Chapter 9: The Child — What If We Both Get Beaten Up?

In Lu You’s thinking, things like the private records of a famous professor and his students still required a trip back to the school. Who knew that He Zhuchun would just step out, make one phone call, and come back with all the files and current-status reports of teacher and students already copied onto his phone.

He waved the phone around, fishing for praise: “Efficient, right?”

Qin Shuheng saw it and was delighted and amazed: “How did you do that?”

He Zhuchun’s eyes curved into smiles: “Not telling.”

“Smug show-off.” Qin Shuheng cursed him once and turned off to find a spot to copy scriptures.

He Zhuchun snapped a retort, pleased with himself, and dragged a stool over beside the Executive Chair.

The phone screen was small, so the two of them huddled close together reading the files, but neither of the two grown men thought anything of it. Lu You in particular truly settled his mind and went carefully through the information one by one, reading fast, flipping page after page. He Zhuchun kept pace at first, then simply gave up, propping his cheek in one hand and staring blankly at Lu You.

Lu You flipped to the very last page, set the phone face-down, closed his eyes, and ran through the information in his head.

He Zhuchun, chin propped, tilted his head to look at him: “Well?”

Lu You said: “There are a few suspicious points.”

He Zhuchun motioned for him to elaborate.

Lu You pondered a moment: “Li Bingjun. He truly has academic achievements brilliant enough to dazzle—it’s just that the long list pulled up all at once, I can’t quite follow it.”

Li Bingjun was He Zhuchun’s professor.

He Zhuchun had been very serious, but at this sudden remark he couldn’t help laughing: “You’re such an authority in the Metaphysics field—how did you fall behind in the sciences?”

“Different trades, different specialties.” Lu You was already short on sleep, and now staring at a whole string of academic jargon he felt a headache coming on.

He Zhuchun asked: “So the suspicious points?”

“They’re mainly in the timeline and his family relationships.” Lu You flipped the phone back over, fingers swiping rapidly to a certain page and pointing it out to him:

“Li Bingjun did his undergrad at some non-985/211 school, then tested into a local 211 for his master’s, continued straight into a PhD at the same school three years later, and from his PhD graduation all the way to age thirty-five, his résumé was completely normal.”

He Zhuchun read through the materials, his brow knitting along.

Lu You continued: “The turning point came at Li Bingjun’s age thirty-five. That year it was as if he’d been bound to one of those special systems from a novel—his brain suddenly opened up, and within a single year he filed for multiple patents in succession, and from then on his standing in academia climbed ever higher.”

“So here’s the question: what exactly happened in that thirty-fifth year?”

He Zhuchun lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, then a flash went off in his mind: “Yuanyuan?”

Li Bingjun was forty-seven this year, and Li Jiayuan would soon be twelve. Do the math: the year Li Bingjun turned thirty-five was precisely the timing point of Yuanyuan’s birth.

Lu You’s fingertips swayed, and he flipped out another page, pointing at a line on the screen: “Not only that. The year Li Bingjun turned thirty-five, his wife Zhou Ru died in childbirth.”

He Zhuchun felt a line surfacing faintly in his head, yet always one crucial piece of information short of stringing all the clues together. He clicked his tongue:

“I don’t quite get it—what does Zhou Ru’s death have to do with any of this?”

Lu You rubbed his temple, then suddenly asked him: “What do you think is most important to a woman—especially a mother?”

He Zhuchun’s eyes widened slightly: “…Her child?”

Lu You: “And what about a mother who has already lost a child once?”

“Another child?!” He Zhuchun’s heart surged. He snatched up the phone and paged through the materials, flipping back and forth several times before pressing the screen dark and dropping it on the table: “Where does it say there was another child?”

“Not in the records.” Lu You took his phone—no password on it—and swiped to the first page of the files, pointing at Li Bingjun’s shoulder position on the photo, and tapped.

“Here.”

The fatigue between Lu You’s brows deepened. He told He Zhuchun: “I think I know what the thing that swapped souls with Li Jiayuan is.”

He Zhuchun still couldn’t quite believe it: “Impossible, right? How could a father be cruel to that degree?”

Lu You: “Hard to say.”

“Of course, everything so far is only conjecture—there’s no proof it’s so.” Lu You turned the file to the students’ section, found the profiles of the PhD students, his finger sweeping past the words “Deceased” in their status columns one by one, finally stopping somewhere.

He said: “So, we need a new breakthrough.”

He Zhuchun followed his fingertip—and landed on an unfamiliar name.

Name: Chen Zhuzhuo.

Current occupation: welder.

Below that, his workplace and home address were listed in detail—right here in this city, ten-odd kilometers away.

Of all the PhD students, the only one still alive today.

Lu You said: “For example, this one.”

Qin Shuheng had somehow dragged out a crate half a person tall from somewhere on the first floor, rummaging through it forever before finally excavating an ancient, battered helmet.

Handing it carefully to He Zhuchun, he admonished: “You must be gentle with it, okay? Otherwise it’ll go on strike.”

He Zhuchun held the helmet in one hand, speechless: “What tomb did this relic get excavated from? Why isn’t it in a museum?”

“Don’t you mock this helmet.” Qin Shuheng huffed and puffed, shoving the crate back, slapping his hands clean, then turning to warn him: “If you don’t want to use it, then just wait for the traffic cop to make you stand in the corner and post about it—friend feed and all.”

He Zhuchun had known Lu You a day and a half, and had already seen more junk he hadn’t seen in years than he could count. He clapped the helmet between both hands, knocking loose a layer of dust, and looked back at Lu You:

“You can’t be serious, Great Immortal. I just washed my hair yesterday.”

Qin Shuheng still held his grudge over being mocked, and turned needling again: “Then go wash it one more time, your fastidiousness.”

He Zhuchun: “……”

Lu You was holding a helmet too, much newer than the one in He Zhuchun’s hands, waiting at the door: “Let’s go.”

Qin Shuheng admonished Lu You as well: “Master, remember to buy some Offering Tributes on the way back. What Sister Yang Yun ate this morning—I forgot to restock it.”

Lu You nodded his agreement, took his keys, and went to push his Yadea.

He Zhuchun felt vaguely grossed out, slapped the dust off the helmet a few more times, then gritted his teeth, pulled it on, and swung his long legs up onto the back seat.

Lu You’s consultation shop was already relatively far from the city center, and Chen Zhuzhuo’s welding spot was farther still. The two rode for over half an hour, the scenery around growing bleaker and bleaker. He Zhuchun checked the navigation, looked left and right, and pointed off to the side:

“Is it that one?”

In the direction he pointed stood a semi-open workshop, and at its entrance sat a man in a camouflage jacket, a head-mounted welding mask covering his face so his features couldn’t be seen, welding pliers in hand as he repaired a large motorized motorcycle.

Lu You rode up to the workshop entrance, dismounted, took the charger out of the basket, and asked first:

“Can I charge something here?”

The man had already stopped his work while the two were still riding over. He lifted the welding mask, revealing a face below that was weathered and simple beyond measure—from the features, one could tell he must have been handsome in years past; only now life had ground away his spirit, the stubble on his face grown somewhat long, and paired with his machine-oil-and-dust-caked work clothes, he looked all the more down and out.

The man frowned, looking them over once up and once down, before silently standing and fetching a power strip from inside the workshop, dropping it on the ground.

The other end of the strip connected to a socket inside the workshop.

“Thanks.” Lu You plugged the scooter’s charger into the strip.

The man waved a hand and said nothing more.

He Zhuchun paced back and forth, taking in the surroundings, and happened to come around behind the man. Familiar as an old friend, he patted his shoulder—at this point no longer minding the man’s dirty jacket—and called his name: “Chen Zhuzhuo?”

Chen Zhuzhuo froze, his eyes on He Zhuchun extraordinarily wary: “You know me?”

“No.” He Zhuchun thought for a moment, then added: “But I know who you are.”

Chen Zhuzhuo asked: “How do you know me?”

“Academically speaking, I should be calling you Senior Martial Brother,” He Zhuchun said. “My graduate advisor is Li Bingjun.”

“I don’t know any Li Bingjun!” At that name, Chen Zhuzhuo’s emotions turned inexplicably and violently agitated. He spread both arms in a driving gesture, like an old village woman shooing chicks into their coop, exaggerating and flapping his arms again and again: “Go! Get going! You’re not welcome here!”

Caught off guard, He Zhuchun was driven back two steps by the flapping. Chen Zhuzhuo went and yanked out the power strip’s plug, hauling the other end back with vicious force.

Lu You’s quick hand pulled the charger free, sparing the scooter from being dragged over.

The electric scooter was old—if it took a knock or a bump now, there was no telling whether it would pull through.

Seeing this, He Zhuchun’s temper rose too: “Talk properly! What did the scooter ever do to you! If you break it, can you afford to pay? This is a relic! The museum kind!”

Lu You: “……”

Chen Zhuzhuo had no patience for his prattling, driving them off with nothing but heated words: “Get out! Get out now! Stay far away from me and my family, and don’t let me see you again!”

He Zhuchun genuinely felt this man was beyond reason, rolled up his sleeves to have it out with him, had taken one step forward when he was yanked back.

Lu You said flatly: “Let’s go.”

The scooter hadn’t taken on much charge. When Lu You turned the key the battery showed barely full; but the moment He Zhuchun sat down behind, the gauge instantly dimmed one bar.

Two one-point-eight-meter men squeezed onto a small beat-up scooter, puttering away.

Behind them, Chen Zhuzhuo glared at their backs, red threads crawling across the whites of his eyes, and only when their figures were finally out of sight did he gulp two hard breaths, his body deflating like a punctured balloon, his spine folding heavily forward.

They rode a good two li out before Lu You found a small park with few people and braked to a stop.

He Zhuchun looked ahead and behind: “Where’s this?”

“No idea.” Lu You planted a leg to hold the scooter up: “Get off first.”

The two found a wooden bench and sat side by side. Lu You dug through his pockets, brought out the half pack of Soft Pack Zhonghua Cigarettes left from yesterday, pulled one out, and clamped it between his lips.

He Zhuchun saw it and reached out a hand.

“No matter how shabby your other conditions are, you never shortchange yourself on smokes.”

Lu You ignored him, lighting up on his own before handing both the lighter and the pack over to He Zhuchun.

The two just sat there, smoking together.

Lu You said nothing, eyelids half-lowered, staring into the void, cigarette mouthful after mouthful. When one was finished, he stood up without warning.

He Zhuchun was startled, choked on his own smoke, and broke into violent coughing. He hacked for a good while before recovering, and asked: “What was that for?”

Lu You took out the scooter key: “Go.”

He Zhuchun: “Go where?”

“Back to Chen Zhuzhuo.”

He Zhuchun thought, You really are addicted to eating closed doors. He coughed a few more times, caught his breath, stubbed out his cigarette into the trash bin, and climbed miserably back onto the rear seat.

The road here was old, pothole after pothole strung together, and He Zhuchun’s throat still hurt—now every jolt made it worse.

He made small talk: “Chen Zhuzhuo hates our guts this much, and we’re going back? Isn’t that asking for a cursing?”

Lu You’s signature cold voice drifted from up front: “Mm.”

He Zhuchun wasn’t kind-hearted, and asked jokingly: “Then what if he gets angry and takes a swing at us later? I’ve heard laborers like that have the most strength. I’m young and sturdy, a couple hits wouldn’t kill me—but just don’t let the Great Immortal get hurt again, alright?”

The scooter rounded a small bend, and Lu You answered:

“Set your heart back in your belly. I have a way.”

Strangely, He Zhuchun’s faintly anxious mood suddenly dissolved. He stared fixedly at the back of Lu You’s head for a while, and then suddenly said:

“Lu You, you know what? There’s really a kind of magical magic about you.”

Lu You asked: “What?”

He Zhuchun said: “It makes anyone who sees you, hears you—unable to help feeling safe.”