I felt pretty awkward at this point, but instead, Ma Lao San sighed and said:
"Yezi brother, don't blame yourself. Going into the Twelve Ghost Caves to retrieve bodies, that skill is worth 100,000. I'll go gather the money, even if I have to borrow it."
Ma Lao San's wife grabbed him and said:
"Are you crazy? 100,000? What about the kid? Isn't he getting married?!"
"Daughter is my child too. I didn't take good care of her, letting her fall into the water.
Do you know what these years have been like for me? Every time I close my eyes, I can see our daughter crying in the water, telling me she's cold!
Even if I have to sell everything I own, I'll bring her back!"
Ma Lao San said, standing up with red eyes.:
"I'll go gather the money now. Wait for me."
After Ma Lao San left, Chen Qingshan sighed and said:
"Your big brother, his temper is really strange."
I didn't know what to say.
I stood up and went outside to stand next to my big brother.
He was silently smoking, staring into the distance, probably lost in thought.
When I reached his side, he handed me a cigarette.
It was our local brand, six yuan a pack.
Then he softly said to me:
"Don't get involved in the body retrieval thing."
I nodded and said, "Yeah, I understand. The rules can't be broken."
Actually, I've thought it through.
I can't open this door for my big brother.
If I do, what if everyone starts asking me to bargain with them?
How do I give face to this person but not that one?
What Ma Lao San said makes sense:
"This skill is worth 100,000."
In the evening, Ma Lao San managed to gather the 100,000 and brought it over, even with a lot of change.
His wife was following him, crying.
I couldn't tell if she was crying because of the money or something else.
Ma Lao San tremblingly handed over the money.
To be honest, I knew that his family was not doing well.
Looking at their tattered clothes, I felt embarrassed to take the money.
At that moment, I even felt that my big brother might have been a bit heartless.
In the end, I still took the money.
After receiving the money, my big brother used the same method to take a drop of Ma Lao San's blood.
Then, he carried the raft and went into the river.
By this time, it was already getting late.
I advised my big brother:
"It's already night, it's quite dangerous. How about we do it tomorrow?"
"It's fine," he said.
We went out again to the Luo Shui River, and the crowd of onlookers was still there.
This time, my big brother spent half an hour retrieving a body from the Twelve Ghost Caves. On the raft, there was a very small corpse.
When Ma Lao San saw the body, he couldn't hold back and started crying, kneeling on the ground, continuously bowing his head to my big brother.
Some money is hard to part with, but it's worth it.
In a single day, my big brother retrieved two bodies from the Twelve Ghost Caves—
one from over three years ago, and the other from more than ten years ago.
Once again, my big brother shocked everyone.
What came along with it was also his ruthlessness—ruthless in terms of pricing. It was 100,000, and he absolutely wouldn't show any favoritism.
He wouldn't even give face to his own brothers.
When I heard this, I just laughed.
To put it bluntly, how much is my face worth?
By the next morning, someone from another town heard the news and came straight to find my big brother, bringing money with him.
He was also retrieving his own relative's body.
He handed over 100,000, and my big brother again used the raft to quickly find the remains.
In two days, he earned 300,000 without any costs.
The longest time spent was just a little over an hour, which was during the time with Tang Ranjie's son.
This made the villagers envious, and they couldn't stop salivating.
But after retrieving the body of this outsider, my big brother came back and took down the flag that signified the ability to retrieve bodies from the Twelve Ghost Caves.
Everyone thought that since his reputation had spread, there was no need for the flag anymore.
But that wasn't the case.
In the afternoon, more people came.
My big brother could still retrieve bodies from the Twelve Ghost Caves. Over the years, many bodies had flowed into the caves, so the people coming to seek him out kept increasing.
Later in the afternoon, someone else came.
"I only go into the Ghost Caves three times a year, and this year, I've already done my three times. I won't retrieve any more bodies from there," my big brother said.
"Can't you make an exception? I'll pay more!"
The man who came in the afternoon wore glasses, a brand-name outfit, and drove a Mercedes-Benz.
He looked like he had plenty of money.
"No, that's the rule," my big brother said, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.
After that, my big brother really stopped going into the Ghost Caves.
After the man in the Mercedes-Benz with glasses left, a few more people came looking for him, but my big brother kept saying the same thing—he refused all of them.
Eventually, he even put up another flag that read:
"I go into the Ghost Caves three times a year, and each time costs 100,000. This year's quota has been filled. If anyone needs a body retrieval, come back next year."
Once my big brother set up the flag with the rules, things quieted down on his end. But on my side, things got busier.
A lot of people came, hoping that, because I was his brother, I could persuade him to make an exception.
I rejected them all. Later, I wished I could just set up a flag myself to make it clear that my big brother wouldn't listen to my face, and that I wasn't involved in the body retrieval business.