Long Dan cursed, “Finally got it up.”
He had been working with Old Qin but suddenly noticed that Old Qin had stopped moving.
“Old Qin, what’s wrong?”
It had only been a few days since they left, yet Old Qin, usually so diligent, seemed to have learned to slack off. This wasn’t like him.
As Long Dan pondered this, he heard Old Qin say in a strange voice, “This doesn’t seem to be the boy’s grandfather, does it?”
Long Dan froze, quickly looking at the body they had fished out. Upon seeing it, he let go and jumped two steps back, his face turning unpleasant as he said, “This is the one from near the tree!”
Old Qin frowned in disgust but said nothing, tossing the stiff corpse aside and brushing the snow off himself.
In the carriage, the boy wrapped in a blanket and peering out had already frozen in shock.
Long Dan strode over, standing by the carriage window with a menacing look, “You little brat, you’re not being honest. There was this one in the ice hole too, why didn’t you say so earlier?”
The boy, face pale, lowered his head, “I… I didn’t know…”
Long Dan patted the carriage wall, his impression of the boy worsening after fishing out a corpse that had been dead for who knows how long, “Come on, where’s the small one?”
The boy looked up, bewildered.
Long Dan frowned, “Kid, don’t play dumb now. I saw both of you under the tree last night. You didn’t say anything and let us go fish for your grandfather, but we ended up with this one. If we go fishing again, are we going to pull up the small one?”
The boy, head lowered, remained silent for a long while. Then, wrapped in the blanket, he crawled out of the carriage and stood barefoot in front of Long Dan, saying softly, “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think the two Xi Shen would be in there too…”
“Xi Shen?” Long Dan raised an eyebrow, glancing at the middle-aged male corpse on the ground.
The boy looked at Jiang Si and the others, explaining, “That’s what we call them where I’m from…”
The boy continued, shuffling his feet nervously, “You all saved me, and I’m very grateful… You should go now, don’t worry about me anymore…”
Long Dan’s eyes widened in anger, “You little brat, you think we won’t leave?”
The boy pressed his lips together, falling silent.
People in their line of work rarely interacted with outsiders, let alone a young boy.
At this point, Jiang Si spoke up, “A Long, get him a set of your spare clothes and shoes to change into.”
Although Long Dan had spoken harshly, he wouldn’t hold it against the boy. He turned and walked towards the back of the carriage.
The four of them, traveling far from home, had packed plenty of cookware and changes of clothes, all stored at the rear of the carriage.
Opening the back door of the carriage compartment, one couldn’t see the interior, but rather a storage cabinet as high as the carriage, three feet deep.
Long Dan took out clothes, shoes, and socks, walked back to the boy, and handed them over, “Hurry up and change. What kind of sight is it, wrapped in a blanket like that? The shoes might be too big, but you’ll have to make do.”
The boy, holding the clothes, said a word of thanks, quickly glanced at Jiang Si, and then went behind the carriage to change.
Soon, the boy emerged wearing Long Dan’s clothes, awkwardly tugging at the oversized cotton jacket.
He was surprised to find Old Qin and Long Dan starting to fish for bodies again, and silently ran to the edge of the snow pit to keep watch.
Another body was pulled up, just as Long Dan had predicted – it was the young boy’s corpse.
The corpse-driving boy lowered his head, “Benefactors, please stop fishing. I… I’ll figure something out…”
Having pulled up yet another long-dead corpse, Long Dan had accumulated quite a bit of anger. Hearing this, he raged, “What the hell kind of solution can you come up with? You can’t even walk without falling in yourself, and you think you can find a way to pull your grandfather out? Sounds more like you’re looking to die!”
The boy endured Long Dan’s scolding without a word. He knew that despite the harsh words, he had encountered good people.
“A Long, let’s get the person up quickly, we need to get back on the road,” Jiang Si reminded.
Long Dan nodded, enduring the strange nickname “A Long,” and sped up his efforts.
About a quarter of an hour later, the boy’s grandfather was finally fished out.
Upon seeing his grandfather for the first time, the boy could no longer remain silent. He rushed over, hugging his grandfather’s already cold and stiff corpse, and began to cry.
Long Dan walked over to Jiang Si and asked quietly, “What do you think we should do with this boy?”
Though his words had been harsh, the boy was only fifteen or sixteen years old, and it seemed heartless to just leave him in this icy, snowy wilderness.
“Ask if he’s willing to come with us. We can drop him off at the next town,” Jiang Si replied.
Long Dan nodded and approached the boy.
The boy stopped crying and looked at him.
“Kid, the person is gone, crying won’t help. We need to get going. How about this – we’ll help you dig a hole to bury him, and you come with us?”
The boy shook his head, “Thank you for your kindness, big brother, but I won’t go with you. I need to take my grandfather home.”
“Then how will you take—” Long Dan stopped mid-sentence, remembering that the boy could drive corpses. His expression immediately turned strange.
Suddenly, the boy knelt and kowtowed to Long Dan.
Long Dan hurriedly stepped aside, blurting out, “Don’t kneel to me. Saving you was… Miss A Hua’s idea.”
The boy’s gaze shifted between Jiang Si and Elder Hua, finally settling on Jiang Si.
Jiang Si’s mouth twitched slightly as he said, “It was nothing, you don’t need to take it to heart. Are you sure you don’t want us to take you part of the way?”
The boy firmly shook his head, kowtowed to Jiang Si, then to Old Qin, and silently walked back to squat beside his grandfather’s corpse.
It was clear that as long as Jiang Si and the others didn’t leave, he was prepared to keep watch over his grandfather’s body.
Jiang Si and Long Dan exchanged a glance, then said resignedly, “Well, let’s go then.”
They got back into the carriage, and it slowly began to move.
The boy gazed at the departing carriage, lost in thought.
Suddenly, the young man walking beside the carriage ran back, handing the boy an oil paper package.
“There’s some dried food inside. Miss A Hua asked me to give it to you.”
The boy clutched the package and said softly, “My name is Yun Chuan.”
Yun Chuan?
Long Dan’s lip twitched.
What an elegant name. He had thought this somewhat ugly boy would be called something like Er Dan.
“Kid, take care of yourself. The dead can’t come back to life; the living is what’s most important,” Long Dan reminded him one last time before chasing after the carriage.
The boy watched as Long Dan caught up with the carriage and got on. Only then did he tuck the oilpaper package into his clothes and stand up, taking the copper bell hanging around his neck and shaking it gently.
A strange bell sound rang out, and suddenly the three corpses, including the boy’s grandfather, stood up and followed behind the boy, moving stiffly towards the trees by the roadside.
Moving by night and hiding by day were the rules they had to follow. If they hadn’t traveled this morning, perhaps his grandfather wouldn’t have died.
This must be punishment.
As the boy drove the three corpses towards the snowy forest, he didn’t notice Long Dan curiously looking back from the departing carriage.
“Old Qin, look quickly! Those corpses moved!”
Old Qin turned his head to look, concealing his surprise, and flicked the horsewhip.