The other three alighted from the car. The one who looked like "Lin Xi" walked towards me, extending her delicate hand from a distance: "Wu Chengfeng, hello."
I gave Li Bing and his sister a look, signaling them to remain vigilant, and stepped forward with a smile, extending my own hands: "Hello, hello."
The way she greeted me was clearly that of a first-time encounter. If it were the real Lin Xi, she wouldn't have behaved like this; at most, she would have waved and said, "Hi, see you again."
Moreover, without me asking, she would have routinely explained why she came here from Liaodong.
But this "Lin Xi" did not. After a brief handshake and pleasantries, she introduced the two people behind her: "This is Lan Yu'er, the deputy captain of the Bordered Blue Banner, and this is Huang Xie'er from the Bordered Yellow Banner."
The 'er' was not a diminutive suffix; its pronunciation was clear, making them three-character names. Names ending with "er" are quite rare nowadays.
I shook hands with each of the two "ers" and, following protocol, introduced our representatives: "Li Bing, Li Hong."
"Yun Zhonghe, Hedihong! Your names are legendary!" "Lin Xi" said with a hint of admiration in her eyes, shaking hands with the two demons. Lan Yu'er and Huang Xie'er also shook hands in turn.
"May I ask the young lady's name?" I probed.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself," the other person said with a slight bow of apology. "I am Lin Chi, the Director of the Kun Ling Affairs Department."
"Chi, as in 'small pond'?" I asked.
"Precisely."
"'Leisurely fishing by the green stream, autumn pond swells with the Bashan night rain'," I nodded, beginning to understand. "Captain Lin Xi, is she your sister?"
"Amazing, you guessed that!" Lin Chi chuckled.
The two looked exactly alike. If I couldn't guess, I'd be an idiot!
Identical twins, both so beautiful, and both working at the Shakespeare General Bureau. Lin Xi was at the deputy director level, so it was likely this sister's position wasn't low either. Both holding stable jobs, one wonders what kind of hell their parents saved in their past lives.
"Kun Ling Affairs Department, is it a fan club?" I asked with a laugh. Of course, that wasn't the meaning, but the pronunciation was indeed the name of the heavenly king's little wife.
"It's Kun Ling. Kun, meaning earth, and Ling, meaning extraordinary. It's the department responsible for handling anomalous affairs in the underground world," Lin Chi explained.
"...The Underworld?" I guessed.
"Mm-hmm. It's good that you know. There's no need to understand too much. For ordinary people, understanding the Underworld is meaningless. As the saying goes, if you do nothing wrong during the day, you won't fear ghosts knocking at your door at night, right, Mr. Wu?" Lin Chi asked, one part teasing, three parts serious, perhaps testing me for something.
But she had clearly misjudged her target. I was no "ordinary person" with no ties to the Underworld.
I reached for my waist, pulled down my token, and handed it over with both hands: "Director Lin, this is my business card."
"Soul Summoning Token!" Lin Chi, as the head of the Kun Ling Department, recognized it at a glance, but was very surprised. She then asked me, "Where did you pick this up?!"
"...It's mine, I didn't pick it up," I said with a wry smile.
Lin Chi took the token and examined it closely. I didn't recognize the script, but it clearly bore my name.
Lin Chi looked from the token to me, somewhat disbelieving: "You... you're not a living person?"
"Of course I'm alive. They say people like me are called 'Living Soul Collectors'," I explained to this paranormal expert, being a novice myself.
"Amazing! The Underworld hasn't granted a Living Soul Collector token in many years!" Lin Chi returned the token to me, then bowed respectfully: "Lord Wu of the Soul Collectors' Mansion, please accept this bow!"
"You're too kind, too kind. I'm just a small banner officer. You are the director of the Kun Ling Department, so you should be the one I bow to!" I replied politely, though it wasn't entirely polite; my rank as a "small banner" was probably equivalent to a section chief.
"Oh, Lord Wu, please don't say 'you' this and 'you' that. How can I bear it? Just call me Xiao Chi. Little Chi has just shown her little toes!"
"...Isn't it 'Little Lotus'?" I frowned. She said it so smoothly that I even doubted my own memory.
"Who is Little River?"
"It's nothing, nothing," I said, glancing at her toes and forcing a smile. Perhaps Lin Chi had received Shakespeare's training since childhood, and her cultural level wasn't very high. "Three beautiful ladies, please follow me up the mountain."
"Alright, Lord Wu. Please lead the way."
The three of them returned to the car. As I turned the BMW around, I saw an electric scooter appear in the rearview mirror. It was the girl who sold garlic at the town's restaurant. I stopped her, loaded all the bento boxes into the BMW, and paid her via WeChat. Truly, eating in the Northeast is cheap; a large box of food with meat, vegetables, and everything else cost only eight yuan.
We returned to Jiuxian Cave. The sun was approaching sunset. Because Jiuxian Cave faces west, watching the sunset from here gave a warm feeling of being enveloped by the twilight, which soothed my somewhat agitated mood...