Then, he took out the bamboo hat from inside his robe, which still held the very last trace of Chuan's soul. Yekong placed the hat upon the corpse's hands, climbed back out of the grave, and began shoveling the dirt back in, spadeful by spadeful.
When he had finished it all, Yekong slumped down, sitting heavily as if facing an old friend he had not seen in a long time, and began to murmur to himself.
In truth, there was nothing much to say between them; they had merely met by chance.
Chapter 490