Corpse Retriever

Most village houses were built along the water, with front doors facing the road and back doors opening to the river.

For washing vegetables or clothes, you just had to grab your things, step out the back door, and descend a few stone steps to the riverbank.

Thrifty folks often set up nets along their stretch of the river to raise ducks or geese.

The Li family’s boat was tied to the persimmon tree by the back door. Li Weihan untied the rope, climbed aboard first, and steadied the boat with a bamboo pole.

Panzi hopped on with a fishing rod, followed by Leizi with a net.

Li Zhuiyuan, carrying a small bamboo basket on his back, was helped onto the boat by Li Weihan’s outstretched hand.

“Everyone sit down, let's go!”

As the bamboo pole dipped in and out of the water, the boat began to move.

Panzi and Leizi, used to this, lounged lazily on the boat. Li Zhuiyuan sat upright, watching the water plants drift by and dragonflies skim the surface.

“Here, Yuanzi.” Panzi handed him a small handful of roasted beans.

Being from the eldest son’s family, who lived close by, Panzi would sometimes slip home and grab snacks. His mom had told him to keep them to himself and not share.

But Li Zhuiyuan’s mother, when she’d sent him with the man in uniform, had included a big bag of treats—biscuits, meat floss, canned fruit, and more. Just the day before yesterday, another big package had arrived by mail. Cui Guiying locked them in a cabinet and share them out to all the kids in measured portions each day.

“Thanks, Brother Panzi.”

Li Zhuiyuan took the beans and popped one in his mouth. Locally called “fist beans,” they were actually broad beans—fried with their shells, some spices, and salt, making them crunchy and fragrant.

Li Zhuiyuan didn’t like them much, though. They were too hard, tough to chew, and could chip a tooth.

While his older cousins crunched away noisily, Li Zhuiyuan just held one in his mouth, sucking on it like candy.

“Come one leap is a thousand big brothers, drifting on the road;

Come one leap is a thousand big brothers, shining bright tonight.”

Panzi started singing.

“You’re singing it wrong,” Leizi laughed. “That’s not how it goes.”

Panzi scoffed, “Hmph, if you’re so good, you sing it!”

Leizi mumbled a bit, scratched his head, and said, “I only remember the tune.”

Li Weihan, steering the boat, asked, “What are you singing? I can’t understand it.”

Panzi replied, “Grandpa, it’s what Little Yellow Oriole sang yesterday. It’s called Yue Opera.”

“Yue opera?” Li Weihan was puzzled. “That was Yue Opera just now?”

Leizi corrected him, “No, Grandpa, it’s Cantonese music—from Guangdong and Hong Kong.”

“Oh, I see. Sing it properly for me to hear.”

Leizi said, “Panzi can’t sing it right—he doesn’t even know the lyrics. He’s nowhere near as good as Little Yellow Oriole was yesterday.”

Truth be told, Little Yellow Oriole’s singing wasn’t exactly spot-on either. But in the inland villages these days, standard or not didn’t matter much—nobody understood it anyway. What counted was the confident flair.

Panzi pointed at Li Zhuiyuan. “Yesterday, when Little Yellow Oriole was singing, I saw Yuanzi singing along. He knows it.”

Li Weihan said, “Little Yuanhou, sing it for Grandpa.”

Li Zhuiyuan said shyly, “I only know a little bit.”

“Sing it, sing it,” Leizi urged. “Yuanzi doesn’t just know Cantonese songs—he can sing English ones too.”

Li Zhuiyuan relented and sang, “Come tomorrow, a thousand songs will drift along my distant road; 

Come tomorrow, a thousand evening stars will outshine tonight’s moon. 

That’s all I know. Mom likes this song—she plays it at home a lot.”

Leizi shot a smug look at Panzi. “See? You got the words wrong.”

Panzi rolled his eyes at Leizi.

The boys chattered as the boat reached a wider stretch of the river.

Panzi went to help Grandpa with the pole while Li Weihan began scouting a spot and untangling the net. Leizi set up his fishing rod.

Li Zhuiyuan, with no task assigned, sat quietly with his bamboo basket, watching his grandpa and cousins work, then gazing at the water plants and hopping frogs on the river’s surface.

As he watched, Li Zhuiyuan leaned forward, a puzzled look on his face.

Li Weihan, always keeping an eye on his “outsider” grandson, noticed and said, “Little Yuanhou, sit back—don’t fall in!”

Li Zhuiyuan pointed ahead at the water and asked, “Grandpa, brothers, there’s a clump of black water plants over there.”

“Where?” Leizi followed his finger. “Oh, yeah, it’s black.”

“Where, where?” Panzi, busy poling at the stern, couldn’t see clearly, so he steered the boat toward it.

Li Weihan didn’t think much of it at first—he was focused on untangling the net. But when Li Zhuiyuan and Leizi kept chattering about it, he finally looked up. One glance, and his eyes widened.

That black clump—thin yet sprawling, scattered yet cohesive—wasn’t water plants at all. It was human hair!

By now, Panzi had brought the boat closer, and the underwater part became faintly visible: black patterns, white buttons, flowing curves…

Since Li Zhuiyuan was seated, Leizi, standing beside him, was the first to spot what lay beneath. He shouted, “Grandpa, it’s a person! Someone’s fallen in! Panzi, pole over quick. We need to save the person!”

The water monkey tales no longer scared these older kids. Their simple, kind natures kicked in—assuming someone had fallen in, their first instinct was to rescue it.

“Nonsense!”

Li Weihan suddenly roared. This grandfather, usually strict but mostly gentle with the kids, lost his composure. Veins bulge under his rough, cracked skin. He dropped the net, strode to the stern, and yelled at Panzi, “Turn around, turn around! Give me the pole—don’t go closer!”

Their boat had been in this area for a while, and there’d been no sound of anyone falling in. The water was calm now—no ripples. There was no one to save. Whoever it was had long been dead.

Normally, stumbling across a drowned body might just feel unlucky—nothing to panic over. So why was Li Weihan so rattled?

He knew they had to get away as fast as possible.

Living near rivers and seas, with waterways crisscrossing the area, a drowning wasn’t rare. Almost every village, or a nearby one, had someone who specialized in retrieving bodies from the water.

It wasn’t a full-time job, but the person was always the same. Partly because it was considered bad luck, and partly because it came with a lot of taboos. Unless you were an experienced hand with a family tradition, no one wanted the task.

Siyuan Village had one such body-retriever, Li Sanjiang. By family rank, Li Weihan even had to call him “Uncle.”

Li Sanjiang had no kids. He didn’t bother farming the land the village gave him—instead, he rented it out for just enough grain to get by.

But he wasn’t some lazy bum scraping by meal to meal. He made paper offerings and retrieved bodies—both brought in good money, far more than farming ever could. Living alone, he enjoyed daily drinks and meat, living quite comfortably.

Years back, to help his four sons settle down, Li Weihan had rented Li Sanjiang’s fields—a real bargain. So when a body needed retrieving, Li Weihan would tag along to lend his clan uncle a hand.

Though Li Sanjiang never let him board the boat or touch the corpses—only having him set up an offering table on shore with chicken and dog blood—over time, Li Weihan picked up some know-how from him about the corpse retrieval.

In the corpse retrieval’s slang, a floating corpse was called a “dead drift.”

Typically, a drowned body would soak underwater for a few days, rot, and float up. Due to pelvic structure, men usually floated face-down, women face-up.

Most “dead drifts” followed a standard process: Li Sanjiang would fish them out, haul them to shore, and hand them over to the family. But once, over drinks, Li Sanjiang had solemnly mentioned two exceptions he wouldn’t dare touch.

The first was a dead drift near a whirlpool—it meant there was a sinkhole or mud trap nearby, and he risked getting sucked in, boat and all.

The second, though, was something even Li Sanjiang, a seasoned hand, would tremble at and feel his scalp go numb over…

A dead drift with just its hair floating on the surface, standing upright underwater.

That was a corpse with deep resentment—unwilling to rest, eyes wide open, determined to drag someone down with it.

Li Weihan still remembered that night at the table. Li Sanjiang, eyes bloodshot, stared at him and said gravely, “Hanhou, listen up. If you ever see a dead drift like that on the water, don’t think twice—get away as fast as you can. If you’re too slow, it’ll keep you!”

So when he realized this was an upright dead drift, how could Li Weihan not be horrified—especially with three grandsons on board?

Meanwhile, Panzi, still curious, clearly hadn’t caught on to his grandpa’s urgency. As Li Weihan rushed over to grab the pole, Panzi stumbled, accidentally jabbing the pole into the mud at an angle. The boat lurched sharply to the right.

For seasoned boaters, this tilt wasn’t a big deal. Leizi, standing near the edge, quickly crouched and grabbed the side, regaining balance. But Li Zhuiyuan, sitting with no boating experience, was thrown off by the momentum. His upper body pitched forward, and with a “splash,” he tumbled into the water—right toward the dead drift.

The river water was clear, and with the bright afternoon sun, visibility underwater was good.

Li Zhuiyuan, just fallen in, flailed instinctively but froze at the sight before him.

Just as Leizi had said, someone was under the water, and it was none other than Little Yellow Oriole, the one his brothers had been talking about at lunch.

She still wore her performance outfit: the black qipao with white floral buttons, slit up to her thighs, and those red high heels on her feet.

The steady current gently swayed her arms back and forth, her legs drifting lightly in rhythm.

It felt like she was walking underwater.

She was waving her hands, twisting her hips, showing her legs, standing on tiptoe, singing a song…

Even underwater, she embodied that flirty charm the village women envied and despised.

“Come tomorrow, a thousand songs will drift along my distant road…”

In his ears, it was as if he could hear Little Yellow Oriole’s off-key Cantonese accent again.

With the song,

Little Yellow Oriole slowly turned, facing Li Zhuiyuan.

Her long hair floated diagonally upward, like a black umbrella unfurling. Her face powder was thicker than yesterday, her lips an even brighter red.

Suddenly,

She smiled.

(End of Chapter)