“Where did you swipe this body from?” he asked, though he didn’t sound concerned.
“What do you mean, swipe?” Xue Xian stared at him. “You think I would tolerate using someone else’s body?”
At this, Xuanmin felt inside his pouch, only to find the marble was gone.
“This is your true form?” he asked. His tone was flat, as if he were simply summarizing something.
Xue Xian’s snort was his answer.
“Hmm. Since you’ve gotten your body back, why are you coiled around my wrist?” Not that he intended to let Xue Xian go. After all, the paper he was carrying clearly stated Find them, and the notes on it were related to Xue Xian. He wouldn’t let this evil spirit leave so easily.
Well, that was what Xuanmin intended. That Xue Xian would linger made zero sense. After all, he’d tried to run away several times. He was quite the repeat offender, and a tireless troublemaker. Why hadn’t he fled while Xuanmin was unconscious? Instead, Xue Xian had docilely coiled around his wrist, waiting for him to wake up. That was completely unexpected.
Xuanmin raised his hand and poked at the dragon’s tiny head, trying to check if the evil spirit had eaten something disagreeable, or if he’d run into some kind of trouble, and that was why he was acting so out of character.
Xue Xian swatted at Xuanmin’s fingers, shoving the nuisance away. “You’re the one who wanted to capture me, but now you’re trying to chase me off? Want me completely at your beck and call? Isn’t that unreasonable? I’m not leaving, so deal with it. And stop poking me! Get lost!”
Xuanmin had nothing to say to that. Scolding him while coiled around his wrist—Xue Xian was beyond shameless.
In reality, Xue Xian didn’t have an upset stomach, nor had he lost his mind. Xuanmin’s suspicions weren’t unfounded either. Xue Xian really had considered running. Being naked was a minor issue since he could easily find someone by the river to borrow clothes from. If that didn’t work, he could strip the bald donkey while he lay unconscious. At worst, he’d look like a man in mourning. It wasn’t a bad trade.
No, he’d chosen to stick to Xuanmin because of the benefits Xue Xian had sampled while inside the marble. There was something unique about Xuanmin’s body, a mysterious quality that had hastened Xue Xian’s return to his own form. Perhaps Xuanmin could also aid the dragon in regrowing his missing bones and tendons more quickly.
Xue Xian considered himself quite callous—he’d stay if there were benefits and leave if there were none. It was that simple. He didn’t have time to sort out his more detailed reasons. In any case, he wasn’t inclined to leave at the moment and planned on following this monk for a while longer. At worst, he’d just leave Xuanmin an extra gift or two when they parted ways.
Besides, having Xuanmin around made certain matters easier to investigate. He was much more useful than that bookworm Jiang Shining.
He dodged Xuanmin’s hand again, raising his dragon scales and baring his claws, so the bald donkey knew not to touch him. Xuanmin’s eyes, however, remained fixed on the stone lock.
To Xue Xian, the object he’d absorbed back in the river was a seed. Even when curled up quietly, he could feel it stirring within him. Somehow, though it was inside him, he couldn’t figure out what it was. If it was a part of his body, why had it appeared on Wolong County’s Fentou Island?
Could the person who’d stripped his tendons be the one who’d set up the feng shui array on Fentou Island? If not, there was probably still a significant connection there. If Xuanmin could illuminate the markings on the stone lock and untangle where it’d come from, Xue Xian could perhaps use the answers to track down the person who’d maimed him.
Under Xue Xian’s urging, Xuanmin cleaned himself of mud and blood and walked to the rocky riverbank.
At the same time, Lu Nianqi came stumbling over, pale as a ghost. Xuanmin noticed the fishing boats and passenger vessels that had gathered near them. They’d probably spotted Lu Nianqi and the others, but that didn’t explain why quite so many people had shown up.
Lu Nianqi staggered as he felt his way over to them, then squinted in their direction for a long time before speaking.
“It really was you.” His voice was heavy with exhaustion, probably due to the truth of Lu Shijiu’s death. He’d yet to recover from the shock. After catching a breath, he added, “Could you…help me with something? Right now, I don’t know what’s wrong with my eyes, but I don’t feel too well. Shijiu is right in front of me, yet I-I can’t see him. I can see the outlines of others, but I can’t see him at all.”
With a flick of Xuanmin’s fingers, the remaining water on his robe vanished. He released the freshly dried Jiang Shining from his pouch before striding after Lu Nianqi, heading toward the gathering of boats on the riverbank.
Xue Xian remained coiled around Xuanmin’s wrist, his tail protruding like a dangling worm from Xuanmin’s sleeve as it swayed back and forth. Squirming beneath the fabric, Xue Xian eventually peeked out, his dragon head only half a finger wide as he cocked his head and peered at Lu Nianqi.
Despite his frail and gangly appearance, Lu Nianqi had far more vigor than Lu Shijiu because he was often on the move. Coupled with his stubborn temperament, he exuded a sense of toughness; in essence, he was a hardheaded little rascal.
However, at present, every step he took appeared arduous. Each movement was light and tremulous, as if he couldn’t stand touching the ground and applying any force to his limbs was unbearable. From the strain on his face, it was clear he was enduring immense pain. After only ten steps, he was as white as paper. The river water dappling his forehead had just dried, but now a sheen of cold sweat hung in its place.
“You said you felt unwell? What’s wrong?” Xue Xian saw Li Nianqi’s terrible complexion and, suspecting that it wasn’t only due to grief, had to ask.
After all, his lips were pallid and bloodless, like a patient on death’s door, burning with fever. As his face grew whiter, his eyes seemed darker—pitch-black and devoid of light, as if they didn’t belong to a living being.
“It’s nothing,” Lu Nianqi said. His eyelashes fluttered, and he licked his dry, cracked lips before shaking his head. “I don’t quite understand it. It’s just… There’s a dull ache in my bones, and when my feet touch the ground, I hurt from head to toe. I’m afraid to put too much pressure on anything.”
His answer was soft and low. Before Xue Xian could reply, Lu Nianqi continued quietly, “I’ll just deal with it. It’ll pass. It can’t be worse than being dead.”
Jiang Shining cast him a sidelong glance. “That might not be the case.”
Suddenly, Lu Nianqi turned to Jiang Shining.
“You’re no longer alive, right?” Lu Nianqi blurted out. He might have been much older than he looked, but he was still a child. His words held nothing back.
In that moment, even Xue Xian, who couldn’t see much peeking from Xuanmin’s sleeve, felt that Lu Nianqi’s eyes brightened, as if he’d caught hold of a lifeline.
Jiang Shining had a gentle temper. Though he would throw Xue Xian the occasional retort, he’d never treat a child that way. He paused in his surprise, then nodded. “Mm, I’ve been dead for three years. But I haven’t fulfilled my last wish, so I’m staying in this paper doll.”
At that, Lu Nianqi could barely walk straight anymore. He made a misstep, and a sharp pain seared through his foot. As he cried out, another wave of cold sweat dripped down his face. However, he completely ignored it to stare at Jiang Shining.
“Really? That means, even if he’s dead, he might not have disappeared?” Lu Nianqi asked.
Jiang Shining looked at Xuanmin, then back to Lu Nianqi. “Living souls will usually linger for a while,” he mumbled. “In certain situations, they might stay longer, right, Master?”
Xuanmin glanced at them, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he pointed ahead, indicating that they’d arrived. A number of boatmen and fisherman had gathered. The presence of so many people made discussing the supernatural inconvenient.
Lu Nianqi took Xuanmin’s silence as agreement, and some color returned to his face.
In front of them, seven or eight boats, all tied near the shore, jostled against each other. The people on the boats disembarked, and a few worked together to drag something off a larger boat.
“Heavens, when did they fall into the water?” One of them clicked his tongue. “They’re all rotten.”
“I’ve been fishing corpses from this river for a great many years, and this is the first time I’ve seen anything like this.”
That was the corpse collector’s voice. When Lu Nianqi had come back to life on his boat, the corpse collector had stopped his retrieval to bring the three back to the riverbank. He carefully laid Lu Shijiu and Old Man Liu on the stones, then helped Lu Nianqi onto the bank and gave him a cup of hot wine to warm himself up with. After that, he rowed back out to retrieve the remaining corpses.