Chapter 144

After all, his family really had once been rich and powerful.

Whenever a member of the Yin Clan traveled abroad, all they had to say was, “My ancestor is Yin Changsheng.”

What usually came next was a warm response: “Please, take the seat of honor.”

That was also why those travel notes mixed into the Yin family genealogy, which looked cheap and dull on the surface, could still keep Li Zhuiyuan thoroughly engrossed. Yin family ancestors always managed to wriggle their way into high-end banquets, and amid all the plain narration, they would suddenly drop some delightful surprise on you.

But Li Zhuiyuan noticed something strange. Yin Meng had her eyes shut, her lips bitten tight, and her body was trembling nonstop, as if she were in great pain.

A moment later, Yin Meng opened her eyes and let out a breath. Her face was full of exhaustion, as though her mind had been hollowed out.

What was wrong with her?

Meanwhile, their side still had to keep moving forward. The maidservant and eunuch phantoms ahead were guiding them onward, seemingly leading them to their seats.

The three of them carried the straw pole to the first row beneath the main dais. The maidservant and eunuch immediately made a gesture inviting them to sit.

Tan Wenbin and Runsheng both froze a little. They knew perfectly well they were fakes. If they really set the straw pole down and sat, would that not expose them on the spot?

Seeing that they still were not sitting, the nearby maidservant and eunuch phantoms began to gather around, and those farther away slowly turned to look in their direction as well.

The atmosphere instantly grew tense. Even the general’s armor on the main dais seemed to turn slightly, as if it were about to sweep its gaze over here.

The corpse retriever procession that had come in behind Li Zhuiyuan arrived at the second row behind them. The man carrying the front end of the pole crouched down and tilted his body to one side.

Thunk...

A crisp, muffled sound rang out, as though something had slid off.

Then the pole-bearer stood back up. His steps became much lighter. He turned around, the front of the line becoming the back, and started leaving.

Li Zhuiyuan had sharp hearing. Since he could not look, he listened instead, and in his mind he roughly reconstructed the whole sequence.

The one in the corpse convoy whose feet never touched the ground had been placed behind the table, and should now be kneeling in the row behind him.

So that was how it worked.

But what they were carrying was a straw dummy.

Still, given the situation, there was no better option.

“Crouch,” Li Zhuiyuan said.

Tan Wenbin and Runsheng immediately crouched. The boy lifted the straw dummy off the pole, then hugged it and sat down behind the table with it in his arms.

“You two follow the other corpse retrievers out. Be extra careful. Don’t give yourselves away.”

Tan Wenbin and Runsheng nodded at once, hoisted the pole, turned, and left, following the earlier corpse retriever team that had already unloaded their passenger.

“Little brother.”

Xiong Shan’s voice came over. Li Zhuiyuan turned his head to the side.

At the table immediately to his left sat a straw dummy, and on top of it was a swaddled infant sleeping soundly.

“I’m counting on you.”

After leaving behind those words, Xiong Shan and Lihua copied what Runsheng and Tan Wenbin had done, turned around, and followed the departing line.

When you try to bluff your way through in disguise and, unfortunately, the spotlight lands right on your head, then the only thing left is to keep acting your part according to the rules here.

And if nothing unexpected happened, they and Runsheng would now have to go fetch other “people,” likely the sort that “could not be looked at directly.” The danger level was far too high.

Compared with that, leaving the child here was actually safer.

Xiong Shan’s urge to retreat was already obvious, so as long as he had a choice, he would not tear the mask off and start a conflict here.

And once Li Zhuiyuan saw that Yin Meng had been seated in a place of honor here and that Lin Shuyou was seated below accompanying her, the most urgent cause for direct conflict was gone.

At least for now, things had not yet reached the point where they had to overturn the whole table at any cost.

Even if they eventually had to deal with it, they could still probe the situation further first. At the very least, they needed to find out what these “cannot be looked at directly” things actually were.

With creatures like these around, they had already lost more than half the battle before it even began. If they could not even look at them, then what was there to fight with?

Once he had settled down with the straw dummy in his arms, Li Zhuiyuan tried to look toward where Lin Shuyou was seated. Unfortunately, both he and Lin Shuyou were in the front row close to the main dais, but on opposite sides, which just so happened to block the line of sight.

Li Zhuiyuan tried slowly rising to his feet while holding the straw dummy.

But the moment he made that move, the nearby maidservant and eunuch phantoms looked over. Then, just like before, those farther away also turned to look and began approaching him.

They seemed like enthusiastic attendants, coming to ask what this honored guest required.

Helpless, Li Zhuiyuan had no choice but to sit back down.

But at least one thing was now certain: sitting here was safe, as long as he did not do anything out of line.

Since he could not see Lin Shuyou, all he could do was keep watching Yin Meng on the main dais.

Fortunately, Yin Meng was seated directly opposite him. That meant from her angle, all she had to do was look straight ahead to see him.

Unfortunately, because he was holding a straw dummy plastered with a Soul-banner, Yin Meng felt absolutely nothing about him.

Most likely, in her eyes, he was just one more utterly unremarkable figure.

No, more than that. She was deliberately avoiding lifting her head to look his way. She also knew that he “could not be looked at directly.”

Lin Shuyou had vertical pupils, so there was at least some hope of trying to communicate with him. But Yin Meng had not even properly learned Walking the Shade until now...

Walking the Shade?

Li Zhuiyuan suddenly recalled Yin Meng’s earlier strange behavior. Could it be that she had just been Walking the Shade?

She had done it in such pain, with such agony, for such a short time, and afterward she looked drained nearly to collapse.

Her ancestors included The Great Emperor of Fengdu. The Twelve Edicts of Fengdu commanded all ghosts. Yet as a member of the Yin Clan, Yin Meng had gone a long time without even the ability to see a ghost. It was honestly a little shameful before her forebears.

And now, she had finally learned it.

When had she learned?

While traveling, there had been absolutely nothing to do in the hard-sleeper train compartment. Or maybe when she had been watching over Brother Hu and the others, she had been so bored out of her mind, unable to do accounts or inventory, and with no Zheng Jiayi to go shopping with her, that she could only grit her teeth and start practicing Walking the Shade again. And then she had finally broken through?

The corpse retriever procession at the bottom of Peach Blossom Village Lake was split into two parts. Every time they came out, one part wandered nearby, like a bus, picking up the dying, or the already dead.

The other part went farther away, to places more like the city, randomly picking one lucky person from the Xie, Wang, and Bu families to serve as lamp oil. That was an act of revenge.

Something must have gone wrong along the way. Maybe it was because his man-made channel, namely Brother Hu and the other two, had started being filled with wave-water, pushing events forward. Or maybe it was just some simple coincidence... but in the end, it caused Yin Meng to expose her family background in front of the corpse retriever procession.

And then their whole group was forcibly invited here as honored guests.

Judging by Lin Shuyou’s reaction, this time he had probably been dragged into it by Yin Meng.

He was not confident he could deal with this corpse retriever procession, especially with that terrifying thing in the procession whose feet did not touch the ground. It was simply impossible to handle. Yet he was afraid Yin Meng would be taken away and something would happen to her, so he had hardened his heart and entered the procession himself.

Lin Shuyou had had no choice. The corpse retriever procession came and went in a flash. There had been no time to find a telephone and call for instructions. And from the standpoint of a new member, if he had just let Yin Meng be taken away while he stayed behind alone, he would have been in an unbearably awkward position.

At present, that was all he could guess.

Li Zhuiyuan lowered his head. The table before him was completely empty.

This general was really stingy. Throwing a banquet and not even putting out some fruit or cold dishes.

He did not dare eat anything anyway, but at least he could have touched and looked at them to pass the time.

Most likely, those “jade platters and delicacies” would only appear once the banquet officially began, and only in the state of Walking the Shade.

At that moment, the child woke up and started babbling.

He and the child were both holding the same type of straw dummy, so they could see each other’s true form.

The child’s noises gradually attracted the nearest maidservant.

From that maidservant’s point of view, this “honored guest” was likely expressing some dissatisfaction or making some request.

Honestly, if the child burst into loud crying right now, or started flailing and kicking until he rolled himself off the straw dummy, then the consequences...

Li Zhuiyuan looked at him and placed his index finger against his lips, making a shushing gesture.

The child saw it. The child smiled. Then he stopped making noise and actually closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

Even Li Zhuiyuan, who did not like children, felt this child was really well-behaved.

No wonder it was a child bearing merit on his back. He was not the kind to stupidly get himself killed for no reason.

Another corpse retriever procession came in.

Li Zhuiyuan carefully turned his head. There was one of those unseeable things seated behind him, so he had to avoid it, and he also had to keep his line of sight lowered.

He saw Runsheng. Runsheng was in front, still carrying the straw pole, with someone loaded behind him.

He shut his eyes, counted silently, then opened them again. Skipping over the one in the middle, he saw Tan Wenbin.

Tan Wenbin turned his head too and saw Li Zhuiyuan. He cleared his throat, wanting to call out, but afraid that making too much noise would cause trouble, so in the end he could only mouth the words:

“So many people... so, so many...”

Li Zhuiyuan understood.

Under the guidance of the maidservant and eunuch phantoms, Runsheng prepared to lower off the passenger.

Since the two of them were carrying people as corpse retrievers properly for the first time, even though they crouched down together, they failed to control the angle when they tilted the pole, and the one they were carrying fell straight off.

Clunk... clunk...

Li Zhuiyuan could only distinguish the movements by sound, but then came a series of scraping noises. Presumably, the one who had fallen had climbed back behind the table on their own.

Not bad. The service quality was poor, but this place did not seem to have a customer complaint system.

Tan Wenbin and Runsheng were probably breathing a sigh of relief inside as well.

Li Zhuiyuan also saw Xiong Shan and Lihua. The husband and wife were carrying someone too. As expected of a married couple, they worked in perfect sync, settling their “guest” into place as steadily as veteran corpse retrievers.

Before leaving, both of them glanced at the son they had left behind there.

Round after round, the corpse retriever processions kept bringing more and more of those “cannot be looked at directly” monsters into the hall.

As their numbers increased, Li Zhuiyuan found he could not even turn around to look anymore. He could only keep his head lowered.

There was no helping it. The moment he turned around, his entire field of vision became forbidden ground.

Just sitting here, he was still fine. But for Runsheng and Tan Wenbin, who were transporting passengers behind him, things were becoming harder and harder. They could not look at the maidservant and eunuch phantoms’ instructions at all. Even if they only looked down at their own feet while walking, there were still those unseeable beings seated beneath them.

In the end, the two of them simply gave up caring. As soon as they entered the banquet hall, they crouched down, flipped the pole, and dumped their “lord” off.

Then that “lord” would crawl on his own, following the maidservant and eunuch phantoms’ directions to wherever he was supposed to go.

Seeing that doing it this way caused no problems, Xiong Shan and his wife followed suit.

After that, every time a new batch of corpse retrievers brought guests in, Li Zhuiyuan would hear two chimes from the entrance. Other people were dropping off passengers; their two teams were unloading cement.

No one knew how many trips they made, but finally, they were done.

The banquet hall was packed to the brim.

The doors shut. The banquet was about to begin.

In a narrow gap by the roadside outside, all the corpse retriever teams stood neatly inside, shouldering their poles.

Their task was complete. Now they were waiting there.

This place was basically full of corpses. Some were dressed more neatly, wearing Daoist robes. Others were in rags, their bodies already somewhat decayed.

Still, the corpse retrievers here were like sedan bearers. Under normal circumstances, they could fetch people from outside to replenish the number.

At the entrance to the gap stood a eunuch phantom, his back to them, motionless, seemingly acting as a guard.

“Damn, I’m exhausted,” Tan Wenbin said. “Never thought there’d be this many old masters.”

Runsheng nodded.

They had just been to the place where passengers were picked up. Though they did not dare look at how many there were, the instant they lowered the pole, a “person” would climb right on.

“When the banquet inside ends,” Xiong Shan said, “remember this: return the others first. The people from both our groups get picked up last. Once everyone else is gone, we can go through the waterfall behind the banquet hall, return to the lake surface, and leave this place.”

“But what if the other corpse retriever teams go fetch our people?” Tan Wenbin asked. “They’re all dead. Genuine, stubborn deadheads.”

“They’re seated deepest inside,” Xiong Shan replied. “So pickup should start from the outside. If we coordinate properly and adapt as things change, it won’t be hard.”

Easy for you to say. You only have one to fetch. We have three. Of course you can talk without feeling the strain.

“Brother Xiong,” Tan Wenbin asked, “about what’s going on here... are you really just going to ignore it?”

“The people from those three families killed my brother,” Xiong Shan said. “This general has a grudge against those three families. I’d be delighted if the general could break free and help me wipe them out.”

“If the general gets free, the impact won’t stop with those three families,” Tan Wenbin said. “It’ll probably mean devastation everywhere.”

“As long as we get revenge, what does devastation everywhere have to do with us—”

“Lihua!”

Lihua shut her mouth.

Tan Wenbin glanced into the distance. Seeing that the eunuch phantom was far away and had not reacted to their conversation, he pulled a cigarette pack from his pocket and lit one.

When he saw Xiong Shan looking at him, he tossed one over to him too.

Having a smoke was not really excessive. This place was basically a parking lot anyway. Everyone was just “parking their vehicles.”

Seeing them smoking, Runsheng took out some incense and had only just lit it.

The eunuch phantom at the front immediately turned around and walked over toward them.

Apparently this place allowed cigarettes, but not incense. Runsheng was just about to pinch out the incense when Tan Wenbin stopped him.

“Don’t. Give our dear eunuch a stick too.”

Runsheng planted the burning incense into the ground.

After the eunuch came over, he did nothing except squat in front of the incense on the ground and inhale deeply with an expression of pure enjoyment.

Tan Wenbin even joked, “Would Your Eunuchship like a Little Su too?”

The eunuch ignored him and kept greedily sucking in the incense.

Tan Wenbin looked at Xiong Shan and asked, “This is a real ghost, huh? It can actually consume incense offerings?”

“Probably one of the burial attendants interred here,” Xiong Shan replied. “It became one of the general’s tiger-servants.”

Then Xiong Shan added, “So? This place is wicked, isn’t it?”

Tan Wenbin shrugged. “Brother Xiong, if you want to talk, then talk to my boss. Don’t think you’re getting anything out of me. Heh.”

Xiong Shan smiled. “I’m just curious about you people. Especially your boss.”

Tan Wenbin exhaled a ring of smoke and said, “Brother Xiong, there’s something I probably shouldn’t advise, and if I say it wrong, don’t blame me.”

“Go on.”

“Sealing the general and taking revenge are really two separate things. There’s no need to force them together. Even if you want to retire after this, you can always finish this job first and collect what you can. Better to get something safely into your pocket first.

Once this matter is over, if you still want revenge, then take revenge later. With your skills, Brother Xiong, you may not need to borrow the general’s power to target those three families. The gains won’t be worth the losses.”

“I’m curious,” Xiong Shan said. “What’s your purpose in trying to persuade me like this?”

“I’m the same kind of person as my boss,” Tan Wenbin replied. “Soft-hearted. Can’t stand evil running wild. Can’t stand corpses strewn everywhere and human tragedy.”

“Really?”

“Of course.” Tan Wenbin pulled out another cigarette and tossed it to Xiong Shan. “It’s all in the smoke.”

In truth, Tan Wenbin was making one last effort.

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