Corpse Retriever

“So, you’re a python.”

After hearing Deng Chen’s account, Tan Wenbin stared at him curiously and even reached out to tug up his sleeve, wanting to see whether he had any snake scales.

With a wry smile, Deng Chen rolled up both sleeves on his own and let Tan Wenbin inspect him to his heart’s content.

“The black python is the form of my spirit body, but I’ve never had the fleshly body of a real python, and I’ve never eaten mice either.”

“Then this body of yours is...?”

“Someone else’s. He had a sudden heart attack back then and was actually already dead. I borrowed his body and kept living in it.”

“Borrowing a corpse to return to life?”

“I suppose... you could call it that.”

“Then since your name is Deng Chen, does that mean the previous corpse you borrowed belonged to someone surnamed Chen?”

“No. The original owner of this body was surnamed Deng, and his name was Deng Chen. Deng was his father’s surname, and Chen was his mother’s surname. At his paternal grandmother’s home, he was called Deng Chen. At his maternal grandmother’s home, he was called Chen Deng.”“Oh, so you know his family really well?”

“Mm. I spent many years with them. Before, when Lord Dragon King—”

“We’re just chatting in private, so there’s no need to be so formal. Makes it feel too distant.”

“Before, Little Yuanhou... ge?”

Deng Chen remembered that Tan Wenbin addressed the Dragon King that way.

“Mm.” Tan Wenbin nodded and praised him. “You’re way smarter than Lin Shuyou.”

The moment Lin Shuyou came to mind, Tan Wenbin felt depressed again. Even though Little Yuanhou had already wrapped everything up and things were practically at the grand finale, he actually could have made it on stage before the end of this incident.

It was not that Tan Wenbin had wanted to come over and flatter Little Yuanhou. Given their relationship, he had long since passed the point of needing to do that.

He had wanted to realize his own value in life. Every wave’s conclusion was like the curtain call at the end of a stage play. The main cast had to go up together, hold hands, bow, and take their applause.

Originally, he had almost found his way out of the white fog, and time-wise he absolutely would have made it.

Then Lin Shuyou had come in shouting, “Brother Bin, I’ll lead you in,” and Tan Wenbin had followed him, only to get farther and farther off course in the dense fog. By the time the fog cleared, the two of them had practically run to another street.

He had rushed over in a panic to reinforce them, only to be nearly turned into a deserter by that messenger boy Lin Shuyou.

Deng Chen did not respond to that. Given his identity as a malevolent spirit, surviving in front of the Dragon King at all was already a stroke of sheer luck. There was no way he dared get tangled in the terrifying vortex of power struggles within the Dragon King’s household.

“Go on,” Tan Wenbin said.

“The first time Little Yuanhou came to my place to take photos, after I finished developing them for him, blood started pouring from my eyes. I had to rinse them under the tap for a long time before they were clean.

“I knew then that I had run into someone terrifying.

“After Little Yuanhou left, I went to the credit union, withdrew all my savings, and delivered them to my... Deng Chen’s parents.”

“And then you came back?”

“Mm. It was as though Little Yuanhou already knew I would come back.”

“That’s normal. For my Brother Yuan, something like that isn’t hard.” Tan Wenbin asked again, “But books say that borrowing a corpse to return to life makes the body keep developing problems, like corpse spots or rotting and that sort of thing. Why do you still look so fresh and smooth-skinned?”

“There really is something wrong with the body.” Deng Chen opened his left hand in front of him, then raised his right hand and smacked the back of his own head.

Plop.

Both eyeballs popped right out of their sockets and landed in his palm.

Tan Wenbin blurted, “Holy hell.”

Deng Chen held the two eyeballs out toward him.

Tan Wenbin rubbed both hands against his clothes and asked, “Uh... do I need to wash my hands first?”

“It’s fine. I can wash my eyes.”

Tan Wenbin took the two eyeballs into his hands and gently prodded them with his fingers. The eyeballs could even rotate on their own, which was oddly entertaining.

After playing with them for a bit, Tan Wenbin handed them back.

Deng Chen took them, pulled out a handkerchief, wiped them carefully, then pressed them back into his eye sockets one by one.

Tan Wenbin said, “That’s way more convenient than wearing glasses.”

“This is the mutation my body has developed. So far, it’s only happened to my eyes.”

“That hardly counts as much of a mutation. It’s much milder than what’s recorded in the books. That Fourth Uncle I saw—he should be that white centipede you mentioned—he seemed to have exceptionally sharp hearing. He couldn’t see, but he could cook just by listening, and the food even tasted pretty good.

“Looking at it that way, that white centipede probably also borrowed the body of someone who had just died and came back through a corpse.”

The reason was simple. If he had been free to take over just any body, who would willingly choose a blind man?

Deng Chen nodded. “That should be the case.”

“You hadn’t kept in touch before?”

“No. Actually, by the time our self-awareness awakened and each of us formed our own spirit, we had already been shattered apart. The five of us... well, now there are only four... don’t have any feelings for each other.

“At most, there’s just a tiny bit of shared memory. For example, the part about that sketch—I already offered it to Little Yuanhou.

“If we really had stayed in contact, all four of us wouldn’t be living in Jinling. Wouldn’t that just be giving that pig an opportunity?”

“That’s true.”

“I was shocked too. The four of us were actually all living in the same city.”

“No need to be surprised. The river water pushed it that way.”

“The river water?”

“You don’t need to understand that, because I only half understand it myself.”

“Yes, understood.”

Tan Wenbin walked over to the counter and checked the yellow cloth bundle. Three little cuties were sealed inside it.

One look at the seal told him it was Little Yuanhou’s handiwork. It had been done with a blood-drawn spell.

“Hiss...” Tan Wenbin suddenly slapped his hand.

“Wh-what is it?” Deng Chen asked in confusion.

“Little Yuanhou got hurt?”

Deng Chen immediately rubbed his eyes. “Yes. His right hand was injured. I saw it in the images from my eyes.”

“Damn, I didn’t notice. I should’ve treated his wound first.”

“Then are you now...?”

“Forget it. Let’s settle your matter first.”

Tan Wenbin looked over at the memorial portrait frames on the cabinet.

He suspected Deng Chen’s body had not undergone more severe mutation because he had been doing good deeds and accumulating virtue all this time.

Just like that Fourth Uncle.

Tan Wenbin had seen Fourth Uncle disembowel himself with his own eyes. His belly had looked white and tender, and the blood that sprayed out had been a healthy bright red too.

“First thing, you need to keep watch over these three.”

“Please rest assured. In their current state, without sixty years of recuperation, even if they wanted to stir up trouble, they wouldn’t have the strength.”

“Sixty years? That long?”

“Mm.”

“Is there any way to speed that up?”

“I... I’ve never thought about it. I absolutely haven’t, absolutely not!” Deng Chen waved his hands frantically.

“I’m seriously asking you. Is there or not?”

“There is. Some nourishing elixirs, for example, or places with especially strong feng shui aura. Things like that can accelerate their recovery.”

“Then can they be used as spirits? I mean, after they recover a bit.”

“You mean...?”

“Something like commanding spirits and dispatching generals.”

“You want to tame them?”

“Don’t make it sound so ugly. What do you mean tame? That’s called mutually beneficial cooperation, building a win-win situation.”

“Th-this...”

“Can you see the two children on either side of my shoulders?”

Deng Chen looked hard, then shook his head. “I can’t. Is there some kind of seal on you?”

“Mm, there is. But I’ve got two cursed wraith infants with me right now. They’re following me on river walk to accumulate merit so they can reincarnate.”

“I understand what you mean. To enter under the Dragon King’s banner would be the honor of our lives.” Deng Chen stepped back, preparing to kneel and kowtow.

He had nothing to hesitate over. The four of them had always lived in fear, terrified that some upright practitioner would see through their identities.

If they could enter under the Dragon King’s protection, not only would they be safer in the real world, they would also receive extra benefits under the rules of Heaven’s Way.

Tan Wenbin reached out and stopped him. “Our old lady always says times are different now, so there’s no need for all those old formalities.

“Besides, kneeling to me won’t do any good. Even if things are settled on my end, I still have to report back to Little Yuanhou. It only counts if Little Yuanhou agrees.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Go write up a plan. Start from the simplest methods and go up to the hardest. List in detail everything that can help them recover faster. Then write out each of their special abilities and uses. Once you finish, notify me and I’ll come pick it up. I’ll leave you my pager number.”

“All right. Please rest assured, once I finish it, I’ll personally deliver it to you.”

“I said I’ll come get it.”

“Yes, yes. I’ll wait for you to come get it.”

“Second thing: the lettering on your signboard looks bad. Little Yuanhou’s calligraphy is first-rate.”

“If the Dragon King himself would bestow his writing, I’d be smiling in my dreams.”

“I’ll talk to Little Yuanhou when I get back, but we’ll also have a few conditions. When the time comes, you can see whether you can accept them.”

“I understand. I can absolutely accept them.”

“Mm.”

An inscription like that was basically a stamp of protection. It would mean, on the surface, that this shop and the four yin beasts in it had someone backing them.

That was only the public side of things. Later on, there would definitely need to be some specific control measures added as well, but that was beyond Tan Wenbin’s abilities. Once he got back, he would have to ask Little Yuanhou to come up with a method.

In Tan Wenbin’s view, since they had chosen to spare them, that meant they had already become entangled in karmic ties with them. It could not just be a matter of becoming drinking buddies and calling it done. Any restraints that ought to be in place had to be put in place. In short, anything that could be standardized should not be handled emotionally.

Just think about it. If this could really be made to work in the end, then their team would gain four... no, three usable spirits. The very thought was beautiful.

White Crane Child was a lofty Yin god, but with Little Yuanhou around, it was not as though they had no chance of cultivating their own yin divine beasts.

Once the serious business was finished, Tan Wenbin reached out and patted Deng Chen on the shoulder.

Deng Chen’s body trembled slightly, but he still kept up his ingratiating smile.

“All right, you don’t need to keep acting like this. Other than that pig, you—and these three too, probably—haven’t really done anything bad. More likely than not, you’ve only been doing good deeds.

“A good person doesn’t need to bow and scrape like that.

“But this world is what it is, so I hope you understand. Public matters are public matters, private matters are private matters. You have your grievances, and we have our difficulties too.”

“Yes, I know. I’m truly grateful. Really.”

“Think of it this way: when that sealing diagram ran wild, you didn’t even exist yet, but it still has something to do with you. Take this tribulation as repaying a debt for the past.

“From here on, work hard. The future is still bright. Those who want an official post can join the Dragon King’s clan and become a gate-guarding yin beast. Those who want freedom outside can be granted proper investiture as river gods of lakes and streams.

“And for those who want to be reborn and live as a human in the next life, if we can help, then we definitely will.”

These were all things the old lady had told Tan Wenbin.

Back in the past, he definitely would have thought he was just listening to strange stories from old supernatural tales. Later on, though, he found himself living right inside one of those stories.

A look of yearning appeared on Deng Chen’s face, and even the yellow cloth bundle had three bulges standing upright inside it.

Clearly, everyone was very satisfied with this promise.

Tan Wenbin felt he had wrapped this matter up pretty well.

Not bad. Even though he had missed the pig-killing feast, at least he had still made it to the tail end of the banquet.

After walking out of the photo studio, Tan Wenbin did not hurry back to school to report to Little Yuanhou. He knew perfectly well where Little Yuanhou was probably resting right now, and since this was not anything urgent, there was no need to go bother him there.

He hailed a cab and gave the location of the Eighth Hospital.

While he was riding there, the pager at Tan Wenbin’s waist beeped: Runsheng is hospitalized and receiving treatment. His life is not in danger.

“Heh.”

Tan Wenbin could not help laughing. Was Runsheng lucky or not? Counting Lin Shuyou, the four of them had all been involved, and this time Runsheng had gotten the worst of it. But then again, if you said he was unlucky—well, hey—he had been injured right near a hospital.

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