SES Chapter 64 Part 1

Chapter 64 – Extra

Jusansuiyuan Bar.

It was 10 p.m., the busiest time of the night, when Uncle Zhang happened to glance up and saw who had just walked in through the door.

At first, he felt a wave of relief and joy wash over him. But the next second, his face darkened with the urge to settle scores:
“Well, look who finally decided to come back!”

Mu Dai smiled innocently, her eyes carrying a hint of playful mischief. Uncle Zhang couldn’t stay mad—his heart softened as he looked her up and down.
“That time you said you couldn’t talk—what kind of illness was that? Are you better now?”

And just like that, Mu Dai knew she’d passed the test.

“I’ve been better for ages,” she said, cheerfully striding in, stretching her shoulder, and cracking her back. “Ugh, I’ve been on the road all day. I’m dead tired.”

Uncle Zhang watched her head upstairs, then turned his attention back to the two who were still standing at the door.

One on the left, one on the right. One fat, one skinny. One looked like a defeated temple guardian, slouched and awkward, with a forced smile plastered across his chubby face. The other was a textbook troublemaker, lugging a suitcase, acting all meek and observant, but biding his time.

Uncle Zhang could feel his blood pressure rising.

“What am I supposed to do with you two, huh?!”

Same people, different treatment. The little boss lady could make a mistake the size of the moon and still not get scolded.

But them? No such luck…

Looking at the bunk bed Uncle Zhang assigned him and Yi Wan San, Cao Yanhua felt utterly miserable. At least before, they each had their room…

Uncle Zhang’s words still echoed in his ears:
“Since we hired new people, we need to make space for them to sleep. You two are drifters—who knows when you’ll vanish again? Having a bed at all is already a blessing.”

True enough. Having a bed was already a blessing.

Cao Yanhua turned to Yi Wan San, suggesting,
“Brother San San, how about I take the bottom bunk? I’m heavier, so the bed’ll be steadier if I sleep there.”

Yi Wan San rolled his eyes: “Yeah, sure. You’re the foundation.”

Cao Yanhua didn’t have any luggage. Most of his belongings had sunk during the boat accident, which, to be honest, made things easier. He took a quick shower and went straight to bed, while Yi Wan San stayed up, sorting through his worldly possessions that had been moved from their old room. The clattering and rummaging seemed endless.

Amid the noise, Cao Yanhua stared at the ceiling, silently taking inventory of his assets. All he had left were a few bills he kept on his person.
He could barely suppress the urge to go back to his old ways, but thankfully, he still had a fifth of the pearls from Yan Hongsha’s stash waiting to be sold. That comforted him.

With that thought, even Old Clam started to seem kind of… lovable.

He rolled over and looked at Yi Wan San, who was surrounded by clutter:
“Brother San San, I hope the next murderous bamboo slip is hidden in a gold mine. That way, after all the work, I can walk away with a gold bar—way better than slaving away at the bar.”

Yi Wan San didn’t even look up. “Didn’t we agree not to get involved anymore?”

Oh, right. That was the agreement.

Cao Yanhua sighed wistfully. “Just daydreaming, that’s all.”

They’d spent over two days on the road, stopping in Kunming along the way to drop off Yan Hongsha. She had brought in some of the medical staff who had helped treat Old Yan, and they drew a vial of blood from each of them—sealed, labeled, and stored in a special medical case.

Not that the labels mattered—soon, it would all be mixed anyway.

When they said goodbye, Yan Hongsha looked genuinely reluctant to part.
“I’ll come visit you guys in a couple of days. Mu Dai, I’ll wire you your wages. And when you get a new phone, let me know, okay?”

Of the five-person crew, only Luo Ren and Yi Wan San still had phones. The other three had lost theirs in Wuzhu Village, which made it impossible to create their “Five-Man Squad” group chat—something Yan Hongsha took surprisingly hard.

She had already picked out the name: Phoenix Strike Force.
Yi Wan San had said it sounded tacky, that he’d rather die than accept the invite.

To be honest, Yan Hongsha agreed it was a bit corny—but that just made her want to use it more.

That afternoon, they returned to Lijiang, but didn’t go straight to the bar. They had one final, crucial task to complete.

Would the blood of five people be enough to force the murderous slip out of Pingting’s body?

Uncle Zheng looked far more haggard than before. His face was etched with worry, clearly from days of anxiety over Pingting. As he led Luo Ren and the others into the room, he murmured,
“Xiao Luo, I hope this works. She can’t keep suffering like this.”

Pingting lay still on the bed, arms and legs tightly restrained. Maybe it was the sedatives, but she was sleeping deeply. According to Uncle Zheng, she’d barely gone a moment without injections—either sedatives or nutritional drips.

But nutritional fluids weren’t food. They kept her body running, but not her spirit.

She looked much thinner than last time.

Thanks to their previous two encounters with the bamboo slips, everyone was more prepared. Luo Ren carefully injected half a tube of the mixed blood into Pingting’s veins and then stepped aside.

Mu Dai pulled up Pingting’s shirt.

This time, the reaction was almost immediate. Her skin turned an unnatural shade of red, and the discoloration quickly spread across her back. The normal skin tone faded away until a bamboo-slip-shaped outline emerged—like it had nowhere else left to hide.

Right next to the old scar, another patch of skin peeled up.

Mu Dai had a strange thought: This damn slip better not go back into Pingting again.
If it kept happening, she’d have to keep peeling her skin off, over and over—eventually, there’d be nothing left.

With steady hands, she used a pair of chopsticks to lift the patch of skin and toss it into a basin of water by her feet.

In the next room, Uncle Zheng had already set up a large, clear fish tank, just as Luo Ren instructed. Yi Wan San placed the bucket with the ashes inside the tank, and Cao Yanhua poured water into it. Once it was filled, Mu Dai came in with the basin and added its contents.

Now the tank held two bamboo slips.

Luo Ren injected the remaining half-tube of blood into the water.

It was hard to describe what happened next.