At midnight, an ancient bronze coffin drifted down the Yellow River. Though no one was steering it, it rammed straight into my corpse-retrieval boat. Three knocks sounded from inside the lid. The man lying within was none other than my father, who had been missing for twenty years. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he said was, "Ya Jian, don't retrieve me. You're not qualified yet."
I, Qing Yajian, am the last inheritor of the corpse-retrieval tradition on the Yellow River. With both hands in the water, I can steady a floating corpse. A single drop of blood from my fingertip can part a hundred feet of murky waves. When the nine great clans joined forces to open the river-subduing tattoo on my father's body, I pressed my hand against the coffin's edge. At once, tens of thousands of pale arms reached up from the riverbed. "You want to touch my dad? Then ask the vengeful dead in the whole Yellow River if they'll allow it."
