Corpse Retriever

Under Runsheng’s lead, the three of them headed toward the northern corner of the village.

On the way, Tan Wenbin asked, “Hey, should we call my dad over?”

Runsheng replied, “You really want your dad to find out that you’re not staying at Grandpa’s to study but to deal with a Dead Sinker?”

Tan Wenbin’s voice dropped. “But this is a murder case, right? Shouldn’t the cops be handling it?”

“Binbin, this might not be a murder case. He’s nurturing a corpse—you can think of it as using a feng shui setup to preserve the body. If he had killed someone, he wouldn’t go to all that trouble.”

“Oh, I see. Got it.”

“Runsheng, be ready for anything. If something goes wrong, take action immediately to keep us safe.”

“Mm, don’t worry, Little Yuan. I know what to do.”

People like Liu Yumei and Uncle Qin were “family,” so this was Li Zhuiyuan’s first time encountering someone outside the clan doing the same trade. Naturally, he was a little nervous.

Zhou Yong’s home was even more rundown than Grandpa Shan’s. At least Grandpa Shan had a dilapidated courtyard. Zhou Yong didn’t even have a fence—just a mud house.Nowadays, villagers were striving to build two-story homes. Living in a mud house without even a brick-tile room meant you were truly at the bottom of the village’s economic ladder.

Tan Wenbin asked in confusion, “How could someone like this fully fund the rebuilding of a bridge?”

Runsheng explained, “He used to work at the Xingren Machinery Factory. But after his wife and kid fell ill, he couldn’t go to work anymore. He stayed home to farm and take care of them.”

Tan Wenbin: “Are his wife and kid still around?”

“Yeah. Last time I rode past his house, I saw them sitting at the door in the sun.”

As he spoke, Runsheng turned to Li Zhuiyuan. “That was the time you were waiting at home for me—I went to the town market to buy rice and flour for Great-grandpa and passed by his house.”

Li Zhuiyuan nodded.

They reached the small embankment. Atop it stood a well with a wide conical bamboo hat covering it, cleaned nicely, though there really wasn’t much there.

The house door was shut. Tan Wenbin licked his lips and pushed—it wouldn’t budge. He pushed again. From inside came the clinking sound of a door lock.

He turned to Li Zhuiyuan and Runsheng, shrugged, and said, “Looks like bad timing. He’s out, and the door’s locked from the inside.”

Li Zhuiyuan looked at him. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the door’s locked from the inside?”

“What’s odd about that? My home door locks from the inside too… Oh. Wait, that is weird.”

Village wooden doors didn’t lock the same way as apartment doors with key locks.

“Binbin, try calling out.”

“Sure.” Tan Wenbin banged on the door and shouted, “Hey, anyone home? Anyone in there?”

No response.

Runsheng sniffed the air, then held up a hand. “Binbin, quiet.”

Li Zhuiyuan stepped back a few paces. He knew how sharp Runsheng’s nose was.

“Little Yuan, I smell corpse stench. Very faint.”

Tan Wenbin asked urgently, “A Dead Sinker?”

Runsheng shook his head. “Can’t say. Too faint. Could be something else.”

Tan Wenbin guessed, “Maybe the door was locked from inside and someone committed suicide?”

Both of them turned to look at Li Zhuiyuan.

He pointed to a nearby window. “Let’s take a look inside. If there’s a body, we’ll call the cops. If not, we apologize and pay compensation.”

Tan Wenbin tried the wooden window. “Also locked.”

Runsheng stepped up, pushed Tan Wenbin aside, grabbed the window edge, gave it a heave—and the entire frame came off.

Then he climbed in.

Tan Wenbin gritted his teeth and followed.

Creak!

The inner door lock was undone and the door swung open. Runsheng stood behind it.

“Little Yuan, the key was on the table. I just unlocked it.”

“Runsheng, what’re you doing? If there really is a body, you’ve tampered with the scene. How are we supposed to explain that as witnesses?”

Li Zhuiyuan entered through the front. “It’s fine. Your dad will cover for us.”

“But this isn’t his jurisdiction.”

“You were playing cards in the village, and your dad, on leave and undercover, came to arrest you—then stumbled upon this house. He’s the first witness.”

Tan Wenbin swallowed hard. “Makes sense.”

The house was fairly spacious, though the floor was full of muddy pits and lacked paving.

The beams were low, so adults had to duck their heads.

A typical rural layout: kitchen on the east end with a stove, a central hall with a long cabinet against the wall and a god altar on top, and a bedroom on the west end.

The house was cluttered, yet everything was in order—broken but carefully arranged.

Tan Wenbin went east, Runsheng went west, and Li Zhuiyuan stood in the hall, staring at the idols above.

Leftmost was Guanyin Bodhisattva, rightmost the Jade Emperor, and in the center—Jesus.

It wasn’t unusual for villagers to mix Buddhist and Daoist icons, even Confucian ones—Great-grandpa had a portrait of Confucius. But Jesus in the middle, totally out of stylistic sync, looked bizarre.

Li Zhuiyuan approached the cabinet and found the incense burners before Guanyin and the Jade Emperor thick with dust—not incense ash.

Only Jesus’s incense burner was brimming with ash—clearly still in use.

But was Jesus that effective?

He raised his hand to open the long cabinet. This kind of design resembled a coffin—you lifted the lid from the top, with each section fitting like a puzzle. It could store sundries or grain.

But he hesitated and lowered his hand. Better wait for Runsheng, just in case.

Runsheng and Tan Wenbin returned.

“No one in the bedroom.”

“No one in the kitchen either.”

Li Zhuiyuan asked, “Runsheng, can you tell where the corpse stench is strongest?”

Runsheng shook his head. “Once we came in, I couldn’t pinpoint it. The faint smell is everywhere.”

Tan Wenbin joked, “You mean the corpse has been walking around the house, leaving scent everywhere? That’s ridiculous.”

“Binbin, are you being like the man who feared the dragon he claimed to love?”

“Huh?” Tan Wenbin remembered why they were here and instantly pictured a corpse strolling about. He shivered.

“Runsheng, open the cabinet.”

“Got it.”

Runsheng, familiar with the latch design, pushed in and lifted the lid.

Li Zhuiyuan stood on tiptoe to peek inside—bags of rice. A pungent smell suggested fumigation to prevent mold.

So the hall had nothing unusual—the cabinet was the only hiding spot.

They moved to the kitchen, which was standard rural: a clay stove with a pile of straw and firewood behind it.

Tan Wenbin pointed. “I checked that earlier—nothing in the straw.”

Li Zhuiyuan lifted the lids of the water and rice jars. Water to the brim, rice too.

Tan Wenbin added, “I checked those too—no issues. But this family, as poor as they are, has more rice stored than Runsheng’s.”

Li Zhuiyuan stepped back, stood behind the other two, and pointed at the rice jar.

“A family of three using such a big rice jar, filled to the top?”

City folks buy rice as needed. Rural families store large quantities, but only keep a bit in the kitchen for daily use. You top it off only when it runs low.

Runsheng looked at Tan Wenbin, then the jar. You or me?

Tan Wenbin trembled but nodded, approached the jar, and started digging through the rice.

Suddenly, he let out a scream:

“Ah!!!”

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