Chapter 111

Seeing Li Zhuiyuan and Runsheng talking, Xue Liangliang’s father got up and said, “Xiaoyuan, Runsheng, you two go ahead and chat.”

“Uncle Xue, sorry, I’ve got something to take care of here.”

“Oh, it’s fine, it’s fine. Just so happens I’ve got something to do too.”

Smiling, Uncle Xue picked up his tools and went to tend to the potted plants arranged in the yard.

When he had come yesterday, Li Zhuiyuan had already noticed that there were quite a few potted plants at the house, along with several small stone tables set up as decorative displays.

The Xue family’s contracted farmland had long since been rented out by Xue Liangliang, which had freed the old couple from the traditional labor of village life and let them begin their retirement early.

On ordinary days, Uncle Xue’s hobby was fussing over these potted plants, and then going to the long corridor to drink tea and listen to storytelling.

After lunch, Aunt Xue would go out to play cards. Her card partners were all elderly women, and among them she counted as quite young.

“Brother Runsheng, let’s go upstairs.”

“Okay.”

Li Zhuiyuan went upstairs and sat down at the desk Xue Liangliang used to use.

He took out a notebook and pen from his backpack and drew three circles on a blank page.

Three groups of people had all arrived in Min’an Town, yet each had ended up in a different Min’an Town.

This was a development Li Zhuiyuan had never anticipated before setting out.

Was it the miasma of a malevolent spirit?

A formation of the mystic world?

Or a spatial rift like the one he had encountered before? Or perhaps some other rare mystery of the natural world?

Not long ago, during club recruitment on the school field, that club president who loved talking about UFOs had also gone on at length about unsolved mysteries from around the world.

Li Zhuiyuan closed his eyes and let the warm sunlight from the window settle over his face.

Because he had no way to contact Binbin and Yin Meng, and lacked far too much information, he had no basis at all for making deductions.

And he suspected that something abnormal had already happened on Yin Meng and Tan Wenbin’s side.

Because the normalcy on his own side... was itself highly abnormal.

Was it because of Xue Liangliang’s status as the Bai Family Matron’s son-in-law that the development on this line had slowed down?

That factor could not be ruled out, but Li Zhuiyuan did not think it was the main reason.

The last time Jingjing at Shimu’s house had been possessed, she had shown obvious dislike toward the Bai family aura on Xue Liangliang, but only dislike. If she had truly intended to do something to him, she still would have done it. Even Xue Liangliang himself had been no exception, much less his family.

So Li Zhuiyuan suspected that his own line had been the one meant to unfold the slowest from the start.

Wu Hong’s future father-in-law and mother-in-law had already fallen ill, and Fan Shulin’s friend had already gotten divorced. On both of those lines, aberrant changes had already appeared.

Uncle Xue’s fiftieth birthday was next month. Xue Liangliang, who was tied to this line, was still in Dujiangyan right now. He would have to finish what he was doing there or take leave before coming back to celebrate his father’s birthday... and most likely, before returning to his hometown, he would first have to go back to Nantong.

He had arrived too early.

But that was not a mistake. This was an advantage he had deliberately secured.

The current situation was like the entire team being covered by a huge black cloth. They could not see one another, but that was not too big a problem. Even fighting blind had its methods. It was not as if he had never been blind before.

“Brother Runsheng.”

“Yeah?”

Seeing Li Zhuiyuan deep in thought, Runsheng had quietly gone to stand by the doorway, holding a “cigar” in his hand and smoking it.

He walked over to the desk and asked, “Xiaoyuan, have you thought of a way to find Binbin and Yin Meng?”

Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. “No.”

“Then...”

“Brother Runsheng, I need your help thinking.”

“Me?” Runsheng pointed the tip of the “cigar” at his own face. “I’ll do my best.”

Li Zhuiyuan asked, “Brother Runsheng, if you were replaced by Yin Meng or Tan Wenbin, and you arrived in Min’an Town and settled in, what would be the first thing you thought of doing?”

“I’d come find you, Xiaoyuan.”

“And if you couldn’t find me? Even worse, if you couldn’t find out anything about the Xue family?”

“I...”

“Brother Runsheng, would you leave Min’an Town? After all, something has gone wrong here, and we can’t contact the outside world.”

“No. We came here because of the problem. I wouldn’t leave Min’an Town. I’d follow the plan you set beforehand and keep doing whatever I could do on my end, pushing the clues forward while waiting for a chance to meet up with you and report back.”

“So Yin Meng and Tan Wenbin should be doing the same thing.”

Runsheng scratched his head and asked, “Xiaoyuan, did you really need to ask me that?”

“Yes. I needed to confirm it, because when I put myself into someone else’s shoes, it’s easy for my judgment to get distorted.”

He was the one who had made the operational plan, which meant the plan bound him much less tightly than it bound the others. After all, there was no “Brother Xiaoyuan” above Li Zhuiyuan’s own head.

So in a situation like this, his response measures would be more extreme.

For example, he could verify things. Since there were three different Min’an Towns, were the townspeople he saw in the Min’an Town he was currently in actually living people?

He could find some criminal who had escaped legal punishment, or some local tyrant who bullied the village, mete out justice on heaven’s behalf, and observe their death.

He could also ask around to see whose household had an elderly or sick person near death and watch their final moments.

Even if the people of Min’an Town were all simple and honest and healthy at the moment, he could still ask around to see if any family had a fresh grave, dig it up, and use the newly dead body for an experiment.

There was a passage in Chronicle of the Orthodox Demon-Suppressing Arts by Wei Zhengdao that said:

“People are the easiest control sample in which to find flaws. From the ‘people’ here, one can uncover the characteristics of this complex environment.”

But clearly, Yin Meng and Tan Wenbin would probably not do something like that.

So in order to keep the style of action consistent across all three lines, he had to cooperate by following the kind of behavior they would choose, so that their efforts could combine.

Li Zhuiyuan picked up his pen and quickly sketched a crude fish in the notebook.

The pen tip kept tapping lightly against the fish.

In truth, there were many other things he could do. He could use formations, Feng shui, the Qi Clan’s methods of mechanisms and arts, and other means to seek a more forceful breakthrough.

It looked difficult, but he was not trying to tear the house down. He only wanted to punch a hole in a corner of the wall. The odds were actually quite good.

No matter what principle this environment operated on, he could study it and then try poking a hole through it.

Looking at the “fish” before him, Li Zhuiyuan said silently in his heart:

“You want me to do that too, don’t you?”

This fish had pulled a willing bait onto its hook.

Its subjectivity was a problem that could not be avoided, but the problem had two sides, because there was no way to tell which side was truly its intention and which side was a deliberate attempt to guide him.

When faced with a situation like this, there was one method that best guaranteed a solid baseline: ignore its existence and intentions altogether. All you had to do was follow the plan you had originally believed was right, and carry it through without wavering.

Li Zhuiyuan closed the notebook.

Runsheng said, “Xiaoyuan, I’m worried about Binbin. If he really is running into something over there, I’m afraid he won’t be able to handle it by himself.”

“Brother Runsheng, I have more confidence in Brother Binbin.”

Runsheng shook his head in disagreement.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Yin Meng is definitely better than Brother Binbin in a fight, but when it comes to unusual environments, Brother Binbin is better than Yin Meng at making use of the surroundings.”

“Xiaoyuan, you’re right.”

“All right, Brother Runsheng. There’s no point worrying about them now. We should focus our energy on what we’re supposed to do.”

“Xiaoyuan, tell me. What should we do now?”

“Based on my judgment, we should still have quite a long period of dead time ahead of us. What we need to do now is shorten that dead time and bring forward what ought to happen in the future.

“For example... have Uncle Xue celebrate his fiftieth birthday ahead of time.”

…

Lunch was just as lavish as before.

While eating, Li Zhuiyuan took the initiative and said, “Uncle Xue, Aunt Xue, after lunch Runsheng and I are going out to sketch and paint. We’ll be back pretty late, so you don’t need to wait for us for dinner.”

Uncle Xue said in surprise, “That late?”

“Yes. I want to paint a bit longer. I can use it in class.”

Aunt Xue asked Uncle Xue in confusion, “Then why didn’t our Liangliang study painting back then?”

Li Zhuiyuan explained, “Brother Liangliang and I go to the same university, but we’re in different majors, and some classes are electives.”

“Oh, I see.” Aunt Xue nodded, then added, “It’s fine. We’ll wait for you to come back and eat.”

But Uncle Xue objected. “Don’t say that. It’ll weigh on the child’s mind, and then how can he focus on painting?

“How about this, Xiaoyuan. It doesn’t matter how late you come back, but be careful. I’ll leave the door unlocked for you, and keep the food in the pot. When you get back, you can heat it up on the stove yourselves.”

“Okay. Thank you, Uncle and Auntie.”

“Heh, this child. Why thank us? We treat you like one of our own.”

After lunch, Li Zhuiyuan and Runsheng went out.

After Aunt Xue cleaned up the dishes, she said to her husband, “Then I’m... going to play cards?”

With guests at home, her usual entertainment naturally had to stop. She could not neglect them.

“Go on. The boys won’t be back till tonight anyway.” Uncle Xue waved a hand. “I’m going to take a nap too, then head out for tea and storytelling.”

Aunt Xue untied her apron, took some small change, and headed out in high spirits.

Uncle Xue went upstairs, entered the bedroom, switched on the electric fan, lay down on the bed, and began his nap.

The courtyard gate had never been locked in the first place. It was pushed open, and Li Zhuiyuan and Runsheng came back.

It was not as though they had done nothing while out. Li Zhuiyuan had gone to a shop to buy some things and told Runsheng to mix them with water in the proper proportions.

Then he went upstairs first, came to the doorway of Uncle Xue’s bedroom, and heard the even, light snoring from inside. Uncle Xue had already fallen asleep.

He quietly opened the bedroom door and went in. Li Zhuiyuan took out a CaCalming Talisman and stuck it on Uncle Xue’s forehead.

At once, Uncle Xue entered an even deeper and better state of sleep.

Li Zhuiyuan half-curled his right hand and tapped Uncle Xue on the forehead with the knuckle of his ring finger.

The improved sleep state, together with the awakening effect produced by the knuckle’s reverberation, created a kind of counterbalance.

Uncle Xue’s eyelids began to tremble slightly.

Li Zhuiyuan tapped him again, and Uncle Xue’s eyelids opened a sliver, revealing the eyes beneath.

That was enough. This was the right state, something like a lucid dream. Though asleep, he still retained a certain degree of awareness of the things around him.

This state would not last long. Li Zhuiyuan had to hurry.

He bent down close to Uncle Xue’s ear and began speaking in a suggestive tone:

“The Great Dao numbers fifty; Heaven derives forty-nine. One must not celebrate a full-numbered birthday. Only then will one’s children’s blessings remain secure. Break the fullness, leave more than a month unfilled, and your offspring will make up what is lacking.

“This poor Daoist has wandered the four seas and now passes by the Xue household. I have heard of the purity of your family conduct, and that your son is gifted, so I leave these words for you.

“Celebrate the great birthday early. Do not be greedy for completeness, or your son’s marriage fate will be delayed, and the descendants of the Xue family will suffer.”

Li Zhuiyuan repeated those same words several times in succession.

When Runsheng came in carrying a bowl of water and a brush, Li Zhuiyuan immediately rose and dipped the brush into the prepared water, writing the message on both the floor and the wall.

He had listened to the old couple talking the night before, so of course he knew their greatest worry right now was Xue Liangliang’s marriage and when they would finally get to hold a grandchild.

Using that weak point, it would not be hard to get Uncle Xue to move his fiftieth birthday forward by a month.

That way, what would originally have happened more than a month later could be pulled forward to the present.

There was nothing immoral about deceiving them like this. He was here right now. If anything happened, he could step in and deal with it himself. If he were not here, then when the trouble finally came, who knew whether the old couple’s lives would be in danger.

After finishing the writing, Li Zhuiyuan tore the CaCalming Talisman off Uncle Xue’s forehead and left the room with Runsheng. They went downstairs, out of the house, and out of the courtyard.

Uncle Xue slowly woke, sat up on the bed, and a thoughtful look appeared in his eyes as he mulled over the words still echoing in his mind.

“Was it a dream?”

But very quickly, Uncle Xue realized it did not seem to be a dream after all, because he saw that the very words from the dream had appeared on the floor and wall.

“You can’t celebrate a full-numbered birthday like this. It’ll be bad for Liangliang’s marriage and children. It has to be done early, the sooner the better!”

In a panic, Uncle Xue hurried downstairs. He needed to go find his wife and discuss it.

And so Aunt Xue, who had barely sat down at the card table and played a few rounds, was dragged back home by her husband.

At first, Aunt Xue wanted Uncle Xue to wait until she finished the game, but he kept urging that there was no time and told her to hurry home with him and take a look at the bedroom.

The elderly women at the card table, and those standing around watching, all covered their mouths and laughed. One of them even teased:

“Better hurry back. Your man can’t wait.”

Aunt Xue blushed red with embarrassment and had no choice but to follow Uncle Xue home.

After closing the door, Uncle Xue told her about his dream of meeting an immortal elder, then brought her upstairs to the bedroom to look at the writing.

But the words that had been visible before had all disappeared by then.

Yet that disappearance only made Uncle Xue more certain of what he believed, making the whole thing feel even more real.

“This birthday has to be celebrated early. The earlier, the better.”

Aunt Xue had not seen the words herself, but since it involved whether she would get grandchildren, she went along with it under the principle that it was better to believe than risk ignoring it.

“Yes, yes, then let’s do it early.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“How could that be enough time to prepare ingredients and hire cooks? Even if it’s just inviting people over for a meal, you can’t invite them today and expect them to come tomorrow.”

“That’s true. Then what should we do? What’s the earliest we can hold it?”

“And besides, you already informed people about your original birthday date and invited them. Are you going to go back and turn each of them down one by one?”

“Right...”

Just then, the sound of a door opening came from another room.

Uncle Xue and Aunt Xue stepped out and saw Li Zhuiyuan standing at the doorway.

“Xiaoyuan, why are you back?”

“I left in a hurry and forgot to bring my paints.” As he spoke, Li Zhuiyuan waved the paint box in his hand. “Uncle Xue, Aunt Xue, what were you arguing about in there just now?”

“Well, it’s like this...” Uncle Xue explained the matter. After two days of interaction, he already regarded Xiaoyuan as an adult.

“That’s easy. A birthday celebration is a birthday celebration no matter how you do it. Tomorrow, just invite some close relatives and neighbors over for a meal at home and set up one big round table.

“As for the one a month later, Brother Liangliang will be back by then, so hold that one in his name. Since he’s away from home for so long, it can be a banquet to thank relatives and friends for looking after the family in the past.

“If anyone asks that day why it isn’t a birthday banquet, Uncle Xue, just say a fortune-teller advised you this way. Everyone will understand.”

“That’s a good idea, Xiaoyuan. We’ll do it that way,” Aunt Xue said, clapping her hands.

“Yes, that’s what we’ll do. Tomorrow... no, you go buy the food right now. Tomorrow we’ll put out a table.”

“Wouldn’t it be the same to buy it tomorrow morning? It’d even be fresher.”

“Did you forget? On the morning of the birthday, we have to pay respects at the ancestral graves. If you go buy food tomorrow morning, what about the offerings?”

“Right, I forgot. I’ll go buy the food now.”

At the words “pay respects at the ancestral graves,” Li Zhuiyuan’s gaze sharpened. After Aunt Xue went downstairs, he asked Uncle Xue, “Uncle Xue, is it your custom here to visit the ancestral graves before a birthday celebration?”

“Yes. It’s one of our local customs. You can think of it as notifying the ancestors and letting them join in the happiness too.”

“Then Uncle Xue, can Runsheng and I go with you tomorrow morning?”

“The ancestral graves are up on the back hill. The road’s not easy to walk, and we have to go before dawn. Xiaoyuan, you don’t need to...”

Next Chapter >