Chapter 19

The woman slowly rose to her feet, lifting Zhao Hequan into the air by the neck.

She brought her face close, as if carefully examining him.

Gradually, black spots began to spread from Zhao Hequan's neck, where the woman's hand gripped him, quickly covering his entire body.

Then the spots gradually swelled and merged, forming patch after patch of black abscesses. Each patch bulged at the center, pus continuously spilling out and running down his body before pooling around his dangling feet and dripping onto the ground.

Yet Zhao Hequan showed no pain and did not struggle, as though he were still sound asleep.

Instead, Li Zhuiyuan suddenly felt an ominous premonition. If touching this woman meant becoming infected and rotting away, then those two chunks of flesh that had fallen onto his face earlier...

His face began to itch.

He carefully sensed it. It really itched; it was not just his imagination.

But no matter how badly it itched, Li Zhuiyuan did not dare raise a hand to scratch it.

Then the woman lifted Zhao Hequan with her left hand alone, holding him sideways at her side. The contrast made it especially clear: the woman's build was absurdly huge.

Li Zhuiyuan had been so shocked by her appearance and their eye contact earlier that he had overlooked this. Now he realized that her figure resembled a temple statue.

Having apparently caught the person she wanted, the woman carried Zhao Hequan down the embankment.

She walked steadily, her eyes fixed ahead.

Then, halfway there, her body kept moving forward while her head abruptly turned ninety degrees to look back.

Li Zhuiyuan's heart trembled.

She...

She was still watching him!

The woman continued walking while looking in his direction. At last, she left his field of vision and descended the embankment.

The itch on his face persisted.

Li Zhuiyuan lay still, his eyelids remaining slightly open.

His sense of time became distorted. He had no idea how long had passed, only that he was still forcing himself not to move.

Suddenly,

The woman's churning, bloody face thrust into view from the lower left corner of his vision.

Like someone who had already stepped outside, then remembered something—her body still outdoors, but her neck craning back as she poked her head inside to look at you.

Those two rows of white teeth were the only part of her face capable of showing an expression.

Her upper and lower teeth remained slightly apart. If one imagined flesh and facial features around them, she was probably smiling.

As if she were saying,

Heh heh,

I'm just checking whether you're really asleep.

Yet this time, Li Zhuiyuan was not frightened. He had already expected something like this.

Because the chill around him had not faded, meaning the woman had not gone far and was still nearby.

He could practically picture her standing motionless below the embankment.

Liu Jinxia had said that those filthy things took an unusually strong interest in people who could see them. So even if you "saw" one, you had to pretend you had not.

At last, the oppressive atmosphere vanished, and the chill dispersed. The heat of the summer night surged back, while the evening breeze brought fresh air.

It felt as though he had stepped out of a freezer, his body and soul both thawing.

That only made his face itch even worse.

It felt as if getting to reach up and scratch it a few times would be the most blissful and satisfying thing in the world.

But Li Zhuiyuan still did not move.

His willpower had already loosened, and his self-control was nearly at its breaking point, but he still held on through sheer inertia, maintaining his sleeping posture and the slight opening of his eyes.

In an instant, the cold returned, fast, urgent, and fierce.

It was not that he had been dragged back into the freezer. Rather, the freezer had opened its door, grown legs, and swallowed him whole.

Two landing sounds came from beside his ears, mixed with the crisp scrape of iron chains.

A pair of legs appeared a little ahead of him in his field of vision. At the bottom were feet still dripping pus.

They were Zhao Hequan's feet. He was currently being carried by the woman.

Which meant the woman was standing behind him now, very close to his head.

She was still watching him.

At that moment, even Li Zhuiyuan found her relentless persistence difficult to understand.

Since she kept testing him again and again, why not simply lift him up too, the way she had Zhao Hequan?

Didn't she still have one hand free?

Then Li Zhuiyuan suddenly remembered the message he had heard during the day: two Haihe University students had used hammers to smash the chains on the female Bodhisattva statue.

It should have been Xue Liangliang and Zhao Hequan.

But the woman had only taken Zhao Hequan, not Xue Liangliang.

So that proved she could only take one person away this time?

At once, Li Zhuiyuan's thoughts became crystal clear.

This was a reverse competition. The competitors were himself and Zhao Hequan. If he exposed a flaw, the woman would likely release Zhao Hequan and take him instead.

Her repeated tests were actually her weighing her options.

Li Zhuiyuan had no intention of sacrificing himself to save Zhao Hequan. If he had to choose between the two, then Zhao Hequan could accompany the woman down there.

After all, his ideal country was America. Visas were difficult to obtain, and the ocean was vast and hard to cross. Being reincarnated there was not a bad shortcut.

Simply enduring the ordeal was miserable, but once the problem was reduced to a competition, he had been pulled back onto the track where he excelled most.

The biting chill came quickly and left quickly. The woman had probably departed again.

But Li Zhuiyuan remained frozen in place.

He no longer cared whether the dream had ended, nor did he worry whether the woman might return. He simply kept this posture, his eyes half-closed to the same degree.

His face still itched badly, forcing him to find another way to distract himself.

He began working through the calculations in the eighth volume of Yin Yang Physiognomy Explained. He had nothing else to do, and nothing he dared do, so he might as well continue studying.

Rows upon rows of faces surfaced in his mind, then gradually overlapped.

Li Zhuiyuan could now make a face appear in his mind and have it be male or female, young or old.

On closer inspection, everything from the eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, and ears was constantly changing.

A paper-doll game was currently popular among girls in the capital. It involved a sheet printed with a model's body, along with a large collection of stickers ranging from hairstyles to all kinds of clothing. You could tear off whichever hairstyles and clothes you wanted, and since the backs were adhesive, stick them onto the model like a simple dress-up doll.

Li Zhuiyuan felt as though he were playing that game now, except the accessories in his own makeup collection were far, far richer than anything in a paper-doll toy set.

As he played, a thought gradually rose in Li Zhuiyuan's mind:

Could he try making this face move and speak?

The first seven volumes of Yin Yang Physiognomy Explained involved enormous amounts of memorization and calculation. Only in the eighth volume did it transition from science to mysticism, and the mysticism here referred to a threshold.

Thanks to how his mother had often taken him to see psychologists when he was little, he had naively tried to meet her expectations back then. Following the doctor's therapeutic guidance, he had even voluntarily given himself a split personality.

Could the same method be used here?

The thought startled him, because he felt that he had found the key to cracking the eighth volume!

Yet at the same time, Li Zhuiyuan sensed danger. The personality he had created for himself in the past had been completely under his control, but if he created a personality in his mind based on someone else's template, would it still be safe?

"Little Yuanhou, wake up. Heh heh, still sleeping? Time to get to work."

Li Weihan's voice sounded beside his ear, followed by a rough but warm hand stroking his face.

Li Zhuiyuan knew that he had truly woken up.

He did not know whether the woman had returned to test him again after that.

But it no longer mattered. Immersed in the atmosphere of study, he had truly ignored the changes outside. He had not fallen asleep, yet he had been even more "dead" than if he had.

"What is it, Little Yuanhou? Was it uncomfortable sleeping outside?" Li Weihan asked with concern.

"No, Grandpa. I slept very well."

Li Zhuiyuan turned toward the house and saw that the university students had also gotten up and were washing. Zhao Hequan was there too, alive and chatting with his classmates.

"That's good. Your uncle brought water. Let's wash our faces."

After a quick wash and breakfast, everyone headed to the worksite early. Today's work was assigned by village. As long as they finished early, they could go home early and would not need to sleep here another night.

Li Zhuiyuan also went to the riverworks site. This time, he slacked off, finding a stone to sit on and propping his chin in his hand.

He was conflicted. He felt that he had found the key to the eighth volume, but he did not dare try it.

Vaguely, it felt like the time he had read his own fortune.

This profession had many taboos. No, that was not right. This profession itself was made up of all kinds of taboos.

The bustling energy at the worksite gradually drove away the gloom in Li Zhuiyuan's heart.

He began to see it more clearly. The first seven volumes were already enough for him to read people's faces when he had nothing to do. As for the eighth volume, it could not be used except at special times.

All right, time to help Grandpa and the others haul mud.

Just as Li Zhuiyuan was about to stand, his gaze dropped. He suddenly noticed a gray patch on the inner side of his left forearm. Looking at his right forearm, he saw an identical patch in the corresponding spot.

He immediately touched his face. There was nothing there, and it had not itched when he woke up. He had almost forgotten about it.

Now it seemed that he had been affected after all.

It was understandable why it had not appeared on his face. Some effects from the dream the night before did not necessarily manifest on the face. Back then, he had not been in his actual body.

Li Zhuiyuan raised both arms and studied them carefully. Though the patches were only coin-sized, this thing... could very likely spread.

At that moment, two people approached from ahead. More precisely, Xue Liangliang was supporting Zhao Hequan as they came over.

The two of them were in the same surveying group. No matter what conflict had happened the night before, they still had to complete their task together today.

"Big brother, what's wrong with him?" Li Zhuiyuan asked.

Xue Liangliang said, "He doesn't feel well. I'm taking him to see a doctor."

Li Zhuiyuan noticed that Zhao Hequan's neck had already turned completely blue-black.

Of course. Li Zhuiyuan had only been struck in the face by scraps of flesh from the woman's face, while Zhao Hequan had been carried off by the neck. His condition had to be the most severe.

After informing Li Weihan, Li Zhuiyuan followed Xue Liangliang and the others back to the embankment where they had slept the night before. A barefoot doctor was stationed there.

The doctor unbuttoned Zhao Hequan's shirt and examined his symptoms. Then his expression turned very grim.

"Doctor, has he been poisoned, or bitten by some venomous insect?" Xue Liangliang asked anxiously.

"Where would we have mosquitoes or bugs that venomous? Poisoning doesn't look likely either. It wouldn't happen this fast. Didn't you say he was fine this morning?"

"Yes, he was completely normal this morning."

"Ah." The doctor looked troubled. "Take him to the Health Center in the nearby town. Have him examined there. All I can handle here are headaches, fevers, and the like."

"Doctor, I have them too." Xue Liangliang rolled up both sleeves.

Standing nearby, Li Zhuiyuan saw that gray circular patches identical to his own had appeared on Xue Liangliang's arms.

Of course. The woman had crouched in front of him the previous night too, and had nearly grabbed him instead of Zhao Hequan. It was perfectly normal for some scraps of flesh to have hit him as well.

"Hurry to the hospital. You should get checked too. It could be some kind of contagious disease."

"All right. Leave my friend here for now. I'll go find a vehicle."

The doctor frowned, but could only nod. Then he took an old mask from his pocket and put it on.

After Xue Liangliang left, the doctor looked at Zhao Hequan again. By then, Zhao Hequan's consciousness had already become somewhat hazy.

The doctor muttered, "This really doesn't look like an illness. It looks more like he was invaded by something unclean."

Barefoot doctors were people with basic medical training, trained or appointed by the state after the founding of New China. They held no official positions and were both farmers and doctors. Though their professional skills generally could not compare with doctors at formal hospitals, they played an enormous role during a particular historical period in improving and safeguarding rural medical care, making outstanding contributions.

At the same time, because of the nature of their profession, they often had their own understanding of certain unusual and difficult illnesses, and were not as dismissive of such things.

"What did you say?" Li Zhuiyuan had heard him and asked curiously.

The doctor said nothing. He was not about to frighten a child with superstitious talk.

"Did he encounter something unclean? Was he invaded?" Li Zhuiyuan pressed on. "How do we fix it?"

The doctor found it a little amusing. "Kid, how would I know how to fix that? I'm a doctor, not a fortune teller."

Li Zhuiyuan was somewhat disappointed. It seemed he could only wait until he returned home and Great Grandfather came back.

He roughly knew that Liu Jinxia and Auntie Li Juxiang seemed to have ways to deal with such problems too, but he truly felt too embarrassed to seek them out. The mother and daughter's methods of solving problems were far too simple and brutal.

At that moment, Xue Liangliang, who had only been gone a short while, came back with a middle-aged man in work clothes whose hair was half gray.

The man had thick, steady brows and a square face, carrying an innate air of upright authority.

"Engineer Luo." The doctor rose to greet him.

The man was the deputy director of the project and also a department head at Haihe University. Over the years, he had basically been responsible for organizing waterworks construction throughout this area.

"Mhm." Luo Tingrui raised a hand in response. Then he walked straight to Zhao Hequan. After examining him, he quietly scolded Xue Liangliang at his side, "Do you two have any brains? Who told you to be so impulsive yesterday?"

"Director, it was my fault."

Luo Tingrui's face darkened. "Didn't I teach you that when construction runs into a grave or temple, it does need to be dealt with? Even if there are no conditions to relocate and resettle it, before tearing it down, you still need to burn a few sticks of incense, bow, and say a few kind words. But you two? You went straight at it with hammers!"

"Director, what should we do now?"

Actually, Xue Liangliang had planned to burn incense and pay respects before demolishing the temple yesterday, but Zhao Hequan had snorted and said this was the inferior nature of Chinese people. Then he had directly swung a hammer at it, leaving Xue Liangliang no choice but to follow along.

Who could have expected such a problem to arise the next day? But this was obviously not the time to explain how responsibility should be divided.

"Where was that statue moved?"

"It was dragged to the western ditch and piled together with the construction waste."

"Good. Take him there first. I'll go to my temporary office and get incense.

Apologize first, then take him to a city hospital. The Health Center in town probably can't deal with symptoms like this. Besides, finding a vehicle will take some time."

"Yes, Director. I understand."

Xue Liangliang hoisted Zhao Hequan onto his back and jogged down the embankment.

As he walked, he suddenly turned to look at Li Zhuiyuan, who was following behind.

"You..."

Li Zhuiyuan did not waste words. He exposed his forearm for him to see.

Xue Liangliang was astonished. "Kid, did you smash it too?"

"I don't know."

In truth, Li Zhuiyuan was the most innocent one here. He now possessed the ability to Yin Walk passively, yet the entire matter really had nothing to do with him.

"Then come burn incense with me. Afterward, tell your family. I'll take you with us to the city hospital."

"All right, big brother."

The two of them—or rather, the three of them—arrived at the western ditch where the discarded materials were piled. The statue of the female bodhisattva stood there all alone.

The villagers working on the construction site still had some basic taboos. They had not left it lying down; a stone had been wedged beside it to make sure it could remain standing.

After setting Zhao Hequan down, Xue Liangliang walked up to the statue and bowed first.

"Yesterday was my fault. Please forgive me..." After a pause, he glanced at Li Zhuiyuan beside him. "At the very least, you should forgive this child."

Last night, Xue Liangliang had declared with great conviction that this world was materialistic.

Yet that did not seem wrong. In the eyes of a true materialist, as long as there was an established set of rules to explore and solve, then even ghosts were materialistic ghosts.

Li Zhuiyuan carefully examined the statue. It had spent a long time underwater or buried in mud, and its painted surface had long since peeled away and corroded. What remained in sight were large stretches of reddish, rust-like material, likely the clay used to mold the statue.

That also matched the state of the woman when she had appeared last night: rolling, scorched, and a bloody mess.

Most importantly, none of the other features on the statue's face could be seen anymore. Only at the corner of its mouth remained a patch of white paint for teeth. Perhaps that pigment had been more durable, and judging by the shape beneath the paint, the chin curved inward, leaving a gap around the mouth. That might have kept it from being completely pressed flat and filled in by the mud.

Li Zhuiyuan bowed as well. Then, the rhyme Great Grandfather had recited when taking him to send off Little Yellow Oriole came to mind. His memory was good, and he had remembered every word exactly, so he recited it naturally.

"Today I make you offerings; next year I send you sacrifices. I have done all that human kindness requires. Are you satisfied?

"Whether yin or yang, reason must still be observed.

"If you have grievances, seek those who wronged you. If you have enemies, seek those you hate. Everyone in this world suffers enough, so do not drag the innocent into it."

Beside him, Xue Liangliang stared at the child with his eyes wide open, because he saw something in him... professionalism.

After Li Zhuiyuan finished, he added, "I'll bring the incense over later. When I get home, I'll set up a little Offering Table for you and offer all my snacks to make it up to you."

Xue Liangliang asked in surprise, "Will that work?"

Li Zhuiyuan shook his head and answered honestly, "I don't know."

He had merely followed Great Grandfather's example and copied down the answer.

Then Li Zhuiyuan raised his arm again.

"Huh?"

The gray spot, originally the size of a coin, had shrunk to the size of a soybean, and its color had faded as well.

Li Zhuiyuan blinked. Even he had not expected Great Grandfather's answer to be this useful!

"Check yours." Li Zhuiyuan looked at Xue Liangliang. He needed a comparison.

Xue Liangliang immediately spread his arms. Not only had his gray spots not shrunk, they had actually grown larger.

He immediately said, "Little brother, hurry up and teach me how to say it."

"Okay."

Next, Xue Liangliang copied Li Zhuiyuan and recited the same words. The only change was that instead of saying he would offer snacks, he said, "I'll get dishes from the school cafeteria and set up an Offering Table for you in the dormitory."

After he finished, they waited for a while.

Like he was scratching off a lottery ticket, Xue Liangliang pulled up his sleeve and let out a surprised sound.

The spot had shrunk, but it had not gone down to soybean size. It had merely returned to its previous size.

"This..." Xue Liangliang frowned. "Could it be that even the bodhisattva knows our school cafeteria food tastes awful?"

Li Zhuiyuan thought it might be because Xue Liangliang had truly smashed the statue yesterday.

"Why is there another child here?" Luo Tingrui arrived carrying incense.

"This child encountered the same problem."

Luo Tingrui was somewhat confused, but he did not ask further. He handed one stick of incense to Li Zhuiyuan, took one himself, and gave one to Xue Liangliang.

As for Zhao Hequan, who was already delirious, they stuffed a large handful into his hands.

Next, Luo Tingrui stood at the front. He held the incense and bowed solemnly, then unbuttoned his collar, disregarded the dirt, and sat down in front of the statue. One hand kept patting the ground while the other clutched his chest as he began recounting his hardships.

He started with the hard days before liberation, then spoke of the purpose and significance of building roads, bridges, and water conservancy projects, before finally looking toward the future.

He spoke with great investment and emotion, completely losing the engineer's earlier rigor. Anyone who did not know better would have thought he was holding a small discussion meeting.

And perhaps because he feared the local temple would not understand Mandarin very well, he deliberately used quite a bit of Nantong Dialect, though it was clumsy and far from standard.

After he finished, he stood up and pressed both hands on Li Zhuiyuan's and Xue Liangliang's heads, making them bow again while holding the incense.

Finally, he dragged the unconscious Zhao Hequan over and gripped his head to make him kowtow.

After doing all this, Luo Tingrui buttoned his collar again, and his whole demeanor settled back down.

Seeing Xue Liangliang's curious gaze, he said irritably, "Learn from this. I learned it from the old hands too. There isn't much of this sort of thing around Nantong, but inland, when building roads and bridges, running into this stuff is common as anything. People figured out this whole procedure, and it's pretty useful."

Li Zhuiyuan nodded in complete conviction, because after the ritual, the gray spot on his forearm that had been the size of a soybean had vanished. Only the faintest, nearly imperceptible trace of color remained. It could practically be said that he was cured.

It really was miraculous. If they had gone back and asked Liu Jinxia to treat it, Xianghou Ayi would probably have been rolling around on the floor in pain again.

Li Zhuiyuan began to think: did this count as another form of mystical development?

Its core was appealing to emotion and reasoning with logic. Yet the key seemed to be an even loftier kind of righteousness, something even filthy things could only retreat from.

The spot on Xue Liangliang's arm had shrunk back to soybean size, and it had faded considerably too. It should not be much of a problem now. Even if that tiny mark remained permanently, it would not matter to a water conservancy student.

As for Zhao Hequan, he seemed much more at ease. He began groaning and recovering some awareness, but his condition had been the most severe to begin with. Even after recovering half of it... it still felt like the difference between an illness severe enough to kill you ten times and one that would kill you only once.

After all, Li Zhuiyuan had seen with his own eyes that "Zhao Hequan" had been carried away by that woman.

Where had she taken him?

Li Zhuiyuan looked around the foot of the statue. There did not seem to be anywhere suitable to hide something, but he saw a line of carved words on the pedestal, between its feet.

"Bai Family Empress."

Was that a title for a woman?

It did fit local naming customs. For instance, guests called Liu Jinxia "Granny Liu."

So this was not some female bodhisattva statue, though calling it that was not entirely wrong. In ordinary people's broad and shallow understanding of divine hierarchies, female deities all seemed to be called female bodhisattvas.

"Send him to the city hospital." Luo Tingrui sighed, then said to Xue Liangliang, "You should go too and get another checkup. Don't leave behind any hidden problems."

Xue Liangliang pointed at Li Zhuiyuan. "This little kid should get checked too."

"Mm. Little one, which village and production team is your family from?"

"Fourth Team, Siyuan Village, Shinan Town."

Luo Tingrui looked at Xue Liangliang. "I'll tell his family. I'll say you students are taking him into the city for a little sightseeing and fun, then use the car to send him home tonight. I can't leave the construction site, so you take them. The car should be waiting at the entrance now."

"Okay, Director."

Xue Liangliang helped Zhao Hequan up again and motioned for Li Zhuiyuan to follow. A car was indeed parked at the western entrance to the site, and the driver was inside. Once he saw them arrive, he immediately drove toward the city.

On the road, Li Zhuiyuan thought that if Engineer Luo went to speak with Grandpa and the others, they would definitely feel reassured. After all, Engineer Luo's position as deputy commander was even higher than that of the town mayor.

By the time they reached Nantong People's Hospital, it was exactly ten in the morning.

Li Zhuiyuan checked his arm. Even the color trace had disappeared. He was completely healed now, but after going home, Li Zhuiyuan would still set up a little Offering Table and fulfill his promise.

Xue Liangliang was about the same. His soybean-sized mark had also faded into a faint trace.

But unlike the two of them, who had basically recovered, it seemed that Zhao Hequan alone bore all the suffering.

When they set out, he had regained a little awareness and appeared much better. But during the ride, his condition worsened again. More than once, he threw up in the car, vomiting sour, foul-smelling water.

It distressed the driver so much that he pressed the horn even harder.

After arriving at the hospital, Xue Liangliang first arranged for Zhao Hequan to be sent to the emergency room, then took Li Zhuiyuan by the hand and brought him through blood tests and a series of other examinations.

By the time they were waiting for the results, it was nearly lunchtime. Xue Liangliang went to the hospital cafeteria to buy some steamed buns and brought them back to eat with Li Zhuiyuan.

"Looks like we'll have to wait until work resumes this afternoon to get the reports." Xue Liangliang looked at Li Zhuiyuan. "After we get them, I'll buy you some milk and little toys from the shop by the entrance, and you can take them home."

"Thank you, big brother."

"What are you thanking me for? In the end, I'm the one who dragged you into this."

This had started because he and Zhao Hequan had smashed the statue with a hammer. How could this child possibly have swung a sledgehammer too?

Li Zhuiyuan lowered his head and took a bite of his bun. It really had started because of him, yet he did not blame him in his heart.

Someone so sunny, cheerful, and considerate was hard to dislike. He himself also liked playing that sort of role...

Hiss!

Li Zhuiyuan clutched the bun in his left hand and grabbed his head with his right, his expression twisted in pain.

Damn it, that feeling was surfacing again.

At that moment, Li Zhuiyuan felt his vision begin to blur. It was as though he and his body were becoming misaligned. In truth, this was a concrete manifestation of his self-awareness separating from his identity and relationships.

His mother's frequent coldness and mockery in recent years surfaced in his mind again.

He knew very clearly that once he allowed this symptom to slip out of control and complete the separation, he would forever lose the identity of "Little Yuanhou." When facing family bonds and social relationships, he would become cold and resistant, unable even to keep acting...

Yet he truly liked this kind of life. He did not want to let go.

If not for his mother, he might not have resisted so fiercely. He might even have thought about trying it to see what it felt like. But because his mother was there, he was afraid.

Perhaps even Li Lan herself had never imagined that all the effort she had put into finding psychological counseling and various intervention methods for her son...

Would be far less effective than becoming such a negative example herself.

"Little Yuan, what's wrong? Little Yuan, are you feeling unwell somewhere?" Xue Liangliang was startled. He was terrified the child had developed some major problem because of him.

Li Zhuiyuan rapidly recited his family relationship network in his mind. This time, he even brought in Grandpa Bei and Grandma Bei. At the same time, he thought of Qin Li with increasing frequency.

That girl whose eyes held only him—he truly did not want to return home and answer her gaze with indifference.

At the same time, Li Zhuiyuan kept repeating to himself: I only found the method for solving the eighth book of physiognomy. I haven't even dared test it yet, so that doesn't count as mastering it! I still haven't completed the Bagua algorithm for calculating fate patterns. My progress has been fast, but what if I get stuck later?

No, even if I master both books, there are still so many books in Great Grandfather's Basement. There's no way I can finish reading and learning all of them. I'll definitely fail. I definitely won't understand them. I'll definitely feel frustrated, helpless, and sick of studying!

Snap!

A silent, crisp sound seemed to ring out as his consciousness, thoughts, and identity returned to their proper places.

Li Zhuiyuan finally let out a breath. He leaned back against the chair, his face covered in cold sweat.

Sure enough, the frustration of studying was still the most useful thing.

This sudden episode was likely related to him breaking through the eighth book during the night. It had made him lose his awareness of being a poor student.

"Little Yuan, are you okay?"

"I'm fine now, Brother Liangliang." Li Zhuiyuan wiped the sweat from his forehead. To ease his worries, he deliberately said, "It's not because of this. I have epilepsy."

"Oh, I see. Sit still and don't go anywhere. I'll get you a hot towel to wipe yourself off."

"Mm, thank you, Brother Liangliang."

After Xue Liangliang left, Li Zhuiyuan caught sight of a familiar figure from the corner of his eye. It was Yingzi Jie.

She was at this hospital too? Had her maternal grandparents been transferred here from the town Health Center?

Did that mean Great Grandfather might be here too?

However, Li Zhuiyuan did not leave his seat to chase after her. He was afraid Xue Liangliang would return, fail to find him, and panic.

Xue Liangliang came back with a new towel. He carefully wiped Li Zhuiyuan's face, then motioned for him to raise his arms and slipped the towel under his short sleeves to wipe him down so he would not catch a chill.

"Little Yuan, you're not from around here, are you?" Xue Liangliang asked with a smile. "When I asked yesterday, you said you were local. But during the blood draw earlier, you spoke Nantong Dialect with the nurse. I could tell."

"Mm. I lived in the capital when I was little, and I only recently returned to my hometown."

"The capital? I've been there. It was for an academic exchange between universities. I went to Weiming Lake."

Li Zhuiyuan thought, What a coincidence. We never ran into each other.

"I really envy children from big cities," Xue Liangliang said wistfully.

"Where is Brother Liangliang's home?"

"Me? I come from the countryside in Anhui. My family house is beautiful, though we were a little poor."

Li Zhuiyuan nodded. He also thought many of the old houses around Siyuan Village were beautiful, especially the roofs and upturned eaves of the single-story homes.

"What a shame. After many families in my hometown got better off, they tore down their old houses and built new buildings."

"That was also for a better life."

"I know, but I think that once ordinary people have better lives in the future, we'll become like people in developed countries and start enjoying travel. If those old houses aren't demolished, maybe they could become tourist attractions."

Li Zhuiyuan looked at Xue Liangliang. He felt that this older brother possessed a sharpness and depth of thought that even he found remarkable.

He was not someone born knowing everything, nor was he like Li Zhuiyuan's classmates with special talents. But he seemed exceptionally skilled at discovering objective patterns and grasping the essence of problems. In other words, he had foresight.

Perhaps that was a kind of genius too.

"Haha, do you think I'm talking nonsense? How could people possibly buy tickets and line up to visit these old houses and old towns in the future?"

Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. "I think Brother Liangliang is probably right."

"You're very smart too, really. I can tell. How are your grades?"

"Pretty good. There aren't many children in my class better than me."

"That's because you're still young. Lower grades do not have much to learn, so the gaps aren't large and the competition isn't fierce. Once you get to middle school, high school, and then university, you'll understand. Don't become complacent now."

"Mm, I understand."

Li Zhuiyuan then pointed toward the stairwell. "Brother Liangliang, I just saw my cousin go upstairs. Her maternal grandparents are hospitalized here, and my cousin and my aunt should be looking after them. I want to go see her."

"Alright, I'll go with you."

"You don't need to go to that trouble. I can go by myself."

"No. Even after we get the examination reports this afternoon and confirm you're fine, I still have to personally take you home."

"Okay, Brother Liangliang."

The fourth and fifth floors were inpatient wards. Li Zhuiyuan did not know the patients' names, so naturally he could not look up the room number. He could only scan one room after another.

He had not searched for long when he heard a familiar, booming voice. "What the hell is going on here?!"

It was Great Grandfather's voice.

Li Zhuiyuan immediately ran over, with Xue Liangliang following behind him.

At the same time, several patients and family members emerged into the hallway, drawn by the commotion to see what was happening.

They reached the ward door and pushed it open.

Li Zhuiyuan saw Li Sanjiang holding a Peachwood Sword, shielding Yingzi, Third Aunt, and two other middle-aged men and women behind him. An elderly person lay in each of the two beds, presumably Yingzi's maternal grandfather and grandmother.

At that moment, both elderly people were convulsing violently, blood overflowing from their eyes, ears, mouths, and noses. Blood surged especially from their mouths, staining the beds red and rapidly pooling into two large puddles on the floor.

Yet even so, they struggled to make broken, intermittent sounds.

"Spare us... spare us... Bai Family Empress!"