Guo Changcheng was a bit dispirited. He looked like the unfortunate homeless who livedovernight in the waiting hall of the train stations. When he climbed into the driver’s cabin, in ChuShuzhi’s mind, there was only the word “a mess” to describe him.
“You didn’t find her?” Chu Shuzhi asked despite the obvious.
Guo Changcheng solemnly nodded.
Chu Shuzhi fell silent for a moment, then tentatively asked: “But there’s also the possibility that Ithought wrongly. They might have taken the train, or stayed in the district for a while. How aboutwe go back first?”
Guo Changcheng quietened for a while. Staying up through the night made his alreadynot-so-bright mind seem a bit slow, and then he roughly rubbed his face and quietly said: “I’msorry Chu ge, how about… how about you drive back first. I’ll wait until I find them, then I’ll get acab back by myself.”
“Get a cab? You squatting here overnight, are you planning to freeze to death outside?” ChuShuzhi thought about it, then said, “You don’t have to worry. Despite agreeing to the words ofthe ghost it doesn’t matter. It’s just an Earthbound spirit with hardly any abilities. I can stillstraighten them up.”
Guo Chancheng still stubbornly shook his head. He had just planned on pushing open the cardoor and getting out. Right in the moment when he had his back turned toward Chu Shuzhi, thehand that Chu Shuzhi had kept tucked in his pocket all this time suddenly shot out, and with a“smack”, stuck a sheet of a seal on the collar at the back of Guo Changcheng’s neck.
“What are you? Why are you attached to a person’s body?” Chu Shuzhi coldly asked.
In that moment, Guo Changcheng felt that his own four limbs seemed to be suddenly weigheddown with lead. He wanted to turn his head to ask Chu Shuzhi what was going on, but his neckbecame rigidly straight, and couldn’t twist no matter what.
His conscious soul seemed to float out of his body. From a third perspective, he looked at hisown laughable body and Chu Shuzhi, with a hostile expression, behind him. Chu Shuzhi’sbrows were furrowed, his head raised to look at Guo Changcheng’s spirit floating in mid-air–that was definitely a mortal’s soul, and it was 100% compatible with the body, without a singlefault.
Or you could say that the spirit that he smacked out with a seal was truly Guo Changchenghimself.
“So, you are indeed Guo Changcheng?”
Guo Changcheng floated in the air and wanted to say: “Chu ge what are you doing.”
But he opened his mouth, and seemed like the mute button was pressed on him……no, it wasliterally like he entered an air-tight realm where sound could not travel. He made a noise, butcould only hear his own voice through his body; it left his mouth but couldn’t spread out at all.
At that moment, Chu Shuzhi reached out with a hand and removed the seal on GuoChangcheng’s body. Guo Changcheng felt a huge rush of pressure, and an emaciated handdirectly pushed down on his soul. That kind of feeling was very strange. Guo Changchengcouldn’t help but shudder, and then in an instant, that kind of floating feeling from before wasgone and his body was weighted down so much that he was a bit unused to it. GuoChangcheng shakily turned his head around, and straightaway was met with Chu Shuzhi’sanalytical gaze.
Guo Changcheng just had a bit of a slower reaction time. Right now, he also understood thatjust then his soul had left his body, and in his understanding, “soul leaving the body” and “death”didn’t have much of a difference—In other words, Chu Shuzhi nearly smacked him to death withthat single sheet of a seal.
Guo Changcheng cowered into himself, with his back tightly pressed against the other side ofthe car door in somewhat terror. With his heartbeat at the top of his throat, he weakly asked:“Chu-Chu ge, this-what does this mean…”
“Are you human?” Chu Shuzhi asked.
Guo Changcheng looked at him, staring without knowing what to say. He didn’t know what kindof question that was, feeling as though he did something so horrible, so unreasonable andunacceptable by the world to the point where someone would yell at him and say he’s “nothuman”. But after mentally recounting in detail for a moment, he realized that did not occur atall. Surely, he couldn’t have committed crimes in his dreams?
“Let me say it like this, do you have any recollection of your parents?”
Guo Changcheng nodded.
“Sorry, I know what went on in your family, you are grieving too,” Chu Shuzhi apologized withoutan ounce of sincerity. “But I must get this problem clear, are your parents your biologicalparents? How can you prove those are your biological parents?”
Chu Shuzhi was a person without a particularly high emotional intelligence, specifically shown inhow he didn’t actually know how to properly talk in a civilized manner. Sometimes, heconsidered himself very high-and-mighty, and was too lazy to speak.
If this question was given to Zhao Yunlan instead, if one dared to give him attitude on the spot, itwouldn’t even be strange for him to have given them a hard smack. But Guo Changcheng wasonly a softie, after hearing this sentence, he only felt a bit unsettled in his heart, but didn’t haveeven the slightest expression of losing his temper. He even thought about it in detail, replying inall seriousness: “My uncle, my grandfather when he was young, and I looked especially similar.My paternal grandfather had slightly high blood pressure, which he passed down to my dad.Right now, I have some slight early signs of high blood pressure… I feel like they should be mybirth parents.”
“Then have you had any ancestors that practiced monasticism?”
“Ancestors?” Guo Changcheng paused, stunned. “I don’t know what my ancestors did, I canonly think back to 3 generations ago, at the most go up to the time of the SecondSino-Japanese War. No one knows the events that preceded that.”
Chu Shuzhi did not linger on this issue—even if Guo Changcheng’s ancestry really did havesome kind of special blood, the last three generations had all been mortal humans, so the extentthat the blood had thinned to was obvious, and was not the defining factor… Then the lastpossibility was that he was some person’s reincarnation.
But that was just a normal mortal’s soul, even with the eyesight of the Corpse King, he still wasnot able to see anything that was different or unusual.
Right at this moment, the lights of a bus swept over from the opposite side of the road. GuoChangcheng grabbed right onto Chu Shuzhi’s arm: “Chu ge, bus! Bus!”
Chu Shuzhi hesitated, and let go of his suspicions for the moment: “Alright, off you go.”
Guo Changcheng, as though suddenly relieved from immense pressure, clumsily half-fell,half-rolled out and ran off. Who knew why there would be such a coincidence, a bus that camefrom the province the girl was from just passed by, and this bus was the same again. GuoChangcheng waved his hand to stop it. He hopped on the bus and showed off his ID to thedriver, and then used a voice identical to that of a news reporter to regurgitate the lines that hememorized to request to check the passengers within the bus.
Sometimes during the annual New Year’s there would also be the occasional random checks.The driver was especially calm and turned his head around to yell at the fully packed bus full ofpassengers: “Everyone wake up! Wake up! Could everyone cooperate for a moment, they’rechecking IDs!”
Chu Shuzhi originally sat a long way away in the car, but at this moment for some unknownreason there was a twinge in his heart. Many people who practice monasticism would havethese kinds of feelings. He got out of the car and walked over, just in time to see a small and thin young girl about 15 or 16 years of age as she followed behind Guo Changcheng and exitedthe bus. She wore athletic sportswear clothes, with her head almost lowered down to her chest.
Chu Shuzhi: “She’s the one?”
Guo Changcheng nodded, and even added a sentence: “The person who took her away is stillon the bu-.”
His words hadn’t settled in the air when they heard a single “bang” sound. A person jumped offthe bus and ran off. Actually, there were hardly any evidence if you were to say he kidnappedand sold off young girls. After all, the girl was sitting nicely on the bus, and followed the personout of her own free will. But it was most likely that that person did something to be ashamed of.As soon as he heard those words he panicked, not even stopping to carefully choose his path.
Who would’ve known that he didn’t even run two steps before he suddenly tripped oversomething underfoot, and he randomly fell over spectacularly. That person picked himself upand attempted to continue running, after two more steps he randomly fell over spectacularlyagain. He fell thrice and only then did Chu Shuzhi, the unprofessional ‘civilian’ who was slowlywandering over, haul him up by the collar, seizing him and clasping an ice cold object onto hiswrists.
…Of course, because of the extraordinary nature of the job, the Corpse King never usedhandcuffs, and because he wasn’t familiar with this handcuffing business, he almost didn’t claspit on properly.
As Chu Shuzhi turned his head around, he just happened to see Guo Changcheng standing tothe side as he spoke softly to the girl, saying that she should not have ran away from home onher own accord. At the same time, he had forgotten the girl’s mother had already turned into aghost. He dialed back the phone number from earlier: “Hello Auntie, don’t worry, your child hasbeen found. Tomorrow I’ll find someone to help send her back.”
He finished talking, naturally handing the phone to the young girl: “Because of you, your motherlost her mind in desperation, calling me in the middle of the night to beg me to find you. Saysomething to her.”
The young girl was right in the middle of the rebellious stage. To her, even though sherecognized him, Guo Changcheng was only a little teacher playmate who came to assist withteaching in the summer holidays during middle school. Her attitude wasn’t particularly goodeither way, with a very ‘couldn’t care less’ and not submitting to discipline look. GuoChangcheng nagged on and on and said a long string of things that likely went right out herother ear, until she heard that sentence and her entire being froze.
The girl abruptly lifted her head and looked at Guo Changcheng, as though she wanted to yellan accusation of “you’re a liar” towards him, but the sentence reached her mouth without a single word leaving it, and as though guided by a ghost or spirit, she unconsciously took thephone with her two trembling hands: “…Hello?”
The person on the other end of the line fell silent for a while, the familiar accent of thecountryside once again reaching the ears of a loved one through radio waves, across the twodichotomies of light and dark. She really did hear her late mother’s familiar tone in the phone:“Cui-er.”
The daughter’s tears suddenly came down with a ‘whoosh’: “Mom!”
In the phone, her mother said: “Don’t cry, Cui-er, don’t cry. Listen to Teacher Guo’s words. Comeback tomorrow, ok. You went so far, Mom can’t keep up with you. I panic within my heart when Ican’t see you…”
The young girl who wore an old school uniform finally stood at the entrance of the main roadthat led into Dragon City. Pained wailing that could not be described in words resounded withinthe entrancing scenery of the nighttime.
Chu Shuzhi was not good at dealing with that kind of situation. He originally wanted to grab theperson and leave first, and subconsciously glanced towards Guo Changcheng once more, buthe saw the shining “fire light” within the heaviness of that merit once again.
The “fire light” seemed to be even brighter. There was a split second where Chu Shuzhi thoughtsomething on Guo Changcheng’s body was lit aflame. He firmly rubbed his eyes and when helooked again, it had already gone and disappeared.
Fire light….
In spite of Da Qing having mentioned before that that was the great merit from heaven whenNuwa created man, Chu Shuzhi couldn’t help having some negative thoughts. He finally couldn’thold back any longer and pulled out his phone, dialing Zhao Yunlan’s phone number again–Chu Shuzhi already called it a few times when he was waiting in the car for Guo Changcheng.Those few times were all “in an out of service area”, but only this time, that turned into “phonehas been turned off”.
Did this mean Zhao Yunlan had already returned?
Chu Shuzhi couldn’t resist lighting a cigarette, and felt as though he had become softer. As soonas he thought of this, he suddenly had a bit of an idea.
On this night, they guarded the entrance of the highway until 4:30AM, virtually pulling anall-nighter. In Shen Wei’s memories, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan also wandered the whole night.
At the top of Mount Penglai, after Shen Wei finished asking, he didn’t wait for Zhao Yunlan toreply, but immediately said: “I won’t allow you to think about it, you must answer me now.”
Zhao Yunlan paused, raising his head to look into Shen Wei’s eyes. After a long while, hereached out a hand to grasp onto Shen Wei’s wrist: “How much longer can the Great Seal lastfor? Are the remaining days enough for me, this tiny mortal, to live through half my life, nursemy aging parents, and send them off?”
In that moment, Shen Wei almost didn’t understand what he meant. Shen Wei’s face wassnow-white, and his lips were also the same. The only tiniest bit of color all seemed to gather inthe blood vessels of his eyes. His mind was completely empty with nothing in it. There were onlythe two answers that he himself had spoken, continuously looping back and forth in his mind.
As for one of the two sentences that Zhao Yunlan didn’t voice out straightaway, it completelysurpassed Shen Wei’s comprehension ability. He didn’t realize what Zhao Yunlan had said for amoment.
Who knew how much time had passed before Shen Wei clutched onto Zhao Yunlan’s shoulderand half crouched down, as if just awakening from a dream: “What… you-you say it clearer,what do you mean?”
Zhao Yunlan touched his hair, reached out with a hand to stroke the top of it for a bit: “Yourheart is so heavy. Your schemes are also so heavy…. Ah, you’re really hard to raise. Let’s go,we’re going home.”
Shen Wei’s eyes widened and stared intensely at him for a second. Suddenly, he lungedforward, and swept him up into his arms in one movement. Then, in a rush of spinning skies androlling earth, Zhao Yunlan felt a familiar touch underfoot. A crisp, sharp sound travelled to hisear; it seemed like one of them landed incorrectly and accidentally knocked off the little tea cupthat sat on the bedside table, and leftover water at the bottom of the cup spilled all over thefloor.
But no one paid any mind to it.
Shen Wei roughly pinned Zhao Yunlan on the bed, almost brutally ripping open his clothes.
“Hey, wait!” In one grab, Zhao Yunlan clasped onto Shen Wei’s hand, “I’m not drinking yourblood.”
“To me, it’s like receiving a mosquito bite.”
“What are you saying, that’s certainly not it for me.” Zhao Yunlan reached out with a hand andgave him a shove, then went to feel for the bedside lamp, but his two arms were rapidly cageddown.
Shen Wei licked his Adam’s apple. Zhao Yunlan let out a low sigh in somewhat impatience:“Enough, stop messing around.”
“Even if I dug out my entire heart, I still wouldn’t die straight away. At least I would live longerthan the Great Seal,” Shen Wei said lowly, his heated breaths brushing against Zhao Yunlan’scollarbones again and again, “Actually, at that time I thought about it. If I ripped out my heartand gave it to you, would the effect be a little better? I was just afraid it would really frighten you,so I only showed you the process of extracting blood.”
Zhao Yunlan fell silent for a while, then dryly said: “Much gratitude to you, for still rememberingthat I’m easily scared.”
Shen Wei nestled in closer and delicately kissed the corner of his mouth, the straight tip of hisnose rubbing this way and that on Zhao Yunlan’s face. His fingers were tangled with ZhaoYunlan’s, so that their half-naked bodies were tightly pressed together: “All of that was nothing…Yunlan, there’s only these few decades left. Let’s be like mortals and spend our lifetimetogether, ok?”
In the darkness before dawn, the gazes of the two met. Subsequently, it was like Shen Wei wasenchanted by it, and a kiss lightly landed on the other’s lips—landed and became an extremelygentle lingering kiss.
But Zhao Yunlan was not the slightest bit cooperative. After he came back to his senses, hesharply pulled away in the blink of an eye, a hand slipping inside Shen Wei’s clothes as heencircled his waist in both hands: “Spending a lifetime is very good, but I need to reclaim myposition as the man of the household.”
As he finished speaking, he clamped down around Shen Wei’s waist and lifted him towards theside, having planned to use the momentum to flip them over and push him down, then… nothinghappened.
That person completely seemed as though he weighed thousands of kilograms. Zhao Yunlanremembered that he had clearly lifted Shen Wei up before; he definitely had the weight of anormal human, one where he was able to lift with two hands!
Didn’t you fucking say to be like a mortal? Was it really necessary to pick on a mortal like this!
The moral of this story informed us that despite being covered in sheep’s skin—even if thesheep’s skin was capable of blushing—it still couldn’t change the fact that he was intrinsically awolf.
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