Chapter 138

The book caught fire.

Li Zhuiyuan did not rush to put it out. His first reaction was to wonder whether the Black Book was tricking him.

Then the boy immediately arrived at the answer: no, it was not.

Because he had only used it as an experiment, or more precisely, as a form of divination. But the arrow was already on the string. No matter what the result was, he would still continue down this path according to his own intentions.

So if it burned, that proved heaven’s secrets were tied to him.

If it did not burn and showed no reaction at all, then it would just mean superstition was nonsense, and he would simply say one more line about man triumphing over heaven before continuing anyway.

Either way, it would not affect his choice. Because of that, the book’s reaction now actually seemed more likely to be genuine.

That meant it truly did involve heaven’s secrets.

The fire kept burning. Li Zhuiyuan picked up the cup on his desk, but instead of pouring it over the book, he took a sip himself.

He knew how precious this evil book was, but he did not feel any particular heartache over it. If it really burned away, then so be it.

As it continued to burn, the flames finally began to die down.

Half the pages had been burned black. The cover and back had become badly wrinkled as well, but overall, it had survived.

As expected of something steeped in evil. Its life really was tough.

The boy then thought of a new way to use this book.

He could use it to probe heaven’s secrets in reverse.

The contest between him and the one setting the questions would not be limited to the fourth wave. It would likely continue from here on out. So whenever he had some new idea in the future, he could use this book for divination again and see whether it burned.

He reached out and flipped through the pages. Half were charred black, but quite a few of the remaining ones had only been yellowed by smoke.

Mm. Even if it could never recover, at the very least, it could probably burn one more time.

As for restoring it?

That was impossible. Absolutely impossible.

With something this evil, squeezing out whatever value it had was enough. One absolutely must not make deals with it, because every smug little victory might actually be part of the book’s scheme.

When speaking with the devil, you cannot hold a balancing scale. You can only hold a whip.

He wrapped it back up in its seal and shoved it under the bed.

Li Zhuiyuan picked up a rag and wiped down the desk, then refilled his cup with hot water.

After thinking for a moment, he opened the drawer again, took out the empty can, and set it on the desk.

He hesitated over whether to paste a label on it, but that did not seem appropriate. So instead, he tore off two sheets of paper and folded them into a square tray, placed it in the corner of the desk, set the can inside it, and then took a fountain pen from the pen holder and put that in as well.

That way, there would be no need for any special explanation, and Tan Wenbin and Lin Shuyou would not mistake it for trash and throw it away.

He reached up and touched his face.

The reason he did not want to explain was that he found the matter a little embarrassing to explain.

So he already had this kind of emotion now?

The old him would probably have thought that sort of thinking... no, that kind of behavior, collecting an empty can, was truly childish and stupid.

What was unfortunate was that this matter was still tied to Ah Li. He had long known that being with Ah Li eased his condition and made the Human-skin cursed object grow.

He just did not know when that emotion would finally break free of the boundaries of Ah Li and begin spreading outward to other people, or even outward from himself as the center.

That did not mean the boy wanted to part from Ah Li. Rather, only by walking farther and more boldly into the world himself could he hold the girl’s hand and lead her forward better.

Putting those thoughts away, Li Zhuiyuan began working from the practical suggestions Tan Wenbin had given earlier and drew up a more detailed plan for what came next.

Plans truly could not keep up with change, but that did not mean planning was useless. At the very least, it let his companions clearly understand the goal. It could also use the written plan to show them the direction of thought, so that even if changes came and the plan itself became worthless, they would still know what direction to apply their initiative in instead of turning into headless flies.

Li Zhuiyuan kept writing until dusk. He anticipated many possible accidents and added a great deal of his own thinking.

Lin Shuyou returned from class, opened the dorm room door, and saw Brother Yuanhou writing something. He did not dare disturb him, so he silently sat down at Tan Wenbin’s desk and started reciting his own study materials.

It was just that having Brother Yuanhou sitting nearby felt like having a proctor standing beside you during an exam and staring at you the whole time.

When Lin Shuyou saw that the time was about right, he simply grabbed his things and fled to the evening self-study classroom.

That night, Tan Wenbin came back, and Li Zhuiyuan was still writing. Tan Wenbin stood at his side and watched for a while before sitting down on his own bed.

He was holding a very large document envelope. Inside were three wanted notices.

Besides that, there were also three investigation files.

The former had been taken from his father’s bureau. The latter he had put together himself, rather roughly, offering only a general line of thought.

It was not until close to midnight that Li Zhuiyuan finally finished writing. He set down his pen, having written a thick stack.

For him, the speed of writing seriously shackled the speed of his thoughts.

He handed the pages to Tan Wenbin, who began flipping through them.

Li Zhuiyuan then picked up the document envelope Tan Wenbin had brought back. The three wanted notices were for two male suspects and one female suspect.

The most recent one had been issued half a year ago. A man working away from home had violently assaulted and humiliated a shop owner and the shop owner’s daughter, then fled.

The oldest one was from four years ago. It involved a robbery gang that specifically targeted taxi drivers. The gang leader, who also served as the bait, was a woman. She had not only robbed and injured several taxi drivers, but had also caused one driver such severe injuries that he later died.

That was also the reason taxis now generally had transparent partitions installed between the driver’s seat and the back seat, separating driver and passenger.

Public order in society simply was not that good at the moment, while taxi drivers were considered a high-income profession, and they also worked alone, which made them convenient targets.

The other two men in that gang had been caught, but the woman had escaped. The gang had given up her place of origin.

The middle case had happened two years ago. It involved a fraudster who had swindled many elderly people out of their coffin money and retirement savings.

In all three cases, the suspects were from Zhangjiajie, and police suspected they had very likely fled back to their hometown.

Zhangjiajie was already a famous domestic tourist destination, with beautiful scenery, pleasant landscapes, simple folk customs, and warm, hospitable people. It was an excellent place for a holiday and sightseeing.

Still, any place with enough people would periodically produce a few bad birds. That was only normal.

They had gone looking on purpose this time. Even if they changed to some other region, they could still find a whole pile.

But this also reminded Li Zhuiyuan of something. This method was good enough, since the destination was a city. But next time, if they were heading to a sparsely populated region or even a no-man’s-land, some place like glaciers or deserts... where were they supposed to find wanted criminals?

And with the second line of fishing enforcement, it would also be hard to find criminal gangs bold enough to go dig for gold in an uninhabited wasteland.

So this time, they would use it since they could. But if it worked, then the method would need upgrading next time.

For example, if they were going into a no-man’s-land, then he would have to go find a criminal himself in advance and use fortune-teller tricks or indirect nudges, like herding cattle or sheep, to guide that person toward the destination in the wasteland.

And as for ordinary criminal gangs digging for gold, they would need to be upgraded into tomb robbers. He would tell them clues and have them go dig up ancient tombs and dried corpses at a destination he had prepared.

“Pick this one.” Li Zhuiyuan pulled out the wanted notice for the female suspect. “Her case is older, and she has a life on her back.”

“All right. Good.” Tan Wenbin nodded and separated that notice out on its own.

Li Zhuiyuan then looked over the three investigation reports Tan Wenbin had prepared. In truth, they were just three areas with local thugs, the kind most suitable for fishing.

One was a group of enforcers guarding an underground casino. One was a loan-sharking gang involved with organized crime. One was a gang of punks around the school who bullied students.

They were all regulars at the station, social tumors. Every time the police cracked down on them, they scattered like birds and beasts, only to spring back to life again soon after.

“Pick this one.” Li Zhuiyuan chose the third. “The punks who bully students are generally younger, poorer, and more likely to indulge in daydreams.”

“Heh, Brother Yuanhou, that was exactly what I was thinking too.”

“Then why didn’t you just bring this one back?”

Tan Wenbin said, “Three makes it sound luckier.”

Then Tan Wenbin stood up and said, “Brother Yuanhou, I’ll take these to the photo studio and have Deng Chen print them.”

“Can’t the shop photocopy them?”

“How can the shop’s photocopying compare to Deng Chen’s rolling-eyeball quality?

Besides, giving him something to do will make him feel more at ease too.”

“Do what you think is best.”

“Oh, right. Runsheng gets discharged tomorrow afternoon.”

“So soon?”

“His external burns were the serious part. He’s different from ordinary people. Since infection isn’t as much of a concern for him, he can leave earlier. Must be all the incense he’s eaten over the years, keeping him blessed.”

“That’s good. Then let’s have dinner together tomorrow night.”

Before Runsheng returned to the team, the group really could not set off and take action.

Looking back over the pig-head affair, although Runsheng had suffered the heaviest injuries, the strength he displayed had actually been what the pig feared most.

That included the point where Runsheng had intended to open his qi valves all the way and fight to the death. That had made the pig feel a real sense of danger.

It was not that the pig had never thought of conveniently clipping away the Dragon King’s wings first. But Runsheng had been the first hard target, and it had not dared go up and finish him off.

When that pig had wanted to strike at Yin Meng’s side, Tan Wenbin’s Fourth Uncle had been killing himself, forcing the pig to shift quickly to seize the spirit of the white centipede.

When the pig had been preparing to attack Tan Wenbin, Tan Wenbin had just used the Ghost-control technique properly for the first time and was still unskilled, causing his body to swell as though filled with air, which had looked very similar to Runsheng’s state when he had been ready to go all out.

That was what later led Tan Wenbin to blurt out the black python’s location, making the pig choose to bypass him and head straight for the photo studio.

And because it had failed to neatly eliminate his three companions along the way, the factor of him having reinforcements had also forced the pig to choose the smartest method to obtain the black python.

In short, the role of the team could not be ignored. There had probably been no lack of Dragon Kings throughout history who walked the river alone, but that was not suitable for the current Li Zhuiyuan, because the river water had not given him time to grow up.

Tan Wenbin drove to Pingju Photo Studio and had Deng Chen make copies of the stack of text.

To be fair, the flesh-and-blood... no, snake-flesh printer really was useful. Deng Chen could even help with layout, proofreading, and enlarging the font.

Tan Wenbin left, thoroughly satisfied, carrying the pages with him. After Deng Chen had looked at the text, his back was soaked with sweat.

If he could, he truly wanted to forget what he had seen in those pages, because he could tell that this future Dragon King’s real ambition was no longer merely to passively walk the river.

After Tan Wenbin returned to the dormitory, he passed the dorm supervisor auntie’s office window and took the opportunity to mooch some late-night food.

Once back in the dorm, he continued reading and studying. By now he had long developed the excellent study habit of studying at night and sleeping in class during the morning.

The next morning, after Li Zhuiyuan got up, he went as usual to find Ah Li, took a walk with her around the track, then ate breakfast at Aunt Liu’s place and headed off with his schoolbag to his elective course.

Very conveniently, there was one of Professor Zhu’s classes first thing in the morning.

A clear morning really was the perfect match for Professor Zhu’s warm, steady voice.

It was just that some things always arrived in ways no one expected.

When the bell rang, the students in the classroom did not see Professor Zhu. Normally, he always arrived early, smiling as he watched the students enter.

Instead, a teacher with an unfamiliar face walked in, called over the class monitors from the several classes attending the large lecture, and quietly explained a few things to them.

Afterward, the class monitors informed their classmates that today’s political theory class was canceled. Everyone could return to the dorm or find another empty classroom to sit in and wait for the third and fourth periods.

Although Li Zhuiyuan was sitting in the corner of the last row, his hearing was excellent. He heard what that teacher had said to the class monitors: someone in Professor Zhu’s family had passed away.

Even though they had only met once, and even though he had been mentally prepared for it, a person’s sudden departure still made Li Zhuiyuan lower his eyes slightly. The gift set Grandma Zhu had given him was still in his dorm room.

Li Zhuiyuan picked up his schoolbag, went to the teaching building across from this one, and entered a classroom.

The teacher who was giving class looked at the boy and asked, “Who are you looking for?”

In truth, the boy should have been taking class in this room right now as well.

Tan Wenbin was sleeping soundly, but fortunately Lin Shuyou was listening attentively. When he saw Brother Yuanhou come in, he immediately shoved Brother Bin awake.

“Huh?”

Tan Wenbin raised his head blearily. The moment he saw Li Zhuiyuan, he stood up at once and asked the teacher for leave. “Teacher, the student union has an event rehearsal. I have to go.”

The teacher frowned, but did not say anything.

With his head ducked, Lin Shuyou hurried after Brother Bin.

Li Zhuiyuan led Tan Wenbin and Lin Shuyou to the residential building outside the campus. Professor Zhu was sitting alone on the sofa in the living room, head lowered.

“Professor Zhu, please accept my condolences.”

Professor Zhu lifted his head, looked at Li Zhuiyuan, forced out a smile, then looked toward the tightly shut bedroom door. “She kept mentioning you over the last few days, and she looked over that painting you drew again and again.”

Grandma Zhu had been a woman with a strong artistic spirit, and a lifetime spent hand in hand with Professor Zhu had allowed her to remain immersed in that spirit for most of her life. So she had truly been fond of a gifted young prodigy like Li Zhuiyuan, who had both talent and feeling.

When Professor Zhu had previously invited Li Zhuiyuan to his home as a guest, he had said his wife had a strange illness. It really was a strange illness, because when a person’s time had come, no specific problem could be found, no treatment could be given, and all anyone could do was watch the person grow weaker day by day.

“Professor Zhu, what about the funeral?”

“I’ve informed the school. The school will send people to help me.”

Tan Wenbin naturally understood why Brother Yuanhou had brought him here and immediately volunteered, “Professor Zhu, let us help take care of it. My family has done this work for three generations.”

“There’s no need to trouble you. The school will...”

“We’re part of the school too,” Tan Wenbin said.

Professor Zhu froze for a moment, then nodded. “Then... I’ll trouble you.”

As he spoke, Professor Zhu rose and bowed to Tan Wenbin.

Tan Wenbin accepted the bow. What he had said about his family doing this for three generations was obviously nonsense, but he had followed Li Sanjiang to enough funerals that he knew the whole process like the back of his hand.

“Professor Zhu, do you plan to rent a mourning hall at the funeral home, or hold it here in the compound?”

“Here in the compound, I think. All these flowers outside were planted by her. She would probably want to say goodbye to everyone here. It’s just... best if it can be kept quiet, so the neighbors won’t be disturbed.”

“Don’t worry. I understand.”

Tan Wenbin immediately began making arrangements one by one. Later, when the school’s helpers arrived, they ended up becoming Tan Wenbin’s assistants instead.

Under his management, the entire funeral was orderly and well run, allowing Professor Zhu, who had lost his beloved companion, to sit quietly beside the rented crystal coffin and accompany his wife on her last journey.

For the loved ones of the deceased, that already counted as a great blessing.

The old couple’s colleagues and students came one after another to pay their respects.

Lin Shuyou was assigned by Tan Wenbin to write the gift register. According to Professor Zhu’s wishes, whether the money came from colleagues or students, it would all be returned after the funeral.

There was no way students’ condolence money could be accepted. And even with colleagues, even if there had once been reciprocal obligations, at his age, he would probably have no chance to repay them in the future, so he decided not to accept any of it.

Li Zhuiyuan would actually have been the most suitable for the task, but because he had once written funeral couplets for Liu Jinxia, he really was not suited to handling that part directly. It was too easy for him to bring unexpected complications into the funeral.

So Li Zhuiyuan simply sat beside Professor Zhu and listened as the professor continuously recounted stories from their life together.

During that time, Li Zhuiyuan learned that Grandma Zhu’s hometown was in Zhangjiajie, though there were long since no close relatives left for her there.

It seemed like a coincidence, yet also carried a kind of deliberate design.

Li Zhuiyuan did not respond. He just continued listening quietly.

By nightfall, Runsheng and Yin Meng, who had only just been discharged, also arrived. There were still plenty of bandages wrapped around Runsheng’s body, but that did not stop him from helping with some of the work.

Since there was no funeral banquet, everyone just ate a little simple food that evening. Professor Zhu’s state of mind was still fairly calm, and he ate a little with everyone else.

That night, they all stayed with Professor Zhu and kept vigil.

Originally Tan Wenbin had said that he and Shuyou staying behind would be enough, but Li Zhuiyuan did not return to the dorm. He chose to remain there as well.

The next morning, Grandma Zhu was taken away by a crematorium vehicle, sent for cremation, and then buried in a nearby public cemetery.

In the afternoon, Professor Zhu came back holding his wife’s black-and-white memorial portrait and placed the framed portrait on the offering table that had been set up in advance.

Tan Wenbin helped light incense and candles. After the final ritual step was completed, the funeral process was considered finished.

Overall, the funeral had been simple and understated. Many parts did not conform to strict custom, but Li Sanjiang had once told Zhuangzhuang that work for the dead ultimately had to be handled according to the needs of the living.

What Professor Zhu wanted was precisely this sort of gentle, breeze-like process. There was no need for a grand, bustling affair. This way, he could continue to keep his wife’s presence in the home and go on living with her.

At the end, Professor Zhu grabbed each helper by the arm in turn and tried to kneel in thanks.

It was only symbolic. The moment the old professor bent his knees, everyone hurried to lift him, and no one actually let him kneel.

He insisted on giving each person a red envelope, and everyone ended up accepting one.

When it was over, Li Zhuiyuan and the others returned to school.

Normally at a time like this, they would have gone to the Old Sichuan Restaurant for a meal together, but having just gone through such a quiet funeral, no one had any appetite for spicy, greasy food.

The five of them simply boiled several pots of plain noodles at the shop and ate a simple meal with some sausage and pickled vegetables brought from home.

After everyone had finished eating, Li Zhuiyuan spoke.

“The operation can begin.”

Tan Wenbin would handle the wanted-notice line. He could improvise freely, find deeper points of entanglement, and enrich the line of causality.

Lin Shuyou and Yin Meng would handle the school-thug line. They needed to carry more money in their pockets or bags, show off a little wealth in front of those punks, then deliberately head into an alley to give the other side a chance to rob them, while also feeding them the clue about the gold bars.

Yin Meng was the only girl on the team, and even before Lin Shuyou had matured into himself, he already gave people the impression of someone timid and easy to bully.

The two of them were the most suitable bait.

Runsheng, on the other hand, was not suited for this kind of scene, especially not now while he was still wrapped in bandages. A big man with bandages looked hard to mess with. Even if he wore a thick gold chain around his neck and swung it around, thugs so low-level that they preyed on students would still not dare provoke him.

Li Zhuiyuan told everyone to finish their scripts first today. Once the scripts were done, they would submit them to him for review.

The point of doing this was also to push the training of thought down onto everyone else.

By evening, Tan Wenbin was the first to bring his script to Li Zhuiyuan. He had probably been thinking it over for a long time already, because he wrote it in one go.

“This works. Very good. Go with this.”

That night, Yin Meng and Lin Shuyou also handed in their script. After reading it, Li Zhuiyuan said, “There’s no need to play a couple. That’s overdoing the act.”

Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. “Cut it down. You can magnify the contradiction and character traits that already exist in how you usually get along. Don’t leave too many obvious weak spots in the plot.”

Yin Meng and Lin Shuyou looked at each other, clearly not yet grasping the deeper point.

“Come on, come on, let me help you revise it,” Tan Wenbin said, slinging an arm around each of their shoulders and beginning to offer advice.

By the time it was late at night, the second draft of the script was finished.

Li Zhuiyuan took it and looked it over, then said with some concern, “No problem. I just hope after you finish acting it out, it doesn’t affect the team’s unity later.”

…

During the third and fourth periods the next day, Li Zhuiyuan went as usual to wait for Professor Zhu’s class.

He had originally thought Professor Zhu would not come, but he did.

For him, maintaining his original rhythm of life helped create the feeling that his way of living was still the same as before.

Professor Zhu first smiled at Li Zhuiyuan in the corner of the classroom, then began teaching.

His voice was somewhat hoarse and tired, but the content of his lecture was still full of order and reason.

After class, Professor Zhu walked over to Li Zhuiyuan and chatted with him for a while.

When the conversation was over, he left.

Li Zhuiyuan remained seated there, watching the professor’s back disappear through the classroom door.

Not long after, Runsheng came in carrying a lunch box.

Li Zhuiyuan opened it and found two dishes that Runsheng had made himself, laid over rice.

“Brother Runsheng, have you eaten?”

“Of course I ate first. Otherwise I’d have had to bring the whole bucket over, and that wouldn’t look good.”

“Have they all left?”

“Mm. Binbin went out, and Mengmeng and Shuyou went out too.”

“Then once I finish eating, I should go find my third line too.”

“Your third line? Where are you going?” Although Runsheng had no role in this round, he had still read both the plan and the scripts.

“To find Professor Zhu.”

“Wasn’t that just Professor Zhu’s class?”

“It was. I deliberately waited until now. Him coming to talk to me and me taking the initiative to go talk to him are two different things.”

On the first day of the funeral, while sitting beside the crystal coffin, Li Zhuiyuan had felt tense the moment Professor Zhu mentioned Grandma Zhu’s hometown. He had not wanted the professor to go on and say that Grandma Zhu had left some final wish in her hometown.

Because what he wanted was not the river water pushing him forward, but his own initiative.

On the second day of the funeral, Li Zhuiyuan also did not bring up Grandma Zhu’s hometown with Professor Zhu. He did not mention it during class that morning either, nor during their conversation after class. Of course, Professor Zhu had not mentioned it either.

That was to confirm that this time, the river water was not involved.

Now that it was confirmed, it was time for him to take the initiative and dig it out himself.

After finishing the meal, Li Zhuiyuan closed the lunch box lid and said, “Brother Runsheng, let’s go.”

Runsheng smiled. He knew Little Yuan had called him here on purpose. Little Yuan was worried that he had only just returned from injury and still had nothing to do this time, and that he might feel low because of it, so early that morning he had specifically asked him to bring over lunch and said they would be taking action together.

But if they were only going to Professor Zhu’s home, why would there be any need for him to tag along?

Little Yuan truly was different from before.

The old Little Yuan, when he was in front of you, would be warm, considerate, and attentive to every detail. But once you were no longer by his side, it was as if his world immediately no longer contained you at all.

Runsheng had seen the boy squatting by the little stream that night after answering his mother’s phone call, clutching burning incense in his hand.

It was as if he were climbing upward from a swamp, inch by inch, while Runsheng himself had already become used to standing in front of him.

When Li Zhuiyuan arrived at Professor Zhu’s home, Professor Zhu was eating.

He had only stir-fried one dish. Holding his rice bowl, he sat in front of his wife’s memorial portrait, eating and chatting with her at the same time.

Li Zhuiyuan’s arrival surprised Professor Zhu, because if there was something to say, why had he not said it in the classroom?

“Xiaoyuan, have you eaten?”

“I already ate, Professor Zhu.”

Li Zhuiyuan sat down on a chair nearby and began chatting slowly with Professor Zhu.

As they talked, the boy gradually steered the subject on his own.

“Zhangjiajie is such a beautiful place. Did Grandma Zhu never think about going back to see her hometown?”

“She did, but first, there was no one left in her hometown anymore, and second, we were busy with work back then. By the time we retired, her health had gradually started to decline.”

“Then Grandma Zhu must have had regrets in her heart. I’ve heard that after a person dies, the soul drifts back to its hometown to take one last look.”

Professor Zhu froze for a moment when he heard that, then nodded hard.

Afraid that Professor Zhu might decide to go himself, Li Zhuiyuan hurriedly spoke again.

“Professor Zhu, I have a relative who is working near Grandma Zhu’s hometown recently. He just called and asked me to come see him. I was already planning to ask the school for leave and go there.

“I plan to take the painting of the village scene from Grandma Zhu’s study, along with a photo of Grandma Zhu, and go to her hometown to help fulfill her wish.”

“Your relative?” Professor Zhu asked with concern on his face. “What kind of relative? Xiaoyuan, you’re still young. These days, unless it’s immediate family, even some relatives need to be...”

Li Zhuiyuan forced out two difficult words: “My mom.”

“Oh, then that’s good, that’s good.” Professor Zhu let out a breath of relief. He had been worried that the boy might be getting deceived. If a child like this were trafficked away, it would be a loss to society.

“Professor Zhu, may I go into the study and get the painting?”

“Then... thank you, Xiaoyuan. Actually, after hearing what you said just now, I had been thinking of making the trip myself.”

“You’re getting older, and so many students are still looking forward to your lectures.”

“That’s true. Then I’ll have to trouble you.”

“It’s only what I should do. Please don’t be polite.”

Li Zhuiyuan had also helped sort through Grandma Zhu’s belongings, so he knew where the painting was. Professor Zhu also brought him a photo of Grandma Zhu. It was black and white too, but she was younger in it.

“She would probably like to look a little younger when going back to her hometown, right?” Professor Zhu asked in the end, but he asked it toward the memorial portrait.

Li Zhuiyuan first organized the things, then lit three more sticks of incense for Grandma Zhu.

Perhaps the old lady had not actually held such a strong attachment to her hometown in her heart. It was he who had added that wish onto her.

She was already gone, and causality could no longer entangle itself with her, but to some extent, he had still made use of her.

Li Zhuiyuan handed Professor Zhu a slip of paper with Tan Wenbin’s pager number and the shop’s phone number written on it.

The most sensitive member of the team when it came to pager sounds was Tan Wenbin, and someone was always available to answer the shop phone twenty-four hours a day.

“What is this?”

“Professor, if you ever need anything in the future, or if you have headaches, fever, or need to go to the hospital, call this number and we’ll come right away.”

“There’s no need for that. I’m in good health. Besides, how could I keep troubling you children?”

“This is just our small token of feeling as your students. Please accept it.”

“All right, all right. I’ll accept it. Thank you, child. I’ll go put it under the glass on my desk.”

Professor Zhu took the slip of paper and went into the inner room.

Li Zhuiyuan turned his head and looked toward Grandma Zhu’s memorial portrait. Three thin streams of incense smoke curled upward, and Deng Chen’s photography was simply too detailed.

Within the white smoke, Grandma Zhu in the portrait looked at the boy and broke into a smile.

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