Strange Tales of the Ghosts

The promise ended up temporarily letting Liu Wuya become the head of the sect, and their junior female apprentice, Lv'er, wouldn't pick a side until either Li Bandian or Liu Wuya won. The condition of winning was to compete to see who could nurture the best corpse, yet neither of them spoke of their standards as they both had ideas of their own; all they were waiting for was the call for competition. However, finding a suitable body wasn't easy, and he waited for thirty years. Li Bandian never contacted Liu Wuya, and Liu Wuya never came looking for him either. All he had was a few letters from Junior Lv'er.

After listening to Li Bandian's descriptions, Su Qing'e blinked and asked nervously, "Father, does that mean I'm the best?"

"You are the best to me no matter what he says." Li Bandian nodded and couldn't say the word 'corpse' out loud. He didn't want to say that Su Qing'e was the best corpse as they've already become father and daughter over the period of time they lived together. Perhaps because Li Bandian was getting old and felt lonely, he had already treated Su Qing'e as his real daughter.

Su Qing'e heard Li Bandian complimenting her, and she shook his arms shyly, "You are making me feel embarrassed."

"You silly child."

"I'm not silly. Father, why don't you take me to Uncle Liu if I'm the best body you have?" Su Qing'e looked at Li Bandian confusedly.

Li Bandian sipped some wine and frowned, "There's something else on my mind."

"Oh, I know! You mentioned it before. You lost the body you picked up along with me, right?" Su Qing'e didn't know exactly what "picked up" meant, and she didn't look sad; she was exceedingly naive.

Li Bandian sighed, "It's all my fault. I wouldn't have lost him if I didn't go for a drink. I don't know how he's doing, and it's tragic if bad people are using him."

"Is it that bad? Then let's go and look for him." Su Qing'e tried to pull him up from the ground.

Li Bandian smiled and replied, "Silly, I would've gone looking for him if it was that easy."

"Then what should we do?"

"Wait."

"Wait for what?"

"Wait until that body appears."

"And when will that be?"

"I don't know. Maybe soon, maybe he won't ever appear again in my lifetime." Li Bandian looked into the distance and felt ashamed of himself as he recalled what his master said to him. His master warned him that as soon as the 'Corpse Nurturing Method' was exposed, it would cause tragedies. His master hid the book in an exceptionally hard place to find; others wouldn't find it if he didn't show it to them himself. However, Li Bandian was too young and didn't know what shouldn't be done. He read the book together with Liu Wuya, and it was too late for their master to burn the book as the two of them had already memorized the entire book.

Su Qing'e noticed his unhappiness and became upset too. She mumbled under her breath like a child, "Father, it won't help if we sit around and do nothing, we won't know how long we'll have to wait. If that body doesn't appear again, are you going to make your junior apprentice wait for the rest of her life too? By that time, her hair would be all white, and her teeth would all fall out..."

"Where did you learn those from?" Li Bandian tapped her head lightly. He never taught her anything like that, and he didn't know how she knew what those meant after losing her memories.

Su Qing'e stuck out her tongue and replied, "I saw it in the book you brought back last time."

"Book? What book?"

"The old-looking one that you hid underneath the stove." Su Qing'e replied honestly.

Li Bandian's face turned red and white. Someone dropped the book, and he realized it was an adult book after he picked it up. He didn't want to throw it away, so he decided to hide it, but...