Gather and Scatter as Fate Wills It Bar.

At ten in the evening, during the busiest time when feet barely touched the ground, Uncle Zhang happened to look up and saw the person entering the door.

First came the relieved joy in his heart, immediately followed by a stern expression of settling accounts after autumn: “Well, you still remember to come back?”

Mu Dai smiled harmlessly, with a slight hint of reproach at the corners of her eyes and brows. Uncle Zhang’s heart softened as he looked at her, examining her up and down, and asked: “You said you couldn’t speak then—what illness did you have? Are you better now?”

So Mu Dai knew she had passed the test.

She dropped a sentence: “I’ve been fine for a long time.”

She entered with light steps, her hand on her shoulder, stretching her muscles: “I’ve been sitting in a car all day, I’m exhausted.”

Uncle Zhang watched her go upstairs, then turned his gaze back to the two people remaining at the door.

One on the left, one on the right; one fat, one thin. One looked like a defeated door god, standing limply at the entrance, his pudgy face full of ingratiating smiles. The other was every bit a lackadaisical hoodlum, carrying luggage, appearing submissive but observing and waiting for an opportunity to act.

Uncle Zhang was truly irritated.

“What am I supposed to say to you two?”

Different people, different fates. The Little Boss Lady was the Little Boss Lady—even if she committed a grave error, she wouldn’t receive a single scolding.

They didn’t enjoy such good treatment…

Cao Yanhua looked at the bunk beds Uncle Zhang had arranged for him and Yi Wansan, feeling infinitely desolate. Originally, at least they each had their room.

Uncle Zhang’s words still rang in his ears: “I’ve hired new people, so I need to arrange places for them to sleep. Drifters like you—who knows when you’ll run off again? Having a bed is good enough.”

Indeed, having a bed was good enough.

Cao Yanhua discussed with Yi Wansan: “Brother San, how about I take the lower bunk? I’m heavy, and my weight will stabilize the entire bed.”

Yi Wansan sneered at him: “Yes, you’re the foundation.”

Cao Yanhua had no luggage—most of his possessions had fallen into the water during the capsizing. However, he was glad to travel light. After taking a shower, he went to bed. Yi Wansan needed to organize his belongings moved from his previous room, making clattering noises endlessly.

Accompanied by the noise of rummaging, Cao Yanhua sadly took inventory of his possessions. Only a few bills remained, hidden close to his body.

He could barely resist the urge to return to his old profession. Fortunately, he still had one-fifth of the pearls waiting to be sold from Yan Hongsha to comfort his loneliness.

Thinking of this, the old clam suddenly became quite dear and lovable.

He turned over and looked at Yi Wansan sitting among his messily arranged possessions: “Brother San, I hope the next evil bamboo slip is hidden in a gold mine. That way, after all our trouble, I could get a gold bar, which would earn me much more than working at the bar.”

Yi Wansan didn’t look up: “Didn’t we agree not to get involved in this anymore?”

Oh, that’s right.

Cao Yanhua sighed melancholically: “I was just thinking aloud.”

After nearly two days of traveling, with a stop in Kunming to drop off Yan Hongsha, she had arranged for medical staff caring for Old Man Yan to come and draw a vial of blood from each of them. The vials were tightly sealed, labeled, and placed in a specialized medical box.

The labels were unnecessary since all the blood would be mixed later.

When saying goodbye, Yan Hongsha was reluctant to part: “I’ll come visit you in a few days. Mu Dai, I’ll transfer your wages to you. Also, let me know when you get a new phone.”

Among the five of them, except for Luo Ren and Yi Wansan, the other three had lost their phones in Wu Zhu Village, making it impossible to create a five-person WeChat group, which bothered Yan Hongsha.

She had already thought of a name for the group: “Phoenix Task Force,” though Yi Wansan said the name was incredibly corny and he wouldn’t accept the invitation even if it killed him.

Yan Hongsha also thought the name was quite corny, but because Yi Wansan objected, she was determined to stick with it.

By the afternoon, they had already returned to Lijiang, but none went to the bar first. After all, there was still a crucial task ahead.

Could the blood from all five of them truly force out the evil bamboo slip from Pin Ting’s body?

Uncle Zheng looked more haggard than on the previous days. All his worries about Pin Ting were written on his face. As he led Luo Ren and the others into the room, he said, “Little Luo Knife, I hope this works. Don’t let Pin Ting suffer like this anymore.”

Pin Ting lay quietly on the bed, her hands and feet tightly bound with restraints. Perhaps due to sedatives, she was sleeping deeply. In Uncle Zheng’s words, the injections had hardly stopped—either sedatives or nutritional fluids.

But nutritional fluids were not the same as real food. They maintained the normal functioning of the body, but couldn’t make her vibrant and energetic.

Pin Ting looked much thinner than the last time they had seen her.

With the experience of dealing with evil bamboo slips twice before, everyone was much more organized. Luo Ren injected half a vial of the mixed blood into Pin Ting’s body, then stepped back.

Mu Dai lifted Pin Ting’s clothes.

This time, the reaction was much quicker. Pin Ting’s skin took on an unusual ruddiness. On her back, the ruddy area gradually expanded, with the normal skin color diminishing until finally a bamboo slip shape remained, as if it had nowhere to retreat.

Adjacent to the previous scar, that piece of human skin quickly lifted.

A strange thought flashed through Mu Dai’s mind: this evil bamboo slip must never attach to Pin Ting’s body again. Otherwise, time after time, it would peel off human skin. If it happened too often, she would truly be left without an inch of intact skin.

She gripped a pair of chopsticks in her hand. With her eyes fixed on the target, her hands extremely steady, she picked up that piece of skin and swiftly threw it into the basin of water prepared at her feet.

In another room, as previously instructed by Luo Ren, Uncle Zheng had prepared a large transparent fish tank. Yi Wansan first placed the water bucket containing the cremation urn into it. Cao Yanhua poured water in until it was nearly full. Then Mu Dai brought in the basin and poured that water in as well.

Now the fish tank contained two evil bamboo slips.

Luo Ren injected the remaining half-vial of blood into the fish tank.

It’s hard to describe the experience. Perhaps each person’s blood had a slightly different color and viscosity. Although forcibly mixed, once in water, five distinct streams could still be seen.

Like riding clouds, they dispersed gracefully yet remained connected, transforming into indistinguishable shapes. Mu Dai held her breath and looked carefully…

The piece of skin moved slightly, as if something had detached from it. Immediately after, something invisible also rushed out from the cremation urn.

Cao Yanhua’s scalp tingled, and he could barely speak clearly: “Look… look…”

They didn’t need his reminder; everyone was watching.

In the water, extremely fine red borders traced out two long strips.

Each strip had red characters, ancient oracle bone script.

One was “knife,” and one was “water.”

Yi Wansan deliberately changed his angle to look. Even when viewed from behind, the characters didn’t appear reversed. From any direction, they looked the same.

They had no shape, seeming both flat and three-dimensional, standing upright side by side in the water.

And around them circled…

Yi Wansan murmured, “It looks like a phoenix.”

It did resemble a phoenix, though it was just the shape of blood dispersing in water. Head to tail, with a chicken’s head, swallow’s beak, snake’s neck, kylin’s body, turtle’s back, and a peacock-like long trailing tail. It seemed to have eyes—narrow, slightly closed, with a serene expression.

Cao Yanhua held his breath and used a hook to pull out the bucket containing the cremation urn. The water rippled, but the shapes of the phoenix and bamboo slips did not scatter. Instead, they gently moved with the water patterns.

Cao Yanhua stared at the cremation urn. The grotesque face was gone, and there were no more sudden bulges taking one by surprise. It was just an ordinary ceramic cremation urn. If there was anything different, it was that it was wrapped in a seamless layer of pearly white material.

Yi Wansan let out a relieved sigh.

Mu Dai asked Luo Ren: “Is this enough? Is it safe?”

Safe? No one could say for certain, but at least it was much more reliable than their amateur attempts at creating a metal-wood-water-fire-earth formation.

Luo Ren took out his phone, opened the camera function, focused, and gently pressed the button.

With a click, the serene posture of the phoenix appeared on the phone screen, its phoenix eyes narrow and slightly closed, as if in a gentle smile.

Pin Ting was once again freed from the trouble of the evil bamboo slip, and Yi Wansan had completely recovered his father’s ashes.

It felt like a perfect completion, a clean exit.

A wise man doesn’t stand beneath a dangerous wall. There seemed to be no reason to continue being involved with the evil bamboo slips, especially since no one had received any more messages from the Phoenix Luan Buckle.

In silence, everyone tacitly reached an agreement.

Let it be like this.

The next day, Mu Dai woke up unusually early and opened the window to breathe some fresh air…

Someone had risen even earlier.

Cao Yanhua.

He was huffing and puffing, jogging around the perimeter of the bar, panting every two steps. Toward the end, he was practically shuffling along while leaning against the wall.

As the saying goes, one day without practice, hands become slow and feet clumsy; two days without practice, half the skill is lost. Indeed, Cao Yanhua hadn’t practiced for quite some days.

Yi Wansan was also there, sitting on a stool by the entrance, sharpening something on a whetstone.

Unable to see clearly, Mu Dai suddenly thought of something and quickly retrieved the mini telescope from her previously changed clothes. She brought it up and looked carefully.

It was the immortal riding the phoenix. Since Yi Wansan had knocked it off, the base was uneven. He was sprinkling water on the whetstone, trying to smooth the bottom.

What was he sharpening this for?

Cao Yanhua, like an old broken-down car, groaned and shuffled back, helping her ask this question: “Brother San, what are you sharpening this for?”

Yi Wansan ignored him, still bent over the whetstone, working diligently. The grooves on the whetstone disappeared when rinsed with water.

Brother San, what are you sharpening this for?

He wanted to sharpen it for display.

But he also felt that perhaps it would be better to wrap it in cloth and hide it deep, deep in an invisible corner.

Never mind, he’d finish sharpening it first, then decide.

Mu Dai slowly turned the telescope in another direction.

What was Luo Ren doing?

He lived nearby, but his room faced away from this side, so only the closed window was visible.

Was he up yet?

Mu Dai leaned on the windowsill, bending forward somewhat reluctantly. Something smooth pressed against her chest.

Mischievously, she took out the whistle and brought it to her lips, blowing once.

The long, clear note startled everyone.

Uncle Zhang ran out from the bar, looking around before identifying her as the culprit: “Little Boss Lady, are you trying to get yourself killed? People are still sleeping nearby. You’ll get cursed at.”

Not just sleeping—there were many tourists here, most of whom slept until they naturally woke up.

Mu Dai had the smugness of someone who had done something naughty. Making a face, she tucked the whistle back into her collar. As she glanced around, she suddenly paused, then smiled.

Luo Ren had opened his window.

He seemed to have just awakened, looking drowsy. His robe was open at the top, revealing his firm, bronze-colored chest muscles.

Mu Dai quickly raised the telescope, aimed it, and stared intently.

After a while, she slowly moved the scope upward.

Of course, Luo Ren had spotted her. With a look of resignation, after a moment, he mouthed “wait a minute” and turned away.

What was he doing? Mu Dai was curious.

Soon, Luo Ren reappeared with a sketchbook, gesturing for her to look.

On the paper were seven characters: “Good morning, girlfriend.”

She wanted to reply but couldn’t find paper and pen…

She needed to buy a new phone soon.

Luo Ren flipped to the second page.

It read: “Want to see? Come over!”

After showing this, he unceremoniously closed the window, leaving only the latticed glass pane facing her.

Mu Dai smiled, but muttered defiantly: “As if I care.”

She returned to her desk, bent down to open the computer, brought up a web page, and typed “new phone models” in the search bar. Just as she moved the mouse to search, she suddenly seemed to think of something and stopped.

After a while, she pulled over a chair and sat down, deleting the input characters one by one.

The cursor representing the input position kept blinking, prompting her to enter search content in the blank field.

Mu Dai typed in four characters.

Dissociative identity disorder.

She looked at it for a long time, then pressed Enter to confirm.