Taoist priest goes to America

A dark black van was parked in the open space in front of the abandoned building.

The car door opened, and Nigel got out first, still wearing a black protective suit. He stood there and glanced towards the rooftop.

Crows filled the sky above the dilapidated building, their black wings gleaming with a dark blue light in the morning glow.

On the rooftop, the sharp points of the upright steel bars pierced through human bodies, and more than forty corpses were strung together like meat skewers. Some had been hanging there all night, while others had only been there recently. Layers of black crows moved and lingered among them.

They landed on the shoulders of the corpses strung on steel bars and on the concrete ground. The corpses swayed in the morning breeze, and crows gathered in small groups, vying to peck at them, their slime dripping onto the floors below.

Some were pecking at the faces of the corpses, while others stood on the shoulders of the corpses, tilting their heads to examine the people on the ground, occasionally letting out a few hoarse cries, which sounded particularly desolate in the quiet morning.

Ang Lee sat next to one of the steel bars, his body leaning against the bar through which the corpse was strung, the hem of his outer robe hanging over the edge of the floorboards, swaying gently in the morning breeze.

Several crows surrounded him. One stood on his knee, tilting its head and gently pecking at the bits of flesh stuck to his trousers with its beak.

The other one jumped from the steel bar on Li An's left side directly onto his shoulder, brought its head close to Li An's ear, gently rubbed against it, and made a low purring sound, as if it was whispering something.

The crow that was closest to Li An simply jumped onto his hand, gently bit his fingertip, shook it, and then rubbed against his palm, as affectionately as a domesticated pet.

The rising sun at six in the morning was shining obliquely over the opposite rooftop and onto this rooftop.

Sunlight filtered through the fine dust rising among the crows, bathing Ang Lee, the crows beside him, and the corpse impaled on the steel bars in a warm golden halo.

The corpses strung on steel bars, touched by the sunlight, strangely exuded a tranquility unique to the early morning.

The whole scene is both eerie and heartwarming. The crows flapping their wings and eating, Ang Lee teasing the crows, and more than forty gnawed corpses strung on steel bars, all under the dawn sunlight, resemble both the scene of the apocalypse and a place of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.

Nigel snapped out of his shock and slammed the driver's side door shut with a loud bang that was particularly clear in the quiet of the early morning.

She waved to the convoy behind her, and three white vans came to a stop in succession. The doors opened, and fifteen cleaners wearing black protective suits and black masks jumped out one by one, their rubber boots stepping onto the muddy ground of the construction site.

The cleaners skillfully unfolded the folding stretchers, took out sealed body bags, long-handled hooks, and spray cans, and walked up the rusty iron ladder on the outside of the building.

Startled, the crows took flight in large flocks, their black wings obscuring the sunlight. Countless feathers drifted down from the sky, scattering everywhere in the sunlight like a black snowstorm.

The cleaners, heads bowed and avoiding the flock of crows still circling overhead, began to carefully use hooks to remove the corpses from the steel bars and put them into body bags.

The spray of disinfectant created a small rainbow in the sunlight, briefly suppressing the stench of decay in the air.

Nigel didn't participate in the moving. She stood at the bottom of the building, waved to Ang Lee, and pointed to a relatively clean, shady corner on the side of the building, signaling Ang Lee to come down.

Ang Lee stood up from the pile of corpses and glanced in her direction.

As the crow on my shoulder stood up, it spread its wings and hopped onto the steel bar, while the crow on my hand reluctantly flew away.

He walked around the steel bars and down the stairwell, his flesh-and-blood outer robe slowly shrinking into his body as he went down, revealing a clean suit underneath.

As Nigel approached, he pulled a business card from the inner pocket of his protective suit; the paper still carried her body heat.

The business card had no name or title, only a black phone number printed on it.

"You did a wonderful job this time," Nigel said, his voice filled with delight, a mixture of caution and eagerness.

"More than forty bodies, plus those from before, you've reached the top of our system."

"My superior, my direct supervisor, has heard about your situation."

"He thought you were a hidden superhuman, and that's why he became interested in you."

"He asked me to pass on a message to you: he wants to establish a personal connection with you and would like to meet with you."

"Call this number whenever you have time."

Ang Lee did not take the business card. His gaze remained on the card, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

"Interest?" Ang Lee repeated the word to himself. The last time someone mentioned "interest" to him was that bastard with the rabbit mask. Could this guy be a pervert too?

Ang Lee looked up, staring directly at Nigel, and asked, "How much about me did you tell him?"

"?" Nigel was puzzled by Li An's sudden serious reaction. "He didn't say how many, just over thirty corpses? That number speaks for itself."

"I simply told my boss that you were the one who brought the body."

Ang Lee reached out and took the business card: "What organization are you from? I didn't ask before, but now I want to know."

Nigel was taken aback, then asked Ang Lee, "You don't know? We're the cleaning division outsourced by Vought International. You should know Vought International, right? It's the largest pharmaceutical company in our country."

"Wow...the company?" Ang Lee recalled the bus that carried a load of ordinary people who had been given drugs, and the words written on the ground by the superhuman woman Maria: "The company asked us to collect different ordinary people for experiments."

They want living people, but they also outsource large-scale acquisition of corpses to teams like scavengers.

They want both the living and the dead. What are they going to do with them?

A pharmaceutical company says that living people can be used to test drugs for living people, but corpses are used to test drugs for the dead.

That's a very good cure; it can bring the dead back to life.

Seeing that Ang Lee had accepted the business card, Nigel walked toward the truck, turning to speak to Ang Lee and interrupting his train of thought.

"We'll clean up all the corpses, don't worry. Just don't make the scene so elaborate next time. At first glance, people might think you're some kind of death knight who came out of hell."

She met up with the street cleaners who were coming downstairs, opened the car door and pulled out a black canvas bag. The bag was tied at the top and was bulging, full of hundred-yuan bills.

Nigel came over and handed the bag to Ang Lee. "The market price is six hundred dollars per body. There are forty-four bodies in total, so this is twenty-six thousand four hundred dollars."

He took it; the bag was slightly ajar, revealing stacks of US dollars inside. He didn't take them out to count; instead, he closed the bag, weighed it in his hand, and then slung it over his shoulder.

"Oi, I'll go first, you guys take your time." Li An checked the time; it was already seven o'clock. A crow cawed twice on the rooftop. Li An looked back and saw one perched on a streetlamp preening its feathers, while the others were still circling low, their wings fluttering in the morning light.

If the landlady comes looking for you and you can't find her, then there will be a problem.

"Oh, okay, please make yourself at home." Nigel bowed to Li An, but when he looked up, Li An had already disappeared.