Chapter 441

The dusk of late autumn is like that old dance hall, possessing a kind of fascinating quality that makes one reminisce, but the smell of smoke inside makes you want to escape.

Li Sanjiang sniffed, put his hands in his pockets, and quickened his pace toward home, no longer replicating the arrival of the village party secretary.

This cooling down is just cooling down.

Lihua was cooking in the kitchen; when Li Sanjiang passed by, he joked to the inside:

"Auntie Hua, don't forget to take your son back today again."

"Don't worry, Uncle Sanjiang, I won't forget; my son is staying just fine in the room on the second floor, hehe."

Li Sanjiang entered the hall, and his peripheral vision caught that Xiao Hei in the dog kennel seemed to have turned a bit whiter.

He stopped to look closely and found Benben lying in the dog kennel sleeping soundly.

This child, don't know where he went to run wild today, getting himself so filthy, all mud.

Li Sanjiang picked up the child and put him into a large basket nearby filled with soft paper.

Xiao Hei crawled back into its dog kennel and let out a long sigh of relief.

Runsheng and Lin Shu You sat on a long bench, making paper offerings while watching TV.

The TV was playing a war movie, and the screen was rendering the tense atmosphere before the start of the war.

Li Sanjiang took out a cigarette, lit it, took a puff, and happened to see a scene of a neat, orderly, and massive marching formation on the TV.

The puff of smoke he inhaled couldn't be exhaled and was swallowed directly, making him cough straight away.

"Cough cough... cough cough... damn it, to think they could walk so neatly."

Lin Shu You responded while spreading paste: "Yeah, Old Man Li, this is the elite."

Runsheng, who was weaving bamboo strips nearby, reminded: "Our Old Man was an elite back then."

Li Sanjiang: "Some of the TV shows now are really filmed inexplicably; if they could walk like that in a march, how could they have been beaten to pieces like that in a few years."

Lihua: "Dinner time!"

After shouting, Lihua left in a hurry; she had to take advantage of the time tonight when Xiao Yingying offered wine to the one under the peach forest to ask that one about the opinion on the arranged marriage.

Li Sanjiang: "Auntie You, send the child to her; she forgot again."

Lihua, who was running halfway, was called back and took over this son who didn't know how many times he had been abandoned.

The milk in the baby bottle was finished, and the snacks in the small schoolbag were also eaten clean.

"My son is growing his body; Mom will prepare more for you tomorrow."

When she arrived home, she found that there was no offering table set up on the dam.

Xiao Yingying walked up, took Benben over, and looked at the dirty child; she frowned.

Lihua waved her hand indifferently: "It's okay, if it's not dirty, the child won't get sick."

Xiao Yingying glared at Lihua, and Lihua avoided eye contact with a guilty conscience like a stepmother.

After Xiao Yingying took the child into the room to take a bath, Lihua asked her husband with some doubt:

"Have you already asked? What's the result?"

Xiong Shan: "No offerings tonight; said the wine jars over there are all full; estimated they are drinking tea today, not wine."

Lihua: "Then when to ask? Can't say they might still be waiting for our reply over there; can't let the in-laws wait too long; what if they calm down and regret it?"

Xiong Shan pointed to the peach forest: "Why don't you go in and ask yourself?"

"You..." Lihua was so angry that she reached out and pinched the soft flesh on Xiong Shan's waist and twisted it hard, gritting her teeth and saying angrily, "I've discovered that your ability is only enough to use when you press on me at night, right?"

Xiong Shan: "Hey hey hey, don't worry; since it's the message passed by the old lady, how could the in-laws change their minds just like that? Our faces aren't worth much, but the old lady's face is there."

Lihua: "Really?"

Xiong Shan: "Alright, you as a mother are afraid of missing a sucker, maybe they are also afraid of missing a big bargain."

Lihua: "They are that kind of high-level orthodox sect..."

Xiong Shan: "Our son is also the big brother of the next generation in the family."

After comforting his wife, Xiong Shan entered the house; in the kitchen, Old Tian, who had finished making dinner here early, was still busy working hard.

Xiong Shan: "Looks like your young master is coming back."

Old Tian: "Yeah, coming back tomorrow; said he's become thin from working on the construction site, so I must take advantage of the young master's visit to Nantong this time to make him more of what he loved to eat since he was little to nourish him."

Xiong Shan: "That's good; we can also follow along and have a feast."

Old Tian: "Hey, is there any movement outside?"

Xiong Shan: "Someone is shouting; I'll go take a look."

Walking out of the house and coming to the village road, Xiong Shan saw villagers running and shouting with flashlights; in the river at the east end of the village, a person was floating.

Villagers with fast legs had already run to Li Sanjiang's house to notify him.

Li Sanjiang had only eaten half his dinner; he drank the remaining wine in his cup in one gulp, wiped his mouth, and waved his hand:

"Zhuangzhuang, Auntie Runsheng, Auntie You, let's go, prepare the tools, follow me to fish out the floater!"

Fishing for corpses is a business that depends on the weather.

Sometimes you fish every few days, and sometimes there's no business for months or half a year.

Runsheng and the others took out the tools of the great-grandfather from the basement; it was in the village, so there was no need to use a cart. The three of them carried them separately and followed Old Man Li out of the house.

Li Zhuiyuan looked at A Li: "After finishing dinner, let's go take a look together?"

A Li raised her eyes and looked at the second floor; her painting hadn't been finished yet.

Li Zhuiyuan: "Just go take a look; it won't delay things."

A Li nodded.

Slightly speeding up to finish the meal, Li Zhuiyuan tidied up the bowls and chopsticks here, put the meals of the great-grandfather and the others into the kitchen to be reheated when they returned, and then left the house with A Li.

Watching the excitement is human nature, and life in the village is exceptionally calm, so whenever something special happens, whether good or bad, it will immediately attract many villagers to bring their families out to join in the fun.

Li Zhuiyuan held A Li's hand and walked slowly; there were many people around, some running, some chatting; they were still far from the area where the floater was, but it was already noisy in advance.

A Li's palms were slightly sweaty, but her expression remained normal.

Before, she relied on imagining the youth by her side to resist the fear of the outside world; now the youth was holding her hand, and she had nothing to be afraid of.

Arriving at the riverbank, Li Zhuiyuan saw that the great-grandfather had already set up the offering table and set up two lit candles.

"Supreme Lord Lao, act quickly as the law commands~"

The great-grandfather held the peach wood sword and began to perform the ritual.

At the same time, Runsheng pushed the boat out, Tan Wenbin threw the net to net the floater and pull it back, and after pulling it to the side of the boat, Lin Shu You bent down to receive it, very smoothly and properly carrying the corpse on his back.

When Runsheng pushed the boat back to the shore, A-You jumped up, carried the corpse to the shore, Tan Wenbin spread a straw mat on the ground, A-You squatted down with his back to the straw mat, and sent the corpse to lie down face up.

Whether it was the things used or the process followed, they were very respectful of tradition.

It was dark, and separated by a distance, Li Zhuiyuan could only see that it should be a female corpse.

With Qing'an present, it was basically impossible for a "dead-fall" to appear in the Nantong region, not to mention that this was under Qing'an's nose.

However, after Tan Wenbin checked the female corpse, his expression changed; he stood up first, his eyes gradually turning into snake eyes in the darkness to scan the surroundings.

"A-You..."

"Brother Bin?"

"It's okay, Brother Xiaoyuan is also here."

Tan Wenbin squeezed out of the crowd, went around from the empty area on the periphery, and found Li Zhuiyuan.

"Brother Xiaoyuan, the corpse seems to have a problem."

"What's wrong?"

"I suspect the age of this corpse is quite old; it's not a fresh corpse, but an old corpse that has been preserved relatively well. Brother Xiaoyuan, you should go take a look yourself."

In the distance, the lights of police cars had already appeared.

Before the police came, Li Zhuiyuan, under Tan Wenbin's protection, approached the corpse.

The female corpse was not severely bloated, aged about thirty, and her skin was very white, but this white was not from before death, nor was it soaked out after death; it was more like a precipitation of time.

Tan Wenbin hadn't judged wrongly; the age of this female corpse was at least two hundred years.

But her attire at this time was very modern, and there wasn't a bit of resentment on her, meaning she hadn't undergone corpse transformation.

Li Zhuiyuan: "Brother Binbin, notify Uncle Tan's former colleagues and focus on checking if there are any ancient tombs nearby that have been looted."

The local forensic level might not be able to tell the specific age of this special female corpse, and even if they saw some clues, it would be difficult to report it in this direction.

Tan Wenbin: "Okay, Brother Xiaoyuan."

The corpse had no other problems besides being old, and the police had already come to control the scene, so Li Zhuiyuan took the opportunity to hold A Li's hand and go home first.

Tan Wenbin, A-You, and Runsheng stayed with Li Sanjiang to make a simple statement.

After finishing, the four of them carried their things and walked home.

Tan Wenbin, who was at the very end of the team, signaled A-You to take the things on his shoulders first, then took out the big brother phone and made a call to his own father.

Tan Yunlong: "Are you sure, kid?" ===== CHAPTER 442 =====