ruined residential building located in a remote area. The place was likely very old as the walls had big cracks. It almost felt as if the whole building could collapse at any moment.

And, even though it was a shabby building, they didn’t own the apartment. The place was rented, and they owed the landlord several months of rent.

Luckily, the landlord pitied the young man as well, so he didn’t pester him to pay the rental fee as soon as possible.

The young man’s family seemed really poor.

As expected, there was no property management here. No one cleaned the lobby, garbage was scattered everywhere, and there were even feces in a corner.

If the young man hadn’t brought me there, I would have thought that it was some abandoned haunted building.

We went to the third floor, where the young man lived.

Stinky plastic bags, used noodles cups, and fast food boxes littered the whole house. I couldn’t even find a space to put my feet.

The young man asked me to wait at the entrance while he rushed into the apartment, flushing his toilet, picking up the plastic bags, and moping a way for me to enter the living room.

“Take me to see your father’s room,” I asked him.

The young man nodded then opened the door to his father’s room.

As soon as the door was pushed open, a strong smell of smoke attacked my nose. Although the heavy smoker had died for quite a long time, the smell in his room hadn’t dispersed yet.

The room was decorated in a simple way. There was a rocking chair, a tattered bed, and a bedside table with several burning marks on it, probably left by cigarettes. There were also some ashes scattered in one corner.

I needed but a glance to tell that it was the room of a heavy smoker.

The rocking chair was partially charred, and there were some sticky dabs on it.

Needless to say, those sticky dabs were left behind by the purge fluid of the corpse.

The young man asked me, “Mister Zhang, did you find something?”

I shook my head, “Not yet. I’m afraid that we’ll need to have a talk with your father tonight.”

“Eh?” The young man was terrified. “Y-You want to have a talk with my father?”

“I just want to ask him what happened.” I assessed the young man. “Tell me honestly, what do you think of your father?”

The young man looked pensive. “He was my only family member. Although he acted as though he didn’t care about me, he really loved me. Whenever he had something good to eat, he’d tell me to come back home and eat. He always saved the good stuff for me. Moreover, when he was still alive, he had never allowed me to smoke. He was afraid that I would end up becoming like him…”

“Very well,” I said. “It is said that not even a tiger, though cruel, would eat its cubs. Although your father is now a ghost, he won’t forget that he once loved you. He would never hurt you or let you smoke.”

The young man asked, “Then, why have I become addicted to smoking? After all, no matter how much one smokes, it’s impossible to become this addicted in just one month!”

“It happened because an otherworldly item is involved.” I sighed. “Your father was affected by the opium pipe. I suspect that when he became a ghost, he wasn’t in his right mind. He didn’t recognize you, and things have now come to this.”

The young man nodded, “I also think so.”

“All right, when your father comes back to smoke, he should bring the opium pipe’s spirit with him. Both your father and the spirit are extremely addicted to smoking. If we disturb them, they will likely lose their minds. Tonight, I will set up a magic formation; the goal is to wake up your father without affecting the pipe’s spirit.”

The young man nodded. “Okay, I’ll do as you say.”

I then took the man to the food market to buy some things we would use tonight.

As the proverb said, Food was the God of People. It was something essential, and mankind had always relied on it. After relying on it for so long, our ancestors discovered that some kinds of food had the power to subdue and expel evil spirits. This led to more than half of their spirit-expelling methods to be related to food.

What I wanted to set up today was a kind of traditional formation, which was mostly made of cooking ingredients. That was why I took the young man to the food market.

I bought a rooster, an ox tongue, and some carrots; I also prepared some lime powder.

Now that everything was ready, we only had to wait.

When we got back to his apartment, I asked the young man to bleed the rooster and clean it up, and then stew it with the carrots. In the meantime, I sprinkled the lime powder around the rocking chair and his father’s room.

The young man was puzzled as he didn’t understand why I wanted him to stew the chicken with carrots. He thought that I wanted to cook dinner, so he prepared to add soya sauce and other spices.

I hurried to stop him. “You just need to add salt. No need to add anything else.”

The young man didn’t understand. “What taste could it have then?”

“By no means you’re not allowed to eat the chicken. If you do, big trouble will come to you tonight.”

Soon, the chicken was ready. I asked him to separate the meat and the bones. Then, I told him to throw all the meat in the trash and leave behind only the chicken butt and the bones, as well as the carrots.

The young man was even more bewildered. However, he didn’t question me and just did what I asked him to do.

Soon, he separated all the bones, and I relied on my memory to arrange the chicken bones and slices of carrot around the room, setting up the Celestial Spirit Great Formation.

The chicken butt was the center of the formation. As long as the center wasn’t activated, the formation wouldn’t affect spiritual beings.

The function of this formation was to protect the young man in case something unexpected happened. At that time, I would activate the formation to expel the evil spirit and protect ourselves. After all, we had no idea how strong the spirit of the opium pipe was; it was better to be prepared.

After we had prepared everything, we waited patiently.

The clock ticked, and I felt my heart ticking alongside it.

The young man looked very anxious as he held the chicken butt in his hand. He sat by the entrance to his father’s bedroom and often checked the lime powder underneath his feet. If the evil spirit appeared, its footprints would show up on the lime.

“Tap, tap, tap!”

Shortly after, we heard the sound of footsteps outside the house; the footsteps stopped right at the entrance.

The young man and I went tense. What’s going on? In theory, this type of spirit should be quiet and would not go as far as creating the sound of footsteps.

I then whispered, asking, “When your father returned a few days ago, did you hear the sound of footsteps?”

The man shook his head. “No, there was no sound at all.”

My heart sank. There was no sound several days ago, but things were different today. What does that mean? Did the other party discover our plan, and decided to act in a different manner?