Chapter 150.2

Unboxed and inspected.

Lifelike and full of fierce majesty, like dragons and tigers come alive!

“Master Ge, you’re incredible. Why don’t you switch careers? Open your own factory and make these things. You’d definitely make a fortune!”

“What nonsense are you talking? Even if this thing gets made, who besides you is going to buy it?”

“Master Ge, once people start living better, demand for this kind of thing will definitely keep growing. I heard people over in Lianyungang are already making them.”

“Heh, I don’t believe it.”

“Well, nothing to do about that. I’m off, Master. See you around.”

Tan Wenbin rode his bicycle back to Grandpa Li’s house.

Grandpa Li had gone to speak with the village chief, so only Xiao Yingying was at home.

Tan Wenbin found the two urns and opened them. He placed the regular-sized one into Little Wang, and the oversized one into his godfather.

When he turned around, he saw the woman watching him. More precisely, she was looking at the remaining set of items in his hands.

Tan Wenbin offered no explanation. Instead, he asked, “Where are Little Yuanhou’s grandparents? They’re not here anymore?”

“They went to the in-laws’ place. They’ve been helping out there these past few days.”

“Oh, I see. Well... after a while, a married couple with a child may come here. They’re very capable workers.”

“Hm?”

“But their identities are a bit special. You can... forget it. I’ll come back again when the time comes and arrange it myself.”

The woman returned to her work station and continued making paper effigies.

Tan Wenbin shrugged, got back on his bicycle, and rode to Zhou Yunyun’s house again.

By then, the men who had gotten thoroughly drunk were only just waking up, each one still dizzy and out of it.

Seeing that Tan Wenbin still looked full of spirit, everyone felt a little intimidated.

At dinner, no one drank much. By unspoken agreement, everyone just let their drinks sit untouched in their cups.

Still, even without a drinking contest, with Tan Wenbin around there was no way things would get awkward.

Of course, even if Tan Wenbin were not that kind of personality, he still would not have been neglected, because his family was better off.

Logically speaking, blood ties among relatives ought to make it easier to avoid that mercenary side of social behavior, but in ordinary people’s social circles, that kind of snobbery often shows itself most clearly among relatives.

So someone like Tan Wenbin, whose family was well-off and who could still actively mingle with everyone, would only be welcomed all the more.

After dinner, Tan Wenbin did not stay the night there. He drove back to his hometown instead, since he had not drunk that evening.

His parents were in Jinling. After spending some time alone revisiting the place where he used to live, he took a bath and went back to his room to sleep.

Early the next morning, he drove to Zhou Yunyun’s house. After breakfast there, he took Zhou Yunyun to visit both his Northern Grandpa and Southern Grandpa’s households, formally introducing her there and receiving two thick red envelopes.

“It’s too much...”

“Just keep it. You can lend me some later if the betrothal money isn’t enough.”

“There isn’t any betrothal money.”

Both of them were only children, and after getting married they would have to look after both sides of the family, so there really was no such thing as betrothal money. The local custom of calling them Northern Grandpa and Southern Grandpa partly came from the fact that nobody wanted to be the side called maternal grandparents.

“Get some sleep. I’ll wake you when we get to Jinling...”

Beep... beep... beep...

The pager went off. Tan Wenbin pulled over. What a novelty. It was actually his dad paging him.

As far as he could remember, his biological father rarely paged him. He usually just appeared out of nowhere at the worst possible moment.

He drove a little farther ahead, found a public phone in town, and called back.

“Hello, this is Tan Yunlong.”

“Hello, Officer Tan. This is Tan Wenbin.”

“How’s it going? Smoothly?”

“Smoothly.” Leaning against the counter, Tan Wenbin glanced toward the car, where Zhou Yunyun had stayed behind. “Thanks to your hard work and struggle, your son is very popular at his future father-in-law’s place.”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Dad, the two of us are as close as father and son. No need to be so polite.”

“Do you know a little girl named Chen Xiaojuan?”

“Dad, I’m innocent. I haven’t been fooling around outside. I don’t know any Huahua, Meimei, or Juanjuan.”

“She’s only four years old.”

“Then no, I don’t know her.”

“She says she knows me.”

“Dad, so it turns out you were the one who made a mistake?”

Heavy breathing came from the other end of the line, as though he regretted that the phone cord was not a belt.

“She said I look a lot like an older brother. She’s from Zhangjiajie. Didn’t you go there recently and even bring your mother some local specialties?”

“Huh?”

“Did you buy a lot of cherries from her?”

“Ah?”

“Did you maybe buy a lot of cherries from her?”

“Then I remember now. Yes, I did. But I didn’t know her name.”

“She remembered you very clearly. Clear enough that it made its way all the way to me.”

Chen Xiaojuan and her older brother sold cherries at the train station, where competition was fierce and it often took a long time to sell out. Then one day, an older brother threw down a whole stack of big bills and bought all the cherries from both siblings in one go, letting them go home early to play.

In Chen Xiaojuan’s eyes, Tan Wenbin had practically been glowing at the time.

Even though her brother had said they were doing business, not begging, and had tossed back the extra money and the change, it did not affect Tan Wenbin’s image in the little girl’s heart in the slightest.

“She was trafficked.”

“What?” Tan Wenbin’s expression immediately turned serious.

Then, through Tan Yunlong’s account, the whole matter came to light.

Chen Xiaojuan and Chen Xiaolei came from an average family. Their father had died early from illness, and their mother supported the family through labor work. The siblings helped out by selling cherries at the train station.

There was a room in their house that they rented to a woman. The woman did not work and normally did not go out, but she ate and drank fairly well and often gave the brother and sister snacks.

Their mother had only agreed to rent out a room because the tenant was a woman. Besides, in the countryside, renting out a room did not bring in much money anyway.

But that day, when Chen Xiaolei came back from picking cherries, he found that his little sister Chen Xiaojuan, who should have been home, was nowhere to be seen. The woman renting the room was gone too, and her luggage had been taken away.

He knew immediately that something bad had happened. He went to find his mother, and then they reported it to the police at once.

The female tenant had vanished without a word, and she had abducted the family’s child.

In a case like that, the police also found it difficult to investigate, because they had no direction at all to follow.

Meanwhile, Tan Yunlong’s side had been carrying out joint drills among several departments in preparation for the Spring Festival travel season. Tan Yunlong led a team onto a train to conduct inspections and patrols.

As he passed a seat, a little girl sitting in her “mother’s” arms, happily drinking soda, suddenly looked up at him and said:

“Huh? Big brother, how did you get old?”

It was such a simple sentence, but it made Tan Yunlong look at the girl a second time, and then also at the woman holding her.

The girl’s “mother” had her head lowered, her face buried against the girl’s shoulder, which was a perfectly normal posture.

But now that the girl had spoken to him, and the mother clearly was not asleep, it was a little strange that she did not even look up at him.

An old detective’s sixth sense could be that sharp sometimes.

“Little sister, where have you seen me before?”

During the conversation, the girl’s “mother” finally lifted her head and smiled, signaling to the girl not to disturb the uncle while he was working.

Tan Yunlong recognized her on the spot. It was Tian Meihong!

She was the fugitive who had once organized a robbery gang targeting taxi drivers in Jinling and was still on the run. There was even a murder charge on her.

In truth, the photo on the wanted notice was rather blurry to begin with, and it was also an old photo from before she fled. Tian Meihong had disguised herself, and her appearance had changed quite a bit as well.

Under normal circumstances, she only needed a fake ID, and that wanted notice would have had very little effect on her, especially after so many years had passed.

But the problem was that his son had waved that wanted notice in front of him not long ago, so he had become very familiar with the facial details on that face.

And Tan Yunlong had always had a premonition: once his son started messing around with that wanted notice for no apparent reason, he would probably catch her before long.

In short, under all those coincidences, Tian Meihong was caught just like that.

After all these years in hiding, she had thought the heat had died down. More importantly, she had run out of money, so she wanted to make a comeback, and once again chose Jinling, the old ground where she had once created her “glory.”

As for kidnapping Chen Xiaojuan, it had only been something she did on the spur of the moment. She intended to sell the child for some money as seed capital to build a new gang.

Tan Wenbin said, “That’s a good thing, Dad.”

Hearing that the girl had been rescued, Tan Wenbin also felt relieved.

Tan Yunlong said, “I just think it’s a little too coincidental.”

Tan Wenbin said, “That’s because your eyes are as sharp as an eagle’s.”

Tan Yunlong said, “Heh.”

Tan Wenbin said, “Ha.”

“Her brother came out looking for her. He managed to get onto a train bound for Jinling too, and he’s already at the railway station police office. Their mother fainted from panic at home, but fortunately she’s awake now, and we’ve already notified her.”

“That’s great. Everything’s been resolved.”

“Are Zhangjiajie cherries that good?”

“They’re pretty good.”

“Didn’t see you bring any home.”

“I bought quite a lot intending to bring them back, but Ayou ate them all.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I’m already on the road. I specifically stopped to return your call.”

“Drive carefully.”

“Yes sir!”

…

Li Zhuiyuan was finally fully awake. This time it was not in the form of walking the shade, and his vision had also returned to normal, though his head still felt somewhat heavy and muddled.

The first person he saw when he opened his eyes was Ah Li.

Ah Li stood up and left the room. Not long after, she returned carrying a bowl of thick medicinal soup.

Li Zhuiyuan did not let the girl feed him. He took the spoon himself and obediently began drinking the medicine.

This bowl looked a lot like spicy pepper soup.

Only the ingredients inside were far more precious than anything in spicy pepper soup.

After only a few mouthfuls, warmth began to spread through his whole body. This was a nourishing elixir.

By the time he finished the bowl, his stomach was already full, and he was not hungry at all.

Li Zhuiyuan first went upstairs to find Liu Yumei.

“You’re awake?”

“Yes, I’m awake.”

Liu Yumei did not scold the boy again for not cherishing his body, because she knew very well that if River walk only cost exhaustion and overdrawn vitality, that hardly counted as anything. It could even be considered fortunate.

“Next time, have Mengmeng carry some medicinal herbs with her, and let her brew them directly for you.”

“All right.”

The herbs could come along, sure, but as for having her decoct them...

Given Yin Meng’s current muddled understanding of poisonous substances, Li Zhuiyuan was deeply worried that if he drank medicine she brewed while unconscious, he might never wake up again.

“Get some proper rest.”

“Yes, Grandma.”

He went downstairs and headed to the kitchen to greet Aunt Liu.

Aunt Liu was washing the pot used to brew medicine, while Uncle Qin sat there sharpening a kitchen knife.

“Hungry?” Aunt Liu asked with a wicked grin.

“No, not anymore.”

Uncle Qin set the knife down and reached out to squeeze Li Zhuiyuan’s arms and legs. Somewhat regretfully, he said, “Not yet, but...”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Then I’ll wait until it is.”

Training martial arts too early would affect bodily development, especially with the Qin family’s style, which focused on wringing out the body’s potential.

Li Zhuiyuan did not want that kind of remedy that poisoned the body to quench thirst. Since the river water had dragged him in early, carrying the intent of cutting him down ahead of time, then he would grow in the fullest and most complete way possible.

After leaving the kitchen, he went to Ah Li’s study.

There were several more musical instruments inside now: a guzheng and a guqin.

The instruments had arrived long ago, but Ah Li had been afraid of disturbing the boy’s rest, so she had never played them.

Even now, the guqin and zheng were still covered with one red cloth and one white cloth.

“Ah Li, I need to go back first. There are still some loose ends I need to tie up. I’ll come again tomorrow to chat with you. You can teach me how to play this.”

The girl nodded.

Li Zhuiyuan raised a hand and rubbed his temples. He turned to leave, but then suddenly thought of something, turned back around, and said:

“I almost forgot. I need to say hello to them first.”

Li Zhuiyuan walked in front of the girl and took her hand.

The girl did not close her eyes. She felt the boy had only just woken up, and it was not suitable for him to walk the shade. He should rest properly.

Li Zhuiyuan raised his hand and gently brushed it over the girl’s eyes, closing them for her.

The next moment, Li Zhuiyuan appeared inside that single-story house.

As always, the first thing before him was that row of cracked ancestral tablets.

Only now, looking at those tablets again, he felt something completely different from before.

Liu Yumei had told him to treat himself as one of their own children.

She had said similar things before, but in the end his surname was Li, not Qin or Liu.

Though he had gone through the rite of homage, that door had never truly opened within his heart. There had always been a layer separating him from it.

In the past, when he looked at those tablets, the main link in between had always been Ah Li.

His experience in the general’s tomb this time had broken through that barrier.

He was still Li Zhuiyuan, still had no blood relation to the Qin and Liu families, but when it came to inheritance, sometimes it surpassed blood ties.

The same way, the same road, the same river.

Before, they had been like portraits hanging in a school hall of fame. Now, Li Zhuiyuan felt they were his elders.

He turned around and faced the threshold.

The boy was still exhausted. As he stepped over the threshold, he still needed to brace himself with a hand on the doorframe.

Then he sat down directly on the threshold.

Far ahead, at a great distance, was a dense fog so thick it could not possibly be thicker.

The boy leaned his head against the doorframe and weakly swept his gaze over it. After a few glances, he closed his eyes again. He was still tired. In reality he could still hold on, but while walking the shade, drowsiness overtook him.

With his eyes closed, the boy faced the dense fog.

Inside the dense fog, there was absolute silence, as though nothing dared make a sound to disturb this moment.

The corpse retriever’s主动 appearance was not, in itself, a particularly telling sign.

What mattered was that everyone had sensed that this time, the boy had reached out and seized it on his own initiative.

The nature of things had already changed.

It was no longer them coming to bully their way to his door. It was the boy taking the initiative to come calling and collect a debt.

Even though Li Zhuiyuan’s purpose last time had been to conduct an experiment.

Still, the feeling given off by that action was one of a Dragon King’s dominance.

A similar bearing would occasionally appear on Liu Yumei. Now, it had begun to appear on the boy as well.

In his haze, Li Zhuiyuan opened his eyes again and stood up.

The great fog in front of him began to recede along with the boy’s movement.

The boy cast one final glance at it, then turned and walked back inside the threshold.

Those things outside

were the muck splashed up beneath the feet of his predecessors as they walked their road in the past, and also the markers guiding the direction of Li Zhuiyuan’s own path forward in the future.

But in the end, they were still only things unfit to be brought into the light.

When he opened his eyes again, he had returned to the real study.

Ah Li had her eyes open and was looking at him.

He felt that the girl’s eyes had grown more lively, especially her eyelashes, which seemed much brighter and more cheerful than before.

That was probably why she had been willing to take up her instruments again. Music required a certain state of mind. If all one ever played was one’s own fear, dread, and sorrow, there was no point to it. It would only make the family listening to it grieve along with her.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “I actually learned piano before.”

When he was little, Li Lan had indeed made him study quite a few things.

Back then, he had been foolish enough to think that as long as he learned quickly, his mother would be happy.

Now that he looked back on it, that had probably been part of Li Lan’s testing.

She had wanted to give birth to a normal child, and after giving birth, she had used all kinds of methods to prove that he was not normal.

After leaving Liu Yumei’s house, Li Zhuiyuan first went to the Bargain Shop Bandit Camp.

But he did not find anyone there.

Lu Yi said Yin Meng wanted to buy some everyday clothes for Runsheng, so she had dragged him out shopping.

With Li Zhuiyuan lying in Ah Li’s room at Liu Yumei’s house, they really had nothing to worry about, and it was not particularly convenient for them to go visit him either. His companions could go about their normal lives just fine for now.

Besides that, Lu Yi also told Li Zhuiyuan that Tan Wenbin had just called and said Tian Meihong had been caught by his father.

Lu Yi did not know who Tian Meihong was. He was simply repeating the message as he had received it.

Tan Wenbin was still on the road back to Jinling. Even after returning there, he would first have to take Zhou Yunyun to the Audit Adventure Society. Worried there might be delays on the road, and that Little Yuanhou might wake up soon, he had first passed along this piece of information.

Lu Yi sat behind the counter now, like the team’s intelligence relay station, a human voice mailbox.

Li Zhuiyuan returned to the dormitory and saw an envelope on his desk.

When he opened it, there was a stack of photos inside.

The photos had been taken on a scenic hilltop, with a small town in the distance.

This was not Meiling Town. The sky over Meiling Town was never this clear.

In the next photo, there was a portrait of Granny Zhu, along with a painting of her hometown.

He himself was also in the photo, being carried on Runsheng’s back. Judging from the angle, it looked as if they were gazing out together at the distant scenery.

Although he had already fallen unconscious at the time, before leaving Zhangjiajie, his companions had still taken him to Granny Zhu’s hometown.

All he had to do was hand this envelope to Professor Zhu, and Granny Zhu’s final wish would be fulfilled.

As for Huzi and those other two pieces of trash, they were probably still in that water burial site, dead or alive unknown. Most likely they were dead. Even if they were alive, they could never get out.

They really had found the Xie family’s old residence, and they really had gone there.

There had indeed been gold inside that ancient tomb for them to dig up. Tan Wenbin had told him before that his godfather had been buried with gold and silver.

Tian Meihong had also been arrested.

Li Zhuiyuan looked at the envelope in his hand.

The three lines of causality he had set in motion had all ultimately turned into channels dug in advance, and the river water had been kind enough to flow into them.

This experiment had succeeded.

Li Zhuiyuan sat weakly at his desk, lightly tapping the tabletop with his fingertips. Though his face still looked worn and pale, light flowed through the boy’s eyes.

“Come, then. Let’s continue.”

(End of Volume)

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