Corpse Retriever

Because they had not found a direct poison, and the hospital had not produced a clear poisoning report either, there was only so much the police could do. They could not realistically haul every suspect into the station for interrogation. Even their investigation into the victim’s network of relationships was limited to basic interviews.

Still, after this swift and timely response, they were able to firmly establish the rumor that Zhou Yunyun had been poisoned, snuffing out in advance the version that had already started brewing and was about to spread through the school: that a certain female class monitor had suddenly gone insane.

After all, if this were really just a psychiatric episode, there would be no reason for so many police officers to show up.

While Tan Yunlong arranged the next stage of the investigation and assigned directions for follow-up, Li Zhuiyuan and Lin Shuyou left the dorm building first and got back into the police car they had arrived in.

Lin Shuyou was excited, almost bouncing. “Brother Yuan, what do we do next?”

“There’s a very simple method.”

“A simple method is great. Let’s use the simple one.”

“Go kidnap those five girls, then torture and interrogate them.”

Lin Shuyou: “...”

Li Zhuiyuan turned his head and looked out the window. A campus always seemed to carry a quiet, peaceful air, and every university had its own particular style.After hesitating and thinking for a long while, Lin Shuyou asked, “Brother Yuan... should I take them to the basement of our school’s Bargain Shop?”

“Hm?”

“I think that place seems pretty suitable for holding people. The most dangerous place is often the safest place.”

“You were actually planning to do that?”

“If we can be sure the one who cast the curse is among those five, then I think your method is workable.”

“Then why not just kill all five of them? The culprit has to be in there somewhere.”

Lin Shuyou: “...”

Lin Shuyou tried hard to persuade himself again. His fingers curled tightly, his face twisting for a moment. In the end, he wilted like a deflated balloon and said dejectedly:

“Brother Yuan, this... I don’t think I can do that.”

He had actually seriously considered whether it was feasible.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “No rush. The one who cast the curse is stupid. Bait her a little, and she’ll bite on her own. I deliberately mentioned the laundry soap right in front of them earlier. That was the bait.”

When fish are startled, they swim away.

When fools are startled, they jump out of the water themselves.

With the circle of suspects already narrowed this much, identifying the one who cast the curse was no longer the difficult part.

What needed more thought now was this: if she had something as advanced as that cursed object in her possession, there was no way she was just some ordinary person who had casually picked it up by the roadside.

Back at the graveyard in Shigang, he still had a copper coin buried there that he had not even bothered to retrieve yet.

A high-level cursed object like that—she knew how to use it, dared to use it, and understood that it needed to be recovered afterward. That meant she was very familiar with this sort of thing.

Using a cannon to kill a mosquito was absurd, yes, but the premise was that she had a cannon and knew how to fire it.

Which meant:

She was a fool.

And she was a fool with backing.

Li Zhuiyuan interlaced his fingers and lightly flexed them.

Hooking her was only the first step.

The second step was hooking the people behind her.

As for the third step...

Heh.

There was a line Runsheng liked in the gangster movies he watched: Trouble should not reach the family.

The problem was, you had already gone after our family first.

Lin Shuyou noticed a deep, chilly indifference in the boy’s eyes.

He mistakenly assumed Brother Yuan was unhappy about his earlier refusal, so he forced himself to speak.

“Brother Yuan, could there be more than one culprit?”

“Hm?”

“I mean, among those five, is it possible there are two, three, four, or even all of them?”

If all of them were guilty, then he would not have any moral burden. Tonight he could open his face and invite the gods, killing only, saving none.

“No. There’s only one culprit.”

“Ah...”

“Zhou Yunyun was very well liked. Even if the culprit was one of them, in daily life she still would have been a close sister to Zhou Yunyun.

“In a dorm room, if multiple people are dissatisfied with you and collectively plot, approve of, and cover up harm against you, then you’d have to be the kind of person everyone despises.

“Besides, this was a curse, using a cursed object. Even if ordinary people wanted to join in, they wouldn’t have the qualification or the skill.”

“Then I...”

“Right now, there’s only one thing I care about.” Li Zhuiyuan lowered his head and looked at his neatly trimmed fingernails.

“What is it?”

“Did you bring money?”

“I did!” After the embarrassment of not having money for a taxi home the last time they went out, Lin Shuyou now made sure to bring his wallet every time.

“There’s a store over there. Go buy some paper and pigments.”

“Okay, I’ll go.”

Lin Shuyou got out of the police car. Watching his retreating back, Li Zhuiyuan’s gaze slowly darkened.

He sincerely hoped that the family backing the culprit would not turn out to be as sensible and quick to read the situation as Lin Shuyou’s family had been last time, and jump out early to put on some act of sacrificing kin for righteousness.

So this time, he would keep the identities of the Qin and Liu families to himself for now.

Right now, he was:

Li the Corpse Retriever, sitting at the Hao River docks in Nantong.

Come on.

Take the bait.

...

The sky gradually darkened.

Inside the dorm room, the police had already left. The five girls were either sitting on the edges of their beds or on chairs, and the atmosphere was oppressively tense.

When they looked at one another now, there was already suspicion and caution in their eyes.

Tong Yanyan spoke first. “So Yunyun was poisoned?”

Wang Lunan suddenly burst into tears. Crying as she spoke, she said, “Why did this happen? Why did this happen? Who would want to hurt Yunyun? Who was it?”

She was the youngest in the dorm, and the most delicate-looking as well. In the past, whenever she cried, the other girls in the dorm would come over and comfort her.

But this time, nobody was in the mood. They were all first-year students, and for many of them this was the first time in their lives they had faced the police from such close range.

The police in real life were nothing like what people saw in movies and television. When a real officer in full uniform stood before you and questioned you, the pressure and intimidation were very real.

Zhao Mengyao said, “I really can’t understand it. Who would want to hurt Yunyun? She was such a good person. Who could do something like this?”

As she said that, Zhao Mengyao let her gaze sweep across the other four girls one by one.

Zhang Xin said, “I believe that even if someone wanted to hurt Yunyun, it wouldn’t be anyone from our dorm. Didn’t the police say they’d keep questioning people? They’ll ask everyone in the class and other people too. We were only the first group to be questioned. That doesn’t mean the person who poisoned her must be in our dorm.”

Zhou Shengnan jumped down from her bed and said, “Anyway, if I find out who hurt Yunyun, I don’t care who it is, I’ll kill her!”

Tong Yanyan bent down. She had the lower bunk, and Zhou Yunyun had the bunk above her, so some of their belongings were stored under the same bed.

She pulled the plastic basin out again. The original bar of laundry soap had already been taken away by the police for testing.

Pointing at the basin, Tong Yanyan asked, “Who put a new bar of laundry soap in here?”

Everyone looked at the basin. No one spoke.

Tong Yanyan asked again, “The person who switched the soap definitely won’t come out and admit it. So let me ask you this instead. Did any of you see someone come down here and replace it?”

Still no one spoke. They only shook their heads.

Tong Yanyan pressed her lips together and continued, “If you saw it, then say it now. Don’t try to cover for anyone, because if she dared poison Yunyun, then maybe she’d poison you too!”

Wang Lunan wiped away her tears. “I didn’t see anything.”

Zhao Mengyao said, “Neither did I.”

Zhang Xin said, “Is this laundry soap itself poison? Or was there poison inside the bar Yunyun used last night? Yunyun couldn’t have eaten laundry soap, so could it be the kind of poison that affects you just by contact? Then could the clothes you wore this morning, Yanyan, also have a problem?”

Tong Yanyan looked at Zhang Xin in confusion and asked, “What do you mean by that?”

Zhang Xin said, “I’m worried about you. Judging by the police’s attitude earlier, it was obvious they thought there was something wrong with the soap. Weren’t they looking for the poison just now?”

Zhou Shengnan looked baffled. “I still don’t get why the poisoning would have anything to do with laundry soap.”

Zhang Xin continued explaining, “Could it be the kind of toxin that spreads through touch?”

Wang Lunan said, “If that’s true, then doesn’t that mean our whole dorm could be in danger? Boohoo... I don’t want to die. I don’t want to turn into a lunatic... boohoo...”

“Nannan, stop crying,” Zhou Shengnan snapped. “What problem is crying going to solve?”

Zhao Mengyao said, “How about we write anonymous notes? In case someone feels too embarrassed to say it in front of everyone, we can write it down on paper and open them together.”

Tong Yanyan said unhappily, “Something this serious has already happened. What is there to be embarrassed about? Yunyun’s lying in the hospital already. If someone knows something, do they still need to save her face?”

Zhou Shengnan agreed, “Yanyan’s right. At a time like this, if someone saw something but still doesn’t dare say it, then she’s beyond saving.”

Zhang Xin said, “I actually think Mengyao’s suggestion is pretty good. Why not try it?”

Zhao Mengyao took out a notebook, tore off five sheets of paper, and took out five pen refills.

One sheet and one refill each—she handed them out to the others one by one.

When she got to Tong Yanyan, Tong Yanyan did not take hers. Instead she shouted, “This is completely pointless. If you were going to do this, why didn’t you just tell the police earlier?”

After shouting that, Tong Yanyan climbed down from her bed and started putting on her shoes.

Zhou Shengnan asked, “Yanyan, where are you going?”

“To the school store. I’m buying a new cup, toothbrush, toothpaste, and laundry soap. I’m replacing all my towels too!”

Tong Yanyan walked out of the dorm room.

Looking at the paper and pen refill in her hand, Wang Lunan asked, “Then... are we still writing them?”

Zhao Mengyao said, “Of course. Just in case. Everyone turn your backs while you write. After you’re done, put them into this box in order, and then we’ll read them together.”

Everyone turned their backs.

“Done writing? Don’t turn around yet. One by one, put them in. Start with Nannan, then Xinxin, then Shengnan, and me last.”

After everyone had put theirs in, Zhao Mengyao shook the pen holder and then spread out the four slips of paper one by one. The first three were blank. The fourth had words written on it:

I saw Yanyan replace the soap.

The entire dorm room fell silent.

Zhou Shengnan asked in confusion, “Who wrote that?”

No one answered.

Zhou Shengnan continued, “If Yanyan switched it, then why did she bring it up herself just now and ask who put it there?”

Zhao Mengyao said, “Could she be doing it on purpose? The thief crying thief?”

Wang Lunan asked, “Do we... do we need to tell the police? Or should we wait for Yanyan to come back and ask her together?”

Zhang Xin got down from her bed and walked toward the door.

Zhao Mengyao asked, “Xinxin, where are you going?”

Zhang Xin said, “I’m going to find the counselor. I want to request a room transfer!”

...

As Tong Yanyan walked out of the dorm building, a pink human-shaped paper figure drifted down in front of her.

She was still furious and did not even spare it a glance. She stepped right over it.

After arriving at the store, paying for her toiletries and daily necessities, Tong Yanyan picked up the public telephone on the counter and dialed a number.

The counter was right by the entrance. In the shadow to the left of the main door, Li Zhuiyuan stood there. His ears twitched lightly, and Tong Yanyan’s entire conversation fell clearly into them.

She was calling her mother, talking about what had happened to Zhou Yunyun, saying that the police had come today, and telling her how nervous and frightened she felt.

Her mother comforted her from the other end of the line.

After the call, Tong Yanyan carried her things and returned to the dorm.

The other four girls also left the dorm building alone at various points during the night. Naturally, they all had to go out to the cafeteria for dinner.

Each time one of them came out, a small pink human-shaped paper figure drifted down in front of her.

Zhang Xin lowered her head, glanced at the paper figure, and kept walking.

Zhou Shengnan grabbed the paper figure as it floated down, then tossed it into the trash can ahead.

When Wang Lunan and Zhao Mengyao saw the paper figure, both were startled and hurried away.

Other than Tong Yanyan, two more came to the store to make phone calls: Wang Lunan and Zhang Xin.

Wang Lunan called her father. She first told him everything that had happened today, then cried and babbled while seeking comfort.

She truly rambled on and on, even telling her father about the note-writing that had taken place in the dorm after Tong Yanyan left.

Zhang Xin called her uncle. Her uncle was either some kind of school official or someone with connections on campus. Zhang Xin asked him to help arrange a room transfer because she did not want to stay in that dorm any longer.

Her uncle asked why, and she told him everything that had happened in the dorm today, disparaging every girl there except Zhou Yunyun.

Zhou Shengnan and Zhao Mengyao had not made any calls, which was normal enough. Phones were not yet common, and for students from rural areas especially, being able to call their parents whenever they wanted just to chat was a real luxury.

Tong Yanyan, Wang Lunan, and Zhang Xin all seemed to come from fairly well-off families.

The first two called directly home. Zhang Xin used her call to pull strings for a room transfer.

In fact, every dormitory building had a public telephone downstairs, right outside the dorm supervisor’s office.

The reason those three had to leave the dorm and come to the store to make their calls was because Li Zhuiyuan had instructed Lin Shuyou to cut the dorm building’s phone line.

It would not be reconnected until the relevant maintenance staff came to inspect and fix it the next day.

As for the paper figures drifting down in front of each person as they came out, those had been thrown by Lin Shuyou, who was hidden up in the trees.

The night deepened. It was not yet lights-out in the dorms, but it was not far off. Only a few couples remained on the paths outside, whispering their last sweet words, and the store was preparing to close.

Li Zhuiyuan sat down on a bench, and Lin Shuyou came running over.

“Brother Yuan, did you find anything?”

“Yes. Three of them made phone calls. Nothing unusual.”

Lin Shuyou scratched his head. “Ah, what a pity. It’s fine, Brother Yuan. Think of another way. We’ll definitely be able to—”

“What’s a pity?”

“Didn’t you say there was nothing unusual among the three who made calls?”

“If there was nothing unusual, that means they’re normal. That rules out three options.”

“Uh... right!”

Once you defined the culprit as a fool, the world became very simple. To start designing some complicated, profound trap or test after that would just be insulting yourself.

A fool would never realize that she was the one being closely watched. At a moment like this, she would not deliberately run out and call home just to chat casually and put on a performance for him.

If she had that kind of brain, she would never have done something like opening a fresh bar of laundry soap and putting it back.

If she wanted to contact home, then what she should be doing was telling them someone seemed to have discovered her secret, admitting her mistake first, and asking for help.

Li Zhuiyuan asked, “The paper figures?”

“Brother Yuan, I noticed it. Wang Lunan and Zhao Mengyao both got startled when they saw them. Tong Yanyan stepped right over hers. Zhang Xin looked at hers and kept walking. Zhou Shengnan threw hers straight into the trash.

“So based on the ones you already ruled out, and judging from their reactions, Zhou Shengnan is the one who cast the curse?”

Li Zhuiyuan pulled that pink human-shaped paper figure from Lin Shuyou’s pocket, held it up in front of him, and gently shook it.

“Why?”

“Because she wasn’t scared! Brother Yuan, you cut these paper figures according to the standard dimensions for cursing a person. Anyone who knows even a little about curse arts would be able to tell.

“But there’s no name written on it, no thread tied to it, no mark or seal drawn on it. It’s like a Daoist talisman sheet that doesn’t even have any sigils on it, just a standard blank sheet of yellow paper. There’s nothing to be afraid of at all.

“So after ruling people out twice, there can be only one truth. The one who cast the curse is—”

“Shuyou.”

“Yes, Brother Yuan?”

Li Zhuiyuan flicked the paper figure with his finger and asked, “Do you think this paper figure looks scary?”

“I...”

“I deliberately colored it pink instead of using white or black because I wanted it not to feel scary. A paper figure like this would look perfectly normal pasted on a wall during some arts event. What’s so frightening about it?

“Don’t make things more complicated than they are. Everything can be simpler.

“So the ones who were frightened by it are either naturally timid people who cry at the first sign of trouble, or... they really do have a problem.”

“So the one who cast the curse is...”

“Zhao Mengyao.”

...

“Who are you looking for?”

Tong Yanyan opened the dorm room door and asked in a very stiff tone.

After returning from the store, she had noticed that the others in the room were looking at her with obvious wariness, even hostility. It made her feel deeply uncomfortable, and it left her in no mood to be polite to strangers.

“Is Zhao Mengyao in your room?”

“Yes.”

“A boy asked me to deliver this love letter to her. Here.”

A heart-decorated envelope was handed over, and Tong Yanyan took it.

The girl who had delivered it left. She was just returning late to the dorm, and some boy had paid her to come in and deliver the letter. It was basically a small errand for a little extra cash.

Tong Yanyan shut the door, tossed the letter to Zhao Mengyao, who was sitting on the top bunk, and returned to her own bed.

In the past, every time Zhou Yunyun received a love letter, everyone would chorus out teasing little oohs, crowd around curiously, and even try to look at it together.

But Zhou Yunyun never opened them. She always put them straight into her drawer.

So everyone started guessing that the class monitor had already given her heart to someone.

Zhao Mengyao picked up the envelope in surprise and deliberately waited a moment, only to realize that no one was teasing her and there were no playful little oohs.

She muttered to herself, “Heh. At a time like this, who would even have the mood to look at something like this?”

Tong Yanyan did not respond. Zhang Xin was packing her things to move dorms the next day. Wang Lunan was curled up on her bed, tears welling in her eyes. She still needed someone else to comfort her. How could she spare any energy to provide emotional support for someone else?

Only Zhou Shengnan perfunctorily said one line to humor her:

“Take it as bringing in a little good luck.”

Zhao Mengyao’s chest rose and fell sharply. Then she took several deep breaths in a row and finally managed to steady her emotions.

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