Generally, Netherworld Officials arrived before a person died, but there were a few special exceptions.
Both kinds of souls left on their own. The difference was that those the Netherworld Officials had to capture were called fleeing souls, while wandering souls like this old man's did not even require the Soul-Hooking Rope.
Such souls were often extraordinary to begin with, so much so that even the Underworld Office might not be able to calculate the precise time of their deaths.
Had Old Yu not known that Yi Shuyuan was special? Perhaps not while he was alive, but meeting him after death, he must have sensed something. Yet he had asked for nothing else.
Even while alive, the old man must long since have learned that Yi Shuyuan was a famous storyteller in the city, even hailed as Mingzhou's Sixteenth Wonder. Yet he had never raised the rent or so much as come to disturb him.
Just as he had said when they first met, he trusted Yi Shuyuan. Having someone help look after the old house was more than enough.
With these thoughts running through his mind, Yi Shuyuan stopped after stepping into the fenced courtyard.
The fence here looked much like the one around the old house he rented outside the city. The old man had probably built this one himself too.
In a side room of the little courtyard, the old man lay on a bed, no longer breathing.
Several people crowded inside and outside the room: three sons and three daughters. There was a considerable age gap between the youngest and the oldest, and all had married and brought their families with them.
They wailed and made a tremendous racket, but no one seemed to notice that a stranger had entered the courtyard.
Yi Shuyuan had found