Corpse Retriever

Every photo recorded the scene of a gruesome death, and without exception, every case had been aimed at wiping out an entire family.

Annihilating a whole household was not exactly unheard of in society, but even something that was not rare still had its usual numbers. So many cases last year, so many this year, and you could roughly project the number for next year too.

This was not an age of war and chaos. There was no way so many could suddenly appear all at once unless there was some special reason behind it.

Besides, while some of the deaths were said to be from fires, drowning, or other accidents, mixed in among them were indeed some obviously abnormal and eerie cases.

And in Liu Yumei’s eyes, every single photo showed signs of a problem, even the so-called accidents.

Liu Yumei asked, “Are we sure it was that family?”

Uncle Qin replied, “At quite a few of the scenes, they found divination and fortune-telling items.”

Liu Yumei nodded. “That family was best at splitting up and digging hidden holes everywhere. When disaster came, they would hide from the world and play dead. The moment the danger passed, they would jump right back out and reap the rewards.

“Heh, well now that’s worked out nicely. They’ve eaten themselves fat and round, and now they’re spitting it all back out with interest.”

Liu Yumei set down the photographs, gently pinched the bridge of her nose, and asked, “Do we know who did it?”Uncle Qin said, “No.”

With her eyes closed, Liu Yumei said, “Not knowing is normal. The officers in the yamen were never as well informed as the jianghu.”

Uncle Qin said, “By all rights, for something this big, there should have been rumors in the jianghu before it happened.”

In the ordinary jianghu, there definitely would not have been any rumors.

But among the top powers in the jianghu, word should still have been quietly passed around.

Because although that family was not suited to walking openly under the sun, no one dared underestimate their ability to stir up storms behind the scenes.

They were not one of the very top powers, but they were still strong enough to stand at the card table and watch the others play.

And anyone capable of striking at them with such thunderous force and carrying out a total extermination absolutely could not be some wandering nobody from the jianghu. It could only be one of those seated at the table.

Although the Qin and Liu Clans had declined, and Liu Yumei no longer cared much about jianghu affairs, they still had a special background behind them. No matter what, someone should at least have informed them.

Liu Yumei said, “It really doesn’t seem like something one family did in secret. Any single family might be able to crush a piece of them, but not uproot them entirely. And if several families joined forces, there’s no way no news would leak out.

“And even if several families had joined forces, they would never have acted just to slaughter them all. The most valuable thing in that family was those people who could divine and calculate. Those were the real treasures. Why kill them? Better to keep them penned up and use them for yourself.

“So there are only two possibilities.

“One, some newly risen power in the jianghu, ruthless in style, wanted to establish its name and prestige this way.

“That one is easy enough to verify. We just wait and see whether anyone starts shouting their name at the river mouth afterward.

“Two, that family somehow enraged one of those existences capable of flipping the whole card table over.

“Those kinds of existences do exist in this world, but they usually won’t risk making a move. And acting on such a large scale would cause them tremendous harm as well. It wouldn’t be worth it.

“But no matter how I think about it, only these two explanations fit.

“If it’s the first possibility, then when they start proclaiming their name and fame, we can send a visiting card in the name of our two families.

“Not for anything else, just to help pave the way for our child.

“Our two families may not be what we once were, but at least our name still carries some weight. If helping them add a little grandeur can buy us a favor, that’s a cheap and worthwhile trade.”

Aunt Liu suddenly smiled. “Old Madam, you never used to think about arranging these kinds of things.”

The Old Madam sighed. “Times are different now. For a broken household like ours to stand back up again, the resistance is even greater than what a new power faces when rising. In essence, we’re standing in the same trench.

“We can’t give the child much else. The least we can do, as elders, is help him borrow a little more strength.

“If it’s the second possibility, then there’s nothing for us to do. If an existence like that is really coming back into the world for some unknown reason, that’s not something we should be thinking about. It has nothing to do with us.”

Liu Yumei turned slightly, picked up a cup of cold tea with her left hand, and drank while watching the leaves outside the window sway in the wind.

Aunt Liu smiled again. “It’s possible this really does have something to do with our family.”

Tea spilled from the Old Madam’s cup.

She turned her head and looked at Aunt Liu. Her eyes first showed astonishment, then shock, then understanding, and finally... fury.

Aunt Liu had grown up by the Old Madam’s side. She naturally knew the girl would never speak without reason at a moment like this.

And if it had something to do with their family, then it could only be the one person not in the house right now.

Add that to what he was currently going through, plus the anger and worry she had built up over the past few days, and then wasn’t it entirely possible that this family’s destruction truly was connected to him?

Before this, the Old Madam had never once suspected that this matter could have anything to do with Little Yuan.

No matter what, how could a young boy who had only just begun his River walk and seen only a few waves of it possibly be tied to the destruction of such a massive power?

She knew the boy’s talent was monstrous, but even a monster should not have been capable of something this absurd.

And if it truly was his doing, no matter what method he had used, and regardless of whether that method could ever be repeated, as long as it had happened because of him, then it meant something terrifying.

The newly risen force in the jianghu with a brutal style she had just spoken of... was actually her own family?

“Speak.”

The Old Madam used a tremendous amount of effort just to make that one word sound steady. If she said one more, her voice would tremble.

Aunt Liu took out what she had brought back. Inside were visiting cards and letters, varied not only in form but also in the bizarre ways they had been delivered.

Under normal circumstances, of course, these things would never be sent here directly. Every so often, she would gather them up elsewhere and bring them back for the Old Madam to see. There were occasional exceptions, though—namely when a great many arrived all at once. That usually meant some major event had happened in the jianghu.

For many years now, the Old Madam had not liked hearing about these bothersome matters, so by long-standing habit, Aunt Liu would read them herself and only mention the important parts to her.

Most of the visiting cards and letters did not require a reply. The Qin and Liu Clans had enough standing for that. On the few occasions something did need a reply, Aunt Liu would send one back in the Old Madam’s name.

“These are letters from the various families asking about this matter.”

“These are the different families’ analyses of it.”

“And these are proposals from various parties inviting you to join them in casting the net again while that family is down, to see what scraps can still be hauled up. Some families are already preparing to do exactly that.

“No matter how cleanly it was handled, there should still be leftovers. The direct bloodline may be dead, but there should still be collateral branches by marriage, disciples, and their ancestral land.”

This was what people commonly called killing someone while they were down.

Even if your whole family was dead, that did not matter. First they would loot what remained of your household, then they would go to your ancestral graves and politely greet your ancestors by digging them all out into the daylight again.

The strong devouring the weak had always been the true nature of the jianghu.

If people could sit together peacefully to reason things out, or even to quarrel, that was only because your fist was hard enough for you to deserve a seat there.

Otherwise, throughout history, there would not have been so many small families, minor sects, and wandering jianghu drifters dreaming of attaching themselves to a great clan for protection. Because they understood one truth very clearly: the reason they had survived in peace until now was not because the great powers had suddenly turned vegetarian. It was only because those powers had no appetite for them at the moment and could not be bothered to snack on them.

“This is a letter from the Yu Family.” Aunt Liu drew one out separately and unfolded it.

In the past, the Yu Family had been one of the Dragon King families on equal footing with Liu, the Dragon King and the Qin Clan Dragon King. Their ancestral land was in Luoyang.

Luoyang had always been a place of exceptional feng shui. Being able to establish themselves there and call themselves a Dragon King family was itself a sign of confidence.

But seventy years ago, something had happened to the Yu Family, forcing them to seal their doors for a full sixty years. Only ten years ago did they reopen, with word spreading that some of their people had begun walking the jianghu again.

The Yu Family excelled at raising beasts and nurturing yao, so the rumor in the jianghu at the time was that some sort of yao disturbance had broken out inside the family.

But they had sealed themselves off early, so no one knew what had really happened. Given the foundations of a Dragon King family, no one truly dared go knocking on their door to test them. Unlike the Qin and Liu Clans, whose near-total deaths were no secret among the upper ranks.

Liu Yumei said, “Rumor has it that that family’s ancestral residence is also within Luoyang territory.”

The branch families were hidden all over the world, and naturally the main family would not behave openly either. That family had always preferred to hide themselves generation after generation. But Dragon King families still knew some rough details.

Aunt Liu said, “The Yu Family specifically sent letters to the various clans and sects informing them that when they sensed trouble at that family’s ancestral residence, they dispatched clan members to investigate. One of them observed a dense and pure ghost aura there, and that ghost aura came from the southwest—from Fengdu!”

At the mention of Fengdu, both Liu Yumei and Uncle Qin fell silent.

It was a place name, but it also represented a person’s name, and even a whole legend.

The reason Aunt Liu concluded that this matter might be connected to their family was precisely this... the only descendant of the Yin Clan had apprenticed under their family’s Dragon King.

There was a hidden force scheming against their family’s River walker.

There was a great power that preferred to hide in darkness, and it had been uprooted completely.

And the existence that had triggered this exterminating slaughter also had ties to their family’s River walker.

When those three things happened at the same moment, saying it had nothing to do with the one in their family would have been unbelievably stupid.

“Heh... hahaha!”

Liu Yumei laughed out loud, and as she laughed, she could not help slapping the armrest of her chair with her palm.

The armrest was fine, but the force that rippled outward shattered every teapot and dish on the tea table, and even cracked all the porcelain and jade ornaments placed around the room.

The few trees outside the window had still been making their final struggle against the winter wind, but now the shock sent their withered leaves flying everywhere until only bare branches remained.

Naturally, the Old Madam did not feel sorry for any of those things, no matter how valuable each might have been on the market.

When the eldest young lady of the Liu family was happy, what did it matter if she smashed a few bowls and some jade?

She had been holding this breath in ever since Ah Li failed his River walk. Today, at last, she had let it out.

Aunt Liu and Uncle Qin exchanged a glance, then continued silently watching the Old Madam’s delight.

There were still far too many questions and uncertainties, but at the very least, things had not gotten worse.

And they both understood very well that if this really was something Little Yuan had caused, then from now on... who would still dare secretly target the River walkers of the Qin and Liu Clans?

More than that, even the Qin and Liu family name would be renewed because of it. A plaque like that was meant to be polished with blood.

The Old Madam laughed for a long while before finally stopping.

But she was clearly still not satisfied.

So she looked at Uncle Qin standing beside her and deliberately said in a lazy drawl,

“Look at him, and then look at yourself.”

Uncle Qin dropped to his knees and lowered his head. He found that he was already getting used to it.

And he truly had not expected that at his age, he would still have to endure another round of “look at someone else’s child” humiliation.

Luckily, Little Yuan was not someone else’s child. He was their own.

This time, Uncle Qin knelt with no real guilt in his heart. He simply treated it as the Old Madam enjoying herself and decided to help add to the fun.

The Old Madam lowered her eyes and glanced at him, then raised a foot and lightly kicked him several times. “Since when did you become as sly and crafty as Tingting?”

Kneeling on the floor, Uncle Qin laughed too.

Then the Old Madam’s face darkened, and she said coldly,

“Didn’t they say they wanted to band together and go feast on a dead household? Then the two of you go. Any collateral descendants, anyone with any ties or connection at all—if any survived, clean them all out.

“As for that family’s ancestral residence and ancestral graves, dig them up so thoroughly that not a scrap remains.

“Since they dared lay hands on my family’s child,

“then I

“will erase their entire legacy from this world!”

Uncle Qin braced himself up on one leg, Aunt Liu dropped to one knee, and together they answered,

“We obey!”

...

On the way back, Yin Meng was driving.

There was no helping it. Tan Wenbin had broken his tailbone in the fall, so he could not sit down right now. He could only lie in the back with Lin Shuyou and Runsheng.

Li Zhuiyuan actually knew how to drive, but they still had to pass through the city where there were lots of people and traffic police.

As Yin Meng drove, she kept secretly glancing at Little Yuanhou in the passenger seat.

She felt awkward, and she had no experience she could draw on. After all, what exactly was she supposed to do when an ancestor from nearly two thousand years ago was at odds with her boss?

But one thing was certain: she had no real emotional bond with that ancestor. She would absolutely stand on her boss’s side.

If she could not even figure that much out, she would never have made it this far.

Li Zhuiyuan, meanwhile, was thinking about exactly how he had managed to offend The Great Emperor of Fengdu.

How had someone of an emperor’s stature stooped to using “returning home to worship the ancestors” as an excuse to trick him into going to Fengdu?

If he had really gone along with Yin Meng like an idiot to worship her ancestors, then the offering placed on the altar would most likely have been him.

By all rights, that should not be the case. He had no grudge against The Great Emperor of Fengdu. On the contrary, with his identity as an inheritor of The Twelve Edicts of Fengdu and his relationship with Yin Meng, he should have counted as half a relative, at least.

So in that missing stretch of memory, what exactly had he done to make The Great Emperor of Fengdu angry?

Li Zhuiyuan could sense that something about him had changed, and it definitely was not limited to that spell from Wei Zhengdao’s Black Book.

But what exactly had changed, and whether he could recover even a trace of those lost memories, would have to wait until deep in the quiet of night, when he could slowly explore and feel it out for himself.

By the time they got back to the school, night had already fallen, and the dorms had been locked and the lights turned off.

Lu Yi had not gone back to the dorm for the past few days. He had been sleeping at the shop the whole time.

The moment he heard the familiar pickup truck, he immediately opened the shop door and came out, helping carry the three injured men into the basement room.

Li Zhuiyuan said something to Yin Meng, telling her to go find a doctor to come take a look, then he left.

He had to report that he was safe. Ah Li had been waiting for him, yes, but the people who should have been the most anxious were the Old Madam and the others.

At the school clinic, inside the duty office,

Doctor Fan Shulin, who was highly valued by the school leadership, was continuing his night shift.

There were not many patients, and there was not much to do at night, so he was sitting there with a risqué magazine in his hands, reading it carefully and reviewing human anatomy.

It was, in a way, the rare sort of relaxed and pleasant time a single young man could enjoy: reading, indulging in a little fantasy, and occasionally shifting the position of his crossed legs.

Those magazines had all been gifts from Tan Wenbin.

Only unfortunately, Tan Wenbin had not been sending patients his way lately, so the friendship between the two had cooled a little.

The door suddenly opened.

Fan Shulin looked up and saw a young girl standing beneath the corridor light outside the door—fair-skinned, beautiful, and long-legged.

“You are...?”

“Tan Wenbin sent me to find you. Please come with me.”

“Fine. Wait a moment while I wake up my colleague to cover for me.”

Fan Shulin hid the magazine away, woke his coworker, packed up some instruments, and followed Yin Meng out.

Yin Meng had a red envelope in her pocket and had even prepared quite a few persuasive lines, because she knew Doctor Fan was supposedly hard to invite out. But to her surprise, he turned out to be very easy to deal with.

Walking ahead, Fan Shulin even turned back and urged her,

“Let’s go a little faster. Saving people comes first.”

“All right, thank you.”

“No need. As a doctor, saving lives and tending the wounded is my duty. It’s what I should do.”

“Mhm.”

“What’s your name?”

...

Li Zhuiyuan arrived at Granny Liu’s house.

The moment he pushed open the courtyard gate, the floor-to-ceiling window on the first floor opened, and Ah Li, dressed in white silk sleepwear and barefoot, stood there waiting for him.

She only wore a faint smile. There was not much worry showing on her face.

Li Zhuiyuan smiled too. Ever since beginning his River walk, after each wave had passed, coming home and seeing Ah Li was the moment he felt most at ease.

Only this time, Liu Yumei’s figure appeared at the second-floor window.

“Little Yuan.”

“Grandma.”

“Come upstairs first.”

“All right, Grandma.”

Li Zhuiyuan first put his backpack in Ah Li’s room, then went up to the second floor.

In the open space upstairs, the little tea table had today been replaced with a large round table. The round table was covered with all kinds of pastries and snacks, so many they would not all fit and had to spill onto two small square tables beside it. There were also several full tea sets, with even more tea leaves laid out.

It was obviously arranged like a grand tea gathering.

“Little Yuan, sit.”

“All right, Grandma. When I came in just now, I didn’t see Aunt Liu or Uncle Qin?”

Uncle Qin would occasionally go out, but Aunt Liu usually stayed at home most of the time.

“Oh, the plot behind the old house had gone wild with weeds. I sent the two of them back to turn it over.”

“So that’s it.”

Liu Yumei got up, preparing to make tea.

“Grandma, please sit. I’ll do it.”

“All right.” Liu Yumei did not insist. Instead, she picked up a pair of silver chopsticks and placed several pieces of pastry onto the plate in front of the boy. “Try these. They were specially sought out. There aren’t many old masters left who can still make them, so they’re not easy to come by.”

“All right, Grandma.”

The old woman and the young boy sat facing each other, drinking tea and eating pastries.

Liu Yumei picked up a silk handkerchief from beside her and wiped the corner of her mouth.

Li Zhuiyuan also lifted a cup of tea and washed down the food still in his mouth.

Actually, tea snacks were not meant to be eaten like this. Usually, one small pastry would go with one whole pot of tea, and people would sit for an entire afternoon. If you ate too many in a row, it became cloying easily. But he was genuinely hungry.

On the return trip, it was only by checking the time and date on everyone’s pager displays that they learned the time lost from his memory had been a full two days.

Fortunately, they had all eaten well before leaving. Two days of unconsciousness, plus waking up and immediately entering the amusement park and running into trouble, meant that under all the tension and stimulation he had not really felt hungry. If he had stayed unconscious a few days longer, he probably would not even have had the strength left to fight.

Liu Yumei had deliberately arranged all this tea and all these pastries for the sake of the story. To her, what had happened this time was tremendously meaningful.

So she did not want to wait until Zhuangzhuang came and hear the story from him instead. Such fine ingredients would only be ruined if he turned them into one giant hodgepodge.

Li Zhuiyuan looked at Granny Liu sitting across from him and blinked.

Liu Yumei smiled. “All right, child. You can start now.”

As she spoke, Liu Yumei propped one elbow on the table and leaned lightly to one side, assuming the posture of someone ready to listen carefully and enjoy herself.

Li Zhuiyuan pressed his lips together and spoke awkwardly.

“Granny Liu.”

“Mhm.”

“I don’t know.”