In a few days, it will be the time of heavy snow. The weather is already very cold, and snowflakes began to fall in twos and threes early this morning.

Such a cold wind would normally have blown the villagers back home to hibernate, but now, the crowd had strangely gathered in a tight circle, making it impossible to move, and the noise was deafening.

“He goes out for a walk every night and says he’s unconscious and dreaming. I can tell he’s possessed by evil spirits and we should find someone to exorcise him.”

"What's the point of exorcising evil spirits? If you drive away that evil spirit, won't it just possess someone else? Just burn him and the ghost together!"

In the middle of the crowd, a man knelt on the ground, his entire body bound by thick ropes, unable to move. He looked dazed and agitated.

His elderly mother, kneeling beside him, was crying out with her head held high, "Village chief, village head, my son is not possessed by a ghost! Please, please let him go—he's sick, he's sick... Get a doctor to take a look, some medicine will do the trick..."

The village chief and the headman stood awkwardly to the side, while the villagers, young and old, all sneered.

"You think he's sick just because you say so? A month ago, we had a fight, and he said he'd kill me one night sooner or later—everyone heard that! And now, he really is walking around outside my house at night every now and then! How can I feel at ease with someone like that?"

"At first it happened every three to five days, but now it's happening more and more frequently, almost every other night, or even every day! It's late at night, wandering around in front of other people's houses. You call it an illness? I think it's clearly possession!"

The old mother knelt on the ground, weeping and pleading, "Please, everyone, give my Tiehu a chance! He really doesn't know what's wrong with him... He's all bark and no bite, he's a coward inside... Oh, Tiger, tell me, explain yourself..."

The middle-aged man was shaken back to his senses. Seeing his elderly mother kneeling before the crowd for him, he was moved to tears and cried out in despair:

"Mother! Mother, I really don't know! I didn't mean to do anything bad, and I wasn't possessed... I don't know why I went out for a walk at night. I wasn't aware of anything; I thought I was sleeping..."

"Hmph, you don't know either? How laughable."

Suddenly, someone in the crowd scoffed and stepped forward.

He was a man in his forties with a cunning look in his eyes. He wore coarse cloth clothes, but was luxuriously wrapped in thick cotton, which kept him very warm.

The man squinted and said, "To me, Sun Tiehu doesn't seem possessed; he seems more like he's planning to steal. He went out for a stroll on his own, how could he not know? He's just all talk. If you ask me, we should bring up the village rules, give him a beating first, and he'll behave."

Sun Tiehu was furious: "Xia Wei! You just want to take over my family's farmland, and you're deliberately trying to frame me! I, Sun Tiehu, am an upright man and I would never stoop to such underhanded tactics! Unlike you, your brother is dead, and all you think about is seizing the inheritance from his widow and orphans! You're the heartless one!"

Xia Wei, his thoughts exposed, was enraged: "You can't escape punishment, so you're starting to implicate people randomly! Village chief, Sun Tiehu can't be allowed to live. Gag him and send him to the authorities!"

"Send him to the authorities?" Sun's mother felt a wave of dizziness. "We can't send him to the authorities! If we do, my son will be convicted... He really didn't do anything wrong first..."

Sun Tiehu was also startled and trembled, gritting his teeth: "That corrupt county magistrate, what kind of case will he judge? If I go, I will naturally be flogged! If I get injured, who will take care of my mother? Village chief, you know, it's just me and my mother in my family. If something happens to me, what will happen to my mother?"

In the end, even a dignified man like Sun Tiehu was speechless and could only blush and beg tearfully.

Xia Wei sneered, "You're sick, but who can prove that? I think you're just making up excuses—"

Suddenly, a clear shout rang out from outside the crowd.

“I can prove it.”