Chen Zhuzhuo was a man with backbone.
Even after the car had driven back into the city proper, he kept his mouth clamped shut, refusing to say one more word.
Lu You stared at him through the rearview mirror for a long, spectral moment, thinking who-knew-what, before suddenly saying, “Chen Zhuzhuo. You suspect we were sent by Li Bingjun to harm you and your family. Am I right?”
Chen Zhuzhuo nodded coldly.
“Fine, then.” Lu You’s movements were utterly natural as he asked He Zhuchun for his phone.
He Zhuchun, one hand on the wheel, dug through his pocket, fished out the phone, and tossed it over neatly.
“No password.”
Lu You opened WeChat, found Li Bingjun’s contact, and held the screen up before Chen Zhuzhuo’s eyes.
At the sight of that name—the one etched into his mind through countless midnight nightmares—Chen Zhuzhuo panicked at once: “What are you doing?!”
Lu You said, “I told you we were good people, and you didn’t believe it. You insisted we were Li Bingjun’s men. So now I’m telling you: we are, in fact, Li Bingjun’s men.”
Lu You produced a smile. “Since we can’t go to your house, we’ll deliver you to Professor Li’s place instead. Saves us the trouble—and we earn ourselves a favor along the way.”
“Great idea!” He Zhuchun piled on in a flash: “Ship him over! We butter up Professor Li and get him to elevate my thesis, avenge him trying to murder us just now, and get some satisfaction out of it. Three birds, one stone.”
The two of them—He Zhuchun especially—flashed mouths of pearly white teeth as they grinned, looking in no way whatsoever like good people. And yet Chen Zhuzhuo, at this point, went strangely calm. He looked at Lu You:
“You really aren’t sent by Li Bingjun?”
“We are,” Lu You said.
Chen Zhuzhuo asked, “Then why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“What kind of logic is that?” He Zhuchun snorted. “We say we’re not, you don’t believe it. We say we are, you still don’t believe it. What are you, pathologically contrarian?”
Chen Zhuzhuo choked. “…You two came up being friendly right out of the gate. I could hardly afford not to be careful.”
He Zhuchun asked, “And why believe us now, then?”
Chen Zhuzhuo answered, “Because now I’m tied up, the car’s in your hands, and I’m in your hands. There’s no need to keep up the act to fool me.”
He Zhuchun’s words came needled and barbed: “Your logic is utter nonsense, and yet somehow remarkably well-organized.”
Chen Zhuzhuo: “…Then is it convenient to untie me now?”
“Not convenient.” He Zhuchun leaned back against the seat. “Give us your home address. We’ll untie you when we reach your building.”
Out of options, Chen Zhuzhuo named an old residential compound. Lu You pulled up the navigation on the phone, and He Zhuchun drove by its guidance.
He Zhuchun had come looking for Lu You first thing that morning; between the shop and the workshop they’d been at it all day, and now the minute hand was nearly flying to the two o’clock mark, the sun having climbed overhead and begun its slanting descent. When He Zhuchun stepped out of the car and his feet touched the ground, hunger hit him, abrupt and sharp.
Leaning on the car roof, he called to Lu You, who had just gotten out on the other side: “Great Immortal, are you hungry?”
Lu You shut the car door and answered flatly, “I’m alright.”
He Zhuchun’s lips rattled through something quick; Lu You didn’t catch it, and by the time he thought to ask, He Zhuchun had already clambered into the back seat to drag Chen Zhuzhuo out.
Chen Zhuzhuo was bound up tight, and from the moment half his body had been hauled out of the car he’d been yelping nonstop, terrified He Zhuchun’s hand would slip and drop him. Lu You hurried over to help. Only once the two of them had stood him upright on the ground did they start undoing the various dead knots.
Chen Zhuzhuo, wanting to cry but having no tears, said to He Zhuchun, “You were a crab seller before, weren’t you? That’s professional-grade technique, tying me this tight.”
He Zhuchun’s mouth ran fast: “Never sold crabs. But I did help tie up the pigs at our family’s New Year slaughter.”
Chen Zhuzhuo said, “You really are unpleasant to talk to.”
Once freed, he worked his joints loose first, rubbing the red welts faint, then tidied his hair in the side mirror. Only after confirming he looked presentable did he set off in one direction: “Let’s go.”
Chen Zhuzhuo walked ahead alone, Lu You and He Zhuchun trailing behind, the two of them side by side. He Zhuchun poked Lu You.
Lu You turned to look at him.
He Zhuchun dug through his pocket, produced a chocolate bar, and waved it.
“Eat up. You barely touched breakfast—you must be starving by now.”
Lu You had in fact long since passed beyond hunger. He accepted it with a word of thanks, but seeing that He Zhuchun made no move to dig out another, asked, “And you?”
He Zhuchun said, “I ate too much breakfast. Not hungry.”
Lu You tore open the wrapper, snapped off half, and bit it into his mouth, passing the other half—wrapper and all—back.
He Zhuchun took it, moved beyond words: “Great Immortal, how are you so touching?!”
The sweetness melted across Lu You’s tongue, the distinctive fragrance of cocoa blooming at its tip. He said nothing, casting He Zhuchun the barest sidelong glance.
Chen Zhuzhuo’s parents lived on the third floor; the building had no elevator. The three of them climbed single-file for a while until Chen Zhuzhuo stopped before a door, fished through the ring of keys at his waist, found the right one, and unlocked it.
Inside, Mother Chen had Father Chen settled in the living room watching television. At the sound, she looked back, saw her son return, and rose at once to come over:
“Why are you here so suddenly? You didn’t even give us a heads-up—don’t you have work during the day?” Only after finishing did Mother Chen notice the two figures trailing behind Chen Zhuzhuo. She stopped, smiling a little awkwardly.
“Are these good friends of yours?”
Chen Zhuzhuo nodded as he walked in. “Where’s my father?”
Mother Chen: “He’s watching TV in the living room.”
Only once the three of them had cleared the entryway did they see Father Chen—seated in a wheelchair, neck stretched long, peering toward them.
His back ailment had grown very grave; most of the time he couldn’t stand at all, so he had simply bought a wheelchair to get around more easily.
“Let me introduce you—this is my father, Wang Jianguo,” Chen Zhuzhuo said. “Just call him Uncle Wang.”
Lu You faltered a beat and didn’t speak. It was He Zhuchun whose quick mouth asked, “Stepfather?”
The son was named Chen Zhuzhuo; the father, Wang Jianguo. Judging by names alone, the two did seem to have some discrepancy in their relationship.
“My own father,” Chen Zhuzhuo said, plainly no stranger to this scenario, his expression fairly calm. “I took my mother’s surname.”
That same awkward smile resurfaced on Chen Lihua’s face.
Lu You walked over and sat beside Wang Jianguo, calling out, “Uncle Wang.”
Wang Jianguo was half-paralyzed now, yet his spirits were good, his optimism intact. He clasped Lu You’s hand and pumped it up and down. “Hello, hello, hello.”
Chen Zhuzhuo went over and told his father, “This one’s a professional Spirit Medium Shaman. He says he can help with the trouble in your back, so I brought him home for you to see.”
Chen Zhuzhuo’s family was no family of strict atheists, and besides, Daoist temples and Buddhist monasteries were hardly scarce in this part of town—you could search all you liked and still turn up a fellow Spirit Medium Shaman or two. Especially with it being their own son who’d brought one home.
Wang Jianguo and Chen Lihua exchanged a look, and Wang Jianguo spoke first: “Then… then let’s have a look, I suppose.”
Chen Lihua asked her son, “You’re here so early—have you eaten? Shall I fix you something?”
Chen Zhuzhuo said, “None of the three of us has eaten. Just boil some noodles.”
Chen Lihua: “Right, of course.”
Lu You asked, “Mind if I smoke?”
Chen Zhuzhuo: “Go ahead.”
Lu You first cracked the window open a slit and sat down beside it. He patted his jacket pockets twice, came up with nothing, and paused, startled.
He Zhuchun, entertained by the look on his face, produced cigarettes and lighter and handed them over: “They’re with me. You forgot.”
“So I did.” Lu You took them, drew out a cigarette, and set it between his teeth. The lighter’s flame bloomed in his pale pupils, wavered twice, and left a scarlet point of fire before dying to ash.
Cigarette between his lips, Lu You pinched the root of Wang Jianguo’s left middle finger, working up along it joint by joint. He Zhuchun had heard of this—that place was called the Ghost Spirit Meridian.
Eyes closed, Lu You pinched along it a while, then took Wang Jianguo’s wrist to feel the pulse.
He Zhuchun, idle, cast about, found an ashtray somewhere, and set it on the windowsill at Lu You’s hand. Lu You heard the sound and rested two fingers, cigarette balanced, lightly upon it. When he opened his eyes again, his pupils had darkened considerably; his lids hung lazily half-lowered, yet the look he turned on Wang Jianguo carried a cold severity that belonged to no one but not-him.
Wang Jianguo grew flustered under it; an inexplicable irritability welled up in him, and his waist began to ache again, dragging and heavy—worse this time than it had ever been. More irritated still, he fought the feeling down and asked:
“Master, what do you see?”
Lu You withdrew his hand and tapped the ash. Though the two of them sat eye to eye, with He Zhuchun standing alongside, he could still make out something familiar in that gaze—a downward-pressing, overlooking quality, carrying the peculiar compassion belonging to Lu You alone that he had seen once before.
Lu You always seemed to wear this look whenever he performed a proper Spiritual Consultation. Lofty—yet never condescending. Distant—yet never so far as to be untouchable. And yet there was always some indefinable gap between him and other men, and it was precisely that gap that lent Lu You an inhuman quality of apartness.
So indifferent it was like a gentle wind, forever about to drift away.
Lu You said softly, “It’s a vengeful enemy—an immortal of the Mang Clan. Its Dao Attainment is nothing low.”
A kind of unfathomable bewilderment crossed Wang Jianguo’s face.
Lu You then asked, “When you were small, your father killed snakes, didn’t he?”
“He did.”
Wang Jianguo nodded. “We lived in the countryside back then, with a little wood beside the house. Sometimes the snakes would crawl into the yard, and when my father caught sight of one he’d hack it dead—afraid it would bite us.”
Lu You said, “All things in this world possess spirit. You killed the snakes, and the snakes in turn came to torment you. No injustice there.”
He Zhuchun, listening from the side, caught the key word at once: “‘You’—as in, plural?”
“Mm.” Lu You asked, “Your father died of illness, didn’t he?”
Wang Jianguo’s face changed on the spot.
His expression turned so ugly that even Chen Zhuzhuo could tell something was wrong.
The room fell silent for a time; nothing remained but the rhythmic chopping of Chen Lihua’s knife in the kitchen.
Too long passed with no one speaking, and so Chen Zhuzhuo spoke: “Grandpa died in an accident at home, alone. I was in middle school then. My father went to collect the body by himself… But my father always said Grandpa slipped, had an accident, and passed that way.”
Wang Jianguo’s silence had stretched so long that it struck an oddness in his son too. Chen Zhuzhuo looked at his father, a question in his voice: “Dad?”
“He died of illness.”
Chen Zhuzhuo couldn’t believe it: “…Illness?”
Wang Jianguo glanced at his son’s abruptly ashen face and said, “He didn’t die a decent death, so we never told you, and we didn’t dare let the neighbors see. We burned him to ash that very night and buried him.”
Chen Zhuzhuo asked, “What do you mean, ‘not decent’?”
“It means that when he died, there was nothing human left of his shape.” Lu You said, “Say—his body covered head to toe in snake scales.”
Wang Jianguo’s hands had begun to tremble. Lu You sat closest to him, close enough to see the hairs on his hands stand on end in an instant.
Chen Zhuzhuo pressed, urgency in the call: “Dad?”
“…Yes.” Wang Jianguo squeezed his eyes shut hard. “When I went to collect the body, he’d already been dead half a month. He died in the hottest stretch of summer; the corpse had rotted, and the whole house reeked. The neighbors had smelled it early on but didn’t dare go in, so they called me.”
His voice shook as he went, and he said it again: “I went in alone.”
The cigarette at Lu You’s fingers had burned to its tail. He tapped it and pressed it out in the ashtray.
Wang Jianguo went on: “When he died, there wasn’t a trace of a human left in him.”
The haggard middle-aged man pressed both palms together hard over his face, as if to shut out the pictures of the past, and his voice came through the gaps between his fingers with a heavy, muffled hum:
“His body was covered in snake scales, dense and countless. Face, hands, torso. His lower half had rotted into foul corpse water, flies filled the room, and the stench spread from the bedroom clear into next door. I threw up the moment I stepped in—vomiting and crying at the same time… He’d been dead too long to move; the moment you touched him, he fell apart. So I took up a shovel, scooped him into a bucket, and sent him to the funeral home.”
He Zhuchun’s stomach lurched; he swallowed hard without meaning to.
Lu You’s face barely changed. He brushed the hem of his clothes and said only:
“Good and evil each meet their retribution. Karma never misses.”
