After pleading for mercy, the two elderly patients gradually grew still.
They were dead.
Their eyes bulged wide, corners torn, staring blankly up at the ceiling.
The veins along their necks stood out sharply, the blood vessels beneath their skin turning black.
Their hands and feet were curled beneath them as though bound by invisible ropes. Their final screams had sounded like the wails of criminals on the verge of execution.
Doctors and nurses rushed in. They had arrived quickly, but there had simply been no time left.
Between the horrifying volume of blood loss and the state of the two elders' vital signs, any resuscitation measures had ceased to have any meaning.
What followed was dispersing the crowd that had gathered outside the ward and summoning the orderly to hurry in and clean the room.
The relatives were called into the office to handle the subsequent procedures.
Li Sanjiang spotted his great-grandson. Confused, he yanked Li Zhuiyuan out of the hall and asked, "Weren't you supposed to go canal dredging with your grandpa? How did you find your way here?"
Xue Liangliang produced his student ID card, offered it forward, and explained, "Uncle, I'm a student from Haihe University. I was working on the canal excavation, but I had to escort a sick classmate to the hospital. Little Yuan knew the way, so I had him guide me. We already cleared it with his grandfather and the others."
"He knew the way?" Li Sanjiang pointed at Li Zhuiyuan while glaring at Xue Liangliang. "He only just came back to his ancestral home and hasn't even been to the city before. What kind of way could he possibly know?"
Xue Liangliang replied, "Actually, I just really took a liking to the kid, so I thought I'd bring him along for a trip to have some fun."
Li Sanjiang took Xue Liangliang's student ID, inspected it closely, and handed it back. He accepted the explanation; after all, a university student carried tremendous prestige these days.
Just then, the middle-aged man and woman who had been in the ward earlier stepped out of the doctor's office and walked straight over to Li Sanjiang.
Li Sanjiang sighed and offered them his condolences. "My sympathies."
Li Zhuiyuan guessed that they must be Sister Ying Zi's uncle and aunt.
Yet the couple seemed to show little reaction to the grief of bereavement—or rather, a far more pressing crisis was bearing down on them. Each seized one of Li Sanjiang's hands, their voices hushed yet trembling with agitation.
"Uncle Sanjiang, please, I beg you, save us! Save me!"
"Yes, Uncle, help us! It's too terrifying!"
Li Sanjiang glanced at Li Zhuiyuan beside him, then signaled for them to follow him toward the open terrace at the end of the floor to talk.
Li Zhuiyuan did not badger them to follow. Third Aunt was still in the doctor's office working through the paperwork, leaving Sister Ying Zi sitting alone on a bench, completely beside herself.
Having just witnessed such a terrifying scene and lost two close relatives, she was naturally reeling from the shock.
Li Zhuiyuan walked over, sat down, and began to speak words of comfort. In the process, he drew out the story of what had happened.
Ying Zi's maternal grandparents worked at a private aquaculture fishery. Half a month earlier, while clearing silt around an enclosure, they had unexpectedly dug up a small coffin.
The coffin was entirely red. There was no telling how long it had been submerged, yet it showed no signs of decay; if anything, the soaking had only made its crimson hue more vibrant.
The elderly couple called their boss over, saying that according to local custom, they needed to burn incense and make offerings before pushing the small coffin back into the river.
However, the boss was from out of town and had no patience for such superstitions. He summoned two workers, brought tools, and pried the coffin open.
Inside lay the corpse of a young girl, about eight years old, dressed in a black padded cotton coat and embroidered shoes. She had evidently been buried in winter. When the lid was first lifted, her skin had looked supple and fresh, without the slightest hint of decomposition.
The workers had almost mistaken her for a freshly buried child from some local household!
Yet in the space of a few puffs of smoke, the plump, tender corpse suddenly withered into a gray ruin. The flesh melted away with frightening speed, leaving behind only a skeleton wrapped in a black padded coat.
The female corpse wore a set of jewelry: a jade hairpin in her hair, rings on her fingers, and a gold torc around her neck.
In addition, inside the coffin rested a porcelain bottle sealed with talisman paper, alongside a black wooden carving.
Carved into the wood was a prominent line of large characters:
*The mortal vessel subdues evil; merit aids in ascension.*
Beneath it followed a line of smaller characters, followed by a signature:
*He who reads these words shall not desecrate the remains nor touch what lies within. Reseal the coffin at once and cast it into the river, so that great disaster may be averted.
—Lady Bai.*
Ying Zi's grandparents began pleading with the boss to reseal the coffin and cast it into the river as instructed. But the boss was obstinate, convinced that the jewelry was valuable and that the porcelain bottle was an antique treasure. He took everything for himself, then dug a hole somewhere near the riverbank to bury the coffin and the bones.
Soon after, terrifying things began to happen.
First, the boss vanished under bizarre circumstances. Then Ying Zi's grandparents began suffering from recurring nightmares, dreaming of the little girl returning for vengeance. Soon their health deteriorated, landing them in the township health clinic, where they even developed tendencies toward self-harm.
One day, taking advantage of Third Aunt going home to fetch meals, the two elders claimed they wanted orange-crystal drink mix and coaxed Ying Zi away to buy it. They then snuck up to the clinic's rooftop intending to jump, but fortunately Li Sanjiang arrived just in time and stopped them.
After that incident, the township clinic refused to keep them. If two elderly patients killed themselves on the premises, the clinic would face immense trouble. They had no choice but to transfer them to the municipal People's Hospital.
Yet their symptoms only worsened. Only through the sedatives administered by the doctors and the strict vigilance of the family had they been kept from harming themselves again.
Who could have predicted that they would end their lives simultaneously in such an unfathomable and horrifying manner?
After hearing Ying Zi's account, Li Zhuiyuan asked, "What about the two workers who helped the boss open the coffin?"
"That... I don't know. I never heard them mention them."
"Sister, your grandparents were still mostly clear-headed at first, weren't they?"
"Except when their episodes flared up, they were normal. Just fifteen minutes before they threw up blood, they were chatting with me, talking about finding a partner for me after I get into college."
At that moment, Third Aunt poked her head out of the doctor's office and waved.
"Ying Hou, come help Mom fill out these forms."
"Coming, Mom."
Only after Ying Zi walked away did Li Zhuiyuan realize that Xue Liangliang had slid over to sit remarkably close. He had been eavesdropping on purpose.
Meeting Li Zhuiyuan's gaze, Xue Liangliang did not blush in the slightest. Instead, he said with suppressed excitement, "I caught on. You were deliberately fishing for information."
"I was comforting my sister."
"Phew... you gave me quite a scare. You have no idea—when I heard those two elders shouting 'Lady Bai' outside the ward earlier, my heart leaped straight into my throat. I thought my smashing that statue had claimed more lives, or that bringing Zhao Hequan here today while he was still afflicted had triggered something and doomed them. Sigh."
Li Zhuiyuan realized that Xue Liangliang had also noticed the characters carved on the base of the statue.
"Brother Liangliang, don't worry. The timeline doesn't match, and neither does the age."
The coffin had been unearthed at the fishery half a month ago, whereas Xue Liangliang and Zhao Hequan had smashed the statue only yesterday. The two events were not connected.
"Are you sure about the age?" Xue Liangliang asked, doubtful. "Travel and communication were inconvenient in the old days, and statues weren't always sculpted with precision. Who's to say the statue we dug up on the canal wasn't originally based on a young girl?"
Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. "They aren't the same."
"You're certain?"
"Yes."
He had seen that woman with his own eyes. While her build and posture closely resembled the statue—perhaps magnified and enhanced—she could never have been an eight-year-old girl.
"Still, both are called Lady Bai," Xue Liangliang mused. "Could 'Lady Bai' be a collective title? Like a professional title, or how Taoist disciples from a certain sect are all addressed as Celestial Masters of such-and-such mountain?"
Li Zhuiyuan nodded, adding, "It could also be a family surname."
For some reason, the ancestral shrine in the east room where Liu Yumei lived—filled with memorial tablets of the Qin and Liu families—floated into his mind.
"All surnamed Bai?" Xue Liangliang crossed his fingers. "That's very possible. In the local dialect, 'Lady Bai' can indeed be understood as a woman of the Bai clan, an honorific born of awe toward someone of formidable ability."
Li Zhuiyuan gave an affirmative hum, casting his gaze toward the terrace. Great-Grandpa and Ying Zi's uncle and aunt had not finished their discussion yet.
Xue Liangliang nudged Li Zhuiyuan's arm gently, asking cautiously, "Say, did you notice anything else about what your sister said?"
"There were plenty of omissions and fabrications."
"Exactly!" Xue Liangliang's spirits lifted again. "I knew you caught it! The boss vanished, her grandparents suffered nightmares and physical breakdowns, but what happened to those two workers who supposedly helped pry the coffin open? Why did nobody know? Unless..."
"Unless the two workers who helped pry it open were those two elders themselves."
"Your sister is just an obedient kid. What she heard and told you was only what the adults in the family chose to say. Those two departed elders scrubbed and sanitized far too much in their telling.
"After all, if things had happened as they claimed, why would they be crying out for mercy before dying? That clearly shows they knew they were in the wrong. Otherwise, they would have been screaming that they were wronged.
"So if we adjust the narrative, it was probably the two elders who dredged up the coffin and called the boss over to open it together.
"Or perhaps the boss dredged it up and had no intention of prying it open, but the two elders egged him on until they broke it open.
"At the very least, they were deeply involved. They weren't nearly as sensible or innocent as they claimed."
Li Zhuiyuan looked at Xue Liangliang and blinked.
Xue Liangliang waved a hand in slight embarrassment. "I'm not claiming I'm innocent either, but at least I smashed that statue for the sake of the project's progress, not personal gain. Engineer Luo explained it all to that Lady Bai of mine."
"Brother Liangliang, there's actually one more crucial point."
"Little Yuan, out with it! Which point?"
"Sister Ying Zi was able to recite the inscription from the wooden plaque word for word. That means she must have seen a handwritten transcript at the very least.
"Yet how could those two elderly people, in the brief moments after opening the coffin, not only decipher the writing on the spot but memorize every single character without error, and then recite it for someone else to copy down on paper?"
"You mean..."
"Yes. The elders must have taken a share of the goods. At the very least, that wooden carving is in their house."
Xue Liangliang nodded heavily. Then he scrutinized Li Zhuiyuan, asking, "Little Yuan, are you really just an elementary school student?"
"Actually, I'm a college student from the shores of Weiming Lake."
"Hehehehe... cough, cough!" Xue Liangliang choked on a laugh, patting Li Zhuiyuan's back encouragingly. "Good! Having such ambition is fantastic!"
Li Zhuiyuan could only offer a faint smile.
"Still, Little Yuan, have you ever heard of Lady Bai before?"
"Brother Liangliang, I've spent far less time in Nantong than you have."
"Oh, true. Then I'll head to the municipal historical archives to look through the local gazetteers and see if there are any records."
"Brother Liangliang, you're in the clear now. Why care so much about this? Is it for your classmate?"
"Uh, shouldn't I be?"
"I thought you disliked him."
"That has nothing to do with liking or disliking him. Everyone chooses their own path in life. I can only walk the road I've chosen according to my own judgment. In the end, only history will judge who was right and who was wrong.
"All right, the doctors should be back on duty. I'll go pick up the test reports. If there's no issue, I won't come back to look for you; I'll head straight to the archives.
"You live in Siyuan Village, Shinan, right?"
"Yes."
"Where should I get off the bus? Since your great-grandfather is here, I won't escort you back. I'll come find you tonight."
"Cross Shijia Bridge, get off at the second turnoff, walk inland, and ask around for Li Sanjiang's house."
"You're sure people will know it?"
"Yes. Great-Grandpa is very famous in the village."
"All right. If the buses stop running tonight, I'll take a taxi over."
Li Zhuiyuan asked curiously, "Brother Liangliang?"
"What is it? Something else?"
"You seem... quite well-off."
He had mentioned coming from rural Anhui, yet his clothes and daily habits showed not the slightest hint of hardship or constraint.
"Oh. I've contracted two tuck shops and a stationery store on campus. Plus, I gathered a group of classmates to set up a team, taking on design projects from professors or external clients.
"Big cities and universities offer so many opportunities, and making money is easy. Back home, it was impossible without those objective conditions. Now I even send money back to my parents every month.
"Actually, strictly speaking, I could have skipped this field internship entirely, but I didn't want to pass up the chance to train on the front lines."
"Brother Liangliang, you're impressive."
"So are you, clever little fellow." Xue Liangliang bumped his forehead gently against Li Zhuiyuan's. Seeing Li Sanjiang returning, he stood up and took his leave.
"Great-Grandpa."
"Where's that college kid? Gone?"
"He went to check on his classmate."
"Mm." Li Sanjiang nodded. "Let's go."
"Where are we going, Great-Grandpa?"
"To fetch some things."
Ying Zi and Third Aunt stayed at the hospital to handle the remaining procedures, while her uncle Zhou Hai and aunt Chen Xiaoling led Li Sanjiang and Li Zhuiyuan to their home. To save time, they hired motorbikes waiting for fares outside the hospital entrance.
It was a spacious single-story rural house. The front courtyard faced a man-made canal, and a little farther south, the river surface came into view.
Once inside, Chen Xiaoling went to pour water while Zhou Hai brought out a cloth bundle. Unwrapping it, he revealed a hairpin and a wooden carving.
Li Sanjiang picked up the carving, his brow furrowing slightly as he studied the characters.
Li Zhuiyuan leaned in and read it silently.
It matched Ying Zi's recital word for word.
"Muddleheaded... utterly muddleheaded..." Li Sanjiang set the carving down and slapped his thigh. "Times aren't that hard nowadays, are they? You have enough to eat and drink no matter what. What made you lose your minds to greed like that?"
*Thud! Thud!*
Free from the constraints of the hospital, Zhou Hai and Chen Xiaoling dropped straight to their knees before Li Sanjiang, nearly kowtowing as they cried out for him to save them.
As it turned out, they too had begun having the nightmare.
Having witnessed the horrific end of the two elders today, they were on the verge of collapsing from sheer terror.
"Come on. Let's go to the fishery first. Do you still remember where the bones were buried?"
"We remember, we remember!" Zhou Hai nodded hurriedly. "The two of us dug the hole and buried it with our own hands."
"Heh." Li Sanjiang let out a cold sneer.
The fishery was not far from the Zhou household. Leaving the village, a fifteen-minute walk along the river brought them there.
The operation was quite small. Aside from the boss, there had only been two employees—Zhou Hai's parents.
Thus, in their initial account, they had not only sanitized the truth for Third Aunt and Ying Zi, but had concealed the facts from Li Sanjiang as well.
"Dig," Li Sanjiang commanded.
"Shouldn't we wait until nightfall?" Zhou Hai asked.
It was broad daylight. Even though few people passed this way, there was still the risk of being seen.
Li Sanjiang nodded. "Then I'll head back to the village to sleep and come back tomorrow. You can dig the bones up in secret tonight."
"No, no, that won't do! Uncle, I'm scared! I don't dare!"
"So you know fear after all!" Li Sanjiang practically roared. "If you won't dig in broad daylight, when will you dig? You want to wait until dark to invite trouble?!"
"Right away, right away! We'll dig, we'll dig!"
Zhou Hai and Chen Xiaoling each grabbed a shovel and began digging.
Meanwhile, Li Sanjiang asked, "That boss vanished—did you report it to the police?"
"No," Zhou Hai replied between shovelfuls of dirt. "We didn't dare. Greed got the better of us back then, and we were afraid that reporting it would expose everything and force us to turn the items over."
"What about the boss's family?"
"His home was down south. He contracted this fishery all by himself and didn't bring any family."
Li Sanjiang asked in a chilling, deliberate tone, "You didn't do him in to swallow his share, did you?"
Zhou Hai immediately broke into a tearful cry. "Uncle, I wouldn't have the guts for that!"
Chen Xiaoling chimed in at once, nodding vigorously. "Murder is something we'd never dare do! Never!"
"Mm." Li Sanjiang pressed no further. He believed they lacked the nerve for anything so outrageous. Rising to his feet, he quietly began setting up his offering table.
Li Zhuiyuan helped at his side.
Soon, the coffin was unearthed.
Li Sanjiang took a look and breathed a sigh of relief. The coffin had been buried closed. When opened, the skeleton inside remained intact, untouched and undisturbed.
This was... a stroke of luck amid misfortune.
Li Zhuiyuan approached the coffin and examined the remains. It was indeed a young girl.
Li Sanjiang conducted the ritual, followed by the burning of paper money.
Once the rites were complete, Li Sanjiang asked, "Where are the other items, especially that bottle?"
"The boss took them."
"Where did he live?"
"Right here at the fishery, in that room over there. After he vanished, we went looking for him. Later, when my parents fell ill, we realized it had to do with the contents of the coffin. We searched his room, but couldn't find any of it—not even that bottle."
Li Sanjiang's brows knit tightly. According to his original plan, returning all the items, performing an offering, resealing the coffin, and casting it into the river would have settled the matter.
After all, the instructions on the wooden carving had been perfectly clear. Now that it had claimed at least two lives—perhaps three—blood had already been drawn. Whatever grievance or hatred the entity harbored ought to have been vented.
Yet that was predicated on returning every single item. Even if ordinary jewelry was lost, the talisman-sealed bottle could not be missing under any circumstances.
The carving had stated it plainly: her mortal remains were subduing evil!
Li Zhuiyuan spoke up. "Uncle, Auntie, did the boss have any other acquaintances around here?"
Li Sanjiang caught on at once and pressed, "Right, right! Anyone else he knew? I've heard those bosses from the south love keeping mistresses."
Chen Xiaoling shook her head. "Never heard of any."
Zhou Hai scratched his head. "I think there were two. One was a widow living in Jiuweigang Town, and the other was a woman who worked at a karaoke parlor in the city."
"Can you find them?" Li Sanjiang asked.
Zhou Hai shook his head. "I only heard my parents chatting about it during meals. I don't know where they live or how to find them."
Li Sanjiang pulled out his cigarette pack, extracted two cigarettes, tossed one to Zhou Hai, and said, "Call the police. Let the police find them."
"What?"
"What?"
Zhou Hai and Chen Xiaoling were stunned.
"I said call the police. Report him missing and report this whole affair." Li Sanjiang pointed at the coffin. "Let the police track them down and see if the things are with them. From the looks of it, that boss probably isn't among the living anymore either."
"B-but we..."
"Uncle, if we call the police..."
"You didn't kill anyone, so what are you scared of? Hah! Even if every single item in this coffin had been here today and I'd pushed it safely back into the river, I still would have told you to go to the police.
"In matters like this, having the authorities step in is far better, and far safer for you.
"If you don't want to call them, that's your choice—provided you aren't terrified of ending up just like your parents did today."
"We'll report it! We'll call the police!" Zhou Hai resolved firmly.
"Mm. That's settled. Move the coffin and the offering table inside first. Until the authorities take over, don't let the candles go out, and keep the paper embers alive. Make amends as much as you can.
"Divide up the tasks between yourselves."
"Understood, Uncle. Xiaoling, go report it. I'll watch the offering table here."
"All right."
Afterward, Li Sanjiang sat on the doorstep with Li Zhuiyuan, smoking cigarette after cigarette.
"Great-Grandpa, aren't we going home?" Li Zhuiyuan asked.
Li Sanjiang pointed toward the house behind them. "If I leave now, Zhou Hai will be alone with that coffin. He'd probably piss himself from sheer terror."
Pausing, Li Sanjiang added, "Last night, your great-grandpa had a dream too."
"Huh?" Li Zhuiyuan finally realized the gravity of the situation. "Great-Grandpa, you had a dream too?"
"I dreamed of the township clinic's rooftop. That little girl stood before me, asking why I helped them. What right did I have to help them? She even told me that since I meddled, she'd make me die alongside them."
Li Sanjiang took a deep drag on his cigarette, slowly expelling the smoke through his nostrils.
"Damn it all. The scene today gave even me a fright."
Li Zhuiyuan nodded in understanding. That spectacle today had indeed been horrifying.
Moreover, he felt that although the Lady Bai unearthed at the canal and this young girl Lady Bai might both belong to the same lineage, their temperaments were vastly different.
The Lady Bai from the canal had been willing to hear out his apologies, accept his offerings, and listen to Engineer Luo's heartfelt pleadings.
She could be called thoroughly reasonable.
Yet this Lady Bai struck with ruthless ferocity, taking lives as casually as drinking water.
"Actually, what did it have to do with me? She's blaming me for showing up at the clinic that day and saving those two elders, but how could I have stood by and watched them die?
"Well, I wasn't deeply involved. Once the police arrive and take my statement, I'll borrow a bit of the official aura, and that entity probably won't touch me again."
Li Zhuiyuan understood. So that was what his great-grandfather had been planning.
It made sense. Whether it was Little Oriole or the Cat-Faced Old Woman, previous encounters had remained within controllable bounds. They were nothing compared to the ferocity of this Lady Bai; even Great-Grandpa couldn't handle her.
Li Zhuiyuan's brow furrowed slightly. He recalled passages from the *Jianghu Zhiguai Lu* and realized that one account closely resembled this Lady Bai.
Namely, practitioners of the occult arts who used their own mortal forms as vessels, sealing and nurturing themselves in death to achieve a form of transcendence through corpse liberation.
Such dead-flippers retained some of the mystical arts and supernatural powers they possessed in life. While not as brutish or terrifying as a general dead-flipper, they were the most troublesome to deal with, because they understood every trick the living had to deploy against them.
Combining that with the carved words—*The mortal vessel subdues evil; merit aids in ascension*—the pieces fit together entirely. Even without a physical manifestation, she was still a dead-flipper, and a formless dead-flipper was even harder to confront.
Li Zhuiyuan decided his great-grandfather had made the right call. Involving the police was best.
The police arrived in force. On the surface, the affair had already resulted in two deaths and one disappearance. Although the elders' deaths were not ruled homicides, the situation had escalated significantly.
The police secured the scene, and Zhou Hai was detained as a suspect for the time being.
Li Zhuiyuan accompanied his great-grandfather to the local station to give their statements. By the time they stepped outside, dusk had fallen.
Li Sanjiang made a point of hugging the station's front gate. As if worried it wasn't enough, he clutched at the official aura with all his might, even planting a kiss on the station's brass sign.
His antics completely stunned the guard in the gatehouse.
Seeing that the old man had no intention of causing a disturbance, the guard simply pushed open the window and called out, "Old comrade, what are you doing?"
Li Sanjiang called back between kisses, "Expressing my deep respect and love!"
With that done, Li Sanjiang couldn't be bothered to return to the hospital to find Ying Zi and her mother, and he declined Chen Xiaoling's offer to stay at their house for the night.
Right now, all Li Sanjiang wanted was to go home.
A taxi was out of the question—it was far too expensive, and drivers refused to go out to the countryside at this hour unless paid an exorbitant sum.
So Li Sanjiang stood by the road, flagging down passing tractors to ask their destinations.
Li Zhuiyuan had assumed this trial-and-error approach would be like searching for a needle in a haystack and prepared to sit down for a long wait. To his surprise, the second tractor Great-Grandpa stopped happened to be delivering stone bollards to Shigang Town.
It was an unbelievable stroke of luck, heading in the exact same direction.
Great-Grandpa handed the driver a cigarette, then waved for Xiaoyuan Hou to climb aboard.
The tractor chugged along with a rhythmic *chug-chug-chug*. Li Zhuiyuan and his great-grandfather sat in the truck bed, bathed in the evening breeze.
As they crossed through the urban district, they watched the bustle of the city unfold around them.
Partway through the journey, Li Sanjiang took a brief nap. When he woke, he looked delighted and spoke to Li Zhuiyuan on his own initiative.
"Xiaoyuan Hou, while I was dozing just now, I had another dream. I saw that little girl again, but she was blurry, barely visible. She was talking too, but I couldn't hear a word.
"Looks like she's moving away from me. Your great-grandpa is almost in the clear! Once we get back tonight, I'll burn plenty of incense and pay proper respects to the Bodhisattvas at home, severing ties with her completely."
"Great-Grandpa, you're amazing."
Li Zhuiyuan had once doubted Li Sanjiang's true abilities, but after the Cat-Faced Old Woman remarked that "your great-grandpa already pulled his punches," his doubts had dissolved.
Moreover, no matter what crisis arose, his great-grandpa always found a way, and his methods genuinely worked.
"Amazing, my foot! If it weren't for your grandfather Han Hou's sake, I never would have come here. Now I'm too embarrassed to ask for payment, and I ended up walking into danger for nothing.
"A loss! A total, utter loss!"
"Next time, I'll tell Grandpa not to..."
"Don't! It's not like every job is this cursed and perilous. Your great-grandpa earns a living from this trade; you can't expect to feast on fatty meat every meal without biting on a stray pebble in your rice once in a while.
"Sigh, I was hoping to turn your luck around once we returned, but now I wouldn't dare. She hasn't fully cleared off yet, and your great-grandpa doesn't want to bring misfortune down on you."
With that, Li Sanjiang tapped on the sheet metal behind him and shouted to the driver, "Brother! How about finding a small diner ahead? I'll treat you to a couple of drinks!"
"How could I impose on you like that?"
"Bah, why be polite? Pull over up ahead and we'll eat before continuing!"
"All right!"
The tractor pulled up outside a small eatery. Once inside, Li Sanjiang ordered a jin of yellow rice wine, two cold dishes, two hot dishes, and a separate plate of egg fried rice for Li Zhuiyuan.
After Li Zhuiyuan finished eating, he sat quietly to one side while his great-grandfather and the driver chatted with growing enthusiasm.
Li Sanjiang asked the shopkeeper to warm another jin of wine, and ordered a can of Jianlibao for Li Zhuiyuan.
*Crack!*
The can hissed open, venting carbonation.
Li Zhuiyuan lifted it and took a sip. Li Sanjiang asked, "Good?"
"Mm. Very good."
"How about we buy a case to take home later?"
The driver chuckled. "Old brother, you're truly generous with your boy."
In those days, drinks like lemon-acid sodas sold in recycled beer bottles were affordable enough for ordinary folks, but canned beverages were considered far too extravagant by most parents.
"Heh." Li Sanjiang ruffled Li Zhuiyuan's hair. "What's money for if not to spend on the kids? Am I supposed to take it to the grave with me?"
He did not mention that the boy was his clan great-grandson.
"That's the truth," the driver agreed. "My grandson is in high school right now. I have to keep driving this rig to earn his college tuition. As long as he can pass the exams, we'll grit our teeth and send him, no matter what it takes."
"Ai." Li Sanjiang sighed helplessly, patting the back of Li Zhuiyuan's head. "What a pity. My grandson has a sharp mind, but he just refuses to put his heart into studying."
Li Zhuiyuan quietly took another sip of his soda.
It was nearly eight in the evening before dinner wrapped up. There was no drunk driving enforcement back then; with a flushed face, the driver slotted a crank handle into the tractor's engine and spun it vigorously until the motor roared back to life.
"Come on, get in! Let's go home!"
Riding back in the truck bed, Li Zhuiyuan gazed up at the starry sky, wondering whether Xue Liangliang had already reached Siyuan Village.
He felt the need to ask more details about the statue from the canal. Since the occupant of the coffin in Jiuweigang was a dead-flipper, could that statue... also be one?
After all, while the canal was being excavated now, it had once been an ancient waterway.
Li Zhuiyuan had a vague intuition that this Bai family specialized in precisely such dark arts.
***
Whenever Li Zhuiyuan was not at home, Qin Liang returned to her usual spot, sitting on the bench just inside the threshold, resting her feet against the door sill and staring straight ahead.
Beside her, Liu Yumei had spread out a sheet of paper, sketching garment patterns with a brush.
Her drawings were vivid and expressive. While unconventional by contemporary garment-making standards, the veteran tailors in local sewing workshops understood them perfectly.
Her granddaughter was at an age of rapid growth, requiring new clothes every season. What brought Liu Yumei the greatest joy was dressing her granddaughter up beautifully every morning; it kept her own mood bright throughout the day.
Just then, Liu Yumei noticed Qin Liang turning her head toward the path cutting through the wheat fields.
Liu Yumei set down her brush and stood upright.
A young man wearing a blue button-down shirt approached the courtyard, clutching a stack of books and documents.
After watching him for a few moments, Qin Liang withdrew her gaze and resumed staring straight ahead.
It seemed this young man was tainted, though not glaringly so.
"Excuse me, is this Li Sanjiang's home?" Xue Liangliang asked.
"Yes, it is. He isn't home right now, and I don't know if he'll be back tonight. Are you looking for him?"
"I'm looking for Little Yuan—Li Zhuiyuan. Does he live here too?"
Hearing Li Zhuiyuan's name, Qin Liang's eyes snapped back to him once more.
"He isn't home either," Liu Yumei answered.
"He should be returning tonight. I'll wait for him. Uh, excuse me, where is the toilet? I need to use the facilities."
"Behind the house."
"All right, thank you."
Xue Liangliang set his bundle of documents on the table and hurried around back.
These were materials he had checked out from the historical archives; currently, management of such collections was relatively loose.
Liu Yumei casually flipped open one of the volumes. Catching sight of a passage marked with a slip of paper, her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed as she murmured, "The Bai family?"
She closed the volume, picked up her brush, and resumed sketching patterns. Yet as she drew, she grew increasingly restless. Pausing again, she recalled the young man saying he had come for Little Yuan, and muttered to herself, "How could Little Yuan be involved with the Bai family?"
As luck would have it, the chugging of a tractor drifted from the distance.
The driver had not dropped them off at the village entrance by the highway; instead, he had driven straight in, delivering them to their doorstep.
After parting ways, Li Sanjiang led Li Zhuiyuan up to the courtyard.
Just then, Xue Liangliang returned from the back.
"Eh? How did you end up at my house?" Li Sanjiang asked in surprise.
"Grandpa, Brother Liangliang came to help tutor me in my schoolwork."
"Oh! Good, that's wonderful! You can share a room with Little Yuan tonight. Young man, have you eaten?"
"I've eaten, I've eaten!" Xue Liangliang answered hurriedly.
"All right then."
Li Zhuiyuan walked over to Qin Liang. The girl stood up, reached out, and took hold of Li Zhuiyuan's hand on her own initiative.
Immediately, her eyelashes fluttered, and her body began to tremble faintly.
Li Zhuiyuan was taken aback. Why was she trembling even after they held hands this time...?
"A-Li, let go!"
Liu Yumei's stern voice cut across the space. Seeing that A-Li was not obeying, she shouted to Li Zhuiyuan instead, "Little Yuan, let go!"
Li Zhuiyuan pulled his hand away.
A-Li made a move to step forward, wanting to grasp his hand again.
"Little Yuan, say goodnight to A-Li. I'm taking her in to rest."
"All right, Grandma Liu." Li Zhuiyuan looked at A-Li. "It's late. Time to rest. We'll read together tomorrow morning. Goodnight."
Xue Liangliang scooped up his documents, grabbed Li Zhuiyuan's arm, and urged, "Come on, let's head to your room. I found something incredible."
Watching Li Zhuiyuan's retreating figure, Qin Liang slowly lowered her raised hand.
Liu Yumei sighed softly, coaxing her granddaughter, "Be good. He's fine now—far better off than that young man."
***
"Whoa, what kind of books do you have on this desk?"
The moment they entered, Xue Liangliang noticed several stacks of ancient texts arranged on Li Zhuiyuan's desk.
"It's just a hobby of mine."
"Really?" Xue Liangliang flipped through the pages. "Little Yuan, if you have this interest, you could study the humanities in the future and go into archaeology."
Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. "I don't want to."
He had no desire to become his mother's departmental junior.
"Then what major do you want to pursue? Don't tell me you want to do water conservancy like me and apply to Haihe University?"
Li Zhuiyuan considered it for a moment, then replied, "That wouldn't be impossible."
It was related to water.
That university seemed aligned with his natural calling.
"Then you'll need to study hard! Haihe University isn't easy to get into."
"Mm."
It truly wouldn't be easy; the old professors back home would hardly let him transfer so easily.
"Here, look at what I found. If you don't look into it, you'd never know, but digging into it gave me quite a shock." Xue Liangliang spread the documents across the desk. "'Lady Bai' really is a surname! During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the local gazetteers recorded numerous exploits of the Bai clan, all relating to slaying demons and quelling upheavals. But every single one was a 'Lady Bai'—there were no 'Grandpa Bais.'"
Li Zhuiyuan asked, "Did they only pass it down to women?"
"That's my guess. The lineage probably passed exclusively through the female line, taking in matrilocal husbands. Though that tradition was quite rare in this region."
Li Zhuiyuan examined the records while prompting, "Brother Liangliang, keep going."
"The Bai family's sphere of activity went far beyond modern-day Nantong. I suspect traces of them can be found across all of central Jiangsu. But one thing is certain: their ancestral home was in Nantong.
"Look at this section here. It mentions a place called Baijia Town, which should be where the main family resided, roughly west of Donghai Yingzhou."
"Donghai Yingzhou?"
"Chongming Island."
"Oh. So was Baijia Town in Shanghai or Nantong?"
Chongming Island sat at the mouth of the Yangtze River, practically serving as its gateway. Most of the island belonged to Shanghai, with a portion belonging to Nantong.
Xue Liangliang hesitated slightly. "The location description here is very strange. It looks like someone researched it thoroughly, but something went wrong when recording it. Following the coordinates it described, I actually checked an old map and found... found that it should be in the river."
"In the river?"
"Yes. Right now, it should be submerged in the Yangtze River."
"Could... could the record be wrong?"
"Yet this is the only record I could find that notes the location of Baijia Town.
"And then, I discovered something even stranger.
"After the Yongzheng reign of the Qing dynasty, not a single record concerning Lady Bai ever appeared in the local gazetteers again.
"The Bai family,
"The Bai people,
"Baijia Town,
"In the historical records, it was as if overnight... they completely vanished."
Chapter 20