Xiao's Funeral Supplies

"Brrr... screech~~~"

"Zhuangyuanhong Road. Passengers getting off, please exit through the rear door."

Xiao Ran stepped off the last bus. The cool night breeze swept away most of the drowsiness that had clung to him during the ride.

He stretched and checked his phone. It was almost eleven.

"Good thing I caught the last bus. A cab at this hour would've cost me a fortune!"

With his backpack on, Xiao Ran crossed the empty intersection and headed south into a narrow alley. The dim yellow streetlights and the bright red demolition notices that appeared from time to time on the old walls made a striking contrast.

Several white-haired old men sat around a battered wooden table in the street, intently playing Chinese chess under the streetlight. The pieces clicked crisply against the board, though the sound barely stood out in the quiet neighborhood.

The farther in he went, the livelier it got.

All kinds of stalls lined both sides of the road, filling the air with the tempting aromas of fried and cooked snacks.

Couples dressed in hanfu could be seen now and then, hand in hand as they wandered past the food stalls.

After winding through the alley for ten minutes, he came to a small, single-story shop about four meters wide.

A sign hung beneath the eaves. White characters on a black background spelled out four words: Xiao's Funeral Supplies.

A roll-up shutter, closed from top to bottom, covered two-thirds of the storefront beneath the sign. The remaining third was taken up by a glass display window, also shut.

A sheet of A2-sized colored paper was posted inside the window. In the streetlight, he could just make out what was written on it.

"Services and Fees"

Funeral Officiant: 200–500

Restoration of the Deceased's Appearance: 400—negotiable

Body Cleaning: 500

Divination and Dream Interpretation: 50–1,000

Lost Item Search: 200—10% of the item's value

Investigations and Other Services: Fees negotiable.

(Clients must pay a 50% deposit for all services. If the office fails to complete the work by the agreed deadline, the deposit will be fully refunded after deducting work-related costs.)

(If the office causes any losses through negligence during the course of the work, clients may negotiate compensation with the office. Compensation may not exceed 100,000 yuan.)

Xiao Ran stood in front of the window, inexplicably lingering over the notice. He had revised all of this a year ago, after his grandfather passed away and he officially took over the shop.

He'd added a few things, such as investigations and other services. His grandfather had been easygoing and generally didn't like giving himself extra trouble, but Xiao Ran didn't mind. Maybe he was still young and restless, always looking for something interesting to do. Or maybe it was simply that a person had to make a living.

He took out his key, raised the shutter, walked straight through the storefront, then turned and closed it before heading up to the second floor.

The house wasn't big, but it was the family property his grandfather had worked hard to earn. The first floor was the shop, while the second was where Xiao Ran lived.

He summoned his backpack from the Maze, took everything out, and left it there. He tossed the clothes that needed washing and the backpack onto the sofa.

Now that he could summon a special space, he probably wouldn't need the backpack anymore.

After washing his face and hands in the bathroom, he took out a needle and thread and a pair of tweezers, then examined the wound on his back in the mirror.

To his surprise, once he peeled off the gauze, he found the wound had already scabbed over.

"Could it be because my constitution improved?"

Xiao Ran thought of the five points of Constitution he'd gained from Corpse Stitcher. He'd assumed it would just make him a little stronger and more enduring, but it seemed the improvement was greater than he'd expected.

Still, if it healed naturally like this, it would probably leave a scar on his back.

Xiao Ran thought it over, then decided to let nature take its course and stopped worrying about it.

He lay in bed and played on his phone for a while. He'd planned to go to sleep, but for some reason he was wide awake, tossing and turning. Every time he closed his eyes, he pictured Cousin's Wife and her family being harassed by their relatives that day.

When he turned onto his side, he thought of everything he'd seen and experienced in the Maze. There'd been nothing in that diary—or rather, there had been writing before, but someone had torn out the pages. At the very end, all that remained was the word "home," written in blood.

He remembered the Old Woman lying on the ground as a crowd hacked at her. She'd looked at him, not blaming him for smashing her Golden Toad, but using the last of her strength to say, "Run!"

"Ah, the human heart..."

After sighing, Xiao Ran realized he still couldn't sleep. He simply got out of bed, went down to the shop, and pulled open a drawer beneath the display window.

An envelope lay inside. He kept it there for customers to submit requests while he was away from the office. Some people he knew well, or who were in a hurry, put their request and deposit in an envelope or kraft paper bag and dropped it in.

Xiao Ran hadn't put his phone number on the notice in the window because he didn't want people calling him all day just to ask questions—or harass him.

He casually pulled open the drawer and, to his surprise, found a note inside.

The paper had clearly been torn from a school exercise book. There were also two photographs and a hundred-yuan bill tucked inside.

Xiao Ran picked up the paper first. A neatly written message covered it.

"Dear Mr. Xiao,

"Hello! We're fifth-grade students at Zhuangyuanhong Primary School.

"Our classmates told us that you offer a lost-item search service. We found an injured white cat near the pavilion at Cuiyun Park. One of its ears has been bitten halfway off, and its hind leg seems to be injured too. We felt so sorry for it that we talked about taking it to a veterinary hospital for treatment.

"The cat is too timid for us to catch. We hope you can help us catch it.

"Wishing you a happy life and all the best!"

Request deadline: As soon as possible.

Requesters: Young Pioneers Zhang Xiaofang and Hu Shaohua; Pioneer Xu Da

Contact: 150399*****

The clients were actually a few kids... And shouldn't they have asked an animal rescue group to catch a stray cat?

Xiao Ran was at a loss as he read the note. He set it down and picked up the two photographs the three elementary school students had printed.

The phone camera wasn't very good, and the pictures had been taken in a hurry, so the quality wasn't great. But he could still make out a skinny adult White Cat, filthy and covered in wounds, with a fierce look in its eyes.

That was pretty tragic. He didn't know if its hind leg could be saved, or if those kids could even scrape together enough for the treatment...

He had nothing better to do, and he couldn't sleep anyway. He might as well get out for a walk.

He found an empty box in the shop. Before leaving, he casually grabbed a handful of paper money and ingots from a nearby shelf and tossed them into the Maze.

After locking up, he scanned a bike-share bicycle. Cuiyun Park was close—only a five-minute ride.

With his improved Constitution and Strength, pedaling the bike took no effort at all.

Zhuangyuanhong Road ran alongside North Mountain, and Cuiyun Park was a free public park built on the mountain in recent years.

People said one was born in Suzhou or Hangzhou and buried on North Mountain, but these days nobody was allowed to bury the dead there.

Xiao Ran parked the bike at the park entrance and strolled inside, carrying the box. The park wasn't huge, but it wasn't small either. There was only one pavilion, though, and he found it soon enough.

Several figures sat inside the pavilion.

In the pitch dark, they were a curious bunch. One hugged a book, another drew a bow across an erhu with no strings, and a third sat at the table pouring tea. On closer inspection, the tea pouring out was sand.

The remaining two simply sat there in silence.

Xiao Ran didn't come here often. He walked up and greeted them. "Excuse me, I'm looking for a cat. It's missing one ear and has a broken leg. If any of you have seen it, could you point me in the right direction?"

As soon as Xiao Ran finished speaking, all the figures in the pavilion looked up at once. He couldn't see their faces, but he could tell they were staring at him, apparently surprised that anyone could see them.

A moment later, they looked away and paid him no more attention.

Only the shadow sitting at the stone table, fiddling with the teapot, beckoned him over. It pushed the cups and teapot in front of Xiao Ran.

Anyone else would've been baffled, but Xiao Ran grinned. I didn't expect to meet an old Jianghu hand.

He sat down and lined up the teapot and cups on the table. Then he filled the first cup on the left with sand.

This was called a tea formation. In the old days, people Walking the Jianghu didn't know one another. Setting up a tea formation kept them from having to start an awkward conversation and made it less likely that their information would be intercepted.

It was also a way to test people, filtering out anyone who wasn't part of the Jianghu.

These old ghosts were obviously just teasing him. They hadn't expected Xiao Ran to know the rules.

He didn't just know about tea formations, either. He'd been learning Jianghu Slang and the Southern Spring Northern Canon from his grandfather since he was little. They weren't much use, but his grandfather had said that it never hurt to have more skills. Besides, they made their living in the underworld. There were many rules they didn't have to follow, but they had to understand them.

Xiao Ran had set up a Single Whip Formation. It meant he was asking his fellow Jianghu members for help. Whoever could help would drink the tea; whoever couldn't would spill it.

The old ghost in front of him looked up at Xiao Ran, then turned a teacup upside down over another cup.

That was the Upside-Down Cup. The rules called for a whole set of special phrases, but basically, it meant they wanted a reward.

These old ghosts had no doubt lingered on North Mountain for a long time. They couldn't speak anymore.

Xiao Ran reached beneath the table and took a stack of spirit money out of the Maze, placing it on top of the overturned teacup.

The ghost nodded at the spirit money, lifted the cup, and took the money along with it.

Then it pointed toward the woods on the East Side.

"Thanks."

With a lead, Xiao Ran thanked them and turned toward the woods.

A few minutes later, his voice came from deeper in the woods. "Sir, have you seen a cat? Oh, you have? Great, thank you so much!"

Half an hour later, holding the White Cat as it yowled mournfully, Xiao Ran hummed as he rode home at an easy pace.

He shut the cat in a pet carrier and put out some dried fish and water. Then he took a shower. As he dried off, he checked his phone. It was already two in the morning. This time, he really needed to sleep.

Though finding a cat hadn't been much of a challenge, getting out for a while had helped him relax after the tension he'd been under.

He lay down and fell asleep soon afterward.

He slept until the next morning. When Xiao Ran opened his eyes, it was already eleven. He cooked himself a packet of instant noodles and set it on the counter, then casually raised the shutter. The moment it opened, someone tumbled in with a thud, looking up at him.

Xiao Ran jumped. Before he could get a good look, the visitor grabbed his arm. "Xiao Ran, help me! Please, you're the only one who can help me with this..."