Corpse Retriever

Back on the second floor, he handed the memorial tablet to Liu Yumei.

Liu Yumei took one look at it and frowned. Not only did she not reach out to take it, she waved her hand for the boy to move it away.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “There’s a story here?”

Liu Yumei replied, “There was an accident.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Then do our two families not have any clan records or books with detailed accounts of these people’s lives?”

“Our two families don’t need to keep our own records, because other families remember us in great detail for us.”

Li Zhuiyuan said helplessly, “You really are something. You start the topic, then refuse to continue.”

“That’s all in the past. I’m only keeping things discreet for the sake of our ancestors.”“All right, I understand.”

“No need to keep an old woman like me company. Go play with Ah Li.”

Li Zhuiyuan left the room and, at the stairwell, saw Ah Li coming upstairs.

Ah Li looked at the memorial tablet in his hand and reached out to take it.

“Ah Li, pick someone else’s. Leave this one for the next batch.”

The two of them returned to the third floor. After Ah Li selected five memorial tablets and brought them down, Li Zhuiyuan put Liu Qingcheng’s tablet back.

They returned to the room on the first floor. After setting the tablets down, Li Zhuiyuan leaned his back against the side of the bed and sat on the carpet. Ah Li sat beside him in the same posture.

Li Zhuiyuan recounted the entire experience to Ah Li exactly as it had happened, especially the final scene where the giant fish swallowed Daoist Yuxuzi and the others in one bite. He described that part in great detail.

He knew the girl wanted to paint it, and in his view, that was the most suitable scene from this trip to put on paper.

Ah Li listened with great interest.

After he finished, Li Zhuiyuan took out the fish bone. It was crystal clear, more exquisite in texture than jade.

“Ah Li, can you carve jade?”

The girl nodded and reached out to take it. Her fingertips lightly brushed over it. After making a few cutting motions, she traced several lines in the air.

Li Zhuiyuan understood immediately. Ah Li was planning to use the fish bone to make him an array flag. A formation flag made from a material this special would be perfect as the core of an array.

“I already have enough array flags, and they’re easy to make. I wouldn’t feel bad about not recovering them.” Li Zhuiyuan reached a hand behind him and lightly touched Ah Li’s hair bun. “How about this? I’ll draw the design, and you carve it into a hairpin.”

At those words, hope lit up in the girl’s eyes.

“I should really be the one to carve it and give it to you, but there’s no helping it. I’m honestly clumsy with my hands.”

The boy could already recreate tools by hand just from the illustrations and brief descriptions in Wei Zhengdao’s book, so his craftsmanship was hardly poor. But compared with the girl, the gap was truly enormous.

Ah Li pulled a large wooden box out from under her bed. When she opened it, there was a huge and exquisitely made drawing album frame inside.

“It’s beautiful.” Li Zhuiyuan praised it while reaching out to stroke this crystallization of the wisdom of generations of ancestors.

He opened it. The first page was Granny Yu, already mounted in place. After that, there were still many blank spaces waiting to be filled one by one.

Li Zhuiyuan slowly turned through the blank pages, and the girl sat beside him, accompanying him with complete seriousness.

Though the pages were still clean and empty,

they were also the road the boy would walk in the future.

…

Building the simple indoor shower room did not take too long. After finishing it, Tan Wenbin went to fetch four thermoses of hot water and left them in the dorm room for later use.

Then he left the dorm and went to the shop to pick out some fruit.

“Huh? Why’s there a bookstall now?”

Lu Yi said, “I suggested it. Before, we only did photocopies and things like that. I figured we might as well make the setup complete. Those magazines and novels are selling really well.”

The top shelf of the stall held newspapers, and the middle shelves held novels, mostly romance novels. Even now, quite a few students were browsing and renting them.

Books were not expensive, but then again, college students had plenty of time to read. In some classes, even if you put a novel on your desk and read it, the teacher would still see you as a good student with a proper attitude, certainly better than the ones snoring in the back rows.

Tan Wenbin gave the stall a quick once-over, then pulled Lu Yi aside and asked in a low voice, “Got any of those... extra spicy magazines?”

“Spicy? How spicy do you want?”

“The spicier the better, obviously.”

“Yeah, I do. Quite a few students have asked for those, but those magazines and books can’t be displayed out front. I distribute them through the rental reps in the boys’ and girls’ dorms.”

“Damn, Lu Yi, you’ve got skills. You really know how to do business.”

“Heh, I really do like business.”

“Good. Run this shop properly. Once the revenue goes up, we’ll count you in for a share.”

“No, no, that’s really not necessary. I’m not doing this for that.”

“Come on. If you can make it work, you’ve earned it. I don’t have the energy to handle this stuff, so I’m handing it to you. Keep it up.”

“All right, I will.” Lu Yi nodded hard.

Tan Wenbin then went to the infirmary to visit Lin Shuyou. In his left hand he carried a transparent plastic bag of fruit, and in his right, a black plastic bag full of spicy magazines.

By then, the sky was getting dark. He walked into the ward and did not see Lin Shuyou there, so he headed to Fan Shulin’s duty room. With a light push of his foot, the door opened.

Lin Shuyou was sitting in front of Fan Shulin, listening to him recount his college love stories.

They were supposedly love stories, but in reality they were just two one-sided crushes, one on an upperclasswoman and one on an underclasswoman.

He had never even confessed. The girls probably never even knew Fan Shulin liked them, but that was beside the point. It did not stop Doctor Fan from constructing for himself a grand and twisting epic romance in his own head.

Only Lin Shuyou, still so innocent and unformed, would be willing to sit there across from him and listen so cooperatively.

“Brother Binbin.”

“Wenbin, you’re here.”

Tan Wenbin put the fruit on the desk and tossed the black plastic bag to Fan Shulin.

“What’s this?”

“A banner of appreciation.”

“Oh... oh!!!”

Fan Shulin opened the bag, looked at the covers of the magazines, and immediately swallowed. Then he stuffed them into the bottom drawer of his desk.

Lin Shuyou asked curiously, “Brother Binbin, you all went out this time. Did everything go smoothly?”

Tan Wenbin shrugged. “Of course it did. After all, I was there. I made a major contribution this time.”

“Brother Binbin, then next time could I...”

“The moon looks nice tonight. Perfect for a walk under the moon.” Tan Wenbin glanced at Fan Shulin and asked, “Brother Fan, when are you planning to stop being single?”

“I should focus on work first. Work comes first.”

“Brother Fan, I’m worried your superiors will keep valuing you and training you like this, and if you keep doing night shifts, your hair might go before your love life does. Look at your hairline. It’s clearly receding.”

“Really?” Fan Shulin was startled and reached up to touch his hair.

“So, Brother Fan, while you’re still young and in bloom, find someone if you can.”

“You say that like it’s easy. Do you have a girlfriend right now?”

“No.”

“Have you ever confessed to a girl? Or has a girl ever confessed to you?”

“No.”

“Then how do you have the nerve to talk about me?”

At that moment, Lin Shuyou said sorrowfully, “The girl my Brother Bin liked is already gone.”

Tan Wenbin: “...”

Fan Shulin froze for a moment, then quickly apologized. “Sorry, Wenbin.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Tan Wenbin smacked the back of Lin Shuyou’s head. “Are you healed yet or not?”

“Pretty much. I’m going back to class tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s the weekend. What class are you going back to?”

“This morning the class league secretary came to visit me and told me there’s a social mixer tomorrow with another school. Brother Fan heard that, so he was just using his own stories to persuade me to go.”

“A mixer?”

Tan Wenbin had only been class monitor for a few days before going away on a trip, so naturally this mixer was not something he had arranged.

In some majors, the gender ratio was badly unbalanced. There was no way to solve it internally within a class, department, or even the entire school. Some universities were severely skewed to begin with.

At times like that, social mixers with other schools became inevitable. It was basically a temple full of monks going out in search of a cave of spider spirits.

Usually, these mixers happened most often during freshman year, when the hormones were high and everyone was full of longing for romance.

“Yeah, Brother Bin, you should come too. After all, the best way to forget someone is to start a new—ah!”

Tan Wenbin grabbed Lin Shuyou by the hair and yanked him upright.

“Act normal, will you!”

“All right, all right, I’ll stop.”

Tan Wenbin clapped his hands and said irritably, “You guys go to the mixer. I’m not joining. But you can take some drinks and snacks from the shop, my contribution as class monitor. Just make sure to hang up two sponsor banners. Go ask Lu Yi to make them.”

“Oh, okay.”

At that moment, Fan Shulin seemed to remember something important and asked, “Wenbin, since you’re back, that means Hu Yiwei is back too, right?”

“He isn’t.”

“He’s not back? Then was his matter resolved?”

“His ex-wife was dealt with.”

“Oh, that’s good. Good that it was resolved. So when is he coming back?”

“He’ll come back once he’s able to move on. Oh, right, it should be soon enough. That car was borrowed from him, after all. He has to come back to return it.

All right, Brother Fan, get back to your work. I’m heading out.”

Tan Wenbin had only just stepped out of the office when Lin Shuyou came running after him in slippers.

“Brother Bin, about the array you gave me before, there are some parts I don’t understand. Can I ask you about them?”

“You’d get more reliable answers flipping a coin than asking me.”

“But I can’t exactly ask Brother Xiaoyuan. I’m afraid he’ll think I’m stupid.”

“Don’t worry, kid. That ship has already sailed.”

“Then I...”

“Write down everything you want to ask in an organized way, and I’ll take it to him for you. Oh, and write down some of the methods your family uses for spirit-medium practice too. I want to take a look.”

“Ah, but Brother Xiaoyuan already knows them, and he’s even better than I am...”

“The stuff Brother Yuan knows is too advanced. I can’t understand it. I think your family’s set is more suitable for me.”

“That makes sense. Yeah, that’s true.”

Lin Shuyou did not feel in the least insulted on behalf of his family’s teachings. When someone else could casually produce double the results with your hereditary secret arts, you would think the same way too.

When Tan Wenbin returned to the dorm, he saw Brother Xiaoyuan sitting at the desk drawing something.

“I’m back, Brother Xiaoyuan.”

“Brother Binbin, the shower room works really well. Thanks for the hard work.”

“As long as it works well. I’ll take another hot shower before bed later.”

After chatting briefly, Tan Wenbin also sat down at his own desk. He first opened Wei Zhengdao’s book, then took out the rubbing of the well opening pattern from the Zeng family and studied it carefully.

Time passed, second by second.

“Brother Binbin, I’m heading up to bed.”

“Good night, brother. I’ll read a little longer.”

Tan Wenbin rubbed his eyes and kept reading. To his surprise, he really did begin to sense something. The patterns on the rubbing paper seemed to come alive before his eyes. They were actually moving.

He yawned and felt that it was probably just an illusion. His eyes were likely playing tricks on him.

No matter. Keep reading. Keep studying.

After all, mixers had nothing to do with their dorm room anyway.

Tan Wenbin kept reading until the second half of the night. His head felt swollen and dizzy from it, and he finally decided to stop. He might as well wash up and go to sleep.

When he reached for the thermoses, he found all four were still full. That meant that after Brother Yuan had finished bathing, he had gone downstairs again to the hot water room on the first floor and refilled every last one of them.

After a wonderfully comfortable hot bath, Tan Wenbin climbed into bed with an apple in hand.

He chewed on it while gazing out at the starry sky beyond the window.

Sometimes he had imagined what sort of life he would be living now if he had never met Xiaoyuan.

But every time the thought began, he quickly lost interest in letting it wander any further.

Because he truly liked the life he had now.

There was no going back.

…

Because he had gone to bed early last night, Li Zhuiyuan woke up early as well.

A pale whiteness was already spreading along the horizon outside the window, chasing away the few stars that still lingered, reluctant to leave.

Binbin was still sleeping soundly. At times, the boy truly could not understand this habit of forcing yourself to stay awake and study at night only to make up for it by sleeping during the day.

After washing up and returning to the dorm, he put away the design drawing he had finished the night before, slung his schoolbag over his shoulder, and walked out of the dorm building. By then, there were no stars left in the sky.

Still, that was all right. There was one on the ground waiting for him to find it.

…

“Here are the banners, and here are the leftover drinks and snacks. I brought them all back.”

Lin Shuyou set the items down and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

Runsheng tossed him a towel. He caught it and wiped himself again.

Lu Yi smiled and asked, “How was the mixer?”

“There were a lot of people. It was in a big lecture hall. Quite a few people went up to perform talents, and there were all kinds of games. Everyone had a lot of fun.”

Lu Yi asked, “So what did you perform?”

Lin Shuyou said shyly, “What talent would I have?”

Lu Yi asked, “Which school was it?”

“Jinling Audit. There were a lot of girls.”

“Any pretty ones?”

“Of course.” Lin Shuyou smiled. “How could there not be?”

“What I mean is, was there anyone who was your type?”

“There actually was one. When I stayed behind to help clean up, she even came over specially to ask me what class I was in, and she asked about things in our class too. She was so gentle, and really pretty, and her voice was soft and delicate.”

Lu Yi teased, “Fallen for her?”

“I don’t know if this counts as falling for her, but she really made me feel close to her.”

“If you like her, then give it a try.” Speaking as someone with experience, Lu Yi offered his advice. “Be brave and get in touch. Write her a letter or something. Make your intentions clear.”

“A letter?”

“Yeah. Just get someone to deliver it for you. Do you know her name?”

“I do. Her name is Zhou Yunyun.”

“Then write a letter to Zhou Yunyun. Ask her to go to the library with you, or take a walk in the park. Get to know each other little by little.”

“Really? Then I... I’m really going to write it?”

Runsheng, who had been standing to one side drinking water while listening, quietly set down his cup the moment he heard the name Zhou Yunyun.

“Don’t write it,” he said.

Lin Shuyou asked in confusion, “Uh... why not?”

“Because if you do, you’ll die a horrible death.”

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