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墨書 Inktalez
At ten o'clock the night before, Li Erdan arrived at Qingchun Road. He had originally arranged to meet Zhai Qiang at eight to pick up some goods. In Li Erdan's own words, the package contained not only jewelry but also a mobile phone and a watch; anything of value was packed into a large bundle and buried in a field near the crematorium, right beside Qingchun Road.
Around nine o'clock, Zhai Qiang, having stumbled upon a scene of a corpse being dug up, fled back home. At that time, Li Erdan was still engaged in a game of Fight the Landlord with Wang Da and others. It wasn't until he realized he had other matters to attend to that he noticed it was already nine forty. By the time he reached Qingchun Road, it was about twenty past ten.
Li Erdan knew he had essentially stood Zhai Qiang up. He understood that if he didn't hurry to dig out the jewelry and hand it over to Zhai Qiang, he would surely face a severe beating from these people. Not daring to delay, he rushed to Qingchun Road. As he walked along the road, he vaguely noticed a van parked by the side.
The van was dark-colored, reflecting light under the moon. Li Erdan was unsure of what was happening and cautiously approached the white van. After taking a few steps, he caught a whiff of a metallic smell—an unpleasant stench—and at the same time felt something sticky and slippery beneath his feet.
Looking down, he saw entrails scattered all over the ground.
Not knowing what had happened, Li Erdan circled around the vehicle but found no one in sight. A sense of dread washed over him as he took in the scene: the ground was covered in entrails and blood, and there was no sign of the driver. Just as Li Erdan stood there in confusion, someone emerged from the woods.
"Who?" Li Erdan asked in terror.
The man slowly replied, "Brother, I'm the driver."
"What are you doing here?" Li Erdan asked cautiously.
The man adjusted his pants and said slowly to Li Erdan, "Don't be afraid; my name is Li Dabiao. I'm delivering entrails to the Sponge Factory up ahead. There's a female chef named Ladle there; her Internal Offal Rice is exceptional. I'm just here to bring her lunch. You know about Sponge Factory, Ladle, Internal Offal Rice, right?"
Li Erdan nodded. Although he worked at the crematorium, he often visited the Sponge Factory because there were hardly any shops nearby; the only place to eat was the cafeteria at Sponge Factory. The cafeteria was outsourced, and usually people had to pay for their meals; sometimes outsiders would come in to eat as well.
"What exactly happened?" Li Erdan asked, realizing that if this person knew about Ladle, he must be a regular customer.
Li Dabiao sighed and explained, "It got pretty dark while I was driving here when suddenly a wild dog appeared on the road. I couldn't avoid it in time and crashed into a tree. I got startled and couldn't hold it in—I ended up taking a dump in the field. The back of my van has been modified; when I hit the tree, it popped open and all the entrails spilled out everywhere. I need you to help me clean this up."
Li Erdan looked over and indeed found three large blue boxes behind the van, filled with various kinds of entrails.
"Do you always deliver this late?" Li Erdan asked. "It's already past ten or eleven."
Li Dabiao sighed, "Well, I got held up with some things, so I could only come at this time. What are you doing wandering around here?"
Li Erdan glanced around and said, "I work at the crematorium. A body just arrived, and I'm nearby to throw some yellow paper and whatnot."
The two men, each with their own motives, chuckled and then bent down to pick up the entrails.
Feeling a bit awkward, Li Erdan took the initiative to say, "Don't be fooled by these entrails. They smell terrible when raw, and the slimy texture can be quite nauseating. But if prepared properly, they can be a delicacy. People of higher status often can't appreciate these things; I feel like they just don't know how to enjoy life."
Li Dabiao replied, "Yeah, the internal offal rice made by Ladle is delicious. Do you like it?"
Li Erdan placed the last heart into the blue box and said, "I love it. My favorite is definitely stir-fried pork intestines. Many people think it's dirty; in reality, they just don't know how to cook it."
Li Dabiao pulled out a plastic bag from the van and casually grabbed a long piece of intestine from the basket, putting it in the bag. "Brother, I can't offer you much else since we're both in the meat business, but take this intestine home; it'll be enough for three or four meals."
Li Erdan accepted the plastic bag and watched as Li Dabiao started the van. The headlights flickered on as it drove down Qingchun Road toward the Sponge Factory.
As Li Erdan watched the van speed away and noticed the bloodstains on the ground, he fell into a daze.
However, Li Erdan had his own mission; he couldn't forget to retrieve his jewelry. Once the van disappeared in a puff of smoke, he slipped into the fields, weaving through tall wild grass and around trees as he ventured deeper into the countryside. He arrived at his old hiding spot—the place where he had concealed his jewelry for five years.
In the faint distance, he heard murmurs coming from the backyard. Li Erdan was startled and quickened his pace to leave. Once back home, he placed the intestines into a pot and then lay down on the bed to sleep. However, as soon as he closed his eyes, a jumble of thoughts flooded his mind: gambling, his wife and daughter, cars on the highway, Zhai Qiang, and the missing jewelry.
Tossing and turning in bed, he couldn't fall asleep. After much contemplation, he decided to return to the funeral home, the place where he felt most at ease; it was his sanctuary.
By then, it was already three in the morning when Li Erdan arrived at the funeral home once again.
The main door was secured with chains, but Li Erdan skillfully unlocked them. The sound of the chains clinking was loud, yet Old Wei seemed deaf to it all; he appeared not to have heard anything. The guardhouse was shrouded in darkness, and Old Wei did not come out or make a sound, as if no one were inside at all.
Li Erdan made his way to the funeral home and headed for the Body Refrigeration Room. However, something felt off. When he left last time, the last refrigerator door had been closed, but now it stood ajar. Confused about what had happened, he pulled the door open. Inside lay a girl's corpse, but when he lifted her shroud, he discovered a large hole in her abdomen.
Li Erdan was horrified; he clutched the girl's clothing tightly in his hands. Driven by desire, he took all of her clothes. Suddenly, it occurred to him that if someone had tampered with the last refrigerator, what about the others? He opened each refrigerator one by one and found that every corpse had a gaping hole.
It was impossible for anyone to have removed all the entrails from every body in such a short time. The only explanation was that the holes had already existed in their abdomens. Since Li Erdan could only pull out half of each drawer at a time, the corpses' abdomens had blocked his view of the gaping holes inside.
Li Erdan suddenly realized that he was not familiar with this crematorium.
He wanted to escape, but under the moonlight, a figure stood in the corridor facing him. Li Erdan's legs went weak with fear.
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