Chapter 178.2

Li Sanjiang: “What date is it?”

Wu Jianhua: “Today. If you’re free right now, Li Daye, come with me. I’ll bring you back afterward.”

“Today?” Li Sanjiang answered, “A child in the family died young?”

Normally, only when a child died young would they bury them quickly and quietly, without making a big affair out of the funeral.

“Yeah. My eldest brother’s child died.”

“All right, I’ll go.”

Li Sanjiang turned and looked back toward the house.

Runsheng had gone out after breakfast to deliver something to Lin Shuyou. Xiong Shan was at the clinic keeping Lin Shuyou company. Uncle Qin had gone out too, and Zhuangzhuang had “gone back to his hometown.”

All at once, the house felt completely empty.

Li Zhuiyuan had just finished his porridge. He stood up and said, “Taigong, I’ll go with you.”

Li Sanjiang hesitated. Usually, he would never call Little Yuanhou out to help him with work, but this time he really was short a hand.

Forget it. It wasn’t anything complicated anyway. Handle it quickly and come right back.

“Little Yuanhou, let’s go.”

Wu Jianhua said, “I’ll give you both a ride. The boy can sit on the front bar, and Li Daye can sit in back.”

Li Sanjiang said, “I’ve got tools to bring. You can’t carry all that.”

Li Zhuiyuan pushed the family tricycle out.

After Li Sanjiang loaded up the tools, he said, “Come on, Little Yuanhou, sit in the back. Taigong will pedal.”

“Taigong, I can pedal it.”

“You’re still just a little kid. Your body’s not fully grown yet. Don’t wear yourself out. If you overstrain now, it’ll cost you later.”

Li Sanjiang knew nothing about martial arts, but over the long course of his life he had seen too many people who had eaten poorly as children or done heavy labor too early, only to end up with developmental problems as adults.

Li Zhuiyuan really could pedal it, but he did not argue with Taigong again. He obediently sat in the back.

Wu Jianhua rode ahead on his bicycle to lead the way, while Li Sanjiang followed behind on the tricycle.

The two rode side by side along the road with absolutely no regard for traffic manners, chatting as they went.

Li Zhuiyuan faced backward, watching the passing vehicles.

From their conversation, he got a clear picture of the Wu family.

The old man of the Wu family was named Wu Changshun. He had four sons.

The eldest and second sons were born to his first wife. The eldest was nearly forty this year, and the second was two years younger. Their names were Wu Youhou and Wu Yougen.

The third and fourth sons were born after Wu Changshun’s first wife died and he married again. The third was Wu Jianhua, and the fourth was Wu Jianxin.

The eldest, Wu Youhou, was married, but his wife had been pregnant three times. Counting this one, there had been two stillbirths and one child who died young.

The second son, Wu Yougen, was also quite old by now and still unmarried.

Wu Jianhua said it was because this second brother of his, born of the same father but a different mother, was too quiet and withdrawn and had never been able to find a match.

The third son, Wu Jianhua, was twenty-three, and the fourth, Wu Jianxin, was twenty-one. Both were married, and Wu Jianhua’s wife was currently pregnant.

The reason Wu Jianhua had come to invite Li Sanjiang this time was not because his own family had asked him to, but because his father-in-law and wife had. The eldest brother’s child had died young, and they wanted Li Sanjiang to perform a ritual to dispel the bad luck from the household so it would not affect the baby in Wu Jianhua’s wife’s womb.

When they reached Sanxin Village, the Wu family home was a courtyard compound. Wu Jianhua rode his bicycle straight inside, while Li Sanjiang parked the tricycle on the road outside, across from the gate.

As he got down and began unloading the tools, Li Sanjiang muttered, “So it’s true—when there’s a stepmother, there’s a stepfather too.”

Li Zhuiyuan knew what Taigong meant. If Wu family’s second son was only dull and awkward by nature, that alone should not have left him unable to find a wife. If the excuse was that the family lacked money, then how was it that the stepmother’s sons, the third and fourth, were both already married despite being so much younger?

The boy helped carry the things inside as they entered the Wu family courtyard.

The compound was made up of one old single-story house and two newer brick houses.

The third and fourth sons each lived in one of the new brick houses. The eldest son, the unmarried second son, and the two old parents all lived in the old house together.

The child’s body had been placed inside a cabinet in the room.

The child had been three years old and had died of illness.

Li Zhuiyuan stepped forward and took a look. The child was rather thin, and his features were incomplete, which meant he had likely been congenitally weak. Most likely, he had not developed well even in the womb.

The family patriarch, Wu Changshun, sat on the threshold of the old house smoking from a water pipe.

The second son, Wu Yougen, sat on the steps in silence.

The eldest son, Wu Youhou, stood beside the cabinet, staring blankly at the child inside.

The child’s mother lay on the bed inside the room. Li Zhuiyuan glanced in from the doorway. The woman on the bed was very thin, and the room was thick with the smell of medicine.

This couple was nearly forty, yet their dead child had been only three years old. In the countryside, that counted as a very late-born child. On top of that, there had already been two miscarriages before.

The husband and wife had made tremendous efforts for the sake of having a child, but in the end it had all come to nothing.

Holding his Peachwood Sword, Li Sanjiang first made a few passes over Wu Youhou’s body, then patted him on the shoulder.

“My condolences.”

Wu Youhou let out a desolate sigh, nodded with difficulty, closed his eyes, and said, “Maybe... maybe I was just never fated to have one.”

Li Sanjiang then carried the Peachwood Sword into the room. Wu Youhou’s wife was not asleep. Her eyes were open. She must have cried bitterly not long ago, until all her tears had run dry, and now she stared numbly at the roof beam.

Li Sanjiang made a few passes over the woman with the Peachwood Sword as well, then began chanting scripture, with several words of comfort mixed in.

Li Zhuiyuan held up a flag for Taigong and followed him around.

This flag, like the Peachwood Sword Taigong held in his hand from some furniture factory, was completely useless.

But once they entered the room, Li Zhuiyuan lifted his head and followed the woman’s gaze up toward the beam.

The woman was only staring there out of helpless despair, but Li Zhuiyuan truly saw three pitch-black clumps there.

Were they malevolent spirits?

But they did not seem quite like that.

They were curled up into themselves, not yet fully formed.

Li Zhuiyuan focused his eyes and looked carefully. This time, he saw more clearly.

There were three black shadows—two small and one large.

They contained resentment and malice, but had not yet reached the level of a malevolent spirit.

At this stage, they were like bubbles constantly rising in water just before it began to boil.

That was why Li Zhuiyuan had not sensed their presence from outside the room. They were still in an embryonic stage.

Under normal circumstances, this should have been impossible. And yet the fact was right in front of him.

Li Zhuiyuan quickly thought of the reason. Sanxin Village was quite close to Siyuan Village, where he and Taigong lived, which also meant it was close to that peach grove.

With it there, other nearby evils were naturally suppressed, forced either to retreat or to dissipate. As for ghosts that had not yet fully formed, they were almost completely unable to take shape at all.

So these three black shadows in the room would not last long. They would dissolve on their own soon enough.

Of course, what had appeared on Little Oriole’s shoulder and Tan Wenbin’s shoulder had been an exception. After all, they bore the mark of being “one of our own.”

After receiving Li Sanjiang’s ritualized comfort, the woman on the bed seemed to recover a little of her awareness.

She nodded to Li Sanjiang in thanks, then looked at Li Zhuiyuan, who stood nearby holding the flag.

The emotion in her eyes was very complicated. It seemed that in the boy she saw her own child. She had once had three chances to become a mother, but none of them had lasted.

“Come here, child. Come closer.”

She beckoned to Li Zhuiyuan.

Li Zhuiyuan stepped nearer to the bed.

With some difficulty, the woman sat up. Her clothes were ordinary, and though she was not yet forty, there was already a great deal of white in her hair.

She reached out and opened the bedside cabinet. Inside were several pieces of spun sugar wrapped in shiny paper. She picked them up one by one and handed them all to Li Zhuiyuan.

Li Zhuiyuan reached out and took them.

Then the woman took a crumpled bill from her pocket and held it out to him.

Li Zhuiyuan did not reach out for it.

The woman pressed the money toward his hand and said, “It’s your first time visiting our house, child. Take it.”

Li Zhuiyuan still did not accept it.

At that moment, Li Sanjiang, who was still conducting the ritual nearby, said, “Little Yuanhou, take it.”

Strictly speaking, the two of them were not ordinary visiting guests, so they should not have accepted it. So Li Sanjiang decided that when it came time to calculate the “labor fee” later, he would deduct this amount.

Since Taigong had spoken, Li Zhuiyuan finally took the bill.

The woman smiled. There was a sense of relief on her face, relief in the most literal sense.

“Hmph. Hngh!”

At that moment, the old woman standing in the doorway kept making dissatisfied snorting sounds through her nose.

Her name was Luo Jinhua. She was Wu Changshun’s second wife and the biological mother of the third and fourth sons.

She had seen the eldest son’s wife giving money away and was showing her displeasure.

Li Sanjiang glared back at Luo Jinhua in the doorway. Damn it, who did this nasty old woman think she was showing that face to?

But Luo Jinhua was staring fixedly at the eldest daughter-in-law on the bed and did not notice Li Sanjiang’s annoyance.

Li Sanjiang came back out of the room and set up an offering table in front of the little cabinet, then continued the ritual.

Li Zhuiyuan helped beside him, holding the flag, passing bowls, and handing over incense.

He only did the work of an assistant and let Taigong handle the entire ritual himself.

Halfway through, even when Taigong signaled for him to place the incense into the burner, Li Zhuiyuan pretended not to hear, making Taigong take it and insert it himself.

Taigong’s rituals, in truth, did not really do anything.

But the dead could not come back to life. No matter how powerful your ritual was, it would mean nothing at a time like this.

Still, Taigong managed to comfort the family. Though when some of them were being comforted, there was not the slightest trace of grief in their eyes.

Taigong also spoke a few words to the child in the cabinet, telling him that the road ahead was dark, that he must walk carefully, that he must go slowly.

While he was saying these things, the woman inside the room got out of bed and stood with one hand braced against the doorframe, watching the scene.

At last, Taigong completed the whole ritual from beginning to end, full and proper.

Li Sanjiang sighed three times in a row, the way a storyteller might smack a clapper board, as a reminder to the host family: the work was done, time to pay.

Wu Changshun, the old patriarch, put away his water pipe pouch and went into the inner room.

Luo Jinhua shot a glare at the eldest daughter-in-law standing at the doorway, then went inside too.

Even Wu Jianhua, the third son who had called Li Sanjiang here in the first place, lifted his waistband and wandered off toward the ceramic vat to relieve himself.

Li Sanjiang let out a fourth sigh.

Normally, for funeral work, you always collected a deposit in advance.

After all, in every trade, there were bound to be people who tried to skip out on paying.

But this time, because a child had died young, he had not bothered with that. He had gone ahead and done the work first, so the child could be buried as soon as possible and the parents could find peace sooner.

Who would have thought he would still have to go through this awkward business of asking for payment?

Li Sanjiang stood there without moving.

The eldest son, Wu Youhou, ran into the inner room to look for Luo Jinhua.

Soon, Luo Jinhua’s shrill voice rang out from inside:

“I don’t have money! Where would I get money? The ritual was for your child, so why should I be the one paying for it?”

“Mom, don’t you keep all my money? The money I make doing odd jobs, the money Second Brother earns farming and selling grain—didn’t we hand it all over to you? We never have much cash on us.”

“You say you don’t have money? Then how does your wife still have money to give outsiders? I saw it with my own eyes. And you call that no money? I’d say she’s got plenty!

Bah! A useless, barren waste of food, eating the family’s grain for nothing!”

Wu Youhou’s face turned white with anger as he walked back out of the room.

Wu Yougen, who had been sitting silently on the steps keeping watch beside his nephew’s body, emptied both his pockets and gathered up all the loose change he could find, then handed it all to his elder brother.

But it was nowhere near enough.

The woman came out of the room, went over to the small cabinet, sat down, and reached out to stroke her son’s body.

Wu Youhou ran out of the house, likely to borrow money from the neighbors.

Not long after, he returned with the money.

In the countryside, being able to borrow money that quickly usually meant a person had a very good reputation.

Luo Jinhua came out of the inner room and shouted in a sharp voice, “Whatever you borrowed, you pay back yourself! Don’t even think about taking it out of the family funds!”

Wu Youhou ignored her. He straightened the bills and handed them to Li Sanjiang.

Li Sanjiang could tell this family was not putting on an act just to avoid paying for the ritual.

This was simply how they lived.

Li Sanjiang pushed the money back and said, “Your wife already gave it.”

Wu Youhou said, “That won’t do. That won’t do.”

Li Sanjiang shoved Wu Youhou aside irritably. It wasn’t that he pitied him. He was angry at how spineless he was. Since there were still “family funds,” it meant the household had not split yet.

This man was too weak, too useless. At his age, and he still had not separated from the main household. Li Sanjiang truly looked down on him.

“Little Yuanhou, let’s pack up.”

Li Zhuiyuan stepped forward to help gather the things.

As he picked up the Incense Burner, Li Zhuiyuan noticed that the woman leaning against the small cabinet had an abnormal redness in her eyes.

He walked over, reached out without hesitation, pulled down one of her eyelids, looked, and asked:

“You drank pesticide?”

The moment those words came out, Wu Youhou and Wu Yougen both jolted in alarm and rushed over to check on her.

The woman tried to push them away, but foam had already begun to bubble from the corner of her mouth.

Wu Youhou hurriedly scooped his wife up and carried her to the village clinic, with Wu Yougen following close behind.

Meanwhile, delight showed in Luo Jinhua’s eyes.

It was not something Li Zhuiyuan happened to catch—she simply had not bothered to hide it at all.

“Ah, what kind of mess is this?”

Li Sanjiang let out another sigh.

Just then, Luo Jinhua said to Li Sanjiang, “It needs burying. Hurry up and find a place and bury it, so it doesn’t stay here bringing bad luck. There’s still someone in this house with a big belly. We can’t let this short-lived ghost bring misfortune on her!”

Li Sanjiang very much wanted to take his Peachwood Sword and thrash this nasty old woman with it.

By rights, he ought to be the one responsible for choosing a burial place for the dead child. But since he had not even collected the money for the ritual, the rest of the work was, technically speaking, no longer his responsibility.

Yet when he looked at the child in the small cabinet, Li Sanjiang could not bear it in the end. He pointed at Wu Jianhua and signaled for him to come over and carry the cabinet on his back.

Wu Jianhua took a few steps back, openly resisting.

“You’re the one who invited me here. I didn’t take any money. If you won’t do it, I’ll just leave right now!”

Luo Jinhua immediately pushed her son twice and muttered, “Go on. At worst, you can bathe when you get back and wash off the bad luck.”

Only then did Wu Jianhua come over reluctantly and lift the cabinet.

After that, the rest of the Wu family all followed them out to the fields.

Li Sanjiang was from another village, after all, so he had to choose a burial spot within the area where the Wu family was allowed to bury their dead. He could not just put the grave anywhere.

After the whole process, the child was finally buried.

Li Sanjiang wanted to leave this place as soon as possible, so he pulled Little Yuanhou along at a fast pace. They had to get back to the Wu family gate to retrieve the tricycle.

The other members of the Wu family, who had gone together to bury the child, lagged behind.

But Li Zhuiyuan’s hearing was good. No matter how far away they were, even with the wind on the road, he could still hear every word clearly.

Wu Jianhua said, “Mom, do you think she’ll die?”

Luo Jinhua said, “They found out too early. She probably won’t die. It’s all because that sickly little brat beside that old man couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”

Wu Jianhua said, “What a pity.”

Luo Jinhua said, “What’s there to pity? Even if they save her, she’ll be completely ruined. And at her age, she’ll never get pregnant again.”

Wu Jianhua said, “Mm.”

Luo Jinhua said, “That child was so hard to get rid of, but luckily it died. Back then, the dose was too small. If we’d given her as much as the first two times, it would’ve been easier to make her miscarry right in the womb. Would’ve saved us the trouble of feeding her for all these years for nothing.”

The old patriarch, Wu Changshun, said angrily, “What are you two talking about?”

Not only was Luo Jinhua not afraid, she even snapped back, “What? There’s not even a ghost around here. Are you really scared someone will hear?”

Wu Changshun said, “Stop spouting nonsense out here!”

Luo Jinhua said, “If Eldest had even a little more sense, and hadn’t kept trying to have a child all these years, why would I have had to do this?

Old man, I’m doing this for your own good too.

The eldest is a coward. The second is useless except for farming. The third is the filial one. The fourth got money into a state-run factory, so he’s the one with a future.

Tell me, when the two of us are old, who are we supposed to rely on?

Besides, when Eldest’s wife was pregnant the first two times, the fortune-teller said they were girls. When I said we should give her something to make her lose them, didn’t you agree too? The child that just died should have been gone in the womb. But it wasn’t lost, and it came out a sickly little thing. Who could afford to raise that?

If you ask me, Eldest is the one making useless trouble. He’s not even as good as the second. So what if Second never marries? The land he farms and the money he earns can go toward supporting the third and fourth households. Once the children of the third and fourth sons grow up, won’t they still think well of their eldest and second uncles? Won’t they still take care of them in old age?

What’s the difference between a nephew and a son? A good nephew can be even closer than your own son!”

Every one of those words fell into Li Zhuiyuan’s ears.

Once they got the tricycle back, Li Sanjiang secured the tools and then pedaled away with Li Zhuiyuan riding along.

Li Zhuiyuan faced backward, watching the Wu family courtyard grow farther and farther away. Now he understood what those three black shadows were. They had likely been born from the sudden eruption of resentment when they watched their mother drink pesticide.

But they could not fully take shape, and they would soon dissipate.

When they reached the village road back in Siyuan Village, Li Zhuiyuan spoke up.

“Taigong, let me get off here first. I’m going to Big Beard’s house to play with Benben.”

“Stay seated. Taigong will take you there.”

Li Zhuiyuan heard this and said nothing more. After Li Sanjiang dropped him off at the threshing ground in front of Big Beard’s house, Li Sanjiang rode the tricycle back home.

The boy walked into the peach grove. Benben was still inside the little fence among the peach trees, playing with the peach blossoms.

Li Zhuiyuan picked up a peach branch and began drawing on the ground.

He drew the location of the peach grove. He drew the roads and the river. He drew the location of Siyuan Village. He drew Shinan Town and also Shigang Town. Finally, he drew Sanxin Village.

The boy lifted his foot and kicked up a patch of peach blossoms from the ground. They fluttered down, completely covering the map he had just drawn.

Li Zhuiyuan took the peach branch and lightly hooked it through the blossoms, sweeping open one small area. The position of Sanxin Village was revealed by itself.

The meaning was simple enough: withdraw the suppression over Sanxin Village’s territory.

From deep within the peach grove, a faint voice seemed to drift out:

“You know that if you do this... you’ll be implicated too...”

“I know.”

“Why bother... there are countless things like this in the world...”

Li Zhuiyuan took that crumpled banknote from his pocket and slowly unfolded it in his palm, smoothing it flat.

“There’s no help for it. I took their money.”