Asking for Forgiveness

"Runsheng Hou, pull over at the intersection ahead." Runsheng brought the tricycle to a stop, bent over, and pulled up the handbrake. Li Sanjiang pulled some money out of his pocket, handed it over without bothering to count it, and said, "Go over there and buy some steamed buns, then hit the shop next door and get me a bottle of liquor." "What? Drinking first thing in the morning?" "I told you to go, so go! Where'd all that lip come from?" "Alright, on it." Runsheng came back with the buns and the liquor. Li Sanjiang popped the bottle cap off with his teeth, spat it aside with a jerk of his head, then raised the bottle and took a deep gulp. "Urgh... whew... hah..." That morning swig packed far too much heat; he had to shove several bites of bun down his throat one after another before he could finally tamp down the burn. "Why aren't you eating?" "Great-Grandpa, we left in a rush this morning. I didn't bring any incense sticks." "Then why'd you buy so many buns? By the time we get back, they'll be stone cold." "They're good cold too. These are meat buns!" "Go, go, go. Let's head home. Head on home." "Then sit tight. Don't go toppling off if the booze hits you." Li Sanjiang shot him a glare, then raised the bottle for another swallow. Just as he went to take another bite of the bun, a liquor burp rose in his throat. In an instant, his expression slumped into profound dejection, tears brimming in his eyes. He had to turn his head away, reach out, and yank the hem of Runsheng's undershirt to wipe his face. Runsheng glanced back and asked, "Great-Grandpa, shouldn't you be happy? Why are you crying again?" "Happy? Happy my ass!" "Didn't Xiao Yuan get added to your household registration? How is that not something to be happy about?" "What damn good is my registration? Can it match an urban registry? Can it hold a candle to a Beijing registry?" "What's wrong with losing a Beijing registry?" "What's wrong? It's like a carp busting its tail to leap over the dragon gate, only to damn well jump right back down and turn into a carp again!" "Being a carp is pretty nice too. That way Xiao Yuan won't have to leave." Li Sanjiang sighed, raised his hand, and gave himself two crisp slaps across the cheeks. First thing this morning, the village chief had dragged him down to the Civil Affairs Bureau. The moment he stepped inside, several staff members surrounded him, thrusting documents in front of his face. They claimed Xiao Yuan Hou's mother had demanded the boy's registration be transferred under his name. At the time, he had been thoroughly bewildered. Although he genuinely adored the kid, there was no way in hell he'd ever do something that crippled a child's future! Yet the officials insisted that something seemed to have happened to Xiao Yuan Hou's mother, so the boy's household registration had to be settled immediately. If he refused to sign today and the files were sent back, Xiao Yuan Hou would become an unregistered resident without status, unable to even attend school down the line. With them playing good cop and bad cop, pressing and rushing him, Li Sanjiang had signed his name in a daze. Now, even with liquor in his belly, the morning breeze had cleared his head a bit. Even if the boy's grandfather in Beijing didn't want him, if his registration had to come down here, it should have gone under Li Weihan's name! What sense did it make to put it under his own? Granted, the boy was living with him right now, but what legal relationship did they have? Well, they had one now. Li Sanjiang looked down at the bag by his feet, which contained the household registration booklet and related paperwork. "Damn it all, since when do government offices work this fast?" He pulled out the booklet, flipped it open, and stared at the extra name listed under his household. Li Sanjiang's chest swirled with complicated emotions. The Li family had finally produced a golden phoenix that flew all the way to Beijing and laid an egg, only for that egg to get tossed right back to the old village: "Sigh... decades of bitter toil, right back to before the Liberation overnight." *** "Well, just one night, and everything's right back where it started." Liu Yumei held a teacup in her hands. The tea had gone cold, yet she hadn't taken a sip. Watching her granddaughter sitting motionless behind the threshold of the east room, she felt only bitterness in her mouth—and swallowing the tea would only make it bitterer. Last night she had wept tears of joy; if she'd known, she would have saved some. Now she couldn't even cry if she wanted to. She looked up toward the second-floor terrace. The boy sat in the rattan chair, absorbed in his book, though every now and then, when turning a page, he would glance down at Ah Li. Liu Yumei wanted nothing more than to curse him: *Don't just look, you little brat!* If it were ordinary children squabbling, shouting at each other, "Hmph, I'm never playing with you again!" and then giving each other the cold shoulder out of spite, that would be common and normal enough. Yet Liu Yumei knew that kind of behavior wouldn't happen with her granddaughter, and even less so with that boy. He was far too bright and steady to do something so childish. So what on earth had happened between them? After hesitating again and again, Liu Yumei finally stood up and walked into the main house. Normally, she would never enter this place, let alone go up to the second floor, but today she had no choice but to make an exception. Seeing Ah Li's condition steadily improving, only to revert all at once to square one, felt as if a stone had been heated red-hot and then doused in cold water, cracking her heart with pain. She had to ask what had happened. It wasn't that she favored one over the other or made a point of interrogating the boy whenever trouble arose; if she could get a single word out of Ah Li's mouth, would she have needed to move here in the first place? As she drew near, the boy stood up, holding his book. "Xiao Yuan, Grandma came up to have a word with you." "Grandma, please have a seat." Liu Yumei sat down in the rattan chair that had previously belonged to Ah Li. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the book in his hand; to her, it looked like a mess of ghostly scribbles, utterly indecipherable. "Reading?" "Yes." Li Zhuiyuan politely set the book down beside him, turning partially toward Liu Yumei to listen attentively. Naturally, what he had just been reading was the *Liu Clan Qi-Gazing Formula*. "What happened between you and Ah Li?" "Grandma, it's my fault." He had taken a severe blow the night before because of what Li Lan had said over the telephone. Li Zhuiyuan lowered his head, gazing at his bandaged palm. He had been Ah Li's terrace. She had summoned her courage to step out from the dark, walk onto the terrace, and begin tentatively observing and reaching toward this world. Yet just yesterday, Ah Li discovered bricks appearing on the terrace—meaning this terrace was about to be sealed shut. It was hard to imagine the sheer despair the girl had felt last night when she saw the self-inflicted wound on his palm. She had locked herself at the bottom of a dark, dry well. One day, a rope was lowered from above, and someone at the mouth of the well kept talking and keeping her company. Just as she gathered herself to climb up along the rope, she looked up and saw that the very person who had been encouraging her had grabbed the rope and descended into the abyss. Li Zhuiyuan knew that because the girl's eyes had once been filled only with him, his own sinking had struck her with far greater devastation. No, she had come to him last night wanting to keep him company. She hadn't been afraid of his dejection; she simply could not accept him giving up. Giving up the struggle and abandoning himself, just like Li Lan. The light in her eyes had been him, yet last night, he had snuffed it out. "Sigh, what's the use of fussing over who's right or wrong now? Grandma just wants to ask you, Xiao Yuan... do you have a way to make Ah Li go back to how she was these past few days? Can you?" "I do." Liu Yumei's face flushed with excitement. "Really? What will it take?" "I can't do it just yet, Grandma. I need a little time." "You need time... well, what do you need to do, specifically?" "Read." "Read?" Liu Yumei's brows knitted slightly. She suspected the boy was messing with her, but on second thought, it seemed strangely sensible. In her memory, it was precisely while the boy sat reading up here on the second floor that Ah Li had gradually taken the initiative to approach him. Could her granddaughter have a soft spot for scholarly charm? Liu Yumei pondered the thought. Was it because she always liked dressing Ah Li in traditional attire, and she herself often enjoyed classic storybooks like *The Western Chamber*? "Grandma, Ah Li has gone back inside." "What?" Liu Yumei looked down, only to see Ah Li still sitting behind the threshold, without having moved an inch. "Isn't she still right there?" "I need to find a way to call Ah Li back out so I can apologize to her face to face." Liu Yumei couldn't quite grasp his meaning, but seeing how methodical and composed the boy sounded, she felt an inexplicable sense of reassurance. "Then... keep reading." "Alright, Grandma." Liu Yumei headed downstairs. Li Zhuiyuan picked up the *Liu Clan Qi-Gazing Formula* again. Those archaic, scribbled characters were such that looking away for even a brief moment meant having to recapture the rhythm from scratch, or else they made no sense at all. He read through another page, and as he turned it, he looked down at the girl below. Toward her sudden "departure," he harbored not the slightest resentment. He truly enjoyed this feeling of being needed. He finally had a mask he could never take off. *Li Lan, what you failed to find, I have found.* Having returned downstairs, Liu Yumei felt somewhat more relaxed and brewed herself a fresh pot of tea. Right at that moment, Runsheng pedaled the tricycle up onto the courtyard. "Great-Grandpa, we're home. We're home! Great-Grandpa, wake up, wake up!" Liu Yumei stepped forward and asked, "What happened?" "Great-Grandpa drank himself silly." "Oh? He went out for morning drinks?" "He kept drinking till he passed out." Runsheng pulled the empty liquor bottle from the cart, turned it upside down, and showed that not a single drop was left. "Carry him up, then." "Right." Runsheng gripped Li Sanjiang's shoulder with his left hand, scooped beneath him with his right, and with a swift hitch of his body, hoisted Li Sanjiang onto his back. Liu Yumei asked, "Who taught you to carry someone like that?" "Huh? Nobody taught me. I carried enough corpses that it just became second nature." "Remember not to carry people like that next time. It's bad luck." "Right, got it." Liu Yumei waved her hand to disperse the stench of alcohol while signaling Runsheng to hurry and haul him away. Runsheng dashed into the house and bounded up to the second floor in a single breath. Liu Yumei returned to her tea table and habitually pinched her teacup between her index and ring fingers. As she raised it halfway, the cup suddenly shook, yet not a drop of tea spilled over the rim. Liu Yumei gasped softly in surprise: "Has it... been filled to the brim again?" *** "Xiao Yuan, open the door for me! Great-Grandpa passed out from drinking!" Li Zhuiyuan unlatched the screen door and helped Runsheng settle Li Sanjiang onto the bed. Li Sanjiang's face was flushed red, looking dead to the world. Shortly after, Li Zhuiyuan stepped back outside with Runsheng. "What happened?" Great-Grandpa loved his liquor, but he had never taken to drinking first thing in the morning. Runsheng scratched his head and said, "Xiao Yuan, your household registration got transferred under Great-Grandpa's name. Sounds like your student record and everything got transferred over too." Li Zhuiyuan froze for a second. *That fast?* Last night on the phone, when Li Lan said she wanted to transfer his registry, he had deliberately hinted that he was living at Li Sanjiang's place. Clearly, Li Lan had understood. Of course, it would have been strange if she hadn't; both mother and son recognized each other's intellect. Still, not only had the process been shockingly swift, but even his student files had been transferred along with it. It seemed the project Li Lan was joining was indeed of immense importance, so family arrangements had received special handling—to the point where even those old professors couldn't stand in the way. "Xiao Yuan, I'm heading down to eat my buns now." "Go ahead, Brother Runsheng." Once Runsheng went downstairs, Li Zhuiyuan dampened a towel in a washbasin, wrung it out, then pushed Li Sanjiang's door open and stepped inside. Li Sanjiang lay sprawled across the bed, his left arm draped over his forehead, legs splayed apart. Li Zhuiyuan squeezed the remaining water from the towel and held it out to him. "Great-Grandpa, wipe your face." Li Sanjiang didn't stir. "You hold your liquor well, Great-Grandpa. You're not drunk. If you were really asleep, you'd be snoring." "Cough, cough..." Li Sanjiang opened his eyes and looked at Li Zhuiyuan standing by the bedside. "Xiao Yuan Hou, your great-grandpa did you wrong." "No. You took me in, Great-Grandpa." "You're still young, so you probably don't realize what a Beijing registration means." "Great-Grandpa, that doesn't matter so much." "What does a little child like you know? When you grow up, you'll be kicking yourself with regret. Listen to your great-grandpa: find a way to contact your grandfather in Beijing and have them get it back for you." "Great-Grandpa, my surname is Li now." "Sigh, tell me, what kind of mess did your mother make? You don't care, but your great-grandpa's heart aches! I feel like I've failed you, truly failed you... My boy's bright future, ruined just like that." "Great-Grandpa, it's fine. Worst-case scenario, I'll just do what Li... what my mother did, and test into a university in a big city." "Right, school! I nearly forgot about that!" Li Sanjiang bounced up from the bed like a carp leaping from the water and darted over to the stool, tearing open the bag containing the household booklet and student files. "I've got to find someone to get you into a school. Would Shinan Primary School work? No, Shigang is bigger. We'll go to primary school in Shigang." "Primary school..." "Let me tell you, Xiao Yuan Hou, you can play all you want during summer vacation, but once the school term starts, you can't fall behind. You've got to put your mind to your studies." "Great-Grandpa, do you know anyone at the schools?" "If I don't know anyone, can't I look for someone? Even if I can't find a direct connection, as long as I can find someone who can take a red envelope without worry, that's enough! I heard schools sort kids into good classes and bad classes. We'll push hard and get you into a top class no matter what. By the way, Xiao Yuan, what grade are you in?" "Great-Grandpa, that Uncle Tan from last time seemed very nice." "Uncle Tan? Which Uncle Tan?" "Captain Tan from the police station." "We've only met twice, we're not close! Besides, he doesn't work for the schools." "Shigang Town is small. It'd definitely be easier if he stepped in. He invited me over to his house last time, too. I'll take my files over in a few days and ask him." "Alright, then I'll go with you when the time comes." "No need. If it turns out he can't help, having you there would be awkward. It's much easier for a kid like me to ask." "Let's leave it at that for now, then. You ask when you visit his house, and I'll see who I can find on my end too." Seeing Li Sanjiang agree, Li Zhuiyuan let out a quiet breath of relief. He couldn't bear to leave this place right now, but he had no desire to be thrown into primary school by Great-Grandpa either. Although he hadn't interacted with Captain Tan many times, the man owed him a favor from before and would likely help. The main goal was to have him assist with skipping grades—ideally jumping straight to Grade 12. That way, in a year's time, he could take the college entrance exams. If he wanted to shorten the timeline even further, he could enter the national math olympiad held every winter to secure a direct admissions spot. Still, where should he attend university? Since Li Lan didn't want to see him, he wouldn't go anywhere near her. Li Zhuiyuan suddenly thought of an institution whose name and programs suited him perfectly right now... Haihe University. At the thought, Li Zhuiyuan couldn't help smiling inwardly: *Brother Liangliang, it looks like we really might become alumni in the future.* While Great-Grandpa racked his brains over his network of contacts, Li Zhuiyuan walked out to continue reading. It wasn't until Auntie Liu called that lunch was ready that he set down his book and headed downstairs. Sitting on his little stool, looking at the empty spot beside him and the missing small dish on the table, an unmistakable emptiness pulled at his chest. Turning his head, he saw that Ah Li's small dining table had been moved into the east room. Liu Yumei was coaxing her while portioning out her food. Finally, Ah Li picked up her chopsticks and began to eat. Liu Yumei gave an appreciative nod, but as she stood, her lower back ached. Previously, a single word from the boy would have had Ah Li eating obediently; there had never been any need for all this coaxing. A sudden sense of urgency gripped her heart. She was getting older by the day. If she passed away before Ah Li's illness was cured, who would take care of her? Li Sanjiang came down for lunch as well. Sitting down, he spotted Li Zhuiyuan eating by himself, then looked around and found the girl sitting inside the side room. He slammed his chopsticks down in irritation: "I say, do you have to be so pragmatic? Just because our Xiao Yuan Hou lost his Beijing registry, you won't even share a table with him?" No sooner had the words left his mouth than Pan Zi and Lei Zi came running over, drenched in sweat. "Great-Grandpa, Great-Grandpa, trouble! Something went wrong at Sihai Zi's fish pond! They just started clearing the pond when all this red water surged up, looking just like blood! Sihai Zi and the guys laying the nets had their skin rotted clean away!" "Great-Grandpa, the folks over there sent us to bring you over for a look!" "What?" Li Sanjiang shot to his feet. "Runsheng, let's go! Take a look!" Hearing the description, Li Zhuiyuan murmured internally: *An Earthly Yin Red Fiend?* Liu Yumei brushed her hair at the temples, equally perplexed. In this area, how could there be an Earthly Yin Red Fiend? Runsheng reluctantly set down his rice bowl and followed Li Sanjiang out. Li Zhuiyuan didn't go. Until he confirmed that the issue with his excess fortune was settled, he wouldn't go near the water. Returning to the second floor, Li Zhuiyuan opened the book once more and resumed reading. If it was only an Earthly Yin Red Fiend, Great-Grandpa shouldn't be in any real danger, because such a formation appeared exclusively at decoy lairs. Throughout history, famous mountains and great rivers weren't the only places where auspicious veins allowed burials; in fact, many ancients chose to bury things beneath riverbeds—tombs, temples, treasures, and the like. Silt accumulated and rivercourses shifted, accelerating drastic transformations over time and making such places far harder to locate. The Earthly Yin Red Fiend was a relatively traditional fengshui trap. Once breached, the substance inside quickly billowed through the churning water, causing harm to any intruders. However, it was almost always used in decoy lairs—deliberately crafted traps designed specifically to bait water monkeys. Even so, this proved that a primary lair very likely existed nearby, though what lay buried inside remained unknown. Li Zhuiyuan had no interest in seeking it out. Anyone capable of laying an Earthly Yin Red Fiend back then would certainly have used a "living burial" construction—not burying living people, but rather building underwater structures that could drift and shift alongside the changing hydrological patterns. Consequently, though the alignment between the decoy lairs and the primary lair might have followed standard configurations at the time of construction, centuries later, everything would have shifted chaotically out of place. Even knowing the location of a decoy lair would not allow one to calculate the position of the primary lair. Sihai's family had simply been unlucky. Whether his fish pond happened to be dug right over a decoy lair or the lair had drifted beneath his pond over time was impossible to say. Of course, if neither of those were the case, the nature of the matter would change entirely: it might mean real water monkeys had actually taken the bait. Li Zhuiyuan spent the entire afternoon reading. Great-Grandpa and Runsheng didn't return until dinnertime. Over the meal, Li Sanjiang recounted what had happened at Sihai's place. Two outsiders had offered to lease Sihai's fish pond at a high price to raise softshell turtles, so even though it wasn't yet the season to clear the pond, Sihai had decided to drain and clean it early to rent it out. Yet at noon, when Sihai and his son entered the pond to cast the nets, disaster struck. The two outsiders who were helping in the pond were caught in it as well. The flesh on all four of them looked as if it had been doused in boiling slaked lime, scorched and rotting in huge patches. Though they hadn't died and were rushed to the clinic, the sight had been terrifying. The nearby villagers had been scared out of their wits. Li Sanjiang spent the afternoon conducting a ritual there, and the moment it concluded, the red water receded from the pond. The villagers all claimed Uncle Sanjiang had suppressed the evil spirit. At this point in the telling, Li Sanjiang stroked his chin with self-satisfaction and took another pull from his liquor bottle. Li Zhuiyuan surmised that once the Earthly Yin Red Fiend had been triggered and fully released, the decoy lair must have opened, draining all the pond water into the subterranean cavity. Moreover, those two outsiders were remarkably helpful—not only paying a steep lease for the pond, but personally wading in to help clean it. After dinner, Li Zhuiyuan was preparing to head upstairs for horse-stance training when Runsheng pulled him aside with a conspiratorial air. "Xiao Yuan, come here for a second." Li Zhuiyuan followed Runsheng over to the tricycle. Runsheng lifted a white plastic tarp, revealing an aged shovel resting beneath. "Xiao Yuan, look at this. Doesn't this shovel look a bit like our Yellow River shovels? Only kind of, though—nowhere near as good as ours." Li Zhuiyuan took the shovel and tested its folding and shifting mechanisms a few times. The core design was indeed identical to a Yellow River shovel, but the finer details fell far short. Still, the implement was clearly old, bearing numerous repair marks; it was a bona fide antique. "Brother Runsheng, did you pick this up by the fish pond today?" "Yeah. I didn't dare tell Great-Grandpa, so I snuck it back myself, because I smelled a whiff of corpse stink on it." Li Zhuiyuan leaned close and took a sniff. He couldn't detect anything, but he trusted Runsheng's judgment; professional corpse retrievers possessed a sensitivity toward the stench of water-corpses that ordinary people could scarcely comprehend. "Did it belong to those two outsiders?" "Don't know. When we got there, all four of them were hurt bad, and this thing was just lying by the edge of the pond." "You did well, Brother Runsheng." "Ah... I thought you'd scold me for stealing stuff, Xiao Yuan." "This isn't an ordinary tool." An antique imitation Yellow River shovel, tainted with the stench of a drowned corpse, was practically an open announcement: it belonged to that breed of water monkeys. "Water monkeys" referred to underwater thieves. If an onlooker on the bank noticed them while they were secretly excavating, they would often drag the witness underwater to silence them. As a result, legends circulated everywhere about water monkeys seeking substitute ghosts. "Xiao Yuan, is it useful?" "It is. Brother Runsheng, if you ever smell that odor again, remember to warn me right away." "Got it, no problem!" "Oh, right. Brother Runsheng, play some cards with me for a bit." "What? Play cards with you?" Runsheng recalled the scene at the gambling den the other day, where Xiao Yuan had slaughtered all comers. In his eyes, Xiao Yuan was practically another God of Gamblers. "Just a few hands. No money." There was already an open deck of playing cards in the drawer. Li Zhuiyuan and Runsheng sat across from each other. Runsheng shuffled and dealt—simple three-card Zha Jinhua, comparing hands immediately after dealing. Out of twenty hands, Runsheng won eight, and Li Zhuiyuan won twelve. Li Zhuiyuan switched to shuffling and dealing himself. After twenty hands, he won nine, and Runsheng won eleven. It seemed the peculiar fortune clinging to him had vanished. *Yet what price did I pay for it?* Li Zhuiyuan sat there, idly shuffling the cards. He had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, yet that massive backlash had never arrived. *Forget it, no point overthinking it.* He would play another round of high-card with Runsheng tomorrow morning; if the win-loss ratio remained normal, he could finally leave the house. In the east room, Auntie Liu was combing Liu Yumei's hair, sighing softly. "Xiao Yuan's registration got transferred here. That boy truly has awful luck, taking such a massive tumble." "A massive tumble? The kid himself probably doesn't feel that way at all." "Isn't that just because he's young and doesn't know better?" "Ah Ting, you've interacted with him. Do you really think he's just a child?" "He doesn't feel like one." "For an ordinary person, meeting a blow like this would probably snap their life's momentum in half, leaving them utterly ruined. But that ladder of rules was only built for common folk to begin with. To a true genius, it amounts to nothing. In peaceful times, whenever they want to climb, they can, and they have countless ways to do it. It's nothing ordinary people could ever envy." "You're right. That's true enough." "Still, this works out well. Before, I was worried he'd leave as soon as summer vacation ended. The way things look now, he'll be staying here a while longer." "Did Xiao Yuan say anything about Ah Li's condition?" "He said he has a way, but he needs to read." "What kind of method is that?" "We'll just wait and see. We're old now; we can't make sense of the younger generation anymore." *** The next morning, Li Zhuiyuan woke up and habitually glanced to the side. The chair by the door remained empty. "Sigh..." Li Zhuiyuan got up, washed, and read outside for a while. When he went down for breakfast, Ah Li was still not beside him. After eating, Li Zhuiyuan pulled Runsheng aside to play another round of high-card, just like the night before. The win-loss ratio was perfectly healthy. At last, he felt relieved. He could go out. *** "Morning, Captain Tan." "Morning, Captain." "Morning, everyone." Tan Yunlong rode his motorcycle into the station courtyard dressed in plain clothes, greeting colleagues who passed by. It wasn't actually early anymore—mid-morning already. He had taken leave to arrive late because he had spent the crack of dawn at his son's school meeting with the teacher. Students transitioning from Grade 11 to Grade 12 had an extremely short summer break and were already back in class. His son had gotten into a brawl outside school the night before, making quite a scene and nearly triggering a massive melee. Yet he hadn't blamed the boy, because his son had acted to protect a bullied classmate. Tan Yunlong had always been open-minded about his son's academic performance. If his grades weren't top-tier, so be it; if he couldn't test into a prestigious college, so be it. As long as his character and values were upright, that was enough. That was also why, during his previous job transfer, he hadn't hesitated to argue with his wife to transfer his son to a school near his post; he needed to keep an eye on the kid. After working as a police officer for so long and witnessing countless forms of wickedness, he knew that without steering a child's character properly, any amount of elite cultivation was meaningless. Walking into the office building, colleagues along the way continued to greet him warmly. Although a heinous case had occurred within their jurisdiction, it had been solved rapidly, earning him a commendation. Even the station chief had dropped hints for him to leverage his old connections and make a few rounds; with a fresh merit under his belt, getting transferred back would be natural. Yet Tan Yunlong made no moves; he found working at a township police station suited him just fine. Pushing open his office door, Tan Yunlong froze for a moment, then broke into a smile and closed the door behind him. He picked up the thermos, brewed a cup of tea, and set it before the boy. The boy retrieved an object wrapped in newspaper from his feet and unwrapped it on the desk—a shovel. Antiquities unearthed from the ground belonged to the state; unauthorized digging was illegal, and their fencing channels often led overseas, so reporting it promptly to the police was the right move. After listening to the boy's succinct account, Tan Yunlong stepped out of the office to assign officers to set up surveillance at the clinic's inpatient ward. Returning inside, he closed the door, sat back down, and saw Li Zhuiyuan cupping the mug, taking several continuous sips of hot tea without setting it down. "Looks like you need a favor from me this time." "Yes, Uncle Tan. I'd like you to help arrange my school enrollment. These are my files." Tan Yunlong flipped through the documents, baffled. "What kind of setup is this?" "I want to go to school." "Sure, I can reach out to the town primary school for you. What grade were you in before?" Tan Yunlong held up the academic transcript, scrutinizing it over and over. "Is the Special Class for the Gifted Young a primary school? And this university's name... tsk-tsk, did you attend an affiliated primary school under this university before?" "I want to skip grades." "Skip to Grade 6? I know Beijing has better educational resources, but the competition among students here is fierce too. Purely in terms of test-taking, Beijing might not necessarily beat what we have down here." "Grade 12." "Right, Grade 12... wait, what?" Tan Yunlong snapped his head up, staring at the boy. "Are you sure you're not joking?" "Uncle Tan, you only need to help me start the grade-skipping process. I'll pass the tests and evaluations myself." Li Zhuiyuan knew that grade-skipping policies existed everywhere; back in his original class, many students had skipped grades to get there. "For real?" Tan Yunlong's interest was piqued. "From the sound of it, if the college entrance exams hadn't just wrapped up, you'd be ready to take them right now." "No, I want to stay here for a while longer. I can't bear to leave yet." "How about this: I can help you, but to keep me from making a fool of myself, you'll have to come to my house for dinner tonight. My son is about to enter Grade 12 too." "Not tonight. Tomorrow or the day after would both work." Seeing the boy so composed, Tan Yunlong was already inclined to believe him. "Are you one of those child prodigies?" Li Zhuiyuan hesitated. A more accurate description for himself would probably be an ill child. "Then why'd you go running off to do that?" Tan Yunlong waved his hand, referring to retrieving corpses. This time, Li Zhuiyuan's answer was firm: "It's fun. Interesting." "If you really have that kind of talent, you should study hard and serve the country." "Am I not doing that right now?" "That's not what I meant. Alright, tomorrow evening, I'll pick you up at your place. I remember where you live." "Alright." Li Zhuiyuan stood up and gave Tan Yunlong a bow. "Thank you, Uncle." Tan Yunlong stood as well, walked over, and patted the boy on the head. "I'm the one who should be thanking you." *** Before noon, Li Zhuiyuan returned home in Runsheng's tricycle. Several bricklayers had arrived and were laying bricks behind the main house. Auntie Liu walked over with a chuckle and said to Li Zhuiyuan: "Your great-grandpa just asked what was going on. I told him you asked to build a craft workshop for yourself, and he actually nodded without another question! He turned right around, went into the house to grab some cash for me, but I pushed it back and said we had enough. When he asked where the money came from, I told him Runsheng won it playing cards." "Heh-heh." Parking the tricycle nearby, Runsheng let out a goofy grin. Li Zhuiyuan turned his head and warned, "Brother Runsheng, you'd better run." "Huh?" A figure suddenly lunged out from the main house, brandishing a cane used for paper effigies, charging straight at Runsheng: "I'll teach you to pick up bad habits! Of all the people to copy, you had to copy that deadbeat grandpa of yours, gambling with cards! See if I don't beat you to death! Beat you to death!" Runsheng ran, and Great-Grandpa gave chase. The two of them circled round and round the fields in front of the courtyard. Li Zhuiyuan mused inwardly that Great-Grandpa was in remarkably fine health. His cold had cleared up completely, and bird droppings hadn't struck him recently either. It seemed that once the issue with his excess fortune was resolved, Great-Grandpa had returned to normal as well. Then Li Zhuiyuan looked toward the east room. Ah Li was still sitting behind the threshold, motionless, like an exquisite sculpture. Over the past few days, without the girl's presence, reading had truly become just reading. Liu Yumei shot Li Zhuiyuan a meaningful glance, urging him to go forward and try reaching out to Ah Li again. Li Zhuiyuan didn't go. Instead, he walked straight into the house and up to the second floor; he was only a little ways from finishing the *Liu Clan Qi-Gazing Formula*. He had stayed up late reading every night lately, forcefully speeding up his progress. Sitting in her chair and gazing up at the second floor, Liu Yumei felt an uncontrollable wave of frustration rise again. Before, she had felt sour seeing her granddaughter so close to the boy; now, she wished for nothing more than for her granddaughter to hang around him just like old times. Yet this boy really did nothing but read day in and day out! Why couldn't he just walk over and try? How would he know if it worked without trying? Girls needed coaxing! From childhood to now, Ah Li had only ever had this one companion. Liu Yumei refused to believe her granddaughter had completely lost her feelings for him. After lunch, Li Zhuiyuan resumed reading. By mid-afternoon, he had finally finished the book. He leaned back in the rattan chair, seizing the moment to organize and integrate the entire volume's contents in his mind. Though his eyes were closed, the atmospheric signs and scenes recorded in the text surfaced in his mind like vivid paintings. His hands gestured rhythmically and erratically in the air. To an outsider, it might look like a child pretending to conduct an orchestra with his eyes closed, but in Li Zhuiyuan's perception, he was manipulating distinct, unique aquatic environments. Books of this nature yielded little through rote memorization; only by building on profound comprehension to achieve a mystic state akin to artistic appreciation could one truly master the fundamentals. Fine beads of sweat broke out on his face, his brows furrowing and relaxing in turn. When he had thoroughly synthesized it all, the boy opened his eyes, which were heavy with exhaustion. Sitting up, he felt a stickiness on his face. His nose had bled—quite a lot, soaking a broad patch of his shirt in crimson. Li Zhuiyuan knew this was a warning from his body against mental overexertion. Digesting the *Liu Clan Qi-Gazing Formula* in just a few days had been an immense strain even for him. Fortunately, he had succeeded, but this was not something he could afford to do again. Otherwise, he worried that before any psychological collapse arrived, his body would give out first. He bathed, changed clothes, washed the bloodstained shirt himself, and then went downstairs to tell Auntie Liu that he was tired and would skip dinner, before heading behind the house. Li Sanjiang and Runsheng were helping the bricklayers. The workshop was built against the rear wall of the main house and would be finished before nightfall. Li Zhuiyuan told Li Sanjiang that he wouldn't be having dinner because he had stayed up too late reading the night before, couldn't hold out any longer, and wanted to sleep early. He had only intended to keep Great-Grandpa from worrying, and more importantly, to keep him from coming in to check on him and disturbing his rest. Yet upon hearing his words, Li Sanjiang's eyes reddened on the spot, and he waved his hand hurriedly, urging Li Zhuiyuan to go back and get some sleep. Once Li Zhuiyuan walked away, Li Sanjiang wiped his eyes with the back of his hand: "He acts like he doesn't care just to make me feel better, but Xiao Yuan Hou is anxious deep down too. Just listen to him—his heart was never in his studies before, so when has he ever studied deep into the night?" Returning from behind the house, Li Zhuiyuan had to hug the wall as he passed the east room's doorway, keeping ample distance to prevent Ah Li from triggering into distress. From outside that safe boundary, Li Zhuiyuan stood watching the girl for a long time. He had previously wondered whether he would struggle to adjust if he returned to Beijing and couldn't see Ah Li anymore. Now, he didn't need to wonder; he knew he couldn't adjust at all. Just as Ah Li had grown accustomed to the dark, he too had grown accustomed to his various masks. If they had never experienced it, everything could have continued as before. But having experienced it... they could never go back. "Xiao Yuan, come, have some tea with Grandma." "No thanks, Grandma. I'm tired. I'm heading to my room to sleep." Back in his room, Li Zhuiyuan lay down on the bed and fell asleep. He was truly exhausted. He slept until the dead of night. Waking up, he got out of bed and first went to Great-Grandpa's room to fetch a few things; Great-Grandpa was sleeping so soundly that thunder couldn't have woken him. Then he headed downstairs. The television was on, displaying a static color-bar test screen. Runsheng lay on a makeshift bed rolled out on a table, clutching the little black puppy, fast asleep. The puppy was being looked after by Runsheng now—or rather, it didn't need much looking after at all, since it spent most of its time sleeping in its kennel. Great-Grandpa had only noticed an extra dog in the house after several days. "Brother Runsheng, wake up." "Mmh... what is it, Xiao Yuan?" "Brother Runsheng, come out with me for a bit. Bring all the tools." "Right!" Li Zhuiyuan gathered some incense sticks, candles, and a few food offerings from the kitchen. Stepping outside, he saw Runsheng preparing to push the tricycle: "Brother Runsheng, it's not far. We'll walk." "Alright." Carrying a large sack on his back, Runsheng caught up and asked in a low whisper, "Xiao Yuan, are we going to mess them up?" "Mess who up?" "Those guys who leased the fish pond." "The police will handle them." "Then what are we going out for?" "To ask someone for help." Runsheng looked back at the sack he was carrying, then at the incense, candles, and offerings in Li Zhuiyuan's hands: "You need to bring all this to ask someone for help?" Li Zhuiyuan led Runsheng to a fish pond that faced right opposite Big Beard's former house. Big Beard's wife had already gone to live with their eldest son. The house was slated to be sold, but homestead plots weren't easy to sell to outsiders, and with someone having just drowned in front of the gate, ominous rumors had spread. Even with a low asking price, no one dared take it for the moment. As a result, this was currently one of the quietest spots in the village. Standing before the fish pond, Li Zhuiyuan closed his eyes, then slowly opened them as the contents of the *Liu Clan Qi-Gazing Formula* surfaced in his mind. He was the one who had brought Little Oriole here in the first place. Now, he had to confirm whether she was still here. The color and ripple of the water, the condition of the weeds, the banks and shores, even the breeze sweeping across the surface—every tiny detail coalesced into an atmospheric vision in Li Zhuiyuan's mind. Li Zhuiyuan walked slowly along the pond's edge, observing closely. Ultimately, he confirmed that a dead-flipper lay concealed within this pond. Little Oriole was still here. "Brother Runsheng, dig a small hole here, here, and over there, then plant incense sticks in them." "Right." Runsheng set to work with the Yellow River shovel. Li Zhuiyuan cast the offerings he had brought into specific positions across the pond, then placed two candles at the reception spot on the pond's southwest edge and lit them. Having done that, Li Zhuiyuan picked up a stack of yellow paper and ignited it against a candle flame. "Brother Runsheng, unless I call you later, don't interfere. Stand farther back for now, and follow us when the time comes." Runsheng obediently stepped back, then asked in confusion, "Follow *us*?" Li Zhuiyuan waved the burning yellow paper, chanting softly: "I, Li Zhuiyuan, invite you to emerge from the water. Three offerings shall follow in return." *Slap!* The burning yellow paper was pressed into the mud, extinguishing it. Li Zhuiyuan turned his back to the pond, cradling the incense burner in his left hand and raising the bell in his right. Though Runsheng stood some distance away, he saw it clearly: ripples suddenly parted across the pond behind Li Zhuiyuan, followed by the figure of a long-haired woman slowly stepping ashore. A dead-flipper! Runsheng's breath caught instantly. He wanted to shout that Xiao Yuan was in danger, but on second thought, Xiao Yuan had summoned this dead-flipper himself! Then his mind took another sharp turn: *Heavens, Xiao Yuan can actually summon dead-flippers!* Ever since childhood, he had retrieved corpses alongside his grandfather, always reacting passively. Never had he seen, nor even imagined, that one could take the initiative like this! How on earth was Xiao Yuan doing it? Two icy hands settled upon his shoulders. Li Zhuiyuan felt his body sink, followed by the chill of sodden water soaking through his clothes. That familiar sensation returned. Yet this time, there was little fear in his heart, though for safety's sake, he had still brought Runsheng along. *Ring-ring-ring... ring-ring-ring... ring-ring-ring...* The crisp chime of the bell sounded. Li Zhuiyuan began to walk forward, and the figure behind him followed in step. Beneath the moonlight, two shadows stretched across the ground—one tall, one short. *** Inside the bedroom of the east room. Liu Yumei held a cattail leaf fan, fanning Ah Li. Ah Li's eyes were open; she had not yet fallen asleep. In the past, whenever that boy coaxed her to sleep, Ah Li would obediently close her eyes upon returning to her room, trying her best to drift off so she could rise early, dress, and go see him. Suddenly, Liu Yumei sensed something. She rose, walked to the window, and peered outside. Then she looked back at Ah Li on the bed, only to see the girl's open eyes slowly closing shut. "This... this is..." Even having weathered great storms throughout her life, Liu Yumei was left momentarily struck dumb by shock. After a long pause, she remembered what the boy had said to her the day before: *"Grandma, Ah Li has gone back inside. I need to find a way to call Ah Li back out so I can apologize to her face to face."* A wry, helpless smile appeared on Liu Yumei's face: "Really now... is this how young people arrange their nighttime rendezvous these days?" *** Shaking the bell and carrying the incense burner, Li Zhuiyuan reached the courtyard and came to a halt. Then he closed his eyes. Though his clothes were drenched, cold, and terribly uncomfortable, he forced himself into a state of sleep. In truth, deep sleep wasn't necessary; reaching a half-awake, half-dreaming trance was enough to walk the yin path successfully. When he slowly opened his eyes, he first looked behind him. The long-haired figure in the qipao was still there, but looking farther off, Runsheng was nowhere to be seen. Good. He had entered the dream state. "Please wait a moment. I will see you back shortly." With that, Li Zhuiyuan set down the bell and the incense burner, then walked forward on his own. He slipped free from the restraint of those cold hands, while the qipao-clad figure remained frozen in place, arms held raised. Li Zhuiyuan walked up to the front of the east room and stopped. Soon, the girl's figure emerged. This time, she no longer ignored him completely as she had during the day. Instead, her gaze fell squarely upon him. In the dead of night, beneath the dark sky, a boy, a girl, and a dead-flipper stood upon the courtyard. The boy looked at the girl and spoke with complete earnestness: "Ah Li, will you forgive me?"