Corpse Retriever

Li Zhuiyuan slept from nightfall to nightfall.

When he opened his eyes, from where he lay, he could see the girl’s soft, delicate profile.

She was lying on her side by the bed, her head resting on her hand. In fact, she had been watching him too.

As the boy sat up from the carpet, the girl also sat up on the bed.

A faint smile lingered at the corner of her lips. By now, that expression no longer came difficultly to her.

The boy had a lot he wanted to say to her, but then he thought about how grimy he was. When he had come here last night, he had neither showered nor brushed his teeth, and he felt rather filthy.

Especially since this was the girl’s bedroom. In his current state, he felt completely out of place with both the surroundings and the person in them.

“Ah Li, I’m going to take a shower.”

The girl nodded.

The moment he stepped out of the bedroom, Li Zhuiyuan saw Aunt Liu slicing meat.“Little Yuan, looks like you were really tired.”

“I did sleep for quite a long time.”

“You must be hungry.”

“Yeah, really hungry.”

“Then go take your shower first. I sliced this meat especially for you. How about grilling it yourself?”

Waking up and immediately eating grilled meat did not seem all that suitable, but for a starving boy like him, it sounded absolutely wonderful.

“Sure. Thank you, Aunt Liu.”

“Do you want to eat in the courtyard or on the rooftop terrace?”

“The terrace.”

“Then I’ll have your Uncle Qin carry the grill up there in a bit.”

“Okay.”

Li Zhuiyuan went to bathe. Since Granny Liu already had new clothes made for him regularly, there was already a fresh folded outfit waiting in the bathroom.

While showering, Li Zhuiyuan made a point of keeping the water off his bandaged right hand. One glance told him who had wrapped it for him, because Aunt Liu’s medical skills were too good. If she had done it, it would not have been this elaborate... no, this tender and caring.

After he finished bathing, Li Zhuiyuan first went upstairs to see Liu Yumei.

Liu Yumei was sitting in a rattan chair in the open room on the second floor, enjoying dessert while admiring the rain outside the window.

“It’s raining?” Li Zhuiyuan said.

“Ah Li’s room has good soundproofing. It’s normal you couldn’t hear it,” Liu Yumei said, waving a hand. “All right, you only just woke up, didn’t you? Go get something to eat. This old lady should be going to rest too.”

“Rest well.”

“Of course. Now that you young people are up, naturally it’s time for me to turn in.”

Li Zhuiyuan turned and headed downstairs. Holding Ah Li’s hand, he went up to the rooftop.

A large black umbrella was set up on the terrace, like a black pavilion keeping out the rain.

Under the umbrella were tables and chairs. The small grill already had glowing charcoal inside, and on the grill plate sat a mahjong-tile-sized chunk of fat to grease the surface.

Li Zhuiyuan and Ah Li sat on opposite sides and began grilling meat.

Fresh, tender beef only needed a simple grilling and a little seasoning to become delicious.

Of course, the main reason was that he was genuinely starving. At a moment like this, even ordinary food could taste like a gourmet feast.

Keeping pace with the grilling, Li Zhuiyuan told Ah Li about everything that had happened yesterday... or rather, the day before yesterday. Ah Li listened very attentively.

Especially when she heard how, at the end, the boy had planted his foot on that pig’s head and then sent it off with Karmic fire, she tilted her head slightly, and her eyes seemed to glimmer like starlight.

She could tell that he had deliberately struck that pose to make it easier for her to compose a painting.

When two people truly get along extremely well, they often become childish with each other.

The charcoal in the grill glowed with a faint red light. In the girl’s eyes, the boy speaking so earnestly seemed to be wrapped in a soft halo as well.

Aunt Liu had sliced only meat. She had not prepared any vegetables.

They ate until they were full.

Then Li Zhuiyuan and Ah Li sat there and played chess. On a rainy night, there were no stars in the sky, which made it nice and clear, perfect for setting the board and placing pieces.

The result came as no surprise. Li Zhuiyuan lost several rounds in a row.

At last, after Li Zhuiyuan parted with Ah Li and went downstairs to get his schoolbag, the boy deliberately tucked the empty Jianlibao can he had finished into the bag.

Then he slung the bag onto his back, picked up an umbrella from by the door, opened it, and walked out of the courtyard.

After he left, Ah Li came to her bedroom too, carrying a little keepsake box inlaid with pearls and agate.

Her gaze swept around the room several times.

But she could not find that can.

She puffed out her cheeks.

But very soon,

she smiled again.

…

This rain had probably been falling for quite a while. Water had pooled in many places around the school, and in some spots there was no way around it. You simply had to wade through.

The dormitory lights had long since gone out. Li Zhuiyuan took off his backpack, planning to toss it inside first and then climb over the wall himself.

Of course, he could have called for the dorm supervisor auntie to open the door and simply given Tan Wenbin’s name, but in rainy weather that felt like too much trouble. Doing it himself was simpler.

Just as he was about to throw the bag in, a familiar voice came from behind him:

“Little Yuanhou.”

Tan Wenbin came jogging over under an umbrella.

“Binbin, why are you still outside?”

“I was watching a movie at the shop and fell asleep halfway through. I was just about to head back to the dorm.”

Li Zhuiyuan nodded. He knew Tan Wenbin had roughly guessed when he would wake up and had been waiting over at the shop the whole time. From the counter there, you could see the entrance to this dorm building.

“How’s Runsheng?”

“He’s doing great. As long as Mengmeng doesn’t personally make him a midnight snack.”

Click!

There was no need to call the dorm supervisor auntie at all. Tan Wenbin simply took out a key and unlocked the door himself.

Back in the dorm room, Li Zhuiyuan picked up a dry towel and wiped himself down, while Tan Wenbin casually explained the plan for handling the photo studio matter.

“Binbin, you handled it very well.”

“Little Yuanhou, then we’re settled on this?”

“Mm.”

“It’s just the matter of how to use those spirits. You’ll have to figure that part out, including leaving some control measures on them.”

“There’s no hurry. Deng Chen was right. Those three are too weak right now. They’re useless for the time being. Putting a restriction on Deng Chen alone first wouldn’t be appropriate either.”

“It wouldn’t.”

“I’ll draw you an array diagram. When you have time, go to the photo studio and pick a room to set it up in. It can speed up the gathering of Feng shui aura. If those three are kept in that room, it’ll help them recover a little faster.”

“All right, leave it to me.”

Li Zhuiyuan hung the towel back up, then walked over to Tan Wenbin and examined him closely.

“Little Yuanhou, what’s wrong?”

“It’s been replenished.”

“Replenished? My Lifespan?”

“It should be. That day, you must have used the Ghost-control technique.”

“Only halfway...”

“But you still lost quite a bit of Lifespan. Now not only has it been restored, you’ve even gained a little extra. Probably after another two waves, the hole in your Lifespan caused by raising ghosts will be completely filled back in.”

“That’s great, then. Heh heh. Oh right, Little Yuanhou, there’s one more thing I didn’t tell you.”

“What is it?”

“I had Deng Chen communicate with those three little cuties. In their tone and with their understanding, I had him write letters explaining the disappearance of those three.

“The general theme was: they were tired of the endless busyness of hospital work, tired of the dullness of doing business, tired of the greasy smoke from cooking all the time. Then suddenly it all clicked, and they realized life was more than just surviving the present—there was poetry too, and distant fields.

“So in one sentence: I quit. I’m going traveling. I’m going to find my own pastoral dream.”

The doctor of the red monkey had been smashed into minced flesh. The boss of the blue ox had been burned to ashes. And when that Fourth Uncle had chased Tan Wenbin with a blade, he had spread a miasma, so no one in the restaurant had been able to see what happened then.

All three had ended up disappearing fairly cleanly. The first two had even done a good job disposing of their own remains. Fourth Uncle’s disembowelment suicide had been too fierce, so yesterday Tan Wenbin had made a special trip to his house to clean up the “crime scene.”

If his father ever found out he was using his family’s teachings for this sort of thing, he would probably be so furious he’d yank off his belt again.

Because those three Yin beasts had each had their own social circles before, adding all that into the letters made them highly believable. Even if someone got suspicious, it did not matter. With those letters there, even if the police were called, there would be something to hand over, so police resources would not be wasted.

The main thing was to bring the cause and effect of these three people’s disappearances to a final close.

“Binbin, you thought of everything. I didn’t even consider any of that.”

“Little Yuanhou, you were just too tired. Besides, didn’t you hand this whole matter over to me? This was what I was supposed to do. From now on, I’ll handle this kind of cleanup work.”

“All right, then I’ll leave it to you.”

“Heh heh, part of my responsibilities.”

That way, every wave from now on, he would have a fixed role to play. Even if he was not onstage for the final bow, his job title would still show up in the credits.

What was this kind of thing usually called again? Post-production?

Li Zhuiyuan sat down at his desk and started drawing the array diagram first. The array diagram had to be made simple enough for a fool to understand, and he also needed to mark the important precautions.

Tan Wenbin sat at his own desk too and picked up a book to read.

After Li Zhuiyuan finished the array diagram, he handed it to Tan Wenbin. Tan Wenbin put down the book he had been reading and started memorizing and understanding it.

As he read, Binbin suddenly voiced his confusion:

“Huh? Little Yuanhou, why do I feel like my efficiency at understanding this stuff keeps getting better and better?”

“You’ve been studying it for a long time now. Practice makes perfect.”

“Could it have something to do with the two kids on my shoulders?”

“Mm. With them on you, your spiritual perception gets sharper.”

“Man, so if they get reincarnated someday, I’ll turn into a lonely old man with dementia?”

“They only improve your condition. The main thing still depends on your own learning. Don’t get things backwards, Binbin. You need to have confidence in yourself.”

Students with good grades tended to believe more in their own hard work. Students with poor grades were more willing to believe in miracle study guides or secret manuals, and they usually had more stationery too.

Tan Wenbin nodded vigorously. Right, he had to believe in himself. Even if the chicken soup Little Yuanhou served up was piping hot, he still had to chug it in one gulp.

After Binbin had memorized and understood the array diagram, he checked the time. It was just past midnight. He left the dorm room, went to the bathroom, and smoked a cigarette. After finishing it, he stretched lazily.

All right, time to begin today’s quitting-smoking effort.

When he came back, Tan Wenbin continued reading. He really liked the nighttime study atmosphere now. In the dark of night, with two ghost children by his side helping out, his study efficiency practically doubled.

If he had had this setup before the college entrance exam, that would have been absolutely incredible.

Still, it was not too late now. University had final exams too.

When the overwhelming majority of college students picked up their brand-new textbooks right before finals, that was not really called reviewing for exams... it could not even be called studying... it was basically just previewing the material for the first time.

Time kept passing. Li Zhuiyuan had slept too much and was not sleepy at all. After finishing his record of the events of the third wave, he took out Code of Conduct for River Walkers.

First, he extracted the rules that had not yet changed, then revised the wording of the rules that had changed.

This was only a preliminary revision. After finishing that, Li Zhuiyuan held his pen and sat in his chair, thinking.

The facts had already proven that there were no rules that stayed fixed forever.

River water flowed and changed. Among the people who drowned every summer, many had been the ones who believed themselves excellent swimmers.

But that one beneath the peach grove had once said Wei Zhengdao liked stripping the river and the Heavenly Way of anything interesting.

Yet it had also relayed Wei Zhengdao’s words: if you desecrate the Heavenly Way too much, the Heavenly Way will not be able to resist stripping the human skin off your body.

Those two statements were contradictory.

And combined with his own practical experience, the contradiction was only growing wider.

Contradictions were a good thing. The truth was often hidden within just such collisions of contradictions.

Li Zhuiyuan opened a page in Code of Conduct for River Walkers and wrote:

Raise my understanding of the difficulty of River Walk; deepen my understanding of River Walk behavior.

The river is dynamic, and the rules of River Walk are also dynamic. One must seize opportunities through dynamic development.

Li Zhuiyuan let out a soft breath and lifted his teacup, taking a sip of cold water.

Since he had already compared River Walk to a “test-setter,” then his earlier attempt to summarize fixed, static rules to make River Walk easier was obviously inappropriate too.

If you fixed your own behavioral logic into place, would that not simply give the “test-setter” the chance to predict and target you?

What that pig-headed thing had done in the third wave was definitely not mere coincidence. He had clearly been hit by path dependence.

So in the final analysis, he still had to fully mobilize his own initiative.

Treat every wave as a brand-new round of cards: deal again, draw again, put the chips on the table, make the strategy from scratch. No laziness, no slackness.

This was not overturning his previous understanding, but raising and refining it further on that foundation.

In the third wave, Runsheng had been seriously injured, Tan Wenbin had lost Lifespan, and he himself had been wounded too. And of the five Yin beasts, he had only killed a single pig.

He had not intended to deliberately control the score, but in this wave, both the team’s losses and gains were far lower than in the first two.

A willow planted without intent had still given shade.

If there really were a scoring standard, then the score for their side in the third wave definitely would not be high.

Then the difficulty of the fourth wave, while still following the principle that each wave was stronger than the last, should increase by a smaller margin.

That meant he had created the conditions for opening a new round of testing.

Li Zhuiyuan took out a new notebook and began drafting a plan.

The plan itself was not complicated. At present, it only contained a few key ideas and concepts that needed to be verified.

The rest would still have to be filled in through practical experience later on.

Li Zhuiyuan then took out another new notebook and started writing his own “medical record.”

He had once complained about why Wei Zhengdao had not left anything behind for future fellow sufferers. Then he realized he had not left anything either, so he might as well start now.

The main purpose of writing this was not really for people who might someday get the same illness.

It was so that after writing it, he could complain about Wei Zhengdao with a clearer conscience.

Once he started writing, he had to begin from the time he first became aware of things. By the time dawn began to brighten the sky, he had only just reached the point where he returned to Nantong.

Everything before that was mainly about the development of his illness in childhood.

Li Zhuiyuan stretched lazily. He was still full of energy, so he got up from the desk and went to wash up.

“Ahhh~~~”

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