The owner’s memory turned out to be quite good — and his Chinese, too, was surprisingly decent, apparently because his daughter had taken an interest in Chinese culture. Not only had she given herself a Chinese name, she’d gone ahead and given the rest of the family Chinese names too.

He’d write bits of Chinese now and then, just for fun.

To make sure the family properly memorized and remembered their respective Chinese names, everyone had been issued their own name card.

An extremely minimalist little card.

Beyond the person’s own name, it also listed the Chinese names of the rest of the family members.

Eagerly, the owner pulled Liang Yan inside and, after quite some rummaging, dug his own card out of some corner — clearly something he didn’t look at often, probably didn’t even remember how to pronounce his own name.

But he remembered his daughter’s name perfectly well, pointing to the third line on the card. “Look, here — it’s Qiao Qi, right?”

Liang Yan’s gaze fell on that line, and there, written clearly, were two characters: Qiao Qi.

That was it.

It was Qiao Qi.

Qiao as in Qiao Qi’s surname, Qi as in Qiao Qi’s given name.

But… why?

Liang Yan stared at those two characters, achingly familiar, and in an instant sank into a deep well of confusion and boundless uncertainty about his future.

Noticing the subtle grimace on his face, the owner considerately pressed the back of his hand to Liang Yan’s forehead. “Do you have a fever?”

Impressive.

Truly familiar with Chinese culture, it seemed.

He even knew the phrase for having a fever.

But Liang Yan didn’t have a fever.

A fever was a minor ailment. He was standing right at death’s door — suffocating.

Because, in that very instant, a flood of memories had come rushing back to him.

Like how he’d carefully distanced himself from Qiao Qi in every interview and on every Weibo post; how he’d complained to 7 in their chats about how tastelessly, vulgarly gorgeous Qiao Qi supposedly was; how he’d mutually blocked Qiao Qi’s main account’s Moments feed.

“…”

“…………”

“…………….”

Liang Yan’s expression only grew grimmer.

Thoroughly alarmed, the owner, terrified he’d somehow taken in a gravely ill patient late at night, tried to call his consciousness back. “Hello? Are you all right?”

To be honest — not really.

Liang Yan’s neck creaked stiffly as he turned it, as though he could actually hear his own bones crackling.

Slowly, he pulled out his phone, searched online for a childhood photo of Qiao Qi that netizens had once dug up, and, with a grave expression, made one final desperate attempt — shoving the phone in front of the owner.

“Is this her? Please.”

Liang Yan stared unblinking at the owner’s face, terrified of missing the slightest change in expression, until he saw the owner nod with complete certainty. “That’s her, that’s her exactly!”

…Right.

Everything went black before Liang Yan’s eyes; he very nearly passed out.

His voice trembling, he said, “Doctor, please, resuscitate me — I think I’m having a heart attack!”

The owner responded: “Ah? I’m so sorry, but we don’t run a clinic here anymore. I’m actually here today just to pack up the last of our things.”

Liang Yan: “?”

So that explained why nothing in this room had looked quite right the moment he walked in — he’d assumed they’d expanded the business and moved the storefront to the back.

Turned out they’d changed their whole line of work?

But medicine surely wouldn’t stray too far from its original field, right?

The next moment, Liang Yan heard the owner say: “We’ve switched to running a crematorium now.”

Liang Yan: “…Then just send me straight there, thanks.”

There was, evidently, no going back to China for him now.

The owner: “Hm? No, no, we only do business with the dead.”

Liang Yan gave a hollow smile. “Sir, don’t let the fact that I’m still technically alive fool you. Honestly, there’s no difference between me and a corpse at this point.”

“Seriously, don’t believe me? Touch and see.” Earnestly, Liang Yan grabbed the owner’s hand and pressed it to the side of his own face. “Doesn’t it feel just like touching a cold, lifeless corpse?”

The owner: “…”

In the end, his emotions in far too much turmoil, Liang Yan agreed to tag along with the owner to tour his family’s newly opened crematorium.

He’d hoped to experience life and death from a different perspective, but the smell inside was simply too overpowering, and he stopped dead at the front entrance instead.

Seeing him still so downcast, the owner, worried he might be entertaining some dark thoughts, tried to keep him from doing anything rash, even saying: “In Chinese tradition, falling leaves return to their roots. Even if you can’t get past this hurdle, you should still return to the place where you belong, in the end.”

Expressionless, Liang Yan said, “Thanks, but at this point I’d honestly rather just die in a foreign land.”

“…”

Author’s Note: See that? THAT is a real crematorium. …Weirdly stuck on this part for some reason. Might be trying to end the dungeon arc right at chapter fifty. I’ll squeeze in another chapter sometime tomorrow during the day. 50 red packets, throwing myself at your mercy!!