Corpse Retriever.

Chapter 19

The woman slowly stood up, and Zhao Hequan was grabbed by the neck and lifted up.

She leaned her face closer, as if to examine it carefully.

Gradually, black spots began to grow from Zhao Hequan's neck, where the woman's hand was holding him, and soon spread to his entire body.

Then, these spots began to gradually expand and merge with each other, forming one black abscess after another. The central area of ​​each abscess bulged, and pus continued to overflow and slide down the body, eventually gathering at the feet off the ground, forming a stream of liquid dripping onto the ground.

However, Zhao Hequan showed no signs of pain and did not struggle, and seemed to be still sleeping soundly.

Instead, Li Zhuiyuan suddenly had an ominous premonition. If he came into contact with this woman, he would be infected and rotten. Then the two pieces of flesh that the woman had dropped on his face earlier...

My face started to itch.

After feeling it carefully, I found that it was really itchy, not a psychological effect.

But now, no matter how itchy it was, Li Zhuiyuan didn't dare to reach out and scratch it.

Then, the woman picked up Zhao Hequan with her left hand and held him horizontally at her side. This formed a sharp contrast. The woman's physique was indeed a little ridiculously tall.

Li Zhuiyuan was shocked by the woman's appearance and eye contact before, so he ignored this point. Now, he found that the woman's figure was very similar to the statue in the temple.

Probably they caught the person they were looking for, so the woman carried Zhao Hequan and walked towards the dam.

She walked steadily, looking straight ahead.

Then, when it was halfway through the journey, its body continued to move forward, but its head suddenly turned 90 degrees and looked over.

Li Zhuiyuan's heart trembled.
she,
Still observing myself!

The woman continued to move forward while looking at this place. Finally, she was out of his sight and went down the dam.

The itchy feeling on my face continued.

Li Zhuiyuan lay there motionless, his eyelids still slightly open.

The sense of the passage of time was a little distorted at this moment, and he didn't know how much time had passed. Anyway, he still insisted on not moving.

Suddenly,

In the lower left corner of his field of vision, the woman's bloody face suddenly popped out.

It's like a person who has already gone out, but then remembered something. His body is still outside the house, but he tilts his neck back and leans his head back to look at you.

Those two rows of white teeth are the only part of his facial expression that can be seen.

There is a slight distance between the white teeth and their upper and lower parts. My imagination surmises that given her facial features and skin, she must be smiling.

as if to say,

Ha ha,

I just wanted to see if you were really asleep.

However, Li Zhuiyuan was not frightened this time, as he had anticipated this would happen.

Because the coldness around him had not dissipated, it meant that the woman had not gone far and was still nearby.

In my mind, I can imagine her standing still under the dam.

Liu Jinxia said that those dirty things will have an extremely strong interest in people who can see them, so even if you "see" it, you have to pretend not to see it.

Finally, the depressing atmosphere disappeared, the chill dissipated, the summer night heat swept back, and the evening breeze brought fresh air.

It was like walking out of a freezer, with a feeling of thawing from body to soul.

This makes the face more itchy.

It seems that if I could just reach out and grab a few things, it would be the most refreshing and comfortable thing in the world.

However, Li Zhuiyuan still did not move.

His willpower had been weakened, and his self-control was almost broken, but he still relied on inertia to maintain his previous sleeping position and eyes.

Suddenly, the cold came again, this time it came quickly, suddenly and violently.

It was not that he was dragged back into the freezer, but that the freezer had its door open and had grown legs, swallowing him in.

I heard two sounds of something falling to the ground, mixed with the crisp sound of the friction of the iron chain.

A pair of legs appeared a little bit in front of him, and at the bottom was a pair of feet that were still dripping with pus.

These are Zhao Hequan’s feet. He is now being held by a woman.

So, the woman was now standing behind him, very close to his head.

She was still looking at herself.

At this moment, Li Zhuiyuan found it difficult to understand the woman's unremitting persistence.

Since you keep testing me again and again, why don't you just lift yourself up like you did to Zhao Hequan?

Don't you have one hand free?
At this moment, Li Zhuiyuan suddenly remembered the message he heard during the day, that two students from Haihe University used a hammer to break the iron chains on the female Bodhisattva.

It should be Xue Liangliang and Zhao Hequan.

But the woman only mentioned Zhao Hequan but did not mention Xue Liangliang.

So, this proves that the woman can only take one away this time?
All of a sudden, Li Zhuiyuan's mind became clear.

This is a reverse competition, the two competing parties are himself and Zhao Hequan. If he reveals a flaw, the woman will most likely let Zhao Hequan go and capture him instead.

Her continuous attempts were actually a weighing of pros and cons.

There is no way Li Zhuiyuan would be willing to sacrifice himself in exchange for Zhao Hequan's escape. If he had to choose between the two, he would definitely choose Zhao Hequan to accompany the woman down.

Anyway, his ideal country is the United States. It is difficult to get a visa and the ocean is too vast to cross, so reincarnation there is a shortcut.

It's not pleasant to simply endure hardship, but once the problem is simplified into a competition, you are pulled back to the track you are best at.

The sudden chill came and went away quickly. The woman must have left again.

But Li Zhuiyuan was fixed like this.

He no longer cared whether he had woken up from the dream or whether the woman would come back. He just continued to maintain this posture with his eyes half closed.

His face was still itchy, forcing him to find another way to distract himself.

He began to think about the algorithms in the eighth book of "Explanation of Yin-Yang Physiognomy". He was idle anyway and had nothing to do now, let alone do it, so he might as well continue studying.

In my brain, rows of faces kept appearing and gradually overlapping.

Li Zhuiyuan has now achieved the state where when a person's face appears in his mind, she can be male or female, old or young;
If you look closely, you will find that everything from the eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth to the ears are constantly changing.

There is a sticker game popular among girls in Beijing nowadays. It is a piece of paper with a model's body printed on it, with a bunch of stickers ranging from hairstyles to various clothes. You can choose the hairstyle or clothes you want and tear them off. Because there is adhesive on the back, you can stick them on the model. It is like a simplified version of doll dressing up.

Li Zhuiyuan feels that he is playing this game now, but the accessories in his makeup library are much richer than those in a set of sticker toy boxes.

As he was playing, an idea gradually came to Li Zhuiyuan's mind:
Can you try to make this face move and talk?
The first seven books of "Explanation of Yin-Yang Physiognomy" involve a lot of rote memorization and calculations. It is only in the eighth book that there is the transition from science to metaphysics. The word "metaphysics" here refers to a threshold.

Thanks to the fact that my mother often took me to see a psychologist when I was a child, I naively gave myself a split personality in order to cater to my mother's needs and follow the doctor's treatment guidelines.

So, can the same method be used here?
This thought frightened him, because he felt like he had found the solution to unlock the eighth book!

But at the same time, Li Zhuiyuan also felt the danger. He could fully control the personality he had created before, but if he created a personality in his mind according to someone else's template, would it be safe?

"Xiao Yuanhou, wake up, haha, you are still sleeping, we have to go to work."

Li Weihan's voice rang in his ears, followed by a rough but warm hand caressing his face.

Li Zhuiyuan knew that he had truly woken up.

He didn't know whether the woman came back to test him again after that time.

However, that doesn’t matter anymore. Immersed in the learning atmosphere, I really ignored the changes in the outside world. I was not asleep, but I felt more “dead” than when I was asleep.

"What's wrong, Xiao Yuanhou? Are you not sleeping well outside?" Li Weihan asked with concern.

"No, no grandpa, I slept well."

Li Zhuiyuan turned his head to look towards the house and found that the college students had also gotten up and were washing up. Zhao Hequan was also there. He was not dead and was still talking and laughing with his classmates.

"That's good. Your uncle is here to get some water. Let's wash our faces."

After a simple cleaning and breakfast, everyone went to the construction site early. Today's work tasks were divided into villages. As long as they could be completed early, they could return home early and would not have to sleep here for another night.

Li Zhuiyuan also came to the river work. This time, he was lazy and found a stone to sit on, resting his chin on his hand.

He was very conflicted. He felt that he had found the key to the eighth book, but he didn't dare to try.

I vaguely felt that this was just like the last time I told my own fortune.

This line of work has many taboos. No, not that. This line of work is made up of all kinds of taboos.

The bustling atmosphere on the construction site gradually dispelled the haze in Li Zhuiyuan's heart;
He had come to terms with it a little. The first seven books were enough for him to read other people's faces when he had nothing to do. As for the eighth book, it could not be used except at special moments.

Okay, go help grandpa and the others carry the mud.

Li Zhuiyuan was about to stand up when he looked down and suddenly found a gray spot on the inside of his left forearm. He then looked at his right forearm and saw a similar spot at the corresponding position.

He immediately touched his face, but found it had no feeling, and it didn't itch when he woke up. He had almost forgotten about it.

Now it seems that I have finally been in trouble.

The reason why it didn't appear on the face is easy to understand. Certain effects in the dream last night don't necessarily have to manifest on the face. The self at that time was not a real body.

Li Zhuiyuan raised his arms and looked carefully. Although the two pieces were only the size of coins, this thing... was very likely to spread.

At this time, two people came over. To be exact, it was Xue Liangliang who was supporting Zhao Hequan.

The two of them are a surveying team. No matter whether they had any conflicts last night, they still have to complete the task together today.

"Brother, what's wrong with him?" Li Zhuiyuan asked.

Xue Liangliang said: "He is not feeling well. I will take him to see a doctor."

Li Zhuiyuan noticed that Zhao Hequan's neck had turned completely blue-black.

Yes, he was only hit in the face by the broken flesh on the woman's face, but he was taken away by the woman strangling his neck, so it must be the most serious.

After Li Zhuiyuan went to say hello to Li Weihan, he followed Xue Liangliang and the others back to the dam where they slept last night, where there was a barefoot doctor in charge.

The doctor unbuttoned Zhao Hequan's shirt, checked his symptoms, and then his face turned grim.

"Doctor, is he poisoned or bitten by a poisonous insect?" Xue Liangliang asked anxiously.

"We don't have such poisonous mosquitoes here. It doesn't look like you're poisoned. It won't happen so quickly. Didn't you say you were fine this morning?"

"Yeah, he was totally normal this morning."

"Hey." The doctor said with some embarrassment, "Send him to the nearby town health center for an examination. Here, I can only treat headaches and fevers."

"Doctor, I have some here too." Xue Liangliang rolled up his sleeves.

Li Zhuiyuan, who was standing next to him, saw that gray round spots appeared on his arms, just like his own.

That’s right, the woman also squatted in front of him last night and almost caught him instead of Zhao Hequan, so it was normal for some flesh to be smashed on his body.

"Let's go to the hospital right away. You should also get checked out. It's not an infectious disease or something."

"Okay, then leave my friend here first, and I'll go find a car."

The doctor frowned, but could only nod, then took out an old mask from his pocket and put it on himself.

After Xue Liangliang left, the doctor looked at Zhao Hequan again. At this time, Zhao Hequan's consciousness was a little fuzzy.

The doctor murmured, "It doesn't look like a disease, but more like it's been invaded by something dirty."

Barefoot doctors are people with basic medical knowledge who were trained or designated by the state after the founding of New China. They are not on the payroll and are both farmers and doctors. Although their medical expertise is generally not comparable to that of doctors in regular hospitals, they have played a huge role and made outstanding contributions to improving and protecting rural medical conditions in a specific historical period.

At the same time, because of the nature of their profession, they often have their own understanding of some special difficult and complicated diseases and are not so averse to them.

"What did you say?" Li Zhuiyuan heard it and asked curiously.

The doctor didn't say anything. He wasn't the type to scare a child with something supernatural.

"Did you encounter something dirty? Was you invaded?" Li Zhuiyuan asked proactively, "How should we solve this problem?"

The doctor said with some amusement: "Little boy, how would I know how to solve it? I am a doctor, not a fortune teller."

Li Zhuiyuan was a little disappointed. It seemed that he could only wait until his grandfather came back.

In fact, he roughly knew that Aunt Liu Jinxia and Aunt Li Juxiang seemed to have a solution to this problem, but he was too embarrassed to go to them because the solution they used was too simple and crude.

At this time, Xue Liangliang, who had just walked out for a while, came back again, accompanied by a middle-aged man with half-white hair and wearing work clothes.

This man has thick and steady eyebrows and a square face, and he exudes an air of integrity and majesty.

"Engineer Luo." When the doctor saw him, he also stood up and greeted him.

The other party is the deputy commander of the project and also the head of the department at Haihe University. He has been basically responsible for organizing the water conservancy construction projects in this area in recent years.

"Yeah." Luo Tingrui raised his hand in response, then walked straight to Zhao Hequan. After checking the situation, he cursed Xue Liangliang beside him in a low voice, "Don't you have any brains? Who told you two to be so impulsive yesterday?"

"Director, it's my fault."

Luo Tingrui said sullenly, "Didn't I teach you that if you encounter a tomb or temple during construction, you must deal with it. Even if there are no conditions to relocate or relocate them, you should burn some incense, pray and say a few nice words before you push them away. But you just smashed them with hammers!"

"Director, what should we do now?"

In fact, Xue Liangliang was planning to burn incense and pray before pushing the temple yesterday, but Zhao Hequan snorted coldly, saying that this was the bad nature of the Chinese people, and just took a hammer and smashed it, so Xue Liangliang had no choice but to follow suit.

Who knew that such a problem would occur the next day, but now is obviously not the time to apportion responsibility and explain.

"Where was the statue moved to?"

"It was dragged to the west ditch and piled up with construction waste."

“Okay, take him there first, and I’ll go to my temporary office to find Xiang.

Apologize first, and then send him to the city hospital. The town health center probably can't treat this kind of symptom. Anyway, it will take some time to find a car now."

"Okay, Director. I understand."

Xue Liangliang carried Zhao Hequan on his back and trotted down the dam.

As he walked, he suddenly turned his head and looked at Li Zhuiyuan who was following him.

"you……"

Li Zhuiyuan didn't waste any words and showed his forearm to the other party.

Xue Liangliang was very surprised: "Little boy, you also smashed it?"

"I do not know."

In fact, Li Zhuiyuan was the most innocent. He now had the ability to passively walk through the underworld, but the whole thing really had nothing to do with him. "Then come with me to burn incense. After burning incense, tell your family and I'll take you to the city hospital."

"Okay, brother."

Two people, or to be exact, three people came to the west ditch where the waste was piled. The female Bodhisattva statue was lying there alone.

The villagers who were doing the construction still had some basic taboos. They didn't just leave it lying there, but put a stone next to it to ensure that it could stand upright.

After putting Zhao Hequan down, Xue Liangliang walked to the statue and bowed first:

"It was my fault yesterday, please forgive me..." He paused and looked at Li Zhuiyuan beside him, "At the very least, you have to forgive this child."

Last night, Xue Liangliang said in a loud and clear voice: This world is materialistic.

However, this seems to be correct. In the eyes of true materialists, as long as there is a set of ready-made rules to explore and solve, then even if it is a ghost, it is a materialistic ghost.

Li Zhuiyuan carefully observed the statue. The statue had been underwater or in the mud for a long time, and the paint had long since peeled off and corroded. What caught the eye were large patches of surface that looked like red rust, which should be some kind of clay material used to shape the statue.

But this also echoed the state of the woman when she appeared last night, rolling and burnt, bloody.

The most important thing is that the other parts of the statue's face are invisible, but there is still a piece of white tooth paint at the corner of the mouth. It should be because the pigment is special and more durable. And judging from the shape of the face with paint, the lower jaw is retracted, leaving a gap at the mouth, which may prevent it from being completely filled in the mud.

Li Zhuiyuan also bowed, and then the jingle that his great grandfather had used when he led him to send Little Yellow Oriole came to his mind. He had a good memory and remembered it word for word, so he recited it out loud:
"I will give you offerings today and sacrifices next year. Are you satisfied with this favor?
Regardless of yin or yang, there must be reason.

If there is an injustice, then seek revenge; if there is a hatred, then seek revenge; everyone in the world has a hard life, so don’t go against it.”

Next to him, Xue Liangliang looked at the child with his eyes widened, because he saw...professionalism in this child.

After Li Zhuiyuan finished reading, he added, "Bring the incense over later. I'll set up a small altar for you when I get home and put all my snacks on it to make up for it to you."

Xue Liangliang was surprised and asked: "Will this work?"

Li Zhuiyuan shook his head and told the truth: "I don't know."

He just happened to copy the answers from his grandfather's model test.

Then, Li Zhuiyuan raised his arm again:

"what?"

The gray spot, which was originally the size of a coin, has shrunk to the size of a soybean, and its color has also become lighter.

Li Zhuiyuan blinked. He himself didn't expect that his grandfather's answer would be so useful!

"Look at yours." Li Zhuiyuan looked at Xue Liangliang. He needed a comparison now.

Xue Liangliang immediately spread out his arms. His gray spots not only did not get smaller, but got bigger.

He immediately said, "Little brother, please teach me how to read."

"it is good."

Next, Xue Liangliang imitated Li Zhuiyuan and repeated what he had just said, except that he changed Li Zhuiyuan's last sentence "offer snacks" to "go to the school cafeteria to get some food and set up an offering table for you in your dormitory."

After reading it, I waited for a while.

Xue Liangliang pulled up his sleeves as if he was scratching a lottery ticket and uttered a sound of surprise.

The spot did shrink, but it did not shrink back to the size of a soybean. Instead, it became the same as before.

"This..." Xue Liangliang frowned, "Could it be that the Bodhisattva also knows that the food in our school cafeteria is terrible?"

Li Zhuiyuan thought that it might be because he really smashed the statue yesterday.

"Why is there another child?" Luo Tingrui came over with incense.

"This child also encountered the same problem."

Luo Tingrui was a little confused, but didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he handed a stick of incense to Li Zhuiyuan, then one for himself and one for Xue Liangliang.

As for Zhao Hequan, who was already unconscious, he was given a huge handful of food.

Next, Luo Tingrui stood at the front, first took the incense and bowed very seriously, then unbuttoned his collar, sat down in front of the statue regardless of being dirty, patted the ground with one hand and grabbed his chest with the other, and began to complain.

It starts with recalling the hard days before liberation, then moves on to the purpose and significance of building roads, bridges and water conservancy projects, and finally looks forward to the future.

He spoke with great involvement and emotion, completely lacking the serious temperament of an engineer. If you didn't know him well, you would have thought he was holding a small symposium.

Moreover, as if he was afraid that the local temples might not understand Mandarin, he deliberately used a lot of Nantong dialect, although it was very poor and non-standard.

After he finished speaking, he stood up, placed his hands on the heads of Li Zhuiyuan and Xue Liangliang, and asked them to hold incense and bow again.

Finally, he dragged the unconscious Zhao Hequan over, grabbed his head and made him kowtow.

After doing all this, Luo Tingrui buttoned his collar and calmed down again.

Seeing Xue Liangliang's curious look, he said unhappily, "Learn from this. I learned this from my predecessors. There aren't many such things in Nantong. It's very common to encounter such things when building roads and bridges in the inland areas. We have figured out this set of procedures, which is quite useful."

Li Zhuiyuan nodded in conviction, because he found that after this worship, the soybean-sized gray spots on his forearm actually disappeared, leaving only a tiny, undetectable color mark. It can almost be said that it is healed.

This is really amazing. If we go back and ask Liu Jinxia to treat her, I'm afraid Aunt Xianghou will roll on the ground in pain again.

Li Zhuiyuan began to think: Is this another kind of development of Xuanmen?
The main theme is to appeal to people's emotions and to convince them with reason; however, the key here seems to be a higher kind of justice, which even forces those dirty things to retreat.

The spot on Xue Liangliang's arm shrank back to the size of a soybean, but it has also faded a lot, so it shouldn't be a big problem. Even if it leaves a permanent mark, it's not a big deal for a boy from water conservancy.

As for Zhao Hequan, he seemed to have relieved a lot, and began to hum and regain some consciousness, but his condition was already the most serious. Even if he recovered half of it now... it felt like the difference between a condition that was so serious that it could kill you ten times and only kill you once.

After all, Li Zhuiyuan saw with his own eyes that "Zhao Hequan" was taken away by that woman.

What did you mention?

Li Zhuiyuan looked around the statue's feet. It seemed there was no suitable place to hide anything. However, he saw a line of words engraved on the statue's base, between its two feet:
"Mrs. Bai."

Is that a woman's title?
This is in line with the local naming habits. For example, Liu Jinxia is addressed by guests as "Liu's Auntie".

Therefore, this is not a statue of a female Bodhisattva, but it is not a wrong name either, because in the ordinary people's superficial and broad understanding of the pantheon, female deities seem to be able to be called female Bodhisattvas.

"Let's send him to the city hospital." Luo Tingrui sighed, and then said to Xue Liangliang, "You should also go to the hospital for another checkup to make sure there are no problems left."

Xue Liangliang pointed at Li Zhuiyuan and said, "This kid needs to be checked, too."

"Well, little boy, which village and which team are your parents from?"

"Team 4 of Siyuan Village, Shinan Town."

Luo Tingrui looked at Xue Liangliang and said, "I'll go talk to his parents and ask them to take him to the city for a stroll and send him home in the evening. The construction site can't do without me, so you take them there. The car should be waiting at the mouth now."

"Okay, Director."

Xue Liangliang helped Zhao Hequan up again, and then motioned Li Zhuiyuan to follow. There was indeed a car parked at the entrance on the west side of the construction site, and the driver was also inside. When he saw people coming, he immediately drove to the city.

On the way, Li Zhuiyuan thought that if Engineer Luo went to talk to his grandfather and the others, then his grandfather and the others would definitely be relieved. After all, Engineer Luo's status as deputy commander was higher than that of the mayor.

When we arrived at Nantong People's Hospital, it was already 10 o'clock in the morning.

Li Zhuiyuan checked his arm and found that the stains were no longer visible. He was completely healed. However, after returning, Li Zhuiyuan would still set up a small altar to settle his promise.

Xue Liangliang's condition is similar, his has also shrunk to the size of a soybean into a faint mark.

However, unlike the two who have basically recovered, it seems that all the pain was borne by Zhao Hequan alone.

When they set off, he had regained some consciousness and seemed to be much better. However, on the way, his condition began to worsen again. He vomited in the car more than once, and the vomited water was sour and smelly.

But the driver was so distressed that he honked the horn much harder.

When they arrived at the hospital, Xue Liangliang first arranged for Zhao Hequan to be sent to the emergency room, and then took Li Zhuiyuan's hand to do a series of tests including blood tests.

It was almost time for dinner while they were waiting for the results. Xue Liangliang went to the hospital cafeteria and bought some steamed buns, which he brought over to eat with Li Zhuiyuan.

"It seems that we have to wait until after work in the afternoon to get the report." Xue Liangliang looked at Li Zhuiyuan, "After I get the report in the afternoon, I will go to the small store at the door and buy you some milk and toys. You can take them back with you."

"Thank you, brother."

"Why thank you? After all, it's me who got you into trouble."

This incident started because he and Zhao Hequan used hammers to smash the statue. How could this kid also swing a sledgehammer?

Li Zhuiyuan lowered his head and took a bite of the bun. It was indeed caused by him, but he didn't blame him in his heart.

It's hard to dislike a sunny, cheerful and careful person like him, and I also like to play this kind of character...

hiss!
Li Zhuiyuan held the bun in his left hand and grabbed his head with his right hand, looking painful.

Damn, this feeling comes back again.

At this time, Li Zhuiyuan felt that his vision began to become blurry, and he felt as if he was out of alignment with his body. In fact, this was a concrete manifestation of the separation between self-cognition and identity.

The indifference and sarcasm that his mother had frequently shown in recent years reappeared in his mind.

He knew very well that once he let this symptom get out of control and completed the peeling off, he would lose his identity as "Xiao Yuan Hou" forever. When faced with family and social relationships, he would be indifferent and resistant, and he wouldn't even be able to continue acting...

But he really likes this kind of life and he is unwilling to give up.

If his mother hadn't been there, he might not have been so resistant, and might even have thought about trying it out to see what it felt like. But now, because of his mother's presence, he was afraid.

Perhaps, even Li Lan herself did not realize that she had taken great pains to find a psychologist for her son and used various methods to intervene and treat him in a timely manner...

The effect is far inferior to this negative example.

"Xiaoyuan, what's wrong with you? Xiaoyuan, are you feeling unwell?" Xue Liangliang was shocked. He was afraid that the child would have big problems because of him.

Li Zhuiyuan kept reciting his family network quickly in his mind. This time, he even brought up Grandpa Bei and Grandma Bei. At the same time, Qin Li recited it more frequently.

For that girl who only has me in her eyes, I really don't want to respond with indifference when I go back to face her gaze.

At the same time, Li Zhuiyuan was still reading: I only found a way to solve the problem in the eighth book of physiognomy. I haven't dared to try it yet, so I can't say I have learned it! I haven't completed the eight trigrams algorithm for fortune-telling. Although the progress is fast, what if I get stuck later?
No, even if I have learned these two books well, there are so many books in my great grandfather's basement. I definitely cannot finish reading and learning them all. I will definitely fail, I will definitely not understand, I will definitely feel frustrated and powerless and hate learning!

"Snapped!"

There was a silent, crisp sound, as if consciousness, thinking, and identity recognition had returned to their original positions.

Li Zhuiyuan finally breathed a sigh of relief, leaning back in his chair, his face covered in cold sweat.

Sure enough, the feeling of frustration in learning is the most useful.

The sudden situation I encountered this time was probably related to the fact that I opened the eighth book at night, which made me lose my awareness of being a poor student.

"Xiaoyuan, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Brother Liangliang." Li Zhuiyuan wiped the sweat from his forehead and deliberately said, "It's not this, I have epilepsy."

"Oh, I see. Just sit still and don't leave. I'll get you a hot towel to wipe you."

"Well, thank you, Brother Liangliang."

After Xue Liangliang left, Li Zhuiyuan saw a familiar figure out of the corner of his eye. It was Sister Yingzi.

She is also in this hospital? Were her grandparents transferred here from the town health center?

Doesn't that mean that the grandfather might be here too?

However, Li Zhuiyuan did not leave his seat to chase after him, as he was afraid that Xue Liangliang would be anxious when he came back and couldn't find him.

Xue Liangliang came back with a new towel. He carefully wiped Li Zhuiyuan's face, motioned for Li Zhuiyuan to raise his hand, and put the towel into his short sleeves to wipe his body to prevent him from catching a cold.

"Xiaoyuan, you are not from here, are you?" Xue Liangliang asked with a smile. "When I asked you yesterday, you said you were from here, but when we were drawing blood, you spoke to the nurse in Nantong dialect, and I could tell."

"Well, I lived in Beijing when I was a child, and I just returned to my hometown recently."

"Beijing, I've been there. It was a study exchange activity between universities. I went to Weiming Lake."

Li Zhuiyuan thought to himself: That’s not a coincidence, we didn’t meet by chance.

"I'm so envious of the kids in big cities." Xue Liangliang sighed.

"Where is Brother Liang's home?"

"I come from a rural area in Anhui. My house is very beautiful, but it's a little poor."

Li Zhuiyuan nodded. He also thought that many of the old houses in Siyuan Village were very beautiful, especially the roofs and eaves of the bungalows, which were very beautiful.

"It's a pity that many people in my hometown demolished their old houses and built new buildings after their living conditions improved."

“That’s also for a better life.”

"I know, but I think that when our lives improve, we ordinary people will start to like traveling like people in developed countries. If the old houses are not demolished, they may become tourist attractions."

Li Zhuiyuan looked at Xue Liangliang. He felt that this older brother's thinking was so sharp and profound that even he admired it.

He is not a person who is born with knowledge, nor is he like those students in his class who have special talents, but he seems to be extremely good at discovering objective laws and thus grasping the essence of the problem, that is, having a long-term vision.

Perhaps, this is actually a kind of genius.

"Haha, do you think I'm talking nonsense? How could anyone buy tickets and queue up to visit this kind of old house and town in the future?"

Li Zhuiyuan shook his head: "I think what you said is probably right, Brother Liangliang."

"You are also very smart, really, I feel it, how are your academic performance?"

"It's good. There are not many kids in the class who are better than me."

"That's because you are still young. The lower grades have less to learn, the gap is not that big, and the competition is less. When you go to junior high school, high school, and then college, you will understand. Don't be proud and complacent now."

"Well, I see."

Li Zhuiyuan immediately pointed to the stairs and said, "Brother Liangliang, I just saw my cousin go upstairs. Her grandparents are in the hospital here. My cousin and my aunt should be accompanying them. I want to go see her."

"Okay, I'll go with you."

"Don't bother. I can go by myself."

"No, after I get the medical report this afternoon and confirm that everything is fine, I will have to take you home in person."

"Okay, Brother Liangliang."

The fourth and fifth floors are for inpatients. Li Zhuiyuan didn't know the patients' names, so he naturally couldn't look up the ward numbers, so he could only scan each ward one by one.

Not long after searching, he heard a familiar and loud voice: "Damn it, what's going on!"

It's Grandpa's voice.

Li Zhuiyuan ran over immediately, and Xue Liangliang followed behind.

At the same time, some patients and their families appeared in the corridor, attracted by the noise and came out to see what was going on.

Came to the door of the ward and pushed it open.

Li Zhuiyuan saw Li Sanjiang holding a peach wood sword, protecting Yingzi, his third aunt and two other middle-aged men and women behind him. There was an old man lying on each of the two beds, who should be Yingzi's grandpa and grandma.

At this time, the two old men's bodies were twitching wildly, with blood pouring out of their eyes, ears, mouths and noses, especially their mouths, where blood was surging, not only staining the beds red, but also quickly forming two large pools of blood on the ground.

But even so, they were still struggling to make intermittent sounds:
"Mercy...Mercy...Mrs. Bai!"

(End of this chapter)