Spark, Travel Permit

With five qian of silver fragments in hand, Xu Qing walked out of the accounting room.

This amount of money wasn't insignificant for ordinary commoners, but for a profession like Yinmen, which only saw business once every three years, it was barely enough to feed a beggar!

The funeral parlor hired by the prefectural city quoted a price of twenty liang right off the bat. The Liu family was wealthy, and their funeral and burial were to be conducted with top-tier arrangements. After deducting labor costs and various expenses, the remaining silver wasn't enough to support a funeral parlor.

Everyone in the Liu mansion knew this clearly, otherwise, they wouldn't have come to ask for their services.

As for the "master craftsman" and "apprentice craftsman" mentioned by the accountant, it was purely an excuse.

After today's funeral was completed, which of the old funeral master or the musicians didn't praise his steady handling of affairs?

Walking through the prefectural mansion, which had excellent Feng Shui, Xu Qing didn't feel its Feng Shui was particularly good.

Feng Shui is easy to change, but human hearts are hard to mend!

In the entire Liu family mansion, how many people were truly adhering to their duties?

Xu Qing walked through the corridor with a cold expression, only to hear sounds of playful romping in the distance.

His footsteps paused, and he looked towards the direction of the pavilion.

He saw the Young Master Liu chasing a maid around the artificial rockery, teasing her.

The maid was wearing mourning clothes, her fair arms half-exposed. She feigned resistance while giggling non-stop.

"Young Master, hurry and catch me! This servant is a beautiful widow whose husband just died, a 'wei wang ren' from those storybooks, just waiting for a scoundrel like you to bully me!"

In the corridor, Xu Qing, who witnessed everything, involuntarily clenched his fists, his fists hardening with anger!

Fine! So this is how you want to play!

He didn't rush back immediately. Instead, he turned and found a secluded spot, took out his brush, ink, paper, and inkstone from his satchel, and began to write.

A sweeping "Letter of Accusation" exposing the Liu family's foul scandals was thus completed!

At the bottom corner of the paper, Xu Qing signed the name of the Sycophantic Scholar he had previously helped to transcend. He then blew on the ink to dry it and got up, heading towards the back courtyard of the Liu mansion...

Xu Qing easily leaped over the courtyard wall, which was nearly ten feet high. Due to the innate talent of a zombie, he could smell the scent of living people in advance whenever household servants or maids passed by.

After wandering around, he found the side courtyard where Su Hongxiu lived. She was currently discussing with her personal maid how to steal the Liu family's fortune.

"Miss, I see that Young Master Liu always secretly stares at your body from behind. Someone as lust-addled as him, if Miss uses a little trick, you can surely use him to..."

Su Hongxiu's eyes lit up, and just as she was about to speak, she heard her maid suddenly cry out in pain!

She quickly looked sideways and saw that the maid had lost two front teeth from a paper ball that came from who knows where.

After temporarily comforting the maid, Su Hongxiu picked up the weapon and found it to be a piece of white paper wrapped around a stone.

She frowned, looked around, but couldn't see who had thrown the stone.

She instinctively unfolded the paper ball. After reading the contents, Su Hongxiu's face instantly flushed with excitement.

Outside the Liu mansion, Xu Qing used the Qi Gazing Technique and discovered that the Feng Shui of the Liu mansion had completely reversed, becoming a place of ominous darkness.

It seemed that the few trấn vật (items used to suppress or stabilize Feng Shui) he had casually moved, catalyzed by the loss of the Liu family's backbone, had already taken effect.

As for the future of the Liu mansion...

The sparks had been sown. As for how widespread the fire would spread, it all depended on how capable these people were.

"Greed and lust are dry tinder, evil thoughts and crooked ideas are the wind. When this fire starts burning, I suppose this winter will be much warmer..."

Xu Qing walked down the cold street with his satchel slung over his shoulder. Some refugees, who had appeared from nowhere, were huddled in the corners and eaves of buildings where the wind was less strong, waiting for alms from passersby.

Seeing this, Xu Qing suddenly had a thought.

The beggars in the prefectural city had been swept clean by a mysterious group, yet these refugees and beggars had suddenly gathered in Linhe. Could there be a connection?

Xu Qing pondered this, and before he knew it, he had returned to his own Corpse Driver's Shop.

At the entrance of the paper craft shop next door, a middle-aged man in a gray cotton jacket was moving paper horses and wreaths inside.

Seeing Xu Qing in his ritual robes, clearly having just finished a ritual, the man couldn't help but ask, "Are you also from this shop?"

Xu Qing nodded and said, "My master set up the shop before. Now that he has passed away, I naturally have to carry on the business myself."

The owner of the paper craft shop, Wu Yaoxing, was stunned. He thought to himself, indeed, this winter is so cold, many elders have passed away. This can be seen from the output of paper crafts this month alone...

However, he hadn't expected that the old gentleman next door, who had only opened for less than two days, had also not survived.

Xu Qing was unaware of Wu Yaoxing's thoughts. Seeing that the man didn't pry further, he didn't say any more.

"Young sir, it's not easy for you to be alone. If you ever need paper crafts for your business, come to me, and I'll sell them to you at a lower price."

Xu Qing smiled slightly, his heart, which had been cold all day, finally warmed a little.

However, he felt too embarrassed to reciprocate by saying that if your family needed funeral services, he could offer them at a lower price... That would be a foolish thing to say!

"Thank you, shopkeeper. May I know your name?"

"My surname is Wu. You can call me Old Wu. We're neighbors from now on, no need to be polite!"

After exchanging names with Shopkeeper Wu, they didn't talk much more. After all, on such a cold day, who would idly chat on the street?

Returning to the shop, it was already late. Although Xu Qing could see in the dark, he still lit an oil lamp.

He was supposed to be playing the part of a living shopkeeper. If he acted all gloomy and eerie all day, he'd practically turn into a zombie even if he wasn't one already!

"Looks like this trip today wasn't in vain."

Xu Qing sat behind the counter, took out a raw egg from underneath, cracked it open, and while slurping it down, he reviewed the day's events.

The reward for saving Master Liu was a given, but there were some unseen gains that had a greater impact on him at this stage.

For example, presiding over this grand funeral today had made him a familiar face within the funeral parlor's circle of mourners. At the very least, people now had an impression of him.

Another example was that the neighbors weren't as 'gossipy' as he'd imagined; they didn't pay much attention to his identity.

Besides these, the most important thing was what he saw at the entrance of the district today.

Master Liu was to be buried outside the district, so they had to pass through the market street of Linhe Fang and exit the district.

It was near the district entrance that Xu Qing saw many laborers and masons building 'city defenses.'

Some said it was because of the ongoing war in the northern prefectures, which had caused many refugees to flood in. Therefore, the Prefect had ordered the construction of a city defense system in Linhe Fang, a hub with convenient water and land transportation, to block potential future riots.

Others claimed that Demonic Cultivators from the Tianxin Cult were colluding with Demonic Evils and Strange Creatures, harboring malicious intentions and aiming to incite an uprising in Jinmen, thereby shaking the very foundations of the nation.

In short, there were all sorts of theories, but no definitive answers.

However, it was foreseeable that the sky in Linhe Fang, or perhaps Jinmen, was truly about to change.

Xu Qing still remembered the pallbearers carrying the coffin out of the district when the soldiers responsible for building the defenses said:

"It's only here in Linhe. If you guys were still in the prefectural city and wanted to leave, you'd definitely have to go through a thorough verification. But who knows, I reckon once the city walls are up and the city gates open, you might have to get both the living and the dead verified before you can leave..."

Xu Qing remembered those words vividly. Great Yong already had regulations stating that anyone leaving the city for a funeral must be registered. The deceased's birth and death dates, along with the funeral date, had to be written on a piece of white paper for easy verification when leaving the city. The identities of the funeral attendees also had to be confirmed through their Identification Plaques and Travel Permits to prevent any later oversights or inability to track people.

"Identification Plaque and Travel Permit..."

Xu Qing placed the empty eggshell on the counter, exhaling the unique, faintly fishy and sweet scent of egg liquid.

"Looks like I need to find an opportunity to visit the brokerage and inquire about the cost of replacing an Identification Plaque and Travel Permit."