Corpse Retriever

A person’s consciousness is like a house. Some look tall and imposing but are actually flimsy; some are splendid on the outside and rotten within; some are plain and unadorned, yet tough and unyielding.

What the dream ghost does is destroy that house, then build a temple to itself on top of it, turning the person into its puppet.

It succeeded.

What it did not expect was that some people, besides the house above ground, also have an extremely deep foundation underground.

From a cold, rational point of view, you could even say... he himself had long since already become someone else’s puppet.

No matter how much you alter the architectural style above, his underlying logic never changes.

When the two come into conflict, naturally there is no reason for the house above to remain intact while the foundation collapses first.

The person Runsheng used to listen to most was Grandpa Shan.

Grandpa Shan told him: You have to listen to smart people.

Ever since that first time at Li Daye’s house, when he met Little Yuan, Runsheng had known that although the boy was younger than him, he was very clever.At the time, on the second-floor terrace, the boy was sitting with a girl, reading and playing chess. Runsheng had wanted to go closer, but he felt uneasy and awkward.

A small part of the reason was that his own clothes were shabby and casual, while those two children looked refined.

But the real reason was that he could sense the insight and intelligence in their eyes.

Runsheng was a very simple person, so simple that even complicated matters could be reduced in his mind to just a few words or a single sentence.

Later, Grandpa Shan told Runsheng: You should listen to Little Yuan.

And so Runsheng began listening to Little Yuan.

He truly did not think his own brain was of much use, especially when there was someone beside him with a better one.

He did not care about all those formally correct statements about having your own thoughts, having an independent soul, thinking for yourself. He could not be bothered with them.

He only knew that Little Yuan had a good brain but was still not fully grown, while he himself was strong and sturdy, just right for carrying Little Yuan on his back so that Little Yuan’s head would be level with his own.

Puppet is a derogatory word, but what if the person involved is genuinely willing?

That was the one thing Li Zhuiyuan could not understand. Because he had no memory of “later,” he did not know just how much the future version of himself trusted this big fellow in front of him.

At any moment, this big fellow would instinctively walk ahead of him.

Perhaps having no “memory” was not entirely a bad thing. At the very least, it could filter out some of the purest things.

Li Zhuiyuan climbed onto Runsheng’s back.

The big man’s body was sticky with blood, and split open in many places.

The forceful suppression after fully opening his Qi Gates, combined with breaking free from the dream ghost’s puppet restraints, meant that Runsheng was suffering torture in both body and mind beyond anything an ordinary person could endure.

And yet he still carried the boy steadily on his back.

No resistance. No rejection.

Li Zhuiyuan easily led him out of that dream.

The amusement park.

Everyone had gathered there.

Leaving aside that blurry figure, there were five people in total.

They all felt familiar to one another, all felt a sense of closeness, and yet none of them knew each other. They did not even know one another’s names.

The sky above the amusement park began to crack.

That meant the dream here could not last much longer.

It was time to leave.

Li Zhuiyuan stood up, stepped away from the core position of the formation, and walked toward the figure.

The figure turned around and walked forward. Li Zhuiyuan followed behind.

“Actually, we could skip this final farewell part, because what we say now won’t be remembered, and so naturally it won’t have any value.”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “If words had to be valuable before they could be spoken, then most people in this world would become mute.”

“Then shall we go through the motions?”

“Necessary formality has meaning in itself.”

“Heh. The way you talk now reminds me of myself when I was young. Every time I wanted to do something stupid and pointless, I had to find myself a way to justify it, a way to make it internally consistent.

We’re smarter than ordinary people, but at the same time, we’re also more foolish than ordinary people.

Things other people are simply born knowing, we have to start learning bit by bit, cautiously feeling our way forward, imitating them as we go, learning how to crawl and walk. As for running, that’s such a beautiful thing we hardly even dare imagine it.”

The figure spoke, and Li Zhuiyuan listened.

The one big and one small figure passed the bumper cars area, but the figure turned instead of going there and came to the place next to it, a carousel.

The figure naturally pushed open the fence, found a cute little white horse, and sat on it. A rainbow ribbon hung beneath the horse.

Li Zhuiyuan stood to the side watching.

The figure urged him, “Hey, have you justified it to yourself yet?”

Li Zhuiyuan nodded.

“Then get on.”

Li Zhuiyuan chose a penguin and sat on it.

The machine started up, the lights flashed, children’s songs began to play, and the two of them rose and fell rhythmically with their “mounts” as the carousel turned in circles.

“I count as an elder, right?”

“By years of illness, yes.”

“Then I’ll put on airs and say some useless elder-type things. Just listen. You won’t take them to heart anyway.”

“All right.”

“I do not have much to say. Just ten thousand or so items.”

“All right.”

“First, the same thing I’ve already said several times: Heaven and earth are ruthless and treat all things as straw dogs. You can cooperate with it, oppose it, even feel mutual respect with it.

But never really believe it has feelings.

An imperfect comparison, but people like this exist in real life too. You can easily find examples.

It will take the initiative to play with you, joke with you, laugh and banter with you, but never think that means you’re really friends with it.

Otherwise, when you naïvely think the two of you are close, when you think your relationship has reached that point, and you throw an arm around its shoulder and make the kind of joke it used to make with you all the time,

it will immediately go cold and ask you:

‘Are we really that familiar?’”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “It can’t take a joke.”

The figure said, “It looks down on you.”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “I understand.”

“That’s the first point. The second is about your illness. I’m the same as you. My memory has gaps too. Once you realize that, you can no longer know clearly just how much is missing.

So when it comes to your condition, I really don’t have much advice to give. Maybe advice isn’t needed anyway.

Because the answer may be hidden in the very process of hard exploration and trial and error.

Even if someone wrote the answer plainly on paper and held it up for you, or shouted it in your ear tens of thousands of times, it would still be meaningless. It might even have the opposite effect.

You’re already trying to treat your illness. I can tell you’ve had some success. Then keep at it.

Not giving up, fighting your condition and that unwanted ‘self’ inside you, is in itself a kind of prescription.”

“All right, I understand.”

“The third point is about me. Thankfully, once you leave this dream, apart from what you’ve truly absorbed, you’ll forget everything else, so you’ll also forget that I’m already dead.

That way, in reality, you’ll probably keep searching for traces of me. If you find any sign that I’m not dead, you’ll take the initiative to rush up and stomp hard on me, finishing me off for good. Thank you for that.”

Li Zhuiyuan asked in puzzlement, “Is this point really worth repeating?”

“It is. I’m dead. It wasn’t easy to die, but in the end I did manage to die successfully.

But there’s no guarantee some bastard won’t try to bring me back to life.”

“Bring you back to life?”

“That’s what I’m very worried about. So you have to keep watch for me. If anyone wants to revive me, don’t listen to what they say, don’t care how they cry or shout. Just kill them all directly.

Because the people who truly understand me would all want me to stay completely dead.”

“True enough.”

“Before I died, I probably made special arrangements because I was afraid people might try something with my dead self later. Under normal circumstances, that kind of thing shouldn’t happen.

But after seeing you, I changed my mind.

I started to worry.

The farther you go, the more outstanding you become, the more I fear that in order to suppress you... it really might drag me out as an offering.

If that happens, then the next time we meet, it won’t be this harmonious and friendly.”

“I’m actually looking forward to that. If this is the final exam, then I hope the person setting the test for me will be the one who understands me best.”

“You little brat. You’re happy, but what about me?”

“You know how people like us are. We don’t have feelings.”

The figure said, “Funny thing is, even as someone already dead, I’m kind of looking forward to it too.

Just thinking about it is amusing. The two of us, one before and one after, separated by so many years and so many generations, might still force it to choose the lesser of two evils.

But that’s only a fantasy. If you ever notice signs of this in the future, you still have to snuff out that intention in advance.

Because it knows how to anticipate. Just like this time, it dragged you aboard before you could grow up. In the same way, it won’t wait until you’re close to the final step before reluctantly pinching its nose and bringing me out.

If you make me bully the young with the advantage of age, you won’t have any chance to live, understand?”

“I understand.”

“Good. Hearing that word makes me feel comfortable.”

“As it should.”

“All right, that’s all.”

“Wasn’t it ten thousand items?”

“I hadn’t made up the rest yet.”

“Mm.”

The figure waved a hand, and the machine stopped turning. He and the boy got down from the carousel together.

“I’ve been to this world, and I’ve had my fill of it. Now it’s your turn to play.”

“Mm.”

“Have a good time. Just do not play yourself to death.”

Li Zhuiyuan returned to the original formation position, and the four companions who did not know one another obediently gathered around.

The boy activated the formation, and the five of them vanished from the spot together.

The main consciousness of the dream had left this dream, and the amusement park accelerated its collapse.

The blurry figure stood where it was, slowly beginning to dissipate, becoming even more blurred.

He tilted his head up, looked into the sky, and said:

“You really are even more shameless than before.”

…

“Beep!”

A car horn yanked all five people in the vehicle back into reality.

None of them had any clear sensation of the process. It was as though their minds had merely gone blank for a moment, and everything that had happened in the dream had been wiped away.

But reality had still been affected.

Runsheng was covered in blood, collapsed in the back compartment. The instant he woke up, he lost consciousness again and fell into a coma.

Lin Shuyou covered his eyes and knelt there in great pain, blood still flowing out.

Tan Wenbin was extremely exhausted. His mind felt numb and sluggish. He yawned and nodded forward, knocking his head against the steering wheel. That last horn blast had come from that impact.

Yin Meng sat in her seat with her head tilted back. Her head hurt badly enough to remind her of what had happened when she secretly drank the rice wine her grandfather brewed as a child.

Faced with this sudden turn of events, Li Zhuiyuan frowned. Had we already entered the dream once?

Then what counts as reality now?

But no matter what, the first thing was to deal with what was right in front of them.

Li Zhuiyuan reached out and flicked Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng each once on the forehead,解除了 their hypnotized states.

They still felt awful, but compared with before, they were indeed somewhat better.

Next, the three of them got out of the truck and went to the back.

Yin Meng asked with concern, “What happened to Runsheng?”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “He fully opened his Qi Gates. He’s not in mortal danger. Help treat him.”

“All right.”

Li Zhuiyuan then reached out and lifted Lin Shuyou’s head.

“A-You, are you still conscious?”

“Brother Little Yuanhou, my eyes hurt so much.”

Li Zhuiyuan checked Lin Shuyou’s eyes. There were no wounds. The blood looked more like a reverse surge, which meant that after Lin Shuyou used spirit-writing, the White Crane Child had suffered some kind of severe mental trauma.

“Do any of you know what just happened?”

Faced with the boy’s question, the three who were still conscious looked at each other, but none of them could answer.

Li Zhuiyuan flicked Lin Shuyou on the forehead and discovered that A-You’s hypnosis state had already been lifted.

The boy could only pull out a Calming Talisman and stick it to Lin Shuyou’s forehead.

“Rest quietly. Sleep well. Don’t strain your mind anymore.”

“Yes, Brother Little Yuanhou.”

Lin Shuyou obediently closed his eyes and lay down beside Runsheng.

Tan Wenbin asked, “Since A-You used spirit-writing, can we ask the White Crane Child afterward and find out exactly what happened?”

Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. “I don’t think there’s much hope.”

There was no doubt that they had just experienced something.

But since none of them retained any memory of it, there was probably no reason to expect anything different from the White Crane Child. Lin Shuyou’s current state made that clear enough.

Leaving Yin Meng in the back to continue watching over the two badly injured people, Li Zhuiyuan and Tan Wenbin got out of the truck.

The truck had stopped before the bridge. Ahead was a security booth, and hanging in front of it was a sign reading Closed for Equipment Maintenance. There was no guard inside either.

Tan Wenbin lit himself a cigarette and took a hard drag. “Brother Little Yuanhou, this dream... this Boqi form-spirit is pretty fierce.”

Everyone was still in the phase between leaving the school and arriving at the amusement park.

According to the original plan, they had come for the Boqi form-spirit. Even though they knew the true targets were the dream ghost and the hand behind it, that was not something they could say openly.

Li Zhuiyuan said nothing. He silently sorted through his thoughts, but in his heart there was a huge sense of something lost.

Tan Wenbin continued, “In just that one instant, without us even doing anything, it left us like this?”

“What do you think?”

Tan Wenbin pressed his lips together. “I think we must have already been through a lot.”

“Trust that feeling.”

“Yes, Brother Little Yuanhou.” Tan Wenbin flicked ash from his cigarette, then pointed ahead. “Then... are we still going in?”

“We are.”

“Hey.”

The two of them got back into the truck, one in the driver’s seat and one in the passenger seat.

Through the little rear window, Tan Wenbin shouted to Yin Meng, who was still in the back, “We’re going in.”

Yin Meng nodded. She had just done a rough cleaning of the blood on Runsheng’s body, then taken out her whip from her hiking pack.

As she touched that whip, for some reason she felt something strange from it. It was familiar, unfamiliar, and carried a faint trace of delight.

But she had used this whip for a long time. Though it had once been damaged, the new one had been made in the same style.

Tan Wenbin started the vehicle again.

The team’s strength had already been cut in half. Charging onward toward a dangerous destination at a time like this seemed extremely unwise.

The reason Li Zhuiyuan made this decision was simple: none of them were dead yet.

Although they had no idea exactly what had happened, the fact that no one had died was a tremendous victory.

Because the losing side would not have the right to take in and carry off its severely wounded.

Since their side had already won, then who exactly had lost?

At a moment like this, hesitating and retreating instead of continuing forward would be the stupidest thing possible.

The barrier arm at the security booth blocked the road. Tan Wenbin leaned out the window and lifted it by hand, and then Yin Meng in the back took over, allowing the truck to pass through.

They crossed the bridge and reached the other side, where the ticket gate appeared before them.

Beside the ticket gate was a lane for vehicles used inside the amusement park, though it was currently blocked by movable railings. Normally there would be ticket staff there, and outside vehicles would not be allowed in from this way, but would instead be directed to turn off to the nearby parking lot.

Tan Wenbin drove slowly forward. The front of the truck pushed against the railings, shoving them aside, and the little pickup drove straight into the amusement park.

The park was spacious, and with no one there today, driving inside was convenient.

Most importantly, there were two seriously injured people on the truck. There was no way they could leave them behind, nor could they spare what little manpower they had to stay behind and guard them.

“Ahhhh!”

“Ahhhh!”

Screams came from the haunted house ahead.

Then a group of people in gray robes came running out of the haunted house entrance. Their hair was disheveled, their expressions savage. As they ran and shrieked, they clawed at the skin on their own bodies with their fingers.

By the time they rushed up to the truck, Tan Wenbin was already gripping the Yellow River Spade, and Yin Meng in the back had leaped onto the roof, whip in hand, standing guard.

Li Zhuiyuan, however, looked very calm.

“They’ve gone mad.”

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