My Father's Tale

During the summer of 2017, my father fell terribly ill, and he was coughing badly with blood constantly coming out. While the doctors suspected that he might have had lung cancer, they were not exactly sure what was the cause of his illness. After spending weeks in the hospital without making any improvement, my father went back to the town he grew up in—Xiangxi, China, a place that’s full of mystery because of its long history associated with witchcraft—to look for solution.  He met Uncle Luo, a person who used to be his colleague, but what people didn’t know about Uncle Luo is that he is also secretly a successor of his family’s witchcraft. Uncle Luo did a simple ritual with my father, claimed that he saw three ghosts possessing my father, and told him that in order to recover, he needs to get rid of them. As much as it sounded absurd to my parents at first, they still gave Uncle Luo’s advice a try, and found a local priest for help.  One night, my father woke up with full energy, and said that he had a dream of sending those three ghosts away.  Soon after the incident, he was completely recovered, and even the doctors could not explain what happened.