"Man, you are heavy."
Tan Wenbin set Lu Yi down on the dorm bed, planting his hands on his hips as he panted for breath.
Carrying someone wasn't actually that exhausting, but between wrestling down the possessed Lu Yi and making that diving tackle at the high-heeled shoe, the burst of exertion had only just caught up with him.
Seeing Lu Yi's face streaked with grime and dried white foam, Tan Wenbin grimaced. In the end, his conscience got the better of him. He picked up the washbasin, poured in some hot water, wrung out a towel, and wiped the man's face clean.
As for the scraped, bleeding patches on Lu Yi's knees, feet, and elbows, Tan Wenbin couldn't be bothered. They were both rough-and-tumble guys; a few scrapes wouldn't kill him.
When he finished, Tan Wenbin poured a cup of water and set it on the plastic stool by the bedhead. Then he bent down, pulled open the storage box beneath the bed, and fished out a Harbin red sausage.
Taking a bite, he chewed and said, "Buddy, consider this the fee for the exorcism and the sponge bath."
Leaving Lu Yi's room, Tan Wenbin headed back to his own dorm. The moment he walked through the door, he saw Brother Xiaoyuan sitting square before the desk, leather crop in hand.
That gaze, that aura... *Tsk, tsk.* Tan Wenbin suddenly felt that the memory of his own father brandishing a leather belt looked downright saintly by comparison.
Binbin squatted to one side, ready to watch Brother Yuan conduct his interrogation.
Brother Yuan's line of sight was angled slightly upward, not fixed on the high-heeled shoes sitting on the desk. That meant there had to be something else on the desk, something invisible to ordinary eyes.
Scratching his head, Tan Wenbin desperately wanted to walk the yin path and take a look for himself.
Yet he knew Brother Yuan would never agree.
Brother Yuan was always warning them not to walk the yin path frequently unless they ran into an intractable problem and had no other choice.
Yet Brother Yuan himself snapped his fingers and slipped into the yin path whenever he pleased. Back in the day, he'd needed to take a nap while someone held him and counted down at his side, but now he could walk the yin path with his eyes wide open, handling both the yin and yang realms without missing a beat.
Tan Wenbin harbored no resentment about this. Ever since their first meeting, when Brother Yuan had finished every single exam paper on his desk in the brief time it took for his father to give him a beating, Tan Wenbin had realized the only real thing he and Brother Yuan had in common was that they both looked human.
Still, Brother Yuan seemed to have hit a snag. The interrogation appeared to have stalled.
Li Zhuiyuan spoke up. "Brother Binbin, burn paper and light a candle. Spread the sand to divine the path."
"Orders received!"
Burning paper and lighting a candle were straightforward enough, and spreading the sand to divine the path was essentially the same principle as consulting a spirit-of-the-pen.
Except Tan Wenbin had momentarily forgotten whether the ritual required a red candle or a white one.
Damn it. Ever since the college entrance exams, it felt as though he'd returned his entire brain to his alma mater.
Not only had he forgotten a good deal of his high school knowledge, but the "specialized material" he had memorized before was growing a bit hazy too.
Fortunately, Tan Wenbin had his ways.
First he placed a wooden tray on the desk, poured in the specially prepared white sand, and smoothed the surface with a ruler. Then, holding a red candle in his left hand and a white one in his right, he asked, "Brother Xiaoyuan, which direction should the candle go?"
Li Zhuiyuan looked first at Tan Wenbin's left hand, then shifted his gaze toward the southeast corner of the desk.
Got it. The white candle.
Once Tan Wenbin set it in place, he lit the wick.
Li Zhuiyuan took a sheet of yellow paper, set it alight, and waved it before himself.
Tan Wenbin brought over his ceramic drinking mug, intending to catch the paper ashes.
In the blink of an eye, however, Brother Yuan stood. His left hand darted forward, clamping shut before tugging downward; his right hand jabbed the burning yellow paper straight forward; and his left hand snapped upward to slap shut.
In an instant, the yellow paper was consumed, leaving only a wisp of blue smoke. Not a flake of black ash remained.
Tan Wenbin's eyes went wide. He realized that during the past six months when he'd been buried in exam preparation, Brother Yuan hadn't been idling either. Life back home had simply been too peaceful for anyone to notice how drastically Brother Yuan's skills had progressed.
In truth, if one looked from the perspective of the yin path, one would have seen the youth first pinch the spirit girl's jaw to pry her mouth open, shove the burning talisman paper inside, and slap her mouth shut.
Yellow paper served two primary functions: first to guide, and second to make an offering. Feeding it directly into her mouth was taking it straight to the stomach in one go.
Whether due to her unique nature or because she had been severely scorched by the black dog blood Tan Wenbin smeared on her earlier, the girl was incapable of spoken communication. She could only sit atop the desk, trembling and looking utterly pitiful.
Once the yellow paper was fed to her, the effects showed immediately.
The girl reached out on her own initiative and took hold of the pen resting on the sand tray, her expression resolute.
Li Zhuiyuan reached over to take the pen as well. But the moment the girl saw his hand extending toward her, the determination on her face collapsed in an instant, and she shrank back, hastily withdrawing her hand.
It was nothing else: her terror of the youth ran straight to her marrow.
To make transmission easier for future generations, the Twelve Methods of the Yin Family had been simplified across generations; by the time they reached Yin Fuhai, only the basic version remained.
To contemporary members of the Yin family, Li Zhuiyuan's reverse execution of Ferrying Across the Bridge would have seemed unthinkable. In reality, back at the peak of the Yin family ancestors, that was precisely how it had been done. Which meant that when the youth executed this technique, a faint shadow of Yin Changsheng's former bearing flickered through him.
And Yin Changsheng was widely regarded as the archetype of the Emperor of Fengdu.
Seeing that the girl was terrified of him, Li Zhuiyuan had no choice but to turn to Tan Wenbin, gesturing toward the pen on the sand tray.
Tan Wenbin caught the cue and reached out to grasp the pen. Seeing this, the girl reached out once more and gripped it alongside him.
*Hiss... so cold.*
Tan Wenbin felt as though a slab of ice had sealed over the back of his hand, numbing it instantly until all sensation vanished.
Finally, the pen began to move.
The nib was as fine as a strand of hair, and the surface of the white sand was as delicate as paper, capable of accommodating broad cursive or tiny, meticulous script alike.
The tip darted across the sand, leaving characters as small as flies. Li Zhuiyuan had to lean in close to read.
What she was writing were letters—letters that Ran Qiuping had written to her deceased daughter, Qiu Minmin.
In ordinary times, Ran Qiuping burned each letter after writing it. Only this pair of high-heeled shoes had been able to "see" them.
The contents of letter after letter were laid bare across the sand. Each time the surface filled, Li Zhuiyuan smoothed it out with the ruler so she could continue writing.
Beyond a mother's longing for her dead daughter, domestic ramblings, and occasional mentions of taking out her frustration on Sun Hongxia, one name appeared repeatedly: Mao Zhushan.
Sometimes she addressed him as Master Mao, sometimes Celestial Master Mao, and at times even Young Mao or Handsome Mao. Their relationship seemed close enough that she appeared to consider him a future son-in-law.
Yet there was a dark side as well. In other letters, Ran Qiuping cursed him as a fraud, a bastard, and a beast.
The shifting forms of address and volatile moods all revolved around one central theme running unbroken through the letters: resurrection.
The moment he saw that theme, Li Zhuiyuan knew Ran Qiuping had been duped.
In the preface to the first volume of *Jianghu Zhiguai Lu*, Wei Zhengdao had written a single, abrupt sentence: *The dead cannot return to life.*
That sentence had neither an antecedent nor a follow-up, standing entirely as a paragraph of its own.
Every dead-flipper described in the pages that followed served to elucidate and prove that single truth: a dead-flipper was not the person who had once lived.
In the letters, whenever the resurrection plan appeared to be progressing smoothly, Ran Qiuping's tone toward Mao Zhushan was warmly affectionate, even musing about introducing him to her daughter once she was brought back. But every time Mao Zhushan claimed the plan had to be postponed or had run into complications, Ran Qiuping flew into a rage, her writing spiraling into hysterical fury.
On this point, Li Zhuiyuan's judgment had been entirely correct.
Both Sun Hongxia and Ran Qiuping were merely playthings manipulated and made fools of by someone else. Their minds and views of the world had long since warped beyond reason.
The girl wrote rapidly, and Li Zhuiyuan read just as swiftly. From the details scattered between the lines, he caught another clue: the General Temple, kept secret from the old master.
Piecing this together with his own on-site investigation, a clear branch of the narrative unraveled before him.
After Qiu Minmin died, Ran Qiuping was devastated by grief. She then crossed paths with Mao Zhushan, the apprentice to the corpse retriever at the General Temple—the very young man Li Zhuiyuan had seen comforting Ran Qiuping in the temple that day.
Mao Zhushan promised to help Ran Qiuping resurrect Qiu Minmin, after which Qiu Minmin became a dead-flipper, frequently haunting the dance studio on the second floor of the Student Activity Center.
During that time, Sun Hongxia, manipulated and brainwashed by Ran Qiuping, acted out of guilt to keep watch and provide cover.
In the recent letters, repeated mentions appeared that "the date is drawing near," signaling that Mao Zhushan's scheme was approaching its final stages.
This certainly did not refer to resurrecting Qiu Minmin for Ran Qiuping; it had to be Mao Zhushan's own agenda.
Yet right at this critical juncture, Runsheng and Yin Meng had arrived carrying corpse-retrieval gear, and Ran Qiuping, managing the dorm building, had likely spotted the gear belonging to Li Zhuiyuan and Tan Wenbin when they moved their luggage in.
Having seen similar equipment with Mao Zhushan and his master, she must have reported it, assuming their secret was exposed and that outside corpse retrievers had gathered here to sabotage their plans.
In her most recent letter, Ran Qiuping had written about this to her daughter. She described the four of them in detail, telling her daughter not to be afraid, that a mother would help her deal with them, and that no one would stop her darling daughter from returning to her side.
Once the letters were finished, the girl ceased writing.
Li Zhuiyuan also realized that the girl was not part of Ran Qiuping's faction. She appeared to be a yin spirit native to this dorm building, or at least to this cluster of buildings.
Ran Qiuping's letters made no specific mention of her existence, save for a single passing line in one letter:
*Minmin, today Mama found a beautiful pair of high-heeled shoes in the dorm. I don't know who left them behind, so Mama will just take them as a birthday present from you.*
Finding an exquisite, well-preserved pair of women's high heels in a men's dormitory was decidedly out of place.
Yet it wasn't impossible to explain. Some male student might have bought them for a girlfriend, or perhaps someone with peculiar tastes wanted to wear them himself.
And so the girl had attached herself to Ran Qiuping.
The reason was simple: prolonged contact with Qiu Minmin—even if the dead-flipper was her own daughter—would inevitably deplete a person's fortune, making them vulnerable to spirit afflictions.
Then had the sound of high heels he heard on their first night been an advance warning, because she knew Ran Qiuping was targeting them?
No, that wasn't it.
Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. It wasn't that he refused to admit an error of "returning kindness with hostility"; rather, based on his experience, there was simply no need to overly anthropomorphize such entities.
She had likely been bored and lonely, looking to torment people for amusement.
On that first night, she had tried to approach him, only to be scared off.
Tonight, taking advantage of his absence from the dorm, she had gone to play with Lu Yi instead, reducing him to that state.
True, Lu Yi hadn't died, but when an ordinary person was targeted by an evil spirit, the mildest consequence was nervous exhaustion, terrible luck, and illness; at worst, unable to endure the torment, they might jump straight from the building.
Lu Yi was lucky to have crossed paths with him and Tan Wenbin. Otherwise, he might have ended up as a campus ghost story shared among younger students after lights-out:
"Hey, did you hear? A senior in our club said an upperclassman who used to live on this floor jumped to his death wearing a pair of women's high heels..."
Li Zhuiyuan picked up the leather crop and laid it across Tan Wenbin's hand. The girl flinched and immediately yanked her hand back.
"That's enough."
Hearing this, Tan Wenbin jerked his arm back as well, tucking his frozen hand inside his shirt in an attempt to warm it with his body heat. But almost instantly he cried out, "Ow, ow, ow!" and pulled it out again—the cold was so intense his body couldn't bear it.
"Brother Binbin, apply black dog blood."
The symptom was merely an illusion. The girl had no physical form; how could she truly inflict frostbite on a person's hand?
Tan Wenbin reached into his pocket at once, only to look sheepish. His container of inkpaste had dropped to the floor and spilled earlier; he couldn't very well run out right now to beg Xiao Hei for more blood.
"Brother Xiaoyuan, my inkpaste..."
Li Zhuiyuan reached into his pocket, pressed his index finger into the paste, and drew a talisman across the back of Tan Wenbin's hand.
"*Hiss*... oh, that's good~"
The hand that felt frozen solid thawed instantly, the rush of relief so sweet it felt like stepping into a spring meadow.
Tan Wenbin stumbled backward several paces and landed flat on his backside, yet a wide grin remained plastered across his face.
The sharp reversal in sensory perception had produced a floating, euphoric high.
Had Li Zhuiyuan held the pen himself, he would have felt no more than a faint chill on the back of his hand. Yet given the exact same stimulus, different people could experience worlds of difference.
Still, since the girl dared not hold his hand, only Binbin had been able to step up.
In old tales of the strange, an elderly Daoist or monk was often accompanied by a young disciple. Strictly speaking, the generational gap in transmission made such direct mentorship unnecessary.
The primary reason was that certain methods and techniques were inconvenient for someone with profound cultivation and unyielding will to perform personally.
For instance, spirit invocation appeared across all manner of occult traditions. The higher one's cultivation, the harder it was to summon a spirit down, because the summoned entity feared being swallowed or bound. Conversely, someone who had merely entered the gate, lacked deep attainment, and possessed robust physical vitality found it far easier to succeed.
Tan Wenbin finally recovered his senses and stood up.
"Brother Binbin, how are you feeling?"
"I'm fine, all back to normal," Tan Wenbin replied with a solemn face. He couldn't very well admit that he'd actually enjoyed the sensation.
"Mm."
"What was she writing just now?" Although he had held the pen, the script was so fine and dense that he hadn't managed to read it clearly.
Li Zhuiyuan gave a brief summary. Once he heard it, Tan Wenbin said, "Then it's confirmed they plotted the ambush against us. Let's stick to the plan: go up Jiangjun Mountain tomorrow night and demand an explanation!"
"When they struck, they were aiming to take Brother Runsheng's life. They didn't ask us for explanations."
Tan Wenbin swallowed hard, then nodded vigorously, clenching both fists. "Right! Finish them off!"
Once the big boss set the tone, a subordinate could only add fuel to the fire, never douse it.
Tan Wenbin still remembered the sight of the dwarf father and son's mangled remains floating in the river, and even more vividly remembered Brother Yuan's resolve the night before, willing to blind himself just to take his revenge.
Ever since then, every time he called him "Brother," it was loaded with genuine respect.
Whoever truly pissed off Brother Yuan would have their family treated to a funeral banquet—the kind where the tables were laid out and not a single soul was left alive to sit down and eat.
Even so, following a leader like this meant never having to swallow a single drop of grievance.
Li Zhuiyuan looked toward the girl on the desk. "Are your remains nearby?"
The girl nodded.
"When I graduate and leave this school, I will find your remains and help release your soul. In the meantime, you'd better behave yourself, or I will seal you away directly to accumulate merit."
The girl nodded again.
Li Zhuiyuan picked up the teacup on the desk, looked inside, and saw it was empty; Tan Wenbin had just drained the last of the water.
"Oh, right here, right here!" Tan Wenbin immediately grabbed the thermos to pour more.
Li Zhuiyuan touched the rim with his fingertip, hesitated, and shook his head. "Brother Binbin, fetch some cold water."
"Sure thing, Brother. Hang on."
Tan Wenbin took the cup, dumped out the hot water, stepped outside to fill it from the cold tap, and placed it back into the youth's hand.
Afterward, Binbin stood to the side, observing with keen interest.
He had always loved watching Brother Yuan work his methods. Whether he could ever learn them was one thing, but before going to sleep at night, he could at least fantasize about cutting such a dashing figure himself.
The youth dipped his fingertips into the cup repeatedly, flicking water droplets toward the girl.
Twelve Methods of the Yin Family: Water Prison Confinement.
That night on Ghost Street in Fengdu, when Yin Fuhai taught Li Zhuiyuan, he had introduced this technique as a means to "draw a prison on the ground" around oneself when assaulted by an evil spirit, temporarily ensuring one's safety.
That was another reason Li Zhuiyuan hadn't spent much time hunting for books in Great-Grandpa's basement over the past six months: he had learned the Twelve Methods of the Yin Family twice over.
In terms of sheer technical caliber, the Twelve Methods of the Yin Family were in no way inferior to the secret arts of the Qin and Liu families, yet their descendants had watered them down into something resembling a children's primer.
With every drop of water that struck her, the girl let out a shrill scream, as though molten iron had been poured over a living person.
Under Li Zhuiyuan's sharp glare, however, she didn't dare utter another sound.
Gradually, water began seeping from her skin in web-like patterns.
Finally, Li Zhuiyuan threw the remaining water from the cup over her all at once. The girl completely came undone, but just as she was about to shriek, the youth's finger pressed against the center of her forehead.
In that split second, her expression froze, as if locked in place.
The youth reached out, patted her arm, and whispered, "Return."
With a splash, Tan Wenbin watched a great puddle of water suddenly crash onto the desk before being sucked entirely into the pair of high heels.
"Brother Binbin."
"Yeah?"
"Rinse the shoes, put them in an open box, and place them under the balcony."
"On it."
Tan Wenbin walked over and picked up the high heels. To his surprise, despite all the water that had rushed into them, the inside remained bone dry.
Only the shoe surfaces still bore the traces of black dog blood he had smeared on earlier.
Li Zhuiyuan began tidying the desk. His sealing method had been somewhat harsh, but he didn't feel he had crossed any lines. If he hadn't possessed the skills he did, the one dancing possessed in high heels on their first night might well have been him.
Lu Yi would only have become a campus ghost story, whereas Li Zhuiyuan would likely have ended up in the newspapers: *Child Prodigy and Top Scorer Suffers Mental Breakdown: A Warning Against Forcing Premature Growth*.
Furthermore, since he intended to keep her as a watchdog pair of shoes, he was obligated to keep her under control. If she caused any further trouble after being tied to his karma, the Heavenly Dao would certainly pull out an abacus and tally the debt against him.
He was also exploiting a blind spot in the Heavenly Dao here. Lu Yi had only suffered a minor disturbance; as for what sins she had committed before or how many people she had driven to ruin, he didn't know and hadn't asked. Ignorance was no crime.
"Phew..."
By the time the desk was cleared, Tan Wenbin had washed the shoes and returned. He meant to wipe them dry with paper, only to find the surface dry already.
"Brother Xiaoyuan, it looks really thirsty."
"Whenever you have time later, pour a little water on them."
Tan Wenbin blinked. "Uh, Brother, you're not kidding?"
"I'm serious. Treat it like watering a plant."
"Got it." Tan Wenbin wrapped them in a black plastic bag and set them under the balcony. Straightening up, he looked around and chuckled. "Our dorm feels safe as a fortress now. It'd almost be a pity if a thief didn't try to break in."
"Mm."
It was certainly far safer than before, though it still couldn't compare to Great-Grandpa's house back home.
Back then, even Uncle Qin had served as a security guard at Great-Grandpa's place.
Li Zhuiyuan picked up his washbasin, and Tan Wenbin quickly grabbed his own. "Let's go, let's go, wash up together, wash up together."
After they both showered, Li Zhuiyuan climbed into bed.
Tan Wenbin was in no rush to sleep; he still had to recite his texts at the desk later. But before that, he walked over to the wooden stool, turned the bronze mirror around to face the door, and activated the ward.
Once that was done, he squatted beside the stool, examining the bronze mirror closely.
"Brother Xiaoyuan, could you make one of these bronze mirrors for me too? It looks really nice."
"I didn't make it."
"Huh? Is it a real antique?"
"Mm. A six-mountain-pattern bronze mirror."
"Whoa." Tan Wenbin let out an admiring gasp, then switched to the mindset of an ordinary person trying to grasp antiques. "How much is it worth?"
"I don't know."
"Uh, Brother Xiaoyuan, give me a rough estimate."
"An identical one is kept in the National Museum."
Tan Wenbin: "..."
Tan Wenbin pulled his face back, terrified his breath might tarnish it.
"Brother Xiaoyuan, where did you scrounge this up?"
"A return gift from someone."
"Good heavens! Then what did you give them in return?"
"Recite your texts. I'm going to sleep."
"Oh, right."
Li Zhuiyuan adjusted his pillow and closed his eyes.
The bronze mirror was a return gift from Ah Li. And on that morning, what he had given Ah Li was a cheap travel Go set with a board made of plastic sheeting, bought from a stationery shop next to Shinan Town Primary School.
When he woke, Li Zhuiyuan opened his eyes and habitually turned his head, seeing Tan Wenbin sprawled over the desk, snoring away.
Binbin had apparently stayed up all night memorizing everything just to prove he was smarter than Yin Meng; after all, he could catch up on sleep during the day.
In truth, Yin Meng wasn't stupid, but she couldn't match Runsheng in physical cultivation, nor could she keep pace with Tan Wenbin in learning occult arts and walking the yin path. The three of them had teased her into being labeled the slowest of the bunch.
Li Zhuiyuan sat up from the bed. Every morning, he would look out the window and silently wonder when Grandma Liu and the others would move over.
If he couldn't see Ah Li soon, he didn't know whether her condition would keep improving, but his own condition felt like it was about to deteriorate.
He stepped out of the dorm to wash up.
Lu Yi came over carrying a washbasin as well.
Li Zhuiyuan: "Morning."
"Morning, Prodigy Brother."
Lu Yi hesitated several times as if wanting to speak. Li Zhuiyuan noticed, but chose neither to point it out nor to initiate the conversation.
In truth, Lu Yi's ordeal the night before might also have stemmed from paying respects to that dead-flipper during the day. Even though Li Zhuiyuan had instructed him to accept an offering in return, some residual taint had likely lingered.
Not everyone who bowed before the general's statue suffered misfortune, but their luck would dip as a result, and Lu Yi happened to reside in a dorm building harboring an evil spirit.
When Li Zhuiyuan finished washing his face and turned to leave with his basin, Lu Yi reached out, gently tugging at the boy's sleeve with two fingers.
A strapping northeastern man standing six-foot-one was suddenly exuding the shy demureness of a southern belle.
"It's... well... that... Prodigy Brother... does our dorm building really have a ghost?"
"No. I was lying to you."
"Ah!" Lu Yi's voice instantly cracked into a wail. "Prodigy Brother, save me, I beg you, save me!"
If Li Zhuiyuan had maintained that there was indeed a ghost, Lu Yi might have felt better. Flatly denying it felt like a doctor telling a patient, *Go home and eat whatever you like.*
"You're fine now, truly."
"Prodigy Brother, Brother, you're my real brother!"
Seeing Lu Yi cling persistently, Li Zhuiyuan had no choice but to say, "Go buy a pack of cigarettes and offer red sausage as tribute. Leave them on the balcony for three days, and you'll be fine."
"Thank you, thank you! Prodigy Brother, you're incredible! That ghost really does love red sausage!"
Returning to the dorm, Li Zhuiyuan began reading, though not any mentally taxing tome; he reopened Wei Zhengdao's *Jianghu Zhiguai Lu*.
He had a faint premonition that the dead-flipper encountered this time had some unique quality. Unfortunately, he had too little information about the corpse beneath the general's statue to make a definitive judgment.
In the afternoon, just as Tan Wenbin woke and climbed out of bed, Yin Meng arrived.
Tan Wenbin glanced at her and said casually, "Finished memorizing? We've just been waiting on you."
Yin Meng rolled her eyes at him.
Li Zhuiyuan asked, "How is Brother Runsheng?"
"Runsheng is recovering very well. He didn't clamor to come along either."
"Good. Grab the gear; let's head out."
They had two large bags, mostly filled with formation flags—not the small flags used for door wards, but large ritual banners.
Jiangjun Mountain boasted fine scenery, but because it had not yet been developed as a tourist attraction, few people came here.
Outside the General Temple, Li Zhuiyuan selected two locations, assigning Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng to set up arrays respectively. The layouts were already mapped in their minds; all they needed to do was follow the pattern.
By the time they finished, night had fallen.
The three of them sat behind an earthen mound before the temple gates, eating biscuits and drinking water they had brought along to steady their condition.
"I scouted from high ground earlier. There are no visitors left in the temple, and the only staff on duty today are that master and apprentice.
"I didn't see Ran Qiuping; she might be hiding in the office, but she's secondary.
"Once we go in, we deal with the old man first and lure him out into the array."
Based on available information, Mao Zhushan was the mastermind behind everything. Judging from the restrained, hushed conversation between him and Ran Qiuping that day, he had most likely acted behind his master's back.
Yet Li Zhuiyuan couldn't be bothered to run in and play whistleblower or reason with the master. He would never pin his hopes on an old man cleaning up his own sect; he chose the most reliable method, which was to take down the old man first.
Right then, a white sedan drove up to the entrance of the General Temple, and three people stepped out.
Tan Wenbin: "Huh? Why are they here?"
The arrivals were Wu Xinhui, Zhu Hongyu, and Liu Xinya—the three eyewitnesses from Zhao Junfeng's case years ago.
The moment they stepped out of the car, they began arguing, seemingly at odds over coming here.
Zhu Hongyu raised her hand and slapped Wu Xinhui across the face. Wu Xinhui countered with a punch, knocking her flat to the ground.
Liu Xinya, standing beside them with folded arms, made no move to intervene.
Scrambling up from the dirt, Zhu Hongyu lunged forward with a shriek, clawing at her husband's face. The couple devolved into a brawling heap beside the car.
Yin Meng was about to ask, "What do we do now?" when Tan Wenbin shot her a look, signaling her to keep quiet and take her cues from Xiaoyuan.
Li Zhuiyuan was in no hurry to make a call. Night had only just fallen, and the hours ahead were long.
The commotion outside the gates was so loud that someone finally emerged from the General Temple: Ran Qiuping.
She fell to her knees before the three of them, bitterly pleading for something.
The trio ceased their brawl and smoothed down their clothes.
Soon, however, as words were exchanged, their tempers flared once more. Wu Xinhui even grabbed Ran Qiuping by the collar, shouting demanding questions.
Ran Qiuping only pleaded, shaking her head frantically.
By all logic, Ran Qiuping should have been on excellent terms with these three. After all, it was thanks to their eyewitness testimony that the killer of her daughter, Qiu Minmin, had been caught.
Suddenly, Li Zhuiyuan's ears twitched. He spoke at once: "Guixiang net."
Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng immediately spread the net, draping it over the three of them.
A moment later, crunching footsteps drifted from ahead.
Sun Hongxia emerged step by step from a sloping path below, so she failed to spot the three people concealed behind her.
Tan Wenbin was initially puzzled as to why Sun Hongxia was no longer behaving crazily and had become so quiet. But he soon noticed that her hands, the nape of her neck, and her ankles were caked in pitch-black mud.
After Sun Hongxia walked down, a faceless woman emerged from the spot behind her. Her body was pitted and scarred, still dripping black blood and giving off a foul, putrid stench: Qiu Minmin.
Though separated by some distance, her every movement mirrored Sun Hongxia's exactly.
Gradually, a thin wall of mud formed in front of Qiu Minmin, shielding her from view.
Yin Meng had an epiphany. So that was how she had vanished without a trace in the dance studio.
Thus, in the eyes of the four people down below, only Sun Hongxia had walked out. Reaching the group, she fell to her knees with a heavy thud.
"My son is guilty, my son is guilty... I failed to raise my son well, I am guilty too, I am guilty too..."
Now the trio—Wu Xinhui and the two women—found themselves flanked by two elderly women kneeling before them, one in front and one behind.
At that moment, Mao Zhushan stepped out from the temple gates. He said a few words, then gestured inside, apparently inviting everyone to enter.
Wu Xinhui and the others seemed swayed and walked into the temple. Ran Qiuping kicked the wooden, unmoving Sun Hongxia, then reached back to wrap an arm around the Qiu Minmin who should have been invisible.
In the end, they all went inside.
Li Zhuiyuan said, "Let's head in too. Looks like there's a good show to watch tonight."
Chapter 79