Ten Years Recovering Corpses: I Heard the Secret of the Heavenly Ruins

For ten years, Lin Huang scavenged bones in Burial Village.

Everyone in the village said his father had been taken by the Heavenly Ruins. He didn't believe them. Every time he pulled shattered bones, broken weapons, or half a finger out of the well, they spoke to him.

When he was seven, he fished out a finger bone and heard the first words: "Found you." The next day, his father went into the Great Wilderness and never returned. Before leaving, he tied a thread around Lin Huang's heart. It remained there for ten years.

Ten years later, he fished out a second finger bone. The Bronze Badge Camp came looking for him. A priest called Elder Xi told him: Your father is still alive. So is your mother. The mark on the back of your hand has lit up. You have to go, whether you want to or not.

Tong Qi wore a bronze badge at his waist. An eye was engraved on it, and the eye could move. Xu Qing's father died outside the Mouth of Burying Heaven. Before he died, he told her to find someone who could hear. Old Dog was buried under a mountain of debts in meat, and insisted on coming along despite his bad leg. There was also someone who called himself Tong Si. He had been dead for three months, yet stood at the door, knocking and calling out, "Grandmaster."

The Bronze Badge Camp had three grandmasters. One was stuck in a doorway. One sat behind a door. And no one had ever seen the third.

His father had passed through three doors. He left three fingers at the first, five at the second, and himself at the third.

Now it was Lin Huang's turn. The mark on the back of his hand burned hotter every day. The eye on the bronze badge turned every day. Tong San said the price of opening the door was to stake your own life. His father had staked all ten fingers. What would Lin Huang have to stake?

He hadn't decided yet. But first, he had to go to the Mouth of Burying Heaven. His father was waiting there. So was his mother.

Waiting for the door to open.