Chapter 1

“You brats! Dinner! Ooo-la-la-la!” Cui Guiying, wearing an apron, held a bowl in her left hand and a spoon in her right, shouting and tapping the edge of the porridge vat.

Sitting nearby, Li Weihan was packing tobacco into his water pipe. He kicked the woman on her backside and grumbled, “Have you lost your mind? Are you calling piglets?”

Cui Guiying glared at her husband, placed a stack of bowls heavily in front of him, and spat, “Hmph, pigs aren’t as noisy as them, nor do they eat as much!”

At her call, a group of children rushed in from outside. There were seven boys and four girls, the oldest sixteen, the youngest only three.

Li Weihan and his wife had four sons and one daughter. Their children had moved out and set up their own households when they grew up, and usually, only their eldest son, who lived nearby, would leave his three-year-old twins with them. But once summer vacation arrived, whether for convenience or because they felt shortchanged if they didn’t take advantage of their parents, everyone sent their children over. After taking in the eldest son’s children, it was awkward to refuse the others, and suddenly, the house felt like a school.

The couple hadn't even had time to fully savor the sweetness of having so many grandchildren before the rice jar was visibly nearing empty. As the saying goes, "half-grown boys can eat their father out of house and home." All the children, including the girls, were at an age of rapid growth and had insatiable appetites; their bellies seemed like bottomless pits. Cui Guiying's family had to serve their main meal from a large vat, and even one vat wasn't enough, with another pot still warming on the stove.

Though the couple already had many grandchildren, they weren't particularly old. And according to current rural customs, unless one was sick, bedridden, or unable to work, as long as one had the strength to work in the fields, no matter how old, they were not entitled to be supported by their children's meals.

“No pushing, no pushing! Are you all reincarnated hungry ghosts? Line up!” The children came with their bowls, and Cui Guiying was in charge of serving the porridge.

The last to come was a ten-year-old boy. He wore denim overalls and fashionable sandals, with fair, tender skin and a shy expression. He seemed somewhat out of place compared to his brothers and sisters, who were dirty from playing and constantly sniffing.

“Little Yuan Hou, here, eat here.”

“Thank you, Grandma.”

Cui Guiying smiled and stroked the child's head. Among this large group of biological grandchildren, he was the only maternal grandson, though now, he was considered a paternal one. The child's name was Li Chuiyuan. His mother was Cui Guiying's youngest daughter, the first university student in Siyuan Village history. The youngest daughter got into a university in Beijing, stayed to work after graduation, and found her own partner. Before marriage, she brought him home once; he was a refined, well-mannered city man with fair skin. Cui Guiying couldn't recall his exact appearance because she and Li Weihan were too constrained in front of their son-in-law to look closely.

Later, their daughter became pregnant and had a son. Due to the long distance and busy work, she never returned home. However, ever since her graduation and work, she had never failed to send money to her parents every month. Li Weihan and Cui Guiying saved all the money sent before her marriage. They gritted their teeth and endured, refusing to touch a single fen when their four sons married. When their daughter brought her son-in-law home that time, Li Weihan immediately pushed back the betrothal money the son-in-law offered and even added the money their daughter had sent, returning it all. They had wanted to be even more assertive and add more from their own savings, but with four sons married previously, no matter how much they tightened their belts, they couldn't squeeze out any more. This matter always left the couple feeling guilty. Returning their daughter's money meant that as parents, they contributed nothing to her marriage, which was truly a loss of face.

As for the money their daughter sent monthly after marriage, the couple also saved all of it. Their sons, instigated by their wives, tried various excuses to get their hands on this money, but Li Weihan always scolded them away, pointing a finger at their noses. Half a month ago, their daughter entrusted her son to a man in military uniform, who brought him over with a letter and a sum of money. The letter stated she was divorced and had a recent job change, so she could only temporarily entrust her son to her parents for a period. In the letter, their daughter also said she had changed her son's surname to hers after the divorce, effectively turning their maternal grandson into a paternal one.

After arriving in the countryside, Li Chuiyuan not only showed no signs of discomfort but quickly integrated, happily playing with his cousins all day long, running from one end of the village to the other.

The main meal was sweet potato porridge, which tasted sweet but wasn't very filling and was quickly digested. Even after several large bowls that left their bellies round, a short run outside would make them hungry again. Moreover, eating too much sweet potato porridge and sweet potato fries for extended periods could genuinely harm the stomach; even the thought of them when not hungry would make one's stomach churn with acid. Li Chuiyuan, however, hadn't grown tired of it. He quite enjoyed the "communal dining hall" feeling, and he deeply loved the various pickled vegetables and savory sauces Cui Guiying made.

“Grandma, why aren’t we going to Big Beard Grandpa’s house for the feast today?” It was Hu Zi, his second uncle’s son, who spoke. He was nine years old.

Cui Guiying tapped Hu Zi’s head with the end of her chopsticks and scolded, “You little devil, that’s only because his old mother died. Do you want them to have feasts every day?”

Hu Zi covered his head and said, “Why not? It would be great to have them every day.”

“What nonsense is this little devil talking? Even if they wanted to, where would they find enough people dying every day to line up?”

“Whack!” Li Weihan loudly tapped the table with his chopsticks and reprimanded, “What kind of crazy talk are you, an adult, saying to the kids?”

Cui Guiying realized her slip of the tongue and didn’t retort to her husband. Instead, she scooped a bit of savory sauce with her spoon and put it into Li Chuiyuan’s porridge bowl. The sauce contained crushed peanuts and a bit of minced meat, which her scoop had caught. Li Chuiyuan stirred it a few times with his chopsticks, the sauce spreading faintly, and tender bits of meat floated to the surface of the porridge.

The children had sharp eyes and were most concerned with fairness over scarcity. Hu Zi immediately said, “Grandma, I want meat too! Like the kind in Yuan Zi Ge’s bowl!”

“Grandma, I want some too.”

“Me too.” Other children joined the clamor.

“Go away, go away!” Cui Guiying snapped at them ill-temperedly. “It’s one thing for the younger siblings to be ignorant and make noise, but Pan Hou, Lei Hou, Ying Hou, you older ones, what are you clamoring for? Be sensible! What you’re eating here today was bought with money given by little Yuan Hou’s mother. Your parents haven’t given your grandma a single grain of rice, and you still have the nerve to fight over food with him!”

Pan Zi, Lei Zi, and Ying Zi lowered their heads, feeling a bit embarrassed, while the younger ones just looked at each other, giggled, and moved on. Grandma had hinted before, and they had conveyed it to their parents, but their parents had instructed them to play dumb.

At this point, Shi Tou, the third son’s eight-year-old child, asked, “Is Little Oriole still there?”

Cui Guiying asked, “Who is Little Oriole?”

Hu Zi replied, “Grandma, Little Oriole is the one who danced and sang at Big Beard’s house yesterday. Her singing was so good, and her dancing was great too.”

“Is that so?” Cui Guiying had been busy washing dishes in the back kitchen yesterday, working non-stop, with no spare time to go to the front to watch the funeral troupe’s performance after the meal. Her husband, Li Weihan, also didn’t go. He used the excuse of going out on the boat, but he was actually home. The real reason he didn’t go was embarrassment; after all, he had already sent Pan Zi, Lei Zi, and the three children, Yuan Zi, Hu Zi, and Shi Tou, to the feast, so it would look bad for him, an adult, to go eat as well. The five children not only ate their fill but also took a lot of food back, especially the main dishes that were distributed per person at the table. Li Chuiyuan learned from his cousins, tearing off a piece of the red plastic sheet covering the table in front of him to wrap food in. When they returned home, they would distribute it to the younger siblings who couldn’t attend the feast. Watching their siblings eat, they felt like victorious generals returning from battle.

Lei Zi said, “Her singing was really good, and she’s pretty too. She told us all to call her Little Oriole.”

Pan Zi nodded, “She’s so nice. She’s pretty, and her clothes are pretty too. I want to marry someone like her someday.”

Cui Guiying looked down and asked Li Chuiyuan beside her, “Little Yuan Hou, is that true?”

“Yes,” Li Chuiyuan put down his chopsticks and nodded, “Pretty.”

Rural funeral troupes were expected to be versatile, capable of performing both in the hall and in the kitchen. During rituals, they could wear Taoist robes or Buddhist cassocks, chant scriptures, and perform rites, appearing ethereal and dignified. After the grand midday feast, they also had to organize a cultural performance, including singing, dancing, acrobatics, and magic—anything they could manage. For wealthy families who loved to show off, they would even invite specific funeral troupes to hold an evening show, though before such performances, adults would send the children home to bed.

Little Oriole’s surname was Xiao. Her given name was Xiao Huangying, and her stage name was Little Oriole. She was actually not young, in her thirties, and divorced. Her singing and dancing skills were only mediocre, but she knew how to dress up, wearing bold and fashionable clothes, such as a tight black cheongsam with a high slit revealing a large expanse of white leg, combined with a friendly and enthusiastic stage presence. To describe her using the village women’s most vicious curses, which were simultaneously their highest praises, she was “sassy.”

Nowadays, there were very few families in the village with televisions, and even those who did often had people squeezing onto benches to watch, unable to get a good spot. Therefore, in the countryside, where fashionable trends had not yet widely spread, Little Oriole’s “sassy” style was a devastating blow to the surrounding village girls and wives. Not only did she captivate the men, but even the half-grown boys were utterly smitten.

Just then, a figure appeared at the door of the main hall. It was their neighbor, Zhao Simei, who had been Cui Guiying’s “sister” for many years; when their children were young, the two of them loved to sit by the dam and gossip when they had time.

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

Zhao Simei quickly waved her hand and laughed, “Oh, I wouldn’t dare to freeload a meal at your house, look, you’re all drinking thin stuff here.”

“This porridge feels comfortable in the stomach; I love this. Come on, I’ll serve you a bowl. No matter how much we scrape the rice jar, we won’t run out for your share, will we?”

“Alright, alright, I’ve eaten already. Hey, do you know that the head of the funeral troupe just took his people to Big Beard’s house to cause trouble? They say they smashed things and almost got into a fight.”

Upon hearing this, Cui Guiying immediately picked up her bowl and chopsticks, stood up, and while shoveling porridge into her mouth, moved closer to the door. “What happened? Didn’t Big Beard’s family pay up?”

“It wasn’t about the performance fee. Someone from the troupe went missing.”

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

“A woman, the one who was strutting around, the one whose butt swayed so much yesterday, it looked like her butt crack was about to show.”

“Is it Little Oriole?” Pan Zi asked. The other children also pricked up their ears.

“It seems to be her, that loose woman.” Zhao Simei sounded quite gleeful.

“How did she go missing, and have they found her?” Cui Guiying asked.

“They say someone saw that loose woman from the troupe going into the small woods by the river with Big Beard’s youngest son last night. Then she didn’t return to the troupe, so the troupe came to demand her back.”

“What about Big Beard’s son?”

“He’s home, but he claims he doesn’t know anything, that it didn’t happen. But many people in the village saw him and that loose woman going into the woods.”

“So where is she?”

“Who knows? She’s just gone. The troupe leader was here to get her back, but Old Hu Zi’s family insisted they hadn’t seen her, and said that promiscuous woman ran off by herself.”

“So what happened?”

“Old Hu Zi’s family paid the troupe leader a sum of money, quite a lot, actually.”

Cui Guiying immediately slapped Zhao Simei’s arm repeatedly, raising an eyebrow. “Something’s up!”

Zhao Simei immediately slapped Cui Guiying’s arm back, raising her chin. “You bet!”

Old Hu Zi used to be the deputy head of the grain station in town, which was a lucrative position. Even though he was retired now, except for his youngest son who idled around, his other sons all had jobs in town. In this village, even the village chief’s family wasn’t as influential as his. Therefore, for Old Hu Zi to be willing to pay money to settle the matter, there had to be something fishy going on!

“After they gave the money, the troupe leader just left?”

“Yes, left.”

“What about the person? Not looking for her anymore?”

“Looking for what? The troupe has already packed their gear and gone by truck to the next engagement.”

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

“Who knows?”

“People, they’re so fake.”

“Indeed.”

Hearing this, Hu Zi and Shi Tou suddenly burst into tears: “Waaah! Little Oriole! Little Oriole!”

“My Little Oriole! Little Oriole is gone! Waaah!”

Seeing this, Zhao Simei almost burst out laughing, pointing and saying, “See that? Your two grandsons are sentimental fools.”

Cui Guiying rolled her eyes at her and said, “Don’t you have a granddaughter? How about we pair them up?”

“Heh.” Zhao Simei snorted, pointing at Li Chuiyuan, “It’s not impossible to become in-laws, but it would have to be with your Little Yuan Hou, so my Little Juan Hou can also follow him to Beijing and enjoy a good life.”

“Go away, don’t just dream of good things.”

Li Weihan had finished eating. He wasn’t interested in the old women’s gossip and it wasn’t convenient for him to interrupt, so he simply picked up his water pipe silently, opened his matchbox, and found it empty. Li Chuiyuan put down his chopsticks and ran to the back of the stove to get a box of matches for Li Weihan.

Li Weihan didn’t take them but moved the tobacco pipe closer to Li Chuiyuan. Li Chuiyuan smiled and pulled out a match. *Chka, chka, chka*, he managed to strike a flame with some difficulty, then carefully shielded it with his other hand, lowering the match to the pipe bowl. Li Weihan puffed several times, smoke emerged, and he looked satisfied and smiled. Back then, his own daughter also liked to light his pipe for him and said that when she grew up, she would buy him packaged cigarettes.

“Phew.” Li Chuiyuan blew out the match, dropped it on the ground, and stomped on it several times with his shoe.

Pan Zi said, “Grandpa, shall we go pick lotus pods on the boat this afternoon?”

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

Hearing this, Hu Zi and Shi Tou immediately forgot about Little Oriole and shouted, “Grandpa, I want to go too! Me too!” The other young ones also shouted along, afraid of missing out on something fun.

Li Weihan looked around seriously and scolded, “Grandpa is telling you, there are water monkeys in this river. They specialize in pulling people into the water to drown them and make them their scapegoats, so they themselves can be reincarnated.” Immediately, the children were scared and dared not speak.

Shi Tou asked, somewhat unconvinced, “Why can the brothers go?”

Pan Zi and Lei Zi were older children and sensible, so they helped Grandpa scare their younger siblings: “I’m strong, little brother, the water monkeys can’t pull me down.” “I’m good at swimming, the water monkeys can’t catch me.”

Li Chuiyuan wasn’t scared. He also wanted to go but was too shy to ask, so he just lowered his head, rubbed his small hands, and occasionally stole glances at his grandpa.

Li Weihan said, “Little Yuan Hou can go too.”

Hu Zi immediately protested indignantly, “That’s not fair! Yuan Zi Ge is only one year older than me.”

Shi Tou also chimed in, “Yeah, Yuan Ge isn’t even as strong as me. How will he fight the water monkeys!”

Li Weihan slowly exhaled a smoke ring and gave a very reasonable explanation that even the children found convincing: “Little Yuan Hou is from outside. Our local water monkeys don’t know him.”

Most of the houses in the village were built by the water, with the front door facing the road and the back door facing the river. To wash vegetables or clothes, one only needed to carry things out the back door and descend a few blue brick steps to reach the riverside. Resourceful families often set up a net along their section of the riverbank to raise ducks and geese.

The Li family’s boat was tied to the persimmon tree by the back door. After untying the rope, Li Weihan got onto the boat first and stabilized it with a bamboo pole. Pan Zi, holding a fishing rod, and Lei Zi, carrying a fishing net, successively jumped onto the boat. Li Chuiyuan, with a small bamboo basket on his back, was helped onto the boat by Li Weihan.

“Everyone sit tight, we’re off!”

As the bamboo pole repeatedly lengthened and shortened on the water’s surface, the boat began to move. Pan Zi and Lei Zi were long accustomed to it, both lounging leisurely on the boat. Li Chuiyuan, however, sat upright and straight, watching the water plants floating past and the dragonflies skimming the surface.

“Here, Yuan Zi,” Pan Zi handed him a small handful of roasted beans. He was from the eldest son’s family and lived nearby, so he often sneaked home to get snacks, though his mother had warned him to hide and eat them himself, never to share. In contrast, Li Chuiyuan’s mother, when she entrusted him to the man in military uniform, had also sent a large bag of snacks—biscuits, pork floss, canned fruit, and so on. Two days ago, another large package arrived by mail, all of which Cui Guiying locked in a cupboard and distributed in daily portions to all the children.

“Thank you, Pan Zi Ge.” Li Chuiyuan took them and put one into his mouth. These beans were locally called “fist beans,” but they were actually broad beans. Fried with shells, some spices, and a little salt, they were very fragrant when chewed. However, Li Chuiyuan didn’t like eating them; they were too hard to bite and easily chipped teeth. So, while his two older cousins were constantly making “crunching” sounds, Li Chuiyuan just held one in his mouth, like sucking on candy.

“Tomorrow, though a thousand songs / Float on my distant road / Tomorrow, though a thousand stars / Shine brighter than tonight’s moon.” Pan Zi sang.

“You’re singing it wrong,” Lei Zi laughed. “It’s not sung like that.”

Pan Zi scoffed, “Hmph, if you can sing it, you sing it!”

Lei Zi mumbled a few words, scratched his head, “I only remember the tune.”

Li Weihan, who was poling the boat, asked, “What are you singing? I don’t understand it.”

Pan Zi replied, “Grandpa, Little Oriole sang it yesterday. It’s called Yue Opera.”

“Yue Opera?” Li Weihan was a bit surprised. “Was what you just sang Yue Opera?”

Lei Zi: “No, Grandpa, it’s Cantonese opera, from Guangdong and Hong Kong.”

“Oh, like that. Sing it properly for grandpa to hear.”

Lei Zi: “Pan Zi can’t sing it at all. He can’t even remember the lyrics. He’s way worse than Little Oriole yesterday.” In truth, Little Oriole’s singing wasn’t very standard either, but for mainland China at that time, standard or not made little difference; no one understood it anyway. All that mattered was the confident delivery.

Pan Zi pointed at Li Chuiyuan and said, “Yesterday when Little Oriole sang, I saw Yuan Zi singing along. He knows how to sing it.”

Li Weihan: “Little Yuan Hou, sing it for grandpa to hear.”

Li Chuiyuan said shyly, “I only know that little bit.”

“Sing it, sing it,” Lei Zi urged. “Yuan Zi not only knows Cantonese songs, but he can sing English songs too!”

Li Chuiyuan had no choice but to sing: “Tomorrow, though a thousand songs, drift on my distant road; tomorrow, though a thousand stars, shine brighter than tonight’s moon. That’s all I know. Mom likes this song; she plays it often at home.”

Lei Zi looked at Pan Zi provocatively, “Hear that? Your lyrics were wrong.” Pan Zi rolled his eyes at Lei Zi.

The boys chatted along the way, and the boat finally reached a wider part of the river. Pan Zi went to help Grandpa with the pole, Li Weihan began to look for a spot and untangle the net, while Lei Zi set up his fishing rod. Li Chuiyuan wasn’t assigned a task and continued to sit upright with his small bamboo basket, watching his grandpa and cousins work for a while, then gazing at the water plants on the river surface and the frogs hopping on them.

As he watched, Li Chuiyuan leaned forward slightly, looking a bit puzzled. Li Weihan had been keeping an eye on this “maternal grandson” and, seeing him lean, immediately warned, “Little Yuan Hou, sit further back, don’t fall in!”

Li Chuiyuan pointed to the river surface ahead and asked, “Grandpa, brothers, there’s a black clump of water grass there.”

“Where?” Lei Zi looked in the direction Li Chuiyuan was pointing. “Hey, it really is, black.”

“Where is it, where is it?” Pan Zi was helping to pole the boat from the stern and couldn’t see clearly, so he actively pushed the boat in that direction.

Li Weihan initially didn’t think much of it. He was busy untangling the fishing net. But when he heard Li Chuiyuan and Lei Zi still chattering about it, he looked up in that direction. With just that one glance, his eyes instantly widened in shock. That black clump, thin yet pervasive, scattered yet inseparable—how could that be water grass? It was clearly human hair!

Now, because Pan Zi kept poling the boat closer, the distance to that area narrowed, and the submerged part became faintly visible: black patterns, white buttons, curved lines…

Since Li Chuiyuan was sitting, Lei Zi, who was standing beside him, was the first to see the submerged part. Lei Zi immediately shouted, “Grandpa, that’s a person! Someone fell in, Pan Zi, quickly pole over to save them!”

The story of the water monkeys could no longer scare older children like them. Their simple and kind nature instinctively made them believe someone had fallen into the water, and their first reaction was to rescue.

“Nonsense!” Li Weihan suddenly roared. This grandpa, who was usually more affectionate than strict with the children, rarely lost his composure like this. Veins bulged under his rough, chapped skin. He immediately threw the fishing net onto the boat, walked towards the stern, and yelled at Pan Zi, “Change direction! Change direction! Give me the pole! Don’t go closer!”

Their boat had been in this area for a while already, and there had been no sound of anyone falling into the water. Now, the area was perfectly calm; how could anyone still need saving? That person must have been dead for a long time! But logically, even encountering a drowned corpse was at most just bad luck; why such horror and panic?

But Li Weihan knew he had to get away as fast as possible. In this area, with its dense waterways near rivers and the sea, people drowning was not uncommon. Almost every village or neighboring village had someone specializing in retrieving bodies from the water. It wasn’t usually their main profession, but the person chosen was very fixed, partly because it was unlucky and partly due to many taboos; truly, only old practitioners with inherited skills were willing to touch such work.

Siyuan Village had a body retriever named Li Sanjiang, whom Li Weihan called “uncle” by generation. This Li Sanjiang had no children, and he was too lazy to farm the land allocated to him by the village, choosing instead to rent it out just for basic food. Yet, he didn’t live like a lazy tramp who starved one day and ate the next. He made paper crafts and retrieved bodies, both of which brought in considerable income, far more than farming his small plot. Thus, although he lived alone, he enjoyed small wine and meat meals every day, living a rather comfortable life.

Years ago, Li Weihan had rented Li Sanjiang’s land to help his four sons get married, truly taking advantage of his relative. Therefore, whenever a body needed to be retrieved, Li Weihan would go with this clan uncle to lend a hand. Although Li Sanjiang never allowed him to get on the boat or touch the bodies, only asking him to set up offerings on the bank with some chicken and dog blood, over time, Li Weihan learned some of the tricks of the trade from Li Sanjiang.

In their jargon, floating corpses were called “dead falls.” Normally, a drowned person would float up after soaking underwater for a few days and gradually decomposing. Due to the structure of the pelvis, male corpses usually faced down, while female corpses faced up. Most “dead falls,” after a fixed procedure, would be retrieved by Li Sanjiang, brought back to shore, and handed over to their families. However, once, while drinking, Li Sanjiang very solemnly told him about two special cases he was very hesitant to retrieve. One was a “dead fall” accompanied by a whirlpool, which meant there was a hidden mud trap nearby, and there was no guarantee that he and his boat wouldn’t be overturned and sucked in. As for the second, that was something that made even Li Sanjiang’s lips tremble and his scalp tingle when he saw it…

It was a “dead fall” standing upright at the bottom of the water, with only its hair floating on the surface! This meant the person died with great resentment, unable to rest in peace, determined to drag someone down as a substitute! Li Weihan still remembered that time at the table, Li Sanjiang, with bloodshot eyes, told him very seriously, “Han Hou, remember, if you see this kind of ‘dead fall’ on the water, don’t think of anything else, run as fast as you can. If you’re late, it will keep you!”

Therefore, upon discovering this was an upright “dead fall,” how could Li Weihan not be horrified? Not to mention, he now had three grandsons on his boat!

Meanwhile, Pan Zi, still very curious, clearly failed to grasp his grandpa’s instructions. As his grandpa came to snatch the bamboo pole, he stumbled, causing the pole to side-jab into the mud, resulting in a severe tilt of the boat to the right. Such a tilt was nothing to those accustomed to boating; for example, Lei Zi, standing by the boat’s edge, quickly stooped down and grabbed the side to regain balance. But Li Chuiyuan, who was sitting there, had no such experience. After his upper body was carried forward by inertia, he fell into the water with a *plop*, precisely on the side facing the “dead fall.”

The river water was very clear, and with the bright afternoon sun, the visibility underwater was excellent. Li Chuiyuan, who had just fallen into the water, was still instinctively flailing but was immediately stunned by the sight before him. Just as Lei Zi had said, there was a person standing in the water, and it was no one else but Little Oriole, whom his cousins had been talking about at the dinner table today!

She was still wearing the black cheongsam she wore for performances, with white patterned buttons and a slit up to her waist. On her feet were those red high heels. The water flowed steadily, and under this force, her arms swung regularly back and forth, and her legs swayed gently. She looked as if she were walking underwater.

She was waving her hands, swaying her waist, showing her legs, standing on tiptoes, and singing… Even underwater, she was still embodying the “sassy” demeanor that village women both envied and loathed.

“Tomorrow, though a thousand songs, drift on my distant road…” In his ears, he seemed to hear Little Oriole’s slightly unstandard Cantonese accent again.

With the song, Little Oriole slowly turned, gradually facing Li Chuiyuan. Her long hair floated diagonally upwards, like a black umbrella. The powder on her face was thicker than yesterday, and her lips were even more vividly red. Suddenly, she smiled.