chapter 52

His action led to a wave of whispers from the women. Only Jiang Xunyi saw the impatience in Yun Xie’s heart and chuckled. “What an idiot. Since you don’t like it, then why didn’t you wear a mask?”

He just wanted to finish things as soon as possible and leave. Without waiting for Yun Xie’s response, he turned to stop a woman. “Miss, please stop for a moment. I want to…”

Jiang Xunyi’s voice was clear and very beautiful. The woman turned around with a smile, but after seeing his mask, she looked disappointed and perfunctorily said, “I don’t have time. There are so many people here, why would you just stop me? Go ask others.”

“…”

Yun Xie pulled him back and smiled. “Who is the idiot? A’Xun, you don’t understand. The customs of festivals like this are pretty much the same. It’s usually the day women look for someone they like. When you wear a mask, you already have a wife. Time is precious, so what girl would be willing to interact with you? Watch this.”

As he spoke, he walked over to demonstrate. He stopped the woman Jiang Xunyi had just talked to. “Miss, hey, it’s really strange. There are so many people here, but the first one that caught my eye was you. With how beautiful you are, why don’t you have a male partner?”

The woman saw Yun Xie’s perfect face and was suddenly shocked. The smile on her face was extremely enthusiastic. “I haven’t found a favorite yet. I am Rou Rou, and if the young master doesn’t mind, come to be my man!”

Yun Xie did not expect the other party to be so passionate. His eyes turned and he used his chin to nod at Jiang Xunyi. He smiled and said, “I am Yun Xie. If the beauty requests it, it is naturally exactly what I am looking for. But, my brother is here for the first time. Since he is introverted and shy, I still have to accompany him. I suppose… I will come and play with the girl later.”

He deliberately said “later” lightly, so Rou Rou would obviously misunderstand and appreciate Yun Xie’s apparent affection and consideration even more. She said happily, “I thought all scholars were very devious, but you are very good. I like it. But since you don’t want to be with me now, why did you stop me?”

Never mind when Yun Xie didn’t open his mouth, but when he hit on girls, he became extraordinarily coquettish. Jiang Xunyi was dumbfounded on the side. Once he heard that they were finally talking about official business, he quickly stepped forward and asked, “Miss, we wanted to ask…”

Once Rou Rou turned around and saw Jiang Xunyi, her face suddenly sank.

“…” He had lost to Yun Xie; it really was a blow to his self-esteem.

Fortunately, although she was cold, the girl didn’t leave, so he continued on, “…Is there a particularly good tailor nearby?”

As soon as Jiang Xunyi said this, Yun Xie secretly praised “savvy” in his heart. The things they wanted to inquire were too bizarre and strange for ordinary people, and on such a lively and joyous day, there was indeed no way to ask. It was better to start with the stitching.

Rou Rou was really curious. “Why are you looking for a tailor? You even came here to find one. There are so many tailor shops outside, aren’t there enough for you to pick?”

Jiang Xunyi responded with speed and immediately lowered his voice. “In regards to this topic, I won’t hide the truth from you. In fact…I am looking for a tailor who can sew bodies, that is, or a mortician. My wife …”

As soon as this remark came out, Rou Rou’s complexion suddenly changed. Jiang Xunyi’s acting had a leap in quality ever since he succeeded in acting silly. He originally planned to perform a bitter drama, but he forgot he was wearing a mask and thus did not have the blessing of appearance nor a scholar’s pedigree. The effectiveness was greatly reduced. He saw that Rou Rou wanted to walk away, thought about it, and immediately raised his foot to secretly kick Yun Xie’s calf.

Yun Xie was impressed, and he quickly followed Jiang Xunyi’s words. “Miss Rou Rou, you don’t even know how hard my brother’s life is. it’s hard to be poor and ugly from a small family, and life is difficult. He finally married a wife, but not even two years later, she fell off a cliff to her death.” His eyes reddened. “That death, sigh, was really terrible. So young, and yet even the corpse cannot he kept. How can people feel content?”

Rou Rou said, “Why are you so emotional about his wife’s death?”

…Shoot, he overdid it.

Yun Xie anxiously added, “It was his wife that died but she was also my little sister. I’m his brother-in-law.”

Jiang Xunyi was speechless.

He sighed softly, and then continued with Yun Xie’s line of conversation. “As the poem goes, ‘I’m like a mandarin duck without its mate; or tung trees, after frost, in half-dying state[1].’ The most tragic thing in the world is the early death of one’s lover. I am incompetent; when my wife was alive, I could not treat her well and keep her safe. Now that she has died, no matter what, I want her to be able to be buried with her body whole. Otherwise, as a husband, how will I face her in the Underworld?”

Jiang Xunyi’s voice was sincere, soft, and Rou Rou was slightly moved. She looked at Yun Xie again and hesitated for a moment. “Well, now that we have already said this much, I will tell you – originally, there were a few tailors with outstanding craftsmanship here. But after an incident that happened ten years ago, no one has ever seen them again. No one is even willing to take the job of a mortician, so you should still look elsewhere. No matter how much longer you take, I guess it’s too late.”

Yun Xie looked surprised and lost. “How can this is so? I clearly heard people say that someone can be found here. I’m afraid it’s too late; if I went somewhere else to find a good craftsman, my sister is going to rot…”

Jiang Xunyi sighed. “Let’s try somewhere else. How could things that happened ten years ago continue to affect today? Let’s try our luck nearby.”

He cupped his hands in goodbye to Rou Rou: “I still have to thank you.”

Rou Rou saw Yun Xie stepping up to follow Jiang Xunyi and felt that the ideal man in her hand was about to fly away. She was afraid that Yun Xie and Jiang Xunyi would not listen to her advising. “Hey, I say, why are you two so stubborn? If I say that if you can’t find it, you will definitely not be able to find it. It doesn’t matter if ten years, or even one hundred years pass, no one will dare to touch this moldy matter!”

Yun Xie had a doubtful expression. “How can this be… Rou Rou, can you tell me what happened exactly ten years ago?”

Yun Xie’s voice was gentle, and Rou Rou’s heart was shaken when she heard him say her name. She could no longer resist, and lowered her voice, saying, “Okay, since you said so, I will tell you secretly – this matter is still ugly. Once you’ve heard it, don’t mention it anymore.”

Seeing the two nodding their heads, she exhaled softly. She checked to make sure that the people around them all ran to the bank of the river in a lively way. Once there was no one around to pay attention to them, she said, “At that time, I was still young, so I heard most of this from others. There is a spirit mountain two hundred miles west of our town. I don’t know how many years ago this happened, but back when my mother was not born, the spirit mountain was angry and spewed a lot of fire. The fire burned for three days and three nights until a Taoist monk finally helped extinguish it. But at that point, a small village at the foot of the mountain was completely buried in the ground by debris falling from the spirit mountain.”

Jiang Xunyi immediately understood and quickly translated in his head: a volcano erupted, and the magma buried a village.

This was still the material of science and culture.

But the focus of Rou Rou’s story was not the process of volcanic eruption, but what had occurred ten years ago. “The people in that village were completely wiped out. This matter was forgotten. but ten years ago, the earth moved again…”

Yun Xie sighed sincerely. “Then this place has truly suffered from disasters.”

Rou Rou smiled bitterly. “That is true. But coincidentally, the earthquake also shook out the remains of the village buried years ago. Because the mountains and rocks fell down instantly, the burial speed was fast and the village was perfectly preserved. My dad went to dig with people at that time and retrieved a few copper ornaments. But the weirdest thing is, there were no dead bodies in the whole village!”

Jiang Xunyi said, “It’s truly is weird that things haven’t been taken but the bodies have been lost. Then may I ask if there were any signs that someone went through this village?”

Ruo Ruo was dumbfounded. “What are ‘signs that someone went through the village’?”

Yun Xie expanded on Jiang Xunyi’s words with a smile. “If the village was buried in an instant like you said, even if an earthquake uncovered the city, as long as no one enters, dust should fall when you open the door and the floor inside the house should be very clean. There are many other details that can show the truth…”

He looked at Rou Rou and cleverly changed his tone. “However, no one expected such strange things to happen. It is not strange for your father not to pay attention to this.”

Rou Rou said, “I don’t know about any of this, but even if someone has gone in, for them to ignore everything and only take corpses, doesn’t that mean there is something wrong with them? And just listen to what I say next; there will be corpses appearing.”

Jiang Xunyi’s heart thumped; he felt that he had listened to stories of missing bodies several times. He died for a while and didn’t yet understand the new market. When did this become so popular?

Yun Xie said, “Are the aforementioned corpses appearing later the sewn zombies? … hey, that’s not right.”

Jiang Xunyi spoke at the same time. “Miss Rou Rou said just now that the corpses went missing. If the corpse can be found, it is surely dead, so it shouldn’t be reanimated.”

Jiang Xunyi spoke politely and detached, far from Yun Xie’s likable demeanor. Rou Rou never liked unemotional men, so she didn’t really care to acknowledge Jiang Xunyi. What she didn’t expect was that the more he spoke, the more she realized how quick his mind was. She couldn’t help but regard him slightly better than before. “It’s like this: because the features of the corpses that reappeared were indistinguishable, the government can’t determine their identity, so they just say to the public that they have disappeared.”

She sighed. “But everyone knows that once these people are afraid, no one will come back. Just by thinking that the people who died tragically are not them, the people in the family will probably feel somewhat comforted.”