Burial Outside the City

He hadn't expected there really to be something good—something precious, at that...

Qin Yang rubbed the Blood Jade, an involuntary smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

The Blood Jade was warm and lustrous throughout, though not very translucent. Looking closely, however, he could see threadlike patterns within, intertwined like blood vessels, crisscrossing through it like the capillaries inside a human body. Holding it in his hand, he could feel a trace of warmth flowing through his entire body, immensely soothing.

Anyone with an eye for such things would recognize this as a Jade Plug, something placed in a corpse's mouth at burial. It was also called a Jade Cicada, taking its meaning from the cicada lying dormant underground before breaking through the soil when winter passed and spring returned, beginning another life. Of course, this thing was really only symbolic...

Jade Plugs were inauspicious, because they sealed in the corpse's final breath. Such things were not worth much, but although the one in his hand was also a Jade Plug, it was vastly different. It was Auspicious Jade, the finest of the finest...

Qin Yang could not help beaming. He took out a Sandalwood Box, placed it inside, and put it away.

Once the Ghost Market opened in a few days, he could sell it for a fine price. One deal would feed him for three years.

Rubbing his hands, Qin Yang finally took out the Skill Book he had obtained earlier.

A blue-covered Skill Book, low-grade trash. He had not paid it much attention before; he had opened plenty of them already, but unfortunately, they had all been rubbish.

Things like lockpicking, playing the suona, nine shallow and one deep, or identifying the Eighteen Famous Instruments—strange nonsense like that. If this had been a historical world, he could have become a gold-medal brothel manager, unearthed talent, and built a world-class brothel without breaking a sweat...

Unfortunately, this was a world of the immortal Dao...

Long ago, Qin Yang had lost interest in white- and blue-covered Skill Books. Blue White had no good goods...

But now, he had come around. Those two had both been Dao Foundation cultivators. Surely they would not drop Skill Books for things like picking locks, would they...

He took it out and inspected it closely. Four large characters were written on the cover: Introduction to Talismans.

After looking again, he confirmed that it really was talismans, not talisman seals.

After a brief moment of thought, Qin Yang raised the blue book and smacked it against his head. With a crisp slap, the blue-covered book shattered into specks of fluorescent light and entered Qin Yang's head.

A moment later, Qin Yang opened his eyes, his face carrying both delight and surprise.

It really was talismans. Talismans were divided into talisman seals, Ink Talismans, and Cinnabar Talismans. What people commonly saw were talisman seals, while Ink Talismans were rare—at least around Green Forest City, he had never even heard of them. As for the even rarer Cinnabar Talismans, Introduction to Talismans merely mentioned the name; there was no actual content on them.

There were thirty-six talisman seals and nine Ink Talismans, all relatively basic...

Yet merely being able to come into contact with these was enough to show that the old man was no ordinary figure...

Once his joy faded, Qin Yang sighed inwardly. This business was likely going to be difficult...

As expected, Foundation Establishment cultivators were never simple...

Though he was only a level-one newbie, he still had skills. The most basic was the looting skill, commonly called Corpse Touching. Over the past year, he had already developed quite a few uses for it.

Corpse Touching to open drops was its most basic function. Later, he discovered that as long as a corpse had yielded equipment, even if the person had died miserably of plague in life, after being touched, all its resentment would vanish completely. It would become the most ordinary corpse imaginable, without even the possibility of turning into a corpse monster.

Later, he secretly tested it further and found that once someone had been Corpse Touched, even if they had left behind contingencies in life for others to track them down, those would be erased as well. That was why Worry-Free Business had been able to continue for the past year.

But now that he had obtained a Skill Book and a Blood Jade, Qin Yang knew that even if these two truly became ordinary corpses, making it impossible to track them with secret arts, the people behind them might still investigate using the most basic clues...

"Fine, this money won't be easy to earn, and this Skill Book won't be easy to take either..." Qin Yang shook his head with a sigh, then dragged two Golden Phoebe coffins out from the room next door. Their surfaces gleamed golden beneath the sunlight, golden threads emerging across them along with a faint, elegant fragrance. They were unquestionably made from the finest timber...

In his previous life, carving one of these coffins entirely into bead bracelets would have been enough to live on for a lifetime. Unfortunately, here, one coffin cost at most two First Grade Spirit Stones, and one of those stones was the fee demanded by an old craftsman for his handiwork...

Bending down, he moved the two corpses into the coffins. After being Corpse Touched, their somewhat ferocious expressions had returned to peace. Even the bloody stench on their bodies had vanished, and no deathly aura drifted around them. It was as though they had been absolved by an eminent monk, leaving behind nothing but empty shells of flesh.

After nailing down the coffin lids and storing the coffins in his Storage Bag, Qin Yang turned back into the house. He coated his face with clay paste, dripped spiritual liquid into his eyes, changed clothes and put on a wig. With a shake of his body, he shrank three inches shorter, becoming like an entirely different person in the blink of an eye.

His complexion was waxy yellow, his eyes cloudy. With his body slightly hunched, his dry white hair radiated a deathly stillness. Anyone who saw him would take him for a short old man with one foot already in the grave, someone who could no longer be linked to Qin Yang in any way.

This was how he used the skills he had opened over the past year: disguise, bone shrinking, and Incense Making to conceal and shroud his aura. Combined together, even cultivators below Foundation Establishment—and even people familiar with him—would never recognize him.

He exited through a hidden side door and, in just a few steps, blended into the chaotic crowds on West City's main street like a drop of water returning to the sea. In this place where people from every walk of life mingled, Qin Yang's appearance had not the slightest distinguishing feature.

He followed the main road out through the city gate. The gate guards leaned against the walls and yawned, not sparing Qin Yang a second glance.

Beyond Green Forest City stretched a flat, desolate expanse. Only in the distance could he see mountains rolling one after another, hidden in a thin mist. Qin Yang followed the main road for a short while before leaving it and taking a barren path forward. About half an hour later, a pitch-black forest covered the ridge ahead, steeped in dead silence. Rows of Black Crows perched on the dead trees beside the path, staring at Qin Yang with chilling eyes.

These were the Black Crows that lived in the Green Forest City West Outer Burial Mounds. They fed on carrion, half alive and half dead, though they rarely attacked people on their own. Seeing them like this today, Qin Yang secretly chuckled.

His Incense Making had improved greatly. Even these Black Crows had been fooled by the deathly aura disguised by the incense...

"Here to bury the dead. Do not disturb me." Qin Yang muttered casually as he lit a stick of incense and held it before him. At once, the Black Crows turned their heads away and no longer looked at him.

He followed the narrow path onward. Mist filled the dense forest, and desolate graves stood everywhere. Faint cries of ghostly beings drifted from within. Qin Yang walked forward holding the incense, seeing shadowy ghosts in the distance, yet none paid him any attention.

But halfway there, Qin Yang suddenly stopped.