Corpse Retriever

“Little rascals, it’s time to eat, woo-leh woo-leh woo-leh~”

Wearing an apron, Cui Guiying held a bowl in her left hand and a spoon in her right, shouting while tapping the edge of the porridge pot.

Sitting nearby, Li Weihan, who was filling his water pipe with tobacco, kicked the woman’s plump backside and grumbled irritably, “Have you lost your mind? Are you calling piglets?”

Cui Guiying shot a glare at her husband, slammed a stack of bowls in front of him, and spat, “Pah, pigs don’t make as much noise or eat as much as they do!”

At her call, a group of children rushed in from outside—seven boys and four girls, the oldest sixteen and the youngest just three years old.

Li Weihan and his wife had raised four sons and one daughter. Once their children grew up, they split off to form their own households. Normally, only the eldest son’s family, who lived nearby, would leave their three-year-old twins with the grandparents to look after.

But when summer vacation arrived, it was hard to say whether it was for convenience or because they felt they’d be at a loss if they didn’t take advantage of their parents’ generosity. In any case, everyone sent their kids over.

Since they’d taken in the eldest’s kids, it wouldn't be right to refuse the others. And just like that, the house turned into something like a schoolyard.

The couple hadn’t even had time to savor the sweetness of a house full of grandchildren before they noticed the rice jar was nearly scraped clean.

As the saying goes, growing boys can eat their father broke. Even the girls, all in their growth spurts, were same. Their stomachs were like bottomless pits. At Cui Guiying’s house, the main meal had to be served in a huge pot, and one pot wasn’t even enough; another was kept warming on the stove.

Though the couple already had a brood of grandchildren, they weren’t that old themselves. By rural custom, unless you were bedridden and unable to work, no matter your age, you couldn’t expect your children to provide for you as long as you could still toil in the fields.

“Don’t grab, don’t grab! Are you all reincarnated starving ghosts? Line up for me!”

The children came with their bowls, and Cui Guiying ladled out the porridge.

The last to approach was a ten-year-old boy dressed in denim overalls and trendy sandals. His skin was fair and soft, his expression shy.

Compared to his siblings and cousins, who were filthy from playing and sniffling loudly, he stood out like a sore thumb.

“Little Yuanhou, come, eat over here.”

“Thank you, Grandma.”

Cui Guiying smiled and patted the boy’s head. Among this big gang of grandsons and granddaughters, he was the only one who’d been an outsider—though not anymore.

The boy’s name was Li Zhuiyuan. His mother, Cui Guiying’s youngest daughter, was the first college graduate in Siyuan Village’s history.

The youngest daughter had gotten into a university in the capital, stayed there to work after graduation, and found herself a partner—a refined, fair-skinned city boy she’d brought home once before the wedding.

Cui Guiying and her husband couldn’t quite recall his face. That day, they’d been so nervous around their future son-in-law that they hadn’t dared look too closely.

Later, their daughter got pregnant and had a son. With the long distance and her busy job, she hadn’t come back home. But ever since she started working after graduation, she’d never stopped sending money to her parents each month.

Before the wedding, Li Weihan and his wife had saved every penny their daughter sent. When their four sons got married, they gritted their teeth and didn’t touch a cent of it. When their daughter brought her fiancé home, Li Weihan shoved back the bride price the young man offered, then added the money their daughter had sent and returned it all to her.

They’d wanted to be even more generous and add something extra from their own pockets, but with four sons’ weddings already draining them dry, no amount of belt-tightening could squeeze out another drop.

This had always left the couple feeling guilty. Returning their daughter’s money to her when she married meant they’d contributed nothing as parents—it was a real loss of face.

As for the money their daughter sent monthly after the wedding, the couple saved it all. When their sons, egged on by their wives, came sniffing around for it with all sorts of excuses, Li Weihan pointed at their noses and cursed them out.

Half a month ago, their daughter had entrusted a man in a military uniform to bring her son to them, along with a letter and some money. The letter said she’d gotten divorced and, due to a recent change at work, had to temporarily leave her son with her parents.

In the letter, she also mentioned that after the divorce, she’d changed the boy’s surname to hers—so this outsider grandson had suddenly become a true grandson.

After arriving in the countryside, Li Zhuiyuan showed no signs of discomfort. Instead, he quickly blended in, happily running around with his cousins from one end of the village to the other all day long.

This meal’s staple was sweet potato porridge. It had a sweet taste but didn’t fill you up for long—it digested quickly. Even if you downed several big bowls until your belly was round, a little romp outside would leave you hungry again in no time.

And eating too much sweet potato porridge or sweet potato strips for too long could really hurt your stomach. When you weren’t hungry, just the sight of them could make your stomach churn with acid.

Li Zhuiyuan, though, hadn’t tired of it. He quite enjoyed this “big canteen” vibe, and Cui Guiying’s assortment of pickled vegetables and sauces won his heart.

“Grandma, why aren’t we going to Big Beard’s house for a feast today?”

The question came from the second son’s boy, nicknamed Huzi, who was nine years old.

Cui Guiying tapped Huzi’s head with the end of her chopsticks and scolded, “You little rascal, that’s something they do because someone’s old lady passed away. Do you want them to hold a feast every day?”

Rubbing his head, Huzi said, “Why not? It’d be great if they did it every day.”

“What nonsense are you spouting, you little rascal? Even if they wanted to, where would they find enough people to die every day?”

Smack! 

Li Weihan slammed his chopsticks on the table and barked, “What kind of filth are you saying to a kid?”

Cui Guiying realized she’d misspoken. Instead of snapping back at her husband, she scooped a dollop of salty sauce into Li Zhuiyuan’s porridge bowl beside her. The sauce had bits of crushed peanuts and a little chunk of meat, and her scoop just happened to include some.

Li Zhuiyuan stirred it with his chopsticks, the sauce blending in and revealing tender white flecks of meat floating on the porridge.

The kids had sharp eyes and an obsession with fairness over scarcity. Huzi immediately piped up, “Grandma, I want meat too—the kind in Brother Yuanzi’s bowl!”

“Grandma, me too.”

“Me too.”

The other kids joined in the clamor.

“Shoo, shoo!” Cui Guiying snapped at them irritably. “It’s one thing for the little ones to fuss because they don’t know better, but Panhou, Leihou, Yinghou—you older ones are making fuss, what are you making a racket for? Be sensible! Everything we’re eating today was bought with Little Yuanhou’s mom’s money. Your parents haven’t contributed a single grain of rice to me, and you still have the nerve to snatch from him!”

Panzi, Leizi, and Yingzi lowered their heads in embarrassment. The younger ones just glanced at each other, giggled, and let it pass.

It wasn’t that Grandma hadn’t dropped hints—they’d passed them on to their parents, but their moms and dads had told them to play dumb.

At that moment, the third son’s eight-year-old boy, Shitou, asked, “Is Little Yellow Oriole still around?”

Cui Guiying asked, “Who’s Little Yellow Oriole?”

Huzi answered, “Grandma, Little Yellow Oriole is the one who danced and sang at Big Beard’s place yesterday. Her singing was so good, and her dancing was great too.”

“Is that so?” Cui Guiying had been helping wash dishes in the back kitchen yesterday, too busy to catch the funeral troupe’s performance out front after the meal.

Her husband, Li Weihan, hadn’t gone either. He’d made an excuse about going out on the boat, but really, he’d stayed home. He didn’t go because he felt awkward—after all, Panzi and Leizi had already taken Yuanzi, Huzi, and Shitou, five kids in total, to eat at the feast. If he, an adult, went too, it’d look bad.

The five kids didn’t just eat their fill—they also brought plenty back, especially the hearty dishes portioned out per head. Li Zhuiyuan, copying his older cousins, tore off a piece of the red plastic tablecloth, wrapped up some food, and took it home.

When they got back, they divided it up among the younger siblings who hadn’t gone. Watching them eat, the older kids felt like generals returning victorious from battle.

Leizi said, “Her singing was really nice, and she’s pretty too. She told everyone to call her Little Yellow Oriole.”

Panzi nodded. “She’s great—good-looking, nice clothes. I want to marry someone like her someday.”

Cui Guiying lowered her head to ask Li Zhuiyuan beside her, “Little Yuanhou, is that true?”

“Yeah.” Li Zhuiyuan set down his chopsticks and nodded. “She’s pretty.”

Rural funeral troupes were a jack-of-all-trades bunch—able to handle both the ceremonial and the practical.

During the rituals, they’d don Taoist robes or monk cassocks to chant and perform rites, exuding an air of dignity and grace. After the midday feast, they’d put on a cultural show—singing, dancing, acrobatics, magic, whatever they could muster.

For well-off families who loved to show off, they’d even hire specific troupes for an evening performance, though the adults would shoo the kids home to bed before it started.

Little Yellow Oriole’s real name was Xiao Huangying—her stage name was the same, though she wasn’t so little anymore. In her thirties and divorced, her singing and dancing skills were only half-baked. But she knew how to dress up, wearing bold, trendy outfits like a tight black qipao with a high slit that showed off her pale legs, paired with a warm, engaging stage presence…

In the village women’s most venomous insults—which also doubled as their highest praise—she was, simply put, a flirty.

These days, few village households have TVs. People would drag benches over to crowd around and watch, but there was never enough room. In a rural area where modern trends hadn’t fully taken hold, Little Yellow Oriole’s “flirtiness” was a devastating blow to the local girls and wives.

She didn’t just steal the men’s souls—even the half-grown boys were utterly smitten.

Just then, a figure appeared at the doorway of the main room. It was Zhao Simei, a neighbor and longtime “sister” to Cui Guiying. When their kids were young, the two women loved sitting by the dam to gossip.

“Have you eaten?” Cui Guiying asked. “Come, grab a pair of chopsticks.”

Zhao Simei waved her hands with a laugh. “Oh no, I wouldn’t dare freeload at your place. Look at this—you’re all down to thin porridge.”

“This porridge sits easy in the stomach—I love it. Come on, I’ll scoop you a bowl. No matter how low the rice jar gets, we won’t let you go hungry.”

“Alright, alright, I’ve already eaten. Hey, did you hear? Just now, the head of the funeral troupe took some folks over to Big Beard’s place and made a scene. They say they smashed stuff and nearly got into a fight.”

Cui Guiying perked up at this, stood with her bowl and chopsticks, and shoveled porridge into her mouth as she shuffled toward the door. “What happened? Did Big Beard not pay up?”

“It’s not about the performance fee. Someone from the troupe went missing.”

“What? Someone’s missing?” Cui Guiying slurped her chopsticks. “Who?”

“A woman—the flirty one. Yesterday, she was wiggling her hips so hard you’d think her backside was about to pop out.”

“Little Yellow Oriole?” Panzi asked.

The other kids pricked up their ears too.

“Seems like it— that flirty minx,” Zhao Simei said with a gleeful smirk.

“What happened to her? Have they found her?” Cui Guiying asked.

“They say someone saw her last night heading into the woods by the river with Big Beard’s youngest son. After that, she didn’t come back to the troupe, so they went to demand her return.”

“And Big Beard’s kid?”

“He’s at home, but he says he doesn’t know anything, that it never happened. But plenty of folks in the village saw him go into the woods with that hussy.”

“So where is she?”

“Who knows? She’s just gone. The troupe leader went to demand her back, but Old Beard’s family swore they hadn’t seen her. They even said she must’ve run off on her own.”

“What now?”

“Old Beard’s family paid the troupe leader a sum—not a small one either.”

Cui Guiying immediately slapped Zhao Simei’s arm and raised her brows. “Something’s up!”

Zhao Simei slapped her back and tilted her chin. “You bet there is!”

Old Beard used to be the deputy head of the grain station in town—a cushy job. Even now, retired, while his youngest son was a good-for-nothing, his other sons all had positions in town. In this village, even the village chief’s family couldn’t match their influence.

So if Old Beard was willing to shell out money to hush things up, there had to be something fishy going on.

“They paid, and the troupe leader just left?”

“Yup, they’re gone.”

“And they’re not looking for her?”

“Looking, my foot. The troupe packed up their gear and hopped in a truck to the next gig.”

“Oh my.” Cui Guiying shook her head. “I hope nothing bad happened.”

“Who knows?”

“People these days—unbelievable.”

“You said it.”

At that moment, Huzi and Shitou suddenly burst into tears.

“Wahhh! Little Yellow Oriole! Little Yellow Oriole!”

“My Little Yellow Oriole—she’s gone! Wahhh!”

Zhao Simei nearly snorted with laughter, pointing at them. “Look at that—your grandsons are a couple of lovesick fools.”

Cui Guiying rolled her eyes at her and said, “Don’t you have a granddaughter? Pair her up with one.”

“Hah.” Zhao Simei smirked, pointing at Li Zhuiyuan. “If I’m tying the knot with anyone, it’d be your Little Yuanhou. Let my Little Juanhou follow him to the capital and live the good life.”

“Get lost—stop dreaming.”

Li Weihan had finished eating. Women’s gossip didn’t interest him, and it wasn’t his place to chime in. He silently picked up his water pipe and opened the matchbox—only to find it empty.

Li Zhuiyuan set down his chopsticks, ran to the back of the stove, and grabbed a box of matches for him.

Li Weihan didn’t take it. Instead, he slid the pipe toward Li Zhuiyuan.

Li Zhuiyuan grinned, pulled out a match, and struck it—“chh,” “chh,” “chh”—finally getting it to light after some effort. He carefully shielded the flame with his other hand and lowered it to the pipe.

Li Weihan took several puffs, coaxing out the smoke, and smiled contentedly.

Back in the day, his daughter used to love lighting his pipe too. She’d even said that when she grew up, she’d buy him boxed cigarettes to smoke.

“Phew.”

Li Zhuiyuan blew out the match, tossed it to the ground, and stomped it out with his shoe several times.

Panzi spoke up. “Grandpa, how about we take the boat out this afternoon to pick lotus pods?”

Li Weihan glanced at the bland spread on the table, nodded, and said, “Leizi, you come too. Bring the net—see if we can catch a few fish for your grandma to make soup.”

Huzi and Shitou, hearing this, forgot all about Little Yellow Oriole and shouted, “Grandpa, I want to go too! Me too!”

The other little ones chimed in, afraid they’d miss out on the fun.

Li Weihan sternly scanned the group and scolded, “I’ll tell you this: there are water monkeys in that river. They drag people under to drown them and take their place as substitutes so they can reincarnate.”

The kids instantly fell silent, too scared to speak.

Shitou, unconvinced, muttered, “Why can the older brothers go?”

Panzi and Leizi, being older and more sensible, helped their grandpa intimidate the younger ones.

“Because I’m strong—water monkeys can’t pull me down,” Panzi said.

“I’m a good swimmer—they can’t catch me,” Leizi added.

Li Zhuiyuan wasn’t frightened. He wanted to go too but felt too shy to ask. He lowered his head, fidgeting with his hands, sneaking glances at his grandpa.

Li Weihan said, “Little Yuanhou’s coming too.”

Huzi immediately protested, “That’s not fair! Brother Yuanzi’s only a year older than me.”

Shitou backed him up. “Yeah, Brother Yuan isn’t even as strong as me—how’s he gonna fight a water monkey?”

Li Weihan slowly exhaled a smoke ring and gave a perfectly reasonable explanation even the kids could buy, on “Little Yuanhou’s from out of town. The local water monkeys don’t know him.”

(Continue in Next Part)