Wang Yunxiao only took a day and a half to familiarize himself with the world he had crossed into.
Initially, Wang Yunxiao had speculated that he was in an orphanage, but it turned out to be a school, however, these two were not mutually exclusive.
"Qinghe Middle School" was originally a private boarding school. Its buildings being mostly intact, it was designated by the government as an official child welfare institution after the war, sheltering a great number of war orphans over the past two years.
Therefore, the student body within the school was quite complex.
It included students who had been enrolled at the school before, transfer students from other schools that had merged in, and local orphans who had been taken in over the past two years.
All together, there were over six hundred people.
Wang Yunxiao belonged to the orphan group. His parents had sacrificed themselves in the war, and his home was bombed into flat ground. But he did not wallow in the shadow of that tragedy, his will to survive was incredibly strong. If he hadn't been promptly taken in, by now he and his brothers might have already formed a vibrant social group in the northern part of the city.
Yes, although it doesn't sound nice to say, he was a loafer back then.
And still is now.
Even after being taken into care, Wang Yunxiao did not settle down to study. Instead, he led his brothers every day in climbing trees, scaling walls, fishing in rivers, and getting up to no good.
With so many children in the school, the teachers simply didn't have the energy to manage them and just let them be.
He had a well-developed gang under his control... sorry, it should be called a student society.
Youtiao, the bespectacled boy with the parted hair, was the tactician of the gang, also known as the quartermaster. He was the most crafty, with the greasiest hair.
Matuan and Youbing were brothers. Matuan's face was covered with freckles, while Youbing had a flat and broad face.
Guozi, as lean and dry as Youtiao but with non-greasy hair, was tough to the bone, willing to fight, ruthless, and brutal.
Gangtou was tall, large, pale, and chubby, often silent and smiling foolishly, suspected to be a bit simple-minded.
...
All these brothers had clambered out from "Muddy Ground" together.
To these children, Muddy Ground was a taboo topic, one not to be brought up in general conversation.
But Youtiao, in an attempt to help Wang Yunxiao regain his memory, still told him the story of Muddy Ground.
The story was quite simple: a war, ruins, and a night of torrential rain.
The soaked ruins turned into Muddy Ground. Many people trapped beneath the rubble who might have still been breathing didn't survive.
Wang Yunxiao dug all night, using his ten fingers, skinned and split, to unearth the lives of Youtiao and the others.
The heavens cruelly took everything they had, leaving only each other to huddle for warmth, shivering in the cold night.
"After that, big brother, you led us to beg in the streets, steal food, get beaten up, and then fight with those guys…"
It wasn't exactly a memory to cherish.
Wang Yunxiao played with the silver coin that Huo Qingyang had given him in his hands.
There wasn't a bald head on the silver coin, and the portrait on the front looked rather feminine.
Youtiao said it was the President.
Whether the President was male or female didn't matter; what mattered was the value of the silver coin.
No exaggeration, with this silver coin, he could take all his brothers out for a meal at a decent restaurant, stuffing their faces till they were utterly pleased.
The school dining hall's food couldn't be said to be bad, but it was low on fats and oils.
Lunch consisted of stir-fried potatoes with spam, accompanied by millet bread. In a spoonful of stir-fried potatoes, you could see two or three strands of spam cut to look like potato strings.
Even that was considered a delicacy that used to be unobtainable.
Just last month, they had eaten stir-fried shredded cabbage with dried pickled radishes every day.
Last week, Huo Qingyang hauled a truckload of spam cans from Beida Camp, and it seemed like the school dining hall planned to eat spam from April until winter began.
One night, Wang Yunxiao stole a can of spam and shared it with the brothers in his dormitory. They ate with joy on their faces as if they were celebrating New Year's, praising their big brother's boundless generosity.
The lid of the spam can was a circular piece of metal. Folded and sharpened, it could be turned into a small dagger with a blood groove.
The knives in the kitchen were too big and too conspicuous; this was more discreet and safe.
With a handy weapon, Wang Yunxiao felt halfway secure.
This world was very dangerous, and he still felt too weak, lacking a sense of security.
Huo Qingyang had tasked him with monitoring the infirmary, but he hadn't informed him what exactly the Ghoul was, nor the characteristics of those who summon spirits.
He hadn't even told him the identity of the missing student.
Perhaps it was for his protection, not wanting him to delve deeper into those dangerous secrets.
But perhaps, Commander Huo's intention wasn't straightforward; he might have used any excuse to have him watch Nurse Liu.
Or to have Nurse Liu watch him.
Regardless, he was actually given a silver coin.
Such a generous client is rare in this world.
If you take someone's money, you need to do the work properly–make sure it's worth every bit and more, so they'll come to you again when needed.
That's business acumen.
But the same goes for your brothers; if you want the horse to run, you have to let it graze.
"Let's have meat for dinner tonight!"
"Are we going to steal canned food again?"
Hearing Wang Yunxiao say so, Matuan shuddered in fright, "Big Brother, we're not going to bump into ghosts again, are we?"
"Are you scared?"
"What's there to be scared of? It's not like I've never seen a ghost before!"
Matuan, who was as timid as a mouse, had thin skin and couldn't bear any jibe from others.
"Don't worry, we're not stealing canned food."
"Ah? Oh..."
When he heard they wouldn't be stealing canned food, Matuan was visibly disappointed, "Actually, Big Brother, I must say, canned food tastes pretty good."
"We're going out to a restaurant!"
Wang Yunxiao took out a silver coin and flashed it in front of his brothers, "See this? Don't make a fuss. This is the shock money the school gave us for encountering the ghost in the canteen the day before yesterday. Let's find a restaurant and have a good meal. What do you all want to eat? Share your thoughts!"
Upon seeing the silver coin, everyone's eyes lit up.
"There's such a good thing?"
"We must have buns! Sihua's pork buns at Silly Four's place, a bamboo steamer three feet wide and it's only twelve cents…"
"Eat, eat, eat, all you know is to eat!"
Youtiao glared at the person beside him, annoyed, and whispered to Wang Yunxiao, "Big Brother, don't listen to their nonsense. Let's go to the butcher's and get two pounds of offal. We can render the fat at home to mix with the sorghum rice. It saves money and tastes great!"
"Yes, yes, yes!"
Gangtou was immediately persuaded, showing a blissful smile on his face, "Forget about the buns, buns are expensive. Let's go with that! Pork lard mixed with rice is delicious!"
Wang Yunxiao sighed inwardly.
When poor, one's aspirations diminish.
It's not like they were all parentless from birth. During the war, even the youngest among them, the Youbing and Matuan brothers, were about eleven or twelve.
The Muddy Ground area used to be full of residential buildings with no real poor kids around.
Yet now they had fallen so low that the thought of pork lard mixed with rice could make them blissfully happy.
Wang Yunxiao held the silver coin and seriously addressed everyone, "Today we'll have pork lard mixed with rice, but later we can have those big meat buns. I'm your big brother, and as long as I have a bite to eat, you won't starve. If I eat meat, you'll eat meat, and if there's no meat, I'll join you in drinking cold water."
His words made his brothers' eyes brim with tears, and their mouths water.
This is our half-brother, our true big bro, no doubt about it!
School ends at five o'clock in the afternoon, dinner starts at half-past five, and bedtime is at seven o'clock... These were rules that Wang Yunxiao and his little gang never abided by; whether they attended classes was entirely dependent on their mood.
Taking advantage of the time before classes ended, he had Youtiao lead him out to take a walk around after scaling the wall.
The market was not far from the school, with chickens, ducks, fish, meat, fruits, vegetables – everything available. Overall, the supply of goods looked quite abundant.
This meant that the post-war economic recovery was doing well.
Youtiao wanted to buy a set of pork intestines as it's cheap and good for rendering fat, costing less than five cents a pound, with a whole set for just twenty cents. But it's smelly and difficult for average households to process, usually bought from restaurants or pubs precooked, though that's another price point entirely.
For quality pork, it's twelve cents a pound, with one silver yuan buying eight pounds, with a few big bones thrown in for good measure.
Rice is three cents a pound, millet three cents and two, and sorghum rice two cents and five.
Youtiao said these were city prices, and things would be even cheaper at the market outside the city, near Liushu Camp.
Wang Yunxiao wasn't interested in saving a small amount of money. He went straight to the butcher and cut five pounds of fatty pork, then weighed out ten pounds of rice from the grain shop. With the remaining ten cents, he bought a bottle of soy sauce and two pounds of pickled vegetables.
When you have money, spend it. Don't think too much. It's real only when it's in your stomach; keeping it in your pocket just draws attention.
Now that they had the meat and the rice, the remaining issue was to find a pot.
They certainly couldn't use the school cafeteria's pots... Cooking pork fat in the middle of the night, are you trying to kill people with the smell?
"The squad leader has a pot."
Youtiao always had considerate suggestions, "Her parents are nice people. They even invited us over for big persimmons last time."
Wang Yunxiao understood the subtext of Youtiao's words.
Her parents being nice people meant that she might not be so nice herself.
"She's a snob, and she loves to snitch…"
"How snobbish?"
"Her family is rich, so she chums up to Qu Wenming and snubs us. Last New Year's, she went on stage to recite poetry with that kid!"
Wang Yunxiao thought to himself, if I were a little girl, I wouldn't bother with us either, not with the state we're in. To put it nicely, we're wayward youths; less nicely, we're a future menace to public security.
"Let's head to her place first, then you go back to school, call her over as well, I have something to ask her."
He had eaten a meal worth a dollar, but the task costing one dollar and twenty cents wasn't settled yet.
Wang Yunxiao didn't plan to stake out the infirmary; it seemed impractical to him. Nurse Liu was on high alert, with calluses on her hands. He even suspected that she might have been in combat.
Staking out her could easily end up staking out himself.
And he couldn't stay up night after night, watching without sleep.
To catch this "ghost," or rather the person summoning the ghost, traditional methods were in order—starting with the identity of the disappeared.