So This Was the Shop Sign?

Xiao Ran looked at the amount that had just come through, then at Uncle Li beside him.

He had understood Old Zhou perfectly well.

In other words: "I didn't call you out in front of everyone, so I saved you some face. You're keeping the money to yourself instead of splitting it with the others. Watch out, or you'll lose your livelihood. Give everyone their proper share. Anything the employer gives you afterward is yours to earn."

Well, no wonder he hadn't wanted a cut.

Seeing the odd look in Xiao Ran's eyes, Uncle Li explained without a hint of embarrassment, "I didn't make it clear earlier. The thirteen thousand was a deposit. This is the balance. Forty-three thousand in total. I won't take a cut this time."

"Uncle Li, you're so good to me!"

Xiao Ran put on an expression as if he were deeply moved.

In his heart, though, he was truly grateful to Old Zhou at the door. They weren't related at all, yet Old Zhou had gone out of his way to help him. That was a real favor.

Xiao Ran quietly committed that kindness to memory. If he ever got the chance, he would repay it.

As for Uncle Li...

Heh...

If Xiao Ran had been an outsider who didn't understand the trade's slang and couldn't follow their conversation, he might have ended up foolishly thinking he owed Uncle Li for the favor.

Who knew? One day, Uncle Li might sell him down the river, and Xiao Ran would still help him count the money.

Uncle Li had been about to say a few more polite words, but with Old Zhou watching him, even his thick skin couldn't bring him to play along with Xiao Ran.

"Quit dawdling. I'm almost off work. If there's nothing else, hurry up and get things ready. Don't hold me up."

Old Zhou waved them on, urging them to put the body in the freezer.

"Did you learn those skills from your family?"

Old Zhou's niece followed behind them. She tugged at Xiao Ran's sleeve, looked up, and held out her hand openly. "Hi, I'm Zhong Yi. Zhong as in 'bell,' and Yi as in 'good fortune.'"

"Xiao Ran."

Looking at the hand Zhong Yi offered, Xiao Ran shook his head. "Sorry, I haven't washed my hands."

"I just climbed out of the morgue. Same thing."

Zhong Yi smiled and stepped forward to take Xiao Ran's hand, without the slightest hesitation or disgust.

She looked about two years younger than Xiao Ran, but she was lively and outgoing. Other girls might be so frightened by a corpse that they wouldn't recover for a month.

But she'd gone out of her way to approach him. There were plenty of women working at the funeral home, but Xiao Ran had never met anyone as bold as her.

"With skills like yours, why don't you get a regular job at the funeral home?"

"I run my own shop, so working freelance suits me better."

"What about you?"

"I'm studying forensic medicine. I came here for an internship during the holidays, and it's almost over."

Xiao Ran turned back toward Zhong Yi in surprise. "A forensic medicine student interns here?"

"Mm. My graduation thesis is about corpses. Where could I find more of them than at a funeral home?"

They were both young, and their professions were closely related, so the conversation flowed easily. After they put Guo Lingfei's body in the cold room, they exchanged contact information, and Xiao Ran left the morgue with Uncle Li.

They walked out of the morgue and followed the path toward the funeral home's entrance.

Neither Uncle Li nor Xiao Ran said a word along the way. Xiao Ran fiddled with something on his phone in one hand. Uncle Li glanced at him from time to time, seemingly lost in thought. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but each time, he failed to open his mouth.

"Ding! Twelve thousand nine hundred yuan has been deposited into your account."

This time, Uncle Li was the one who received a deposit notification. He picked up his phone and glanced at it, and the corners of his mouth immediately curled up. "Hey, Xiao Ran, you're being too polite. I already said I wouldn't take a cut from this job."

Although he said that, he couldn't hide the delight on his face.

"Rules are rules. In our line of work, we have to follow them."

Xiao Ran narrowed his eyes at Uncle Li. "It's just that some people rely on favors and forget the rules, right, Uncle Li?"

"Right, right, right. I hate people like that the most."

Uncle Li nodded with a cheerful smile, but as he kept smiling, his expression suddenly faltered. He glanced sideways at Xiao Ran, feeling a little uneasy.

"Uncle Li, it's getting late. I'll treat you to a meal next time."

Xiao Ran waved, rented a shared bike, and pedaled off into the night.

Back at the shop,

he had just pulled up the rolling shutter.

He hadn't even had a chance to go inside when someone behind him called out.

"Xiao Ran!"

Xiao Ran turned around and saw a balding middle-aged man on an electric scooter, stopped in front of his shop.

"Brother Xiao Ran!"

A little head poked out from behind the scooter. The girl looked seven or eight years old, with two little buns in her hair and a round, apple-shaped face. She grinned at Xiao Ran, showing the two front teeth she was missing.

"Brother, want a lollipop? It's really good. Strawberry flavor."

The girl took a lollipop from her pocket and offered it to Xiao Ran.

"Hahaha, Xiao Qi, you've gotten chubbier again. Don't eat so much candy, or you'll get cavities."

"I'm not scared. I can just get new teeth."

Xiao Qi proudly raised her head and held out the lollipop to Xiao Ran.

Xiao Ran took it. "Thanks. I'll buy you something tasty next time."

Then Xiao Ran's smile faded, and he looked at the balding man in front of him. "Uncle, what do you need?"

They said that people in the same trade were rivals, and this balding man was a prime example.

He was in the same line of work, running a funeral supplies shop just one street over.

Maybe because the location over there was more convenient, he got far more customers than Xiao Ran did.

"There's been a serious shortage of supplies lately. I've got some stock I can't get wholesale right away, so I came to see if I could get some from you."

"How much do you need?"

"Here. About this much. Same as usual: one out of every ten."

The usual arrangement for lending stock to another shop was that it couldn't be sold at cost. Xiao Ran needed to take a cut, too.

So if something cost one hundred yuan, Xiao Ran sold it to him for one hundred and ten, and he then sold it to the customer for one hundred and twenty.

This sort of thing was common between people in the same trade.

Xiao Ran picked up the list and looked it over. He had everything, and it wasn't much. "I've got it. Wait here while I get it for you."

With that, Xiao Ran went into the shop. A moment later, he came out carrying two large black plastic bags and handed them to the man.

"That'll be 345 yuan."

Then Xiao Ran glanced at the lollipop in his hand. "All right, just give me 340. The lollipop can cover the change."

"Hahaha, sure, sure. My daughter's the one who gets special treatment, huh?"

The man grinned from ear to ear. When he'd come over, he'd worried Xiao Ran might refuse to sell him anything.

"Brother, next time you come, I'll give you a dis-count, too!"

Xiao Qi's eyes curved into crescents as she spoke to Xiao Ran with a smile.

"It's 'discount,' not 'dis-count.' That character has multiple pronunciations!" Xiao Ran corrected her with a grin. He didn't actually like the bald man much, but he was especially fond of his daughter, Xiao Qi. He remembered the first time they'd met, at the wholesale market.

Seven-year-old Xiao Qi had been haggling with a vendor all by herself, with her little brother beside her, just to save one yuan and buy him another piece of milk candy.

Xiao Ran had taken a liking to her right then and offered to buy it for her. But the little girl had turned around and walked away with her brother as soon as she heard him, saying, "I have my own pocket money. I can't take other people's things."

The next time they met, he learned that the girl was from Jixiang Funeral Supplies Shop in the back street.

Although the two shops were in the same line of business, they weren't so hostile that they couldn't stand to see each other. Xiao Ran often passed by their shop, and before long, the girl had gotten to know him.

So, even though he didn't like the bald man, Xiao Ran was still willing to do Xiao Qi a favor.

"Got it!" Xiao Qi nodded, making sure to remember the word so she wouldn't get it wrong next time.

You could never explain that thing called a good first impression!

"All right, I'll head back. Come over for dinner sometime." The balding man delivered the standard Chinese pleasantry, then rode his little electric scooter back the way he'd come.

Xiao Ran shook his head, went inside, and sat behind the counter to think about Guo Lingfei.

"Cursed Objects, curse marks... All of this is beyond the ordinary. What if someone uses a method like this against me in the future?"

"Maybe there are restrictions on how the other person killed Guo Lingfei, but some abilities don't need any restrictions. Take that Old Woman, for example. Who would have thought those gold bars could pin someone down so they could barely move?"

Xiao Ran thought over the Old Woman's methods in the Maze City trial. They had been truly impossible to guard against.

After all, no ordinary person would be wary of gleaming gold.

"Hmm... What if I run into something like that again?"

At the thought, Xiao Ran's brow twitched, and a sense of unease suddenly rose in his heart.

So he got up, went to the front of the shop, and pulled down the rolling shutter. Instead of going upstairs, he opened the door to the back courtyard.

The courtyard was in disarray, with leaves scattered everywhere. A large tree stood in its center, its branches and leaves thick enough to cast the whole yard in shadow. Farther back stood an old house.

The door was locked, and even the windows had been sealed shut.

Xiao Ran took a key from a nearby tin can and carefully unlocked the door.

"Humm..."

As the door opened, a faint light shone through the crack. Inside, the room was fully furnished with tables, chairs, and other furniture.

"Looking back, prosperity was but a fading dream; with only a thread of life left, I entrust myself to the raging waves..."

Before he even stepped inside, he heard the opera singing from the television. Xiao Ran closed the door, waited by the entrance for his eyes to adjust to the light, and then said, "Grandpa, I'm in a bit of trouble."

"Who doesn't have troubles in life?"

An old man walked slowly past Xiao Ran from behind and sat down in a rocking chair. He nudged it with his feet, and it began to sway. Eyes half closed, he listened to the opera playing on the television, looking completely absorbed in Locking the Unicorn Satchel.

Only after a while did he speak. "Tell me, what's the trouble?"

"I..." Xiao Ran gathered his thoughts. "I'm worried someone will curse me to hurt me, so... Is there a way to hide my birth details and protect me from calamity?"

If an ordinary family member had heard him say that, they would probably have thought he'd lost his mind.

But the old man merely raised his eyelids, glanced at Xiao Ran, and shook his head. "I can't do that."

"That's why I came to ask you for advice. I'm worried someone might get my birth details and use them against me."

It was the information age, after all. Hospitals, police stations, banks, insurance companies, schools—all of them kept personal records.

If the other party really wanted to kill him, there was no telling what other channels they might use to find out his birth details, especially if they had a lot of money. In any case, an extra layer of protection would be best, even if he never needed it.

The old man tapped his feet and rocked in his chair, looking as if he'd fallen asleep. Xiao Ran didn't rush him and simply waited at his side. After a while, the old man finally spoke in a leisurely tone. "Go find Paper Man Zhou. His family can handle this. I can't."

Paper Man Zhou, Bell Player Yang—once their suona sounded, their parents had raised them in vain.

That was the saying among the older generation.

Those two families had once dominated the funeral trade.

The trade might not look important, and it might even seem unlucky, but it had been every bit as lucrative as the gangs that collected night soil in the old days.

But nowadays, they'd long since been swept off the stage of history.

"Okay. Also, Grandpa, I have one more question. What is this?"

Xiao Ran took out the Calamity Suppressing Token and held it out for the old man to see.

The old man froze when he saw the rust-covered metal plaque. "Why did you bring that thing back?"

"I swept it up while I was cleaning."

The old man looked at the plaque with distaste, but after a moment, he said, "Never mind. Find somewhere to put it. It isn't a valuable antique. Back when our line of work couldn't put up a sign, we hung this plaque by the door. Anyone who recognized it would know what our family did."

"So... this was actually our shop sign?"

Xiao Ran weighed the Calamity Suppressing Token in his hand, feeling a little disappointed. He'd thought it was some remarkable family heirloom, but it turned out to have such an ordinary origin.

Seeing Xiao Ran's disappointed expression, the old man mistakenly thought he believed it was an antique. He grinned and reassured him:

"More or less. It's been around since my master's master entered the trade. Without this plaque, you weren't an officially recognized corpse seamster. If the authorities caught you stitching up corpses without permission, you'd be exiled at best and beheaded at worst. Dynasties changed, but the plaque stayed the same. So if you call it an antique, you wouldn't be wrong. It's just that nobody would buy it."

"Even if someone would buy it, I wouldn't want to sell it."

Xiao Ran thought to himself that he'd survived this long thanks to the plaque. How could he possibly sell it?

He put away the Calamity Suppressing Token and changed the subject. "By the way, I'm going to the Zhou family. Why would they help me? Do our families have some kind of relationship?"

"No. Look at the stock in the shop. I don't even buy it from them. What kind of relationship would we have?" The old man snorted, apparently not fond of the Zhou family.

"Then... do they owe us money?"

Even Xiao Ran thought the question sounded a little ridiculous as soon as he said it.

Although the Zhou family had long since lost its former glory, even a skinny camel was bigger than a horse. When it came to money, they still had a lot more than his family.

Sure enough, the old man rolled his eyes at him and shook his head. "They don't owe us money." Then he closed his eyes and added, "But the Zhou family owes ours a favor. It was probably more than twenty years ago."

Xiao Ran's face fell. He stared at the old man. "Are you serious?"

Xiao Ran had no idea where the old man got the confidence to say that. They had no relationship, so would a favor really be enough?

Besides, even if there had been a favor, it was between their generation. If the Zhou family refused to honor it, Xiao Ran couldn't exactly sit on the ground and make a scene.

He wanted to ask for an explanation, but seeing the old man's expression—eyes closed, chair rocking, head swaying to the sound of the television—Xiao Ran knew there was no point. He turned and walked toward the door.

"Humm..."

The door opened, and sunlight streamed in through the gap, falling across the room. On the television, it seemed the opera had reached its finale, and the empty rocking chair gradually stopped swaying...