WHF Ch 7 – Enjoying Seeing Dead People

When they were still five kilometers away from the service area, the sun began to set in the west.

Yu Tianbai stared at the red cord hanging from the rearview mirror, belatedly realizing that he’d been experiencing some bad luck these days. Not exactly bad luck—he knew well the feeling of ruining a good hand of cards, but this current feeling was as if someone had taken his cards away and replaced them with a mousetrap.

And who was this person who had so thoughtfully switched his cards for a mousetrap?

“Do you have too much fire in your destiny?” Yu Tianbai tilted his head and asked Xiu Ma.

“Too much fire?” The young master was looking at the scenery and turned his head. “What do you mean?”

Talking to him always seemed to be missing something, Yu Tianbai raised his hand to touch his forehead.

“When your father had someone determine which profession would ward off your bad luck, didn’t they also analyze your eight characters of birth?”

Xiu Ma thought for a moment, then shook his head and asked: “Do you believe in fate?”

With the cinnabar lotus on the rearview mirror and the red glass around his neck, it would be hard to say he wasn’t superstitious.

“My eight characters lack fire,” Yu Tianbai decided to tell him honestly.

Xiu Ma almost laughed: “I think you have plenty of fire.”

This comment earned him a kind smile from Yu Tianbai, who then looked at Xiu Ma in the rearview mirror.

“The hammer that punctured our tire had blood on it, not like an animal’s, most likely human blood.”

This prompted a silence. He saw Xiu Ma tilting his head.

“How can you tell it’s human blood?”

The van turned off the highway onto a service road where there were signs of human activity. Yu Tianbai sighed deeply and answered:

“Human blood smells the worst.”

The silence grew longer. Xiu Ma folded his arms and turned his head: “Should we report it to the police?”

This time Yu Tianbai smiled again, but much more genuinely. He began to praise Xiu Ma: “You’re more law-abiding than you look.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police at a time like this?” Xiu Ma was confused by his smile.

“No,” the cheerful expression disappeared as Yu Tianbai stared straight at the road ahead. “I’m keeping it only because I want to find the insurance company. Better not to make trouble.”

Through the rearview mirror, he saw Xiu Ma’s light-colored eyes blink slowly several times. The color reminded him of an amber ring from a ghost market—not that the brat was likeable, at most he was valuable.

“I’ve been wanting to ask,” Xiu Ma’s fingers tapped on his elbow, “what did you do before?”

Yu Tianbai didn’t really want to answer him directly, but he had no reason not to.

“If you’re asking about those skills that aren’t usually needed—” he paused for two seconds, “I was in the military before.”

Identifying guns, identifying human blood—these skills that were unnecessary in everyday life and made people thoroughly suspicious. But he couldn’t remember clearly whether he had learned these two things specifically in the military camp, so he felt somewhat guilty saying it.

He hoped the young master wouldn’t ask too specifically, but the young master’s questions always surprised him.

“Have you killed anyone?”

The wheels swerved a little. Yu Tianbai turned to look at him. Xiu Ma’s expression wasn’t joking at all.

“Do you want to call the police?” Yu Tianbai asked in return.

“No, not really,” as if confirming something, Xiu Ma’s tone became lighter. “I just find it interesting.”

“I find you quite interesting too,” Yu Tianbai’s mouth twitched. “You enjoy seeing dead people?”

No one spoke. The wheels ground against the cracks in the service road, and Xiu Ma shrank back into the passenger seat as usual.

Subjectively he didn’t admit defeat, nor did his expression, but as mentioned before, the cold air leaned toward Yu Tianbai; he was just avoiding the wind.

The car was driving toward the sun, yet the temperature was getting colder. The season of late spring cold had arrived, and the road would be difficult to travel at night. Yu Tianbai narrowed his eyes slightly.

“When I was in the military, I saw things that didn’t belong to this world.”

Xiu Ma was resting his chin in his hand looking at the sky, and turned his face when he heard the voice.

“That spring was especially cold, similar to now. I was standing guard at the military camp, and as soon as I took my post, I felt someone behind me. I thought it was my relief coming early, or maybe the squad leader, so I didn’t dare move—of course, normally I wouldn’t dare move either.”

At this point, Yu Tianbai’s mouth twitched, his expression somewhere between a smile and not. Xiu Ma leaned on his head skeptically, feeling his back getting a little cold.

“But when it got to the last ten minutes of my shift, I suddenly remembered that the squad leader had taken extended leave to go home that day, and my relief would come from the opposite direction. So who was behind me?”

Then the storyteller let out a long sigh: “I couldn’t help it. I risked punishment and looked back. It was a child with no head and no arms.”

A white snow plain, a quiet military camp, an incomplete person. The car fell silent.

Then Yu Tianbai suddenly shouted: “What’s that!”

Xiu Ma jumped, immediately looking behind him, but in the back of the van there were only the ultra-realistic male 1:1 new products he had packed himself. From the side came Yu Tianbai’s snickering laughter.

“You really are quite interesting,” he offered a fair assessment.

However, this joyous excitement didn’t last long. Just as Yu Tianbai was beginning to feel relaxed, he saw something on the road ahead. Two or three vehicles, thirty to fifty people, standing in a low-lying area of the service road looking toward the water surface, as if there had been an accident.

Sure enough, one shouldn’t speak too soon. Yu Tianbai gritted his teeth and exhaled.

Following the repair mechanic’s advice, he stepped on the brake a hundred meters in advance. The van came to a squeaking stop on the service road. Xiu Ma hadn’t yet recovered from his startled state—he had even forgotten to scold Yu Tianbai.

“See that?” Yu Tianbai pointed outside the car. “This is what happens when you speak carelessly. The bad omens come true, not the good ones.”

He didn’t know if the guy in the passenger seat had heard him. He simply opened the door and got out, leaving the other person in the car.

The sun was half-buried below the horizon. It wasn’t completely dark yet. The people ahead who were blocking the road seemed to be a group—the cars were all the same model, and the people standing on the road were dressed identically in bright, flowery silk clothes.

Silk clothes?

Yu Tianbai’s footsteps slowed for a moment, and the cigarette he was bringing to his mouth stopped. The auntie closest to him seemed to hear the sound and turned her head. This turn was startling—Yu Tianbai dropped his cigarette directly on the ground.

Heavy makeup, flashy attire, colorful clothes, white faces with jet-black sideburns pasted on—the auntie looked completely bewildered.

“Young man, where are you from—are you the driver from the car behind?”

Seeing the young man bend down to pick up his cigarette, the auntie was quite confused.

“What’s wrong, too cold?”

“No,” Yu Tianbai dusted off the snow from his cigarette and put it back between his lips. “Your outfit is just so novel.”

The auntie covered her mouth with her flowery handkerchief, saying “what a sweet-talker this young man is” several times. Indeed, being sweet-tongued proved to be an advantage. Several aunties surrounded the handsome young man who had gotten out of the car behind, chattering about what had just happened.

These few cars were indeed a group—they were an errenzhuan (a folk art form) performance troupe from Liaoning. Today they were returning from a performance in the provincial capital, looking for a place to rest and eat some iron pot stew. Unexpectedly, while passing the lowland, they glanced at the water surface and saw half a car shadow. Why half? Yu Tianbai looked toward the ice surface in the direction of the aunties’ pink handkerchiefs.

A gray microcar, the same model as Yu Tianbai’s “Quick Stand,” was upside-down in the water. It must have sunk halfway before the water froze, and now it looked quite stable.

“We thought someone’s car had accidentally gone in, but then our driver suddenly noticed there seemed to be someone in the car.”

Someone in the car?

The driver who said there was someone in the car was making a phone call energetically on the side, but it didn’t sound like he was calling road rescue or the police. It seemed like he was chatting with a friend.

“Yes, there’s definitely someone in the car—I saw it first, I told you I have good eyesight—this might be a major criminal case!”

He was chattering noisily.

Yu Tianbai narrowed his eyes to look at the ice surface. No matter how he looked, it seemed like an empty car. He vaguely began to feel he was meddling too much.

“Then why don’t you—” Yu Tianbai pondered how to explain to the auntie, “just go?”

“Just go?” The auntie laughed heartily. “That wouldn’t be right. We’re not leaving because we want to pull the car out. How could we not help when we’ve come this far?”

At this point, the auntie seemed to suddenly think of something. When Yu Tianbai was quietly planning to retreat, it was already too late.

“You both look capable. Could you help us pull the car up?”

Yu Tianbai smiled faintly and refused: “That’s a bit—”

Wait, “you both”?

In the cold wind of the sunset, Yu Tianbai turned around sharply. Xiu Ma was standing next to him with a righteous expression.

“Sure, we’ll help,” he promptly agreed to the aunties’ request.

Compared to this suddenly upright yellow-haired kid, Yu Tianbai felt like an untrustworthy, scheming old boss.

“Didn’t I tell you not to come out?” Yu Tianbai asked him.

“You didn’t say that,” Xiu Ma turned his head and answered him quietly.

Indeed, he hadn’t said it. Yu Tianbai thought back—he had probably only admonished Xiu Ma in his mind.

At this point, the upright yellow-haired kid summed it up for him: “In short, we can help you.”

“Wait a minute,” the scheming boss raised an objection, turning to the aunties, “We need to talk privately for a moment.”

On the sunny side of the van reflecting the remaining sunset glow, Xiu Ma was practically dragged by his collar all the way by Yu Tianbai, then slammed against the car door.

“What do you mean by this?” Yu Tianbai asked, breathing heavily.

Dragging someone four or five centimeters taller than himself was indeed tiring. Xiu Ma straightened his collar.

“Nothing special. I believe in fate too. I think we should do good deeds often.”

He deliberately stood straight to emphasize the height difference between himself and Yu Tianbai. Yu Tianbai stood with his hands on his hips, turning his face away to glance at the river.

“Do you know how to pull it out?”

Seeing Yu Tianbai angry, Xiu Ma appeared particularly innocent. He nodded: “I know.”

“If you know, you should hide it even more!” Yu Tianbai slammed the car door next to him with a “bang” and turned to stare at him. “Is it so hard to hide things?”

Height didn’t affect Yu Tianbai’s performance at all. When he tilted his face up to stare at Xiu Ma, the feeling of coldness became even more intense. Xiu Ma’s Adam’s apple moved.

“I’ll do it myself. You don’t need to worry about it,” he answered.

Yu Tianbai turned and walked away, lighting a cigarette two meters away.

“But I need to borrow your car.”

“What if it breaks down?” Yu Tianbai turned to stare at him, his eyes red.

“I’ll compensate you with mine,” Xiu Ma’s tone remained steady.

The deal seemed fair.

“I’ll drive my own car,” Yu Tianbai threw his barely-smoked cigarette on the ground. The cigarette went out, and he slowly raised his head. “I’ll follow your lead for the rest. Go ahead and perform.”