He seemed a little wilted. Despite the answer being obvious, Chu Shuzhi asked, “No luck, huh?”
Guo Changcheng nodded in confirmation.
After a moment, Chu Shuzhi carefully said, “It’s possible that I was wrong. Maybe they would take the train, or even wait there longer instead of heading here right away. Maybe we should go home for now?”
Staying up all night made Guo Changcheng’s already slightly slow brain seem even more sluggish. He rubbed his face forcefully, then said in a very small voice, “Sorry, Chu-ge, how about… How about you take the car and head home? Once I’ve found her, I’ll take a taxi home.”
“What, are you planning to stand out here all night and freeze to death?” Chu Shuzhi gave it a moment’s thought. “Don’t worry. You made a promise to a ghost, but it’s fine. I can handle an earthbound spirit with no cultivation.”
Shaking his head resolutely, Guo Changcheng turned to get out of the car. The instant his back was facing Chu Shuzhi, Chu Shuzhi pulled his hand out of his pocket where he’d been hiding it and slapped a talisman onto the back of Guo Changcheng’s neck. “What are you?” he snapped. “Why are you possessing this mortal?”
Guo Changcheng’s limbs felt like they’d been filled with lead. He wanted to turn back and ask Chu Shuzhi what was going on, but his neck was completely stiff; no matter how he tried, he couldn’t move it. His awareness seemed to float out of his body. From a peculiar third-person perspective, he found himself staring at his own laughably positioned body and Chu Shuzhi’s serious expression.
Chu Shuzhi frowned, looking up at Guo Changcheng’s soul where it floated in midair. That was a genuine mortal soul, and it corresponded perfectly to the body. There was nothing out of the ordinary. In other words, the soul he’d smacked out of the body with his talisman was truly Guo Changcheng himself.
“So you really are Guo Changcheng?”
Floating there, Guo Changcheng wanted to say, “Chu-ge, what are you doing?” But when he opened his mouth, it was as if he’d been muted… Or no, it was like he was in a vacuum where sounds couldn’t travel. He had made a sound, but he could only hear his voice through his body. Once the sound left his mouth, it couldn’t go anywhere.
Chu Shuzhi hesitated, then reached out and removed the talisman. Guo Changcheng felt a huge pressure as an extremely bony hand pressed right down on his soul. It was an awfully strange feeling; Guo Changcheng couldn’t help shivering. Then the sensation of floating was suddenly gone, and his body seemed so heavy that it was almost unfamiliar.
Trembling, he looked over to meet Chu Shuzhi’s scrutinizing gaze.
Guo Changcheng’s reaction time was always a little slow, but by this point he understood that his soul had just left his body. According to his understanding, “soul leaving body” was no different from “death”—which to him meant that Chu Shuzhi had nearly killed him with a talisman. He cowered back against the car door. “Ch-Chu-ge… W-what’s this about…?”
“Are you human?” Chu Shuzhi asked.
Guo Changcheng gaped at him, not at all sure if Chu Shuzhi was being literal or insulting.
Chu Shuzhi tried again. “Let me put it like this: Do you have memories of your parents?” Guo Changcheng nodded, and Chu Shuzhi said, “Apologies. I know about your family. I’m so sorry for your loss.” There was no sincerity in his tone. “But I have to ask, were you born to those parents? Can you prove they were your birth parents?”
Emotional intelligence wasn’t Chu Shuzhi’s strength. That shortcoming specifically presented itself in the fact that, despite knowing how to talk to people, he chose not to. He thought that was cool, and besides, he was too lazy to make the effort. If this had been Zhao Yunlan he was dealing with, he would’ve had his ass whipped by now.
But Guo Changcheng was a coward. The question made him feel a little weird, but he didn’t show any signs of anger or annoyance. He even considered it carefully before answering, “I look a lot like my uncle and grandpa did when they were younger. My grandpa has kind of high blood pressure, which my dad inherited, and now I’m starting to show early signs of it too. So I think they were my birth parents.”
“Then were any of your ancestors cultivators?” Chu Shuzhi asked.
“Ancestors?” Guo Changcheng paused, confused. “My family doesn’t keep a family tree. At most, I can go back four generations. Before the Republican era, they could’ve come from anywhere as refugees.”
Even if Guo Changcheng did have some ancestor with special lineage, the last three generations were all mortals. At this point, it was obvious how diluted that blood would’ve become by now. But if what Chu Shuzhi was seeing wasn’t something Guo Changcheng had inherited, then the only remaining explanation had to be who he’d been in a prior incarnation…but the Corpse King couldn’t see anything unique about Guo Changcheng’s soul.
Just then, the headlights of a bus swept across them. Guo Changcheng immediately forgot about his freakish out-of-body experience and grabbed Chu Shuzhi’s arm. “Chu-ge, bus! Bus!”
Chu Shuzhi paused and set his questions aside for the moment. “Okay, go.”
Guo Changcheng stumbled out of the car. The last bus that had passed by had been from the girl’s province, but by some great coincidence, this one was too. Guo Changcheng waved to stop the bus, boarded, and showed the driver his ID. Then he recited his prepared lines about needing to inspect the passengers, much as though he were reporting the news.
Routine inspections happened occasionally during the holidays, so the driver took it in stride. He turned and yelled to the busload of passengers, voice ringing out like a bell. “Wake up! Wake up! Everyone, please cooperate with the inspection! He’s checking your IDs!”
Chu Shuzhi had initially stayed back with the car, but for some reason, his heart skipped a beat at that moment. Many people who cultivated had something of a sixth sense. He got out of the car and walked over just in time to see a tiny, skinny girl of fifteen or sixteen get off the bus behind Guo Changcheng. She was dressed in a dirty tracksuit, and she held her head so low that her chin nearly touched her chest.
“This is her?” Chu Shuzhi asked.
Guo Changcheng nodded. “The person who took her is still in the—” But before he even finished speaking, there was a clang as someone jumped out of the bus.
In reality, there was no proof that the guy had kidnapped the girl. After all, she’d just been quietly riding the bus and had left with Guo Changcheng voluntarily. It might’ve been a guilty conscience that made the kidnapper make a break for it as soon as he heard the word “police.”
But he didn’t even make it a few steps before he suddenly tripped on something and fell randomly on his face. He got up and made another attempt to flee, only to hit the ground face-first again. When it happened for a third time, Chu Shuzhi, the “People’s Police,” finally strolled over and grabbed him by the collar. Cold metal clamped down on the man’s wrists.
Of course, due to his unique work situation, the Corpse King had never actually used handcuffs before. Unfamiliarity with this particular aspect of the job meant it took him some time to successfully lock the cuffs.
Chu Shuzhi looked back just in time to see Guo Changcheng speaking to the young girl in soft, hushed tones, explaining that she shouldn’t have run away from home by herself. Then Guo Changcheng called the number the girl’s mother had used, completely forgetting that the woman was now a ghost. “Hello? Auntie? Don’t worry, we found your child. We’ll arrange for someone to bring her back tomorrow.”
After that, he passed the phone to the girl as though it was the most natural thing in the world. “Your mom’s out of her mind with worry! She called me in the middle of the night and asked me to find you. Here, speak to her.”
The girl was going through her teenage rebellion stage. She’d recognized Guo Changcheng, but to her, he was just some teacher or playmate who’d taught her for a month during a summer break in middle school. Her current attitude toward him wasn’t great to begin with—she seemed disobedient and disinterested and had probably ignored everything Guo Changcheng had said to her…until now.
At his last few words, she went utterly still. Then she looked up at him suddenly and, moving like a marionette, accepted the phone with shaking hands. “H-hello…?”
The person on the other end of the line was silent for a moment, but then, via electromagnetic waves, the familiar village dialect reached her ears despite the barrier of death. “Cui-er?” It really, truly was her late mother’s familiar voice.
Tears immediately began to stream down the girl’s face. “Mom—!”
Through the phone, her mother said, “Don’t cry, Cui-er. Don’t cry. Listen to Guo-laoshi and come home tomorrow. You’ve gone too far for Mom to keep up. When I can’t see you, I get worried…”
There, at the entrance to the national highway entering Dragon City, a young girl in an old school uniform finally started to wail, piercing the vast, hazy night with a grief beyond words.
Chu Shuzhi wasn’t good at dealing with these situations. He’d meant to just capture the kidnapper and go, but when he unintentionally glanced at Guo Changcheng again, he once more saw that thick, heavy glow of merit, gleaming like firelight.
This time, the “firelight” seemed even brighter. For an instant, Chu Shuzhi thought something on Guo Changcheng’s body was burning. He rubbed his eyes firmly, and when he looked up again, the light was already gone.