"Steward, sir, please, please save my husband..."
The disheveled farmwife sobbed as she tugged at the old man's clothes, looking utterly panicked.
A few kindhearted villagers saw that the man who had been possessed by the Fox Immortal was still unconscious. They felt it wasn't right to leave him lying naked on the ground.
They covered him with a layer of hemp and used a sturdy door panel—no one knew where they had taken it from—to carry him into the house.
With no other choice, the old man first tried to calm the farmwife.
Lu Bai, meanwhile, said nothing. He dragged over a little stool and sat down beside them, curious to see how these incense practitioners would deal with the evil spirit.
The village elder nearby was clearly ill at ease. He wanted to get farther away from Lu Bai, but was afraid doing so might anger him.
He still thought Lu Bai was some sort of immortal, and even suspected that Lu Bai had caused all this trouble.
Before long, the old man's three apprentices returned one after another.
They had carried incense around the village, but hadn't found any trace of that Fox Immortal. For some reason, the incense patterns had been erratic, making it difficult to pinpoint its location.
After they reported this to the old man, he fell silent for a moment, then turned to the village elder and said, "Sorry for the trouble, but could you gather the villagers for me?"
Since the Fox Immortal was still in the village, he figured it must have possessed one of the villagers.
The village elder had no objection. In fact, he was quite happy to get some distance from Lu Bai, even if only for a little while.
Watching the village elder leave, the old man