Chapter 180.2

A Dead Sinker climbed out of a water well.

It was a female Dead Sinker. She still had clothes on from the Republican era, something like a qipao.

The well was located inside a nursing home, with many elderly residents living in the surrounding rooms.

Different grades of malevolent spirits chose different kinds of victims to prey on and draw from.

The elderly had declining vitality, far inferior to that of the young, but deaths happening one after another in a nursing home was, in itself, perfectly normal.

She could feed slowly over time without causing too much alarm to whatever watched from above in the unseen.

She kept moving forward, leaving behind a trail of damp, sticky footprints.

Her gaze kept sweeping about, searching for tonight’s target.

Cough, cough... cough, cough...

In a second-floor room, an old man had started coughing.

She moved toward the stairs, preparing to go upstairs. She took it as a response from her meal.

Then, all of a sudden, a figure appeared in front of her.

Young, sturdy, overflowing with vitality!

Greed filled her eyes. Faced with such a powerful temptation, her original plan instantly fell apart.

She wanted him. She wanted to drain him dry!

She lunged at him.

Her shadow lunged with her.

Her shadow moved first, trying to pin the man down, while she opened her mouth and went straight for his chest.

She was already looking forward to the feeling of that mouthful of hot blood pouring down her throat.

But at that moment, the man reached out and seized her by the throat.

Shock flashed through her eyes. Why? Why couldn’t her shadow bind him?

Runsheng lifted her up and examined her closely.

Back when he and his grandfather had dealt with this kind of Dead Sinker, it had been extremely troublesome, the sort of thing that meant risking never coming back.

But now, looking at her felt like looking at a broken old doll.

Almost instinctively, Runsheng stuck out his tongue and licked his lips.

He was acting alone. Little Yuan and Mengmeng were not by his side.

He did not need to hide the craving deep in his heart.

What Little Yuan helped suppress inside him was the yin aura, but the instinct came from his soul. It could not be stripped away.

Even when he ate ordinary meals, he still needed to light pagoda incense.

If only he could eat something like her every meal.

Terror appeared on the woman’s face, because she could feel that while she had seen him as food, he had also seen her as food.

Runsheng carried her back to the well, not in a hurry to take a bite.

Because Little Yuan had drawn two circles on his map.

The woman kept struggling, trying to break free, but Runsheng’s hand was like a steel vise, locking her firmly in place.

Seeing that the other Dead Sinker still had not come out, Runsheng had no choice but to turn around and leave his back facing the mouth of the well.

At that moment, a new figure emerged from the well. It was a man in a brown suit, though like the woman, his clothes were already ragged and ruined.

The man opened his mouth and lunged at Runsheng’s back.

Runsheng opened his Qi Gates at his back, making it impossible for the man to get close.

The next moment, Runsheng pulled out the Yellow River Spade he had sharpened that morning. With one sweeping slash, the man’s head separated from his neck and rolled to the ground.

Crack!

Right after that, Runsheng snapped the woman’s neck as well.

The two Dead Sinkers began to dissipate. Before long, they would turn into a puddle of liquid.

Runsheng swallowed and walked over to the two bodies, then crouched down.

At a time like this, it had to be done while it was still fresh.

Runsheng lowered his head and opened his mouth, but just as he was about to bite down, an intense wave of revulsion surged up from the bottom of his heart.

“What’s going on...?”

Runsheng could not understand it.

He lowered his head again and tried to open his mouth. In the past, at a moment like this, he would have felt immense satisfaction and joy. But the result was the same as before—an overpowering nausea.

It was just like when he ate regular food without lighting pagoda incense. He would be hungry, he would want to eat, but the moment he tried to put it in his mouth, he would feel unbearable rejection.

Left with no other choice, Runsheng dragged the two dissolving Dead Sinkers out of the nursing home, found a desolate spot, and threw them in there.

They were still dissolving. The black vapor rising from them—in the past, that would have smelled like steaming rice and meat to him.

Runsheng could still feel the hunger. He still wanted to eat.

He decided to try once more. He crouched down, leaned in, and opened his mouth.

No. Still no!

Runsheng stood up. A faint red glow appeared beneath his eyes.

Based on what Little Yuan had told him, together with his repeated attempts earlier, Runsheng finally confirmed one thing.

He still wanted to eat unclean things. That craving had not weakened just because the yin aura inside him was suppressed. On the contrary, it had grown even stronger.

But ordinary Dead Sinkers... he could no longer stomach them.

He felt deeply ashamed and guilty. There was a certain judgment which, for children who grew up in poor households, was practically unforgivable.

That was this:

He had become picky.

…

Ring ring ring!

The phone in Tan Yunlong’s office rang, and he reached out to answer it.

“Hello, this is Tan Yunlong.”

“Dad, I knew you’d still be in the office.”

“You brat.”

Tan Yunlong recognized his son’s voice immediately.

“Dad, honestly, look what time it is. You’re still working instead of going home?”

“Well, that’s a surprise. You actually called to urge me to rest?”

“What I mean is, if you keep caring only about work and never going home, then if Mom divorces you over it, I’ll be too embarrassed to stand on your side and speak up for you.”

Tan Yunlong wound a finger around the phone cord. At that moment, he dearly wished this cord were wrapped around the neck of the person on the other end.

Unfortunately, it was getting harder and harder to see his son these days.

Back then, outside of work, he would still make time to visit him at school. After not seeing him for a while, he really would miss him.

But after the New Year, his son had never gone back to school.

If he had just been fooling around and neglecting his studies, that would have been one thing. At least then Tan Yunlong would have had a perfectly good reason to undo the belt at his waist.

But the school had told him otherwise. His son’s paperwork was complete. He had gone into an internship early.

Was the nation’s construction really booming so fiercely that even a first-year college student had to join the workforce this soon?

Still, as a veteran criminal investigator and half a lifetime’s work-unit man, he could tell from the paperwork that his son had landed an opportunity most people could hardly imagine. As long as he walked this road well, he would definitely make a name for himself in the field in the future.

When others graduated, they would have just graduated. He, on the other hand, would already have four extra years of work experience and would have studied under a well-known teacher in the industry.

In any case, no matter what his own father or his father-in-law might think, Tan Yunlong had already given up on the idea of having his son take the police exam after graduation.

Because no matter how selfishly he might wish it, there was simply no way he could pave a road for his son to that extent.

“Dad, seriously, you need to spend more time taking care of Mom. It really hasn’t been easy for her all these years, ending up with you.”

“And I don’t exactly see you making time to spend with your girl either.”

“What can I do? I inherited your bad habits. That’s on you.”

“If you’ve got something to say, spit it out.”

“I want to file a report.”

Tan Yunlong let go of the phone cord, sat up straight, and said seriously, “Go ahead. What is it?”

“I’ll tell you first, and you can see what to do.”

Tan Wenbin then explained what had happened with the Wu family.

Tan Yunlong lit a cigarette and fell silent. After a while, he finally said, “If this case is true, it’ll be very difficult to handle.”

“I know.”

On the other end of the phone, Tan Wenbin’s voice was calm. Of course he knew this would be hard to deal with, but the necessary procedures still had to be followed.

“I’ll call some of my old colleagues and have them investigate.”

“Okay.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“Why are you still not resting at this hour?” Tan Yunlong heard a car horn outside. “Are you out somewhere?”

“No, it’s just a Hong Kong movie playing on TV.”

“Since when do people in Hong Kong movies speak the Nantong dialect?”

“It’s a dubbed version in the Nantong dialect.”

“You...”

“Dad, it’s almost been a full minute. I’m hanging up.”

Beep...

Tan Yunlong pressed the phone and dialed again.

Tan Wenbin, meanwhile, asked the corner shop owner for a bottle of soda, paid for it, then drank it as he walked over to the roadside and hailed a taxi that happened to be passing by.

The taxi had its red occupied light on, but there was no one inside.

The driver slowed, pulled over, rolled down the window, and asked, “Where to?”

Tan Wenbin told him the destination.

“Hop in. I happen to live there too.”

“Well, isn’t that a lucky coincidence? Heh.”

“Special love for a special you, my loneliness can’t escape your eyes!”

Sitting in the front passenger seat, Tan Wenbin hummed along with the song playing on the car radio.

His enthusiasm got the driver singing too, and the two of them sang together.

It was a long ride. After the song ended, the driver even handed Tan Wenbin his own cup of water, and the two started chatting.

The destination was by the river.

When they were almost there, the driver said, “I used to bring someone here several times. I was always curious. There’s nothing around here, no village ahead, no shop behind. Why did that young guy keep liking this place so much?”

Tan Wenbin looked at the map, then at the river under the night sky outside, and smiled.

“Maybe he came to jump into the river.”

“Haha, even if he did, how could anyone jump in that many times? How many lives would he have to spare?”

“Who knows? Young people these days have pretty unusual hobbies. Hard to understand.”

“Well, you’re pretty young too. Aren’t you perfectly normal?”

“Am I? Heh.”

“We’re here.”

“Mhm.”

Tan Wenbin took out the money and handed it to the driver.

As the driver made change, he asked, “Are you leaving again later?”

“What, from the sound of that, are you planning to stay and wait for me?”

“It’s hard to get a cab out here.”

“Weren’t you in a hurry to go home?”

“It is time to get off work and head back, but my wife and kid are definitely already asleep by now. Back then, only my mom would leave the light on at home waiting for me to get off work, and she’d save some food for me too.

I told her not to wait up and to go to sleep early, but she said she worried that driving at night wasn’t safe for me. If I didn’t come home, she couldn’t sleep either.”

Tan Wenbin turned around and glanced at the back seat. “Auntie passed away?”

“Huh? How’d you know?”

“You said ‘back then.’”

“Yeah. She just passed a little while ago. Cerebral thrombosis. She passed in her sleep, so she didn’t suffer much. Tomorrow happens to be her thirty-fifth-day memorial.

I’m not driving tomorrow. If you won’t be too long, I can wait here and take you back afterward. Chatting with you is pretty relaxing.”

“Want to talk with Auntie?”

“What?”

Tan Wenbin pulled out a Calming Talisman and pasted it onto the driver’s forehead.

The driver had looked puzzled at first, but the moment the talisman was in place, his whole body calmed down, and his eyelids started growing heavier and heavier.

He had already built up a day’s worth of fatigue. Now that his heart had quieted, the thing he wanted most was sleep.

Tan Wenbin reached out, grabbed the driver’s wrist, and began Shade-walking.

The driver hazily opened his eyes, as though he were dreaming. He also felt that he was dreaming.

Tan Wenbin gestured for him to look behind him. The driver turned his head and saw his mother sitting in the back seat.

His mother had been sitting there the whole time, worrying about her son.

This was not a ghost, nor was there any resentment. It was simply an attachment formed by longing and emotional bonds. It would not harm anyone.

Tan Wenbin said, “Have a chat. Say what you want to say. I’m giving you a chance to see each other one more time. For his own good, don’t keep following the car anymore. It’s bad for his luck.”

The old woman nodded at Tan Wenbin, her eyes full of gratitude.

“Mom...”

Tan Wenbin got out of the car and walked alone toward the riverbank.

What had happened just now was only a minor interlude. That taxi was not his target tonight.

Or rather, a normal attachment like this wasn’t enough for Little Yuan to specifically send him to deal with it.

A lot of people dream about loved ones after they pass away. The truth was, many times, it wasn’t really a dream.

Tan Wenbin dug at his ear. Ever since his two godsons had gotten stuffed silly, he felt like he himself had become very different too.

Some things were much easier for him to do now than they used to be.

He went down the slope and continued toward the riverbank.

When the tasks had been assigned, Little Yuan had emphasized one point in particular. He had said that the place assigned to Tan Wenbin had the heaviest malevolent aura and the strongest Bagua Compass reaction.

The other team members had clearly looked puzzled. Everyone acknowledged the role Tan Wenbin could play in the team, but in terms of solo combat strength, the most dangerous malevolent spirit should have been left to Runsheng. At the very least, it should have gone to Lin Shuyou.

It wasn’t that Tan Wenbin’s ghost-control technique was weak. In fact, once Tan Wenbin fell asleep, the effects of his ghost-control technique only became stronger. But that came at the cost of reducing his lifespan.

Tan Wenbin had taken the map, glanced at it, and immediately smiled. “No problem. Easy.”

When he reached the riverbank, the sound of river water hitting the shore echoed continuously all around him.

That was right. This was the place.

He checked his watch. It was almost time too.

Tan Wenbin stood by the river and waited patiently.

Before long, a streak of red drifted over from the distant river surface.

In most cases, malevolent spirits dressed in red were fiercer.

And when you looked at her, it felt as though even your vision was being distorted, while dizziness and discomfort rose in your head.

But not only did Tan Wenbin not look away, he kept staring at her instead, a smile appearing on his face.

Bursts of yin wind howled past his ears.

Hoooo...

Tan Wenbin let out a frivolous whistle.

Out on the river, the red-clad figure rose upright. She sensed Tan Wenbin’s provocation, and she grew angry.

That dense resentment felt almost tangible.

Little Yuan had been right. This really was a major malevolent spirit.

Even if Runsheng or Lin Shuyou came here, dealing with her alone would be difficult and dangerous.

Because a malevolent spirit like this had many methods at its disposal. She most likely would not choose to fight you up close.

A woman’s whispering had already begun sounding in Tan Wenbin’s ears.

Good thing he still had his two godsons with him. Otherwise, he probably would have lost his mind by now.

Even so, he still felt a violently intense headache, as though his brain were about to tear apart.

They had not even exchanged blows yet. They were only looking at each other from this far away, and if he still did not use his ghost-control technique, he was already close to no longer holding out.

Tan Wenbin took out a cigarette pack and put a cigarette in his mouth.

He tried striking the lighter a few times, but each flame was quickly blown out by the river wind.

So Tan Wenbin simply pulled out a sheet of yellow paper, folded it into a shallow cup shape, and struck the lighter inside it. Very soon, the yellow paper caught fire.

Holding up the burning yellow paper, he brought it to his mouth and used its flame to finally light the cigarette.

The red-clad figure on the river flickered in and out. Each time she became clear again, she closed a great deal of the distance between herself and Tan Wenbin, bringing with it an even colder and more terrifying pressure.

Tan Wenbin blew out a ring of smoke, then casually tossed the half-burning yellow paper onto the river in front of him. After that, he placed one hand behind his back and declared in a ringing voice:

“By order of my family’s Dragon King, let Baijia Town heed my command: suppress the malevolent spirit!”