Chapter 80: The Letters on the Sand

“Bro, you’re heavy as hell.”

Tan Wenbin plopped Lu Yi onto the dorm bed, hands on hips, panting.

Carrying someone wasn’t that bad—it was the rapid sequence of events before that wore him out: restraining the possessed Lu Yi, leaping at the high heels… all of it had drained him. Only now could he catch his breath.

Seeing Lu Yi’s face smeared with white froth, Tan Wenbin frowned. In the end, he couldn’t bear to leave him like that, so he filled the basin with hot water, soaked a towel, and wiped him down.

As for the bloodied scrapes on Lu Yi’s knees, feet, and elbows, Wenbin didn’t bother. They were both tough guys—nothing a few scratches couldn’t handle.

After that, Tan Wenbin poured a glass of water and set it on the plastic stool beside the bed. Then he bent over, rummaged under the bed, and pulled out a Harbin sausage from a storage box.

Taking a bite, he mumbled while chewing, “Bro, consider this your exorcism and cleanup fee.”

Leaving Lu Yi’s dorm, he returned to his own. As soon as he entered, he saw Little Yuan bro sitting at his desk, holding a leather whip.

That gaze, that aura… tsk tsk. Tan Wenbin suddenly felt like even his strict old man—belt in hand—had looked too kind in comparison.

Wenbin crouched down nearby, watching Brother Yuan’s interrogation unfold.

Brother Yuan’s gaze wasn’t fixed on the high heels on the desk, but slightly above—meaning there was something else there, unseen.

Scratching his head, Tan Wenbin really wished he could walk the shade and take a look.

But he knew full well that Brother Yuan wouldn’t allow it.

Brother Yuan always warned them not to walk the shade too often unless the situation truly demanded it.

Yet Brother Yuan himself often just snapped his fingers and poof—walked the shade. He used to need a nap and someone counting down beside him. Now, he could do it with eyes wide open—toggling between this world and the next without missing a beat.

Tan Wenbin didn’t resent him for it. Ever since they first met—back when Wenbin was getting beaten by his old man and Brother Yuan was already finishing all the test papers on his desk—he’d known the biggest similarity between them was that they both merely looked human.

But Brother Yuan seemed to have hit a snag—the interrogation wasn’t going as planned.

Li Zhuiyuan spoke. “Wenbin, burn the paper, light the candles, and lay the sand.”

“On it!”

Burning paper and lighting candles—easy enough. But the sand-laying ritual was basically a variant of the Pen Spirit game.

Problem was, Wenbin had forgotten whether to use red candles or white ones for this part.

Damn. Post-exam brain—like he handed it back to the school.

Not only had he forgotten a chunk of high school knowledge, but even the “professional content” he’d memorized was getting hazy.

Good thing he had a backup plan.

He set the box on the desk, poured in a layer of special white sand, smoothed it flat with a ruler, then held a red candle in his left hand and a white one in his right.

“Brother Yuan, which side for the candle?”

Li Zhuiyuan glanced first at Wenbin’s left hand, then at the southeast corner of the desk.

White candle it was.

Wenbin set it up and lit it.

Li Zhuiyuan held a sheet of yellow paper, ignited it, and waved it before him.

Wenbin grabbed his ceramic water cup, ready to catch the ashes.

But then he saw Brother Yuan stand, thrust his left hand forward then yank it down, pushed the burning yellow paper in with his right hand, and clapped his left hand upward.

In an instant, the yellow paper burned to nothing. Only blue smoke remained—not a speck of ash left.

Wenbin’s eyes widened. He realized that while he’d been cramming for exams, Brother Yuan had been hard at work. Things had been too peaceful back in their hometown to notice, but now he could see the boy had leapt forward.

If one viewed it from the shade’s perspective, they’d see that just now the boy had first pinched the girl’s jaw, forcing her mouth open, then shoved the burning talisman into it, and finally clapped her mouth shut.

Yellow paper served two major purposes: guidance and tribute. Shoving it straight in—direct-to-stomach delivery.

Whether due to her unique condition or because Tan Wenbin had burned her too badly with that black dog’s blood earlier, the girl couldn’t speak. She just trembled pitifully on the desk, unable to communicate.

But once she’d swallowed the yellow paper, the effect kicked in.

The girl reached out and grabbed the pen lying in the sand tray, face resolute.

Li Zhuiyuan reached out as well, but as soon as she saw his hand, the girl flinched. Her resolve shattered, and she shrank back.

No mystery there. Her fear of the boy ran bone-deep.

The Yin Clan’s Twelve Techniques had been simplified over generations for easier inheritance. By the time they reached Yin Fuhai, only the basics remained.

Li Zhuiyuan’s technique, Guiding Over the Bridge, seemed outlandish to modern Yin clan members—but in truth, it echoed the very style of their ancestral peak. When he performed it, traces of Yin Changsheng’s presence flickered around him.

And Yin Changsheng, many believed, was the prototype for the Great Emperor of Fengdu.

Seeing how scared she was, Li Zhuiyuan turned to Tan Wenbin and pointed at the pen on the sand tray.

Wenbin got the message. He grabbed the pen. The girl, seeing this, reached out again and held it too.

Cold. Icy cold.

Tan Wenbin felt like a block of ice had engulfed the back of his hand. Numbness crept up instantly.

The pen began to move.

Its tip was as fine as a hair. The white sand, smooth as paper, made it possible to write in both broad strokes and tiny scrawl.

The tip darted across the surface—tiny words, no larger than fly heads. Li Zhuiyuan had to lean in to read.

She was writing a letter. It was Ran Qiuping, writing to her daughter, Qiu Minmin.

Normally, once finished, Ran Qiuping would burn these letters. Only the pair of high heels “saw” them.

Letter after letter poured out. When one sand layer was filled, Li Zhuiyuan would flatten it again with the ruler to allow for more writing.

Beyond a mother’s grief and longing, her everyday worries, and the occasional mention of venting her frustration on Sun Hongxia, there was one name that appeared over and over again: Mao Zhushan.

Sometimes she called him Master Mao, sometimes Celestial Mao, sometimes Brother Mao, even Handsome Mao—as if she wanted him for a son-in-law.

But then, just as often, she’d call him a fraud, a bastard, a scumbag.

The wild swings in her tone reflected a central theme that ran through every letter, one that never let up: resurrection.

The moment he saw that word, Li Zhuiyuan understood—Ran Qiuping had been deceived.

In the preface to Volume One of Strange Records of the Jianghu, Wei Zhengdao had written a single, abrupt line:

“The dead cannot be brought back to life.”

No context before or after. It stood alone.

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