Wen Yan was waiting at the door, hoping to snag a ride, but he heard Zhang Laoxi say that Feng Yao wasn't coming in this morning—he had to wait here for the Scorching Sun Department's delivery. Wen Yan felt a little disappointed, so he took a turn around Pei Tugou's home.

Pei Tugou was running around like he was fighting a battle, asking his daughter if this was ready, if that was packed.

In the end, the old lady couldn't stand it anymore and cursed him out, and only then did Pei Tugou quiet down.

The little girl was very well-behaved; as soon as she saw Wen Yan, she immediately stood up to greet him.

"Uncle Wen."

"Once you're both ready, let's go. I'll walk you there and show you the way. It's not far—just a ten-minute walk or so."

Wen Yan stayed on the first floor, watching his silly son who was still asleep, and went over to take a look at him.

The silly boy glared wide-eyed; the moment he saw Wen Yan, he tried to roll over, turning to the other side and ignoring Wen Yan completely.

"Hey, little bastard, you're hardly more than a baby and you're already holding grudges. Fine, very good."

After playing with his chubby-cheeked silly son for a while, Wen Yan saw the time was nearly up, so he left the house with Pei Tugou and his daughter.

Once they got to the school, he made small talk with the school leaders and personally dropped the child off at her class. Only then did he call a car and take Pei Tugou straight to Virtue City Funeral House.

"Bro, can you drive?"

"Yeah, I know how to drive."

"Great, then I'll catch a ride with you when we go to work from now on. I hate driving."

"Uh... I don't actually have a car."

"You'll have one soon."

He brought Pei Tugou into the Funeral Home, gave him a tour of the director's office first so he could get to know the place.

As for the job, it wasn't like Wen Yan got in the official way, through the exam, and was hired on the regular payroll.

Pei Tugou is just a contract worker for now, but after working a solid year, getting a regular position in the Funeral Home shouldn't be a problem.

The hard part is just making it through that full year.

In fact, if you're willing to work hard, you can make way more money than someone with a permanent position like Wen Yan—it's open-ended: the more you do, the more you earn.

Other than the stuff in the corpse-handling department that requires technique, basically anything else is fair game as long as you're willing to put in the work.

The usual routine: for the first few days, he just needed to watch and learn.

Wen Yan led Pei Tugou around to meet people, told him to figure out what kind of work he wanted to do.

In the end he still chose to work as a field agent, since that paid the best—the more jobs you take, the more you earn.

Watching Pei Tugou leave in the van, Wen Yan went to the director's office.

"Is he your relative?"

"Don't worry, as long as the company doesn't delay wages and the money comes in on time, he'll stay till the day this place goes bankrupt."

"That won't happen—this place has been here for decades, we've never missed a payday."

"Perfect. Trust me, Director, as long as salaries are on time, you're getting serious value here."

"Hm? Professional?" The director was sharp.

"You could say that. But honestly, most of the time it won't matter. The guy's just honest and solid—he's made for this kind of work."

The director nodded; he didn't really care about much else. Just from that one meeting, he could tell this guy was rare—honest, hardworking, reliable.

Honestly, it's not just our workplace—everywhere could use people like that.

Besides, it wasn't his own money; whatever they're owed, he'd never be stingy.

"Wang Xueqi's bones, they've been brought here, right?"

"Yeah, they're in the memorial hall. No one's booked it this afternoon; somebody will come by to help her transcend later. No problem. If worst comes to worst, we'll just use the luxury furnace—there's always a solution."

"No need to go that far. I just want her to be freed, not to have her soul utterly destroyed."

"What's the difference?"

"There is one."

Wen Yan spoke very seriously. At first glance, both being freed and having your soul scattered mean disappearing, but there's definitely a difference.

Wen Yan hadn't come by for a few days, and now he wandered about like a slacker, swinging by all the departments. He chatted for a while with Big Sister Ye from the corpse-handling department, and she said the weather was getting cold, then handed him a small tin of homemade snake oil hand cream.

She said the snake was actually a demon snake. A few days back, the Scorching Sun Department from the neighboring state found a demon snake hurting people in the river, and sent in the big guns to kill it.

Then the corpse was sent to Virtue City Funeral House to spend a spell in the luxury furnace.

When Big Sister Ye was handling the body, she scraped some snake oil from it and made some tins of hand cream. The effect would be great—if you've got cracked hands every winter, or skin that gets scaly and peels, just use it a few times and it'll be totally fixed.

There were only three tins in total—Big Sister Ye kept one, and of the other two, set one aside just for Wen Yan.

Really, that snake demon just had bad luck—a Purple Robed Boss from Dragon Tiger Mountain happened to be visiting friends in the neighboring state, and ran right into the incident. He set up a Dharma Altar, summoned heavenly thunder from ten miles away, and blasted the snake demon's soul into oblivion on the spot.

If not for that, Big Sister Ye would never dare use the snake oil so casually.

Wen Yan showered her with compliments when he heard all this, praising Big Sister Ye for ages.

Then he asked if there was anything useful to be harvested from the Snapping Turtle Demon, but unfortunately there wasn't.

He just made a mental note of which things were useful, so next time he came across something good, he'd bring some for Big Sister Ye.

After all, she'd given him things several times already, and everything she gave worked wonders.

This hand cream was especially precious.

Having received the gift, Wen Yan couldn't just take it and run, so he stuck around to chat with Big Sister Ye about all kinds of cosmetics, and which ones actually worked.

In the afternoon, a bunch of people started showing up at the memorial hall. They were all here to send Wang Xueqi off—most of them were from the Scorching Sun Department.

Back when they were coming and going in the Dark Waters City, without Wang Xueqi leading the way, at least half of them would have been lost there forever.

So coming to see her off today was only natural.

Wen Yan, dressed in his black work uniform, looked at Wang Xueqi's color photo—she was smiling radiantly.

This was what Wang Xueqi herself wanted—she said black-and-white photos were too ugly.

He gazed at the picture, at the girl with that flower-bright smile, and muttered softly to himself.

"Safe journey, all right? The things you asked me to do—I've arranged everything for you."

On the front row of chairs there were also several other photos—the friends Wang Xueqi had.

Wen Yan had put their photos there to let them know how things ended, to let them come, in their own way, and say farewell to Wang Xueqi together.

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