Flame, Travel Permit

Holding five qian in broken silver, Xu Qing walked out of the accounting room.

That amount was not insignificant to ordinary commoners. But in the yin trade, where you could go three years without business and then live off one job for three years, it was nothing more than tossing coins to a beggar!

The pole-hauling shop hired by the prefectural city had quoted twenty liang of silver right off the bat. Master Liu was wealthy, and funerals and burials in his household were done to the highest standards. After deducting labor costs and various expenses, it was no easy matter to support an entire pole-hauling shop with what remained.

Everyone in the Liu Household knew this perfectly well. Otherwise, they would not have come to invite them to take charge.

As for the accounting clerk's talk of "master craftsmen" and "young apprentices," that was purely an excuse.

After today's funeral procession, which old pole-hauling master or suona musician had not praised him for handling matters steadily?

Walking through the residence with its supposedly excellent feng shui, Xu Qing did not feel that the place's feng shui was anything special.

Feng shui was easy to change, but the human heart was hard to cultivate!

In the entire Liu Household, how many people truly kept to their proper duties?

Xu Qing crossed the corridor with a cold expression, then heard laughter and playful shouts coming from the distance.

His footsteps halted, and he looked toward the pavilion.

He saw Young Master Liu chasing a maid around the artificial hills and rocks, teasing her.

The maid wore mourning clothes, one snowy arm half exposed. She coyly resisted while welcoming his advances, giggling nonstop.

"Come and catch me, Young Master! I'm a pretty widow whose man just died. I'm the widow from those storybooks, just waiting for a ruffian like you to come bully me!"

At the corridor, Xu Qing witnessed everything. Before he knew it, his body had stiffened—and so had his fists!

All right, all right! So this was how they wanted to play it?

He did not hurry back. Instead, he turned and found a secluded spot, took out his brush, ink, and paper from his shoulder bag, and began writing.

With sweeping strokes, he completed a Letter of Accusation exposing the vile scandals of the entire Liu Household—a killing letter!

At the very bottom of the paper, Xu Qing signed the Sycophantic Scholar's name, whom he had previously helped transcend. He then blew the ink dry, rose, and slipped toward the rear courtyard of the Liu residence...

The nearly ten-foot-high courtyard wall was easily cleared by Xu Qing. Thanks to the innate talent of a zombie, he could smell the scent of living people in advance whenever a servant or maid passed by.

After winding around until he found the secluded courtyard where Su Hongxiu lived, he saw that she was discussing with her personal maid how to steal Master Liu's family fortune.

"Miss, I've noticed that Young Master Liu secretly watches your body from behind every time. For a man so bewitched by lust, Miss, all you need to do is use a little skill, and surely you can use him to..."

Su Hongxiu's eyes lit up, and she was just about to speak when the maid beside her suddenly began wailing!

She hurriedly turned to look and saw that two of the maid's front teeth had been knocked out by a paper ball from who knew where.

After temporarily calming the maid, Su Hongxiu picked up the weapon and discovered that it was a sheet of white paper wrapped around a stone.

Her brows furrowed. She looked around, but saw no sign of whoever had thrown it.

She instinctively unfolded the paper. After reading what was written on it, a flush of excitement instantly surged across Su Hongxiu's face.

Outside the Liu residence, Xu Qing activated the Qi Gazing Technique and discovered that the Liu Household's feng shui had completely reversed, becoming a shadowy and ominous place.

It seemed that the few feng shui objects he had casually moved had already taken effect, catalyzed by the Liu Household's loss of its pillar.

As for the Liu Household's future...

The sparks had already been scattered. As for how large a fire they would spread into, that would depend entirely on how capable these people were.

"Greedy lust is all dry tinder, while wicked thoughts and crooked notions are the wind. Once this fire catches, I imagine this winter will become quite a bit warmer..."

With his shoulder bag slung across him, Xu Qing walked along the frigid street. Some displaced people who had come from who knew where were huddled beneath eaves and against walls where the wind was weaker, waiting for passersby to offer them alms.

Seeing this, Xu Qing suddenly had a thought.

The beggars in the prefectural city had been swept away by a mysterious group, while these displaced beggars had suddenly gathered in Linhe. Could the two be connected?

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

At the entrance of the neighboring Paper Craft Shop, a middle-aged man in a gray cotton jacket was carrying Paper Horses and Wreaths inside.

Seeing Xu Qing dressed in Ritual Robes, clearly looking as though he had just finished performing a ritual, the man could not help asking, "Are you also with this shop?"

Xu Qing nodded. "My master was the one who set up the shop before. Now that the old man has passed away, I naturally have to support this business on my own."

The owner of the Paper Craft Shop, Wu Yaoxing, froze for a moment. Isn't that the truth? This winter is so cold, and so many elderly people from various households have died. You can tell just by looking at the amount of paper goods sold this month...

He simply had not expected that the old master who had opened the shop next door less than two days ago had also failed to make it through.

Xu Qing had no idea what Wu Yaoxing was thinking. Seeing that the other man did not pursue the matter, he did not waste any more words.

"Young sir, it isn't easy for you to manage this alone. If you ever need paper goods for business, come over. I'll sell them to you at a lower price."

Xu Qing smiled faintly. His heart, chilled for the entire day, finally warmed a little.

Still, he felt embarrassed returning the favor by saying something like, "If your family ever needs Embalming or a Funeral Procession, I can give you a discount too..." Only a blockhead would say such a thing!

"Thank you, shopkeeper. May I ask how I should address you?"

"My surname is Wu. Just call me Old Wu. We're neighbors from now on, so don't stand on ceremony!"

After exchanging names with Old Wu, the two did not converse much further. After all, in weather this cold, who had nothing better to do than stand in the street chatting?

By the time Xu Qing returned to the shop, it was already late. Even though he could see at night, he still lit an oil lamp.

He was pretending to be a living shopkeeper, after all. If he made the place look gloomy and eerie all day, even if he was not a corpse ghost, he would become one!

"Looks like today's business really wasn't a wasted trip."

Xu Qing sat behind the counter, took out a raw egg from underneath it, cracked a small hole, and sucked at it while reviewing the day's events.

The reward for helping Master Liu transcend went without saying. But some invisible gains had a far greater impact on him at this stage.

For instance, presiding over such a grand funeral today had allowed him to become a familiar face in the pole-hauling trade's funeral circle. At the very least, everyone now had an impression of him.

Then there were the neighbors. They were not as gossipy as he had imagined, and no one had paid much attention to his identity.

Aside from that, the most important thing was what he had seen at the entrance to the ward today.

Master Liu had been buried outside the ward, so they had needed to pass through the streets of Linhe Fang and leave through its entrance.

It was near the ward entrance that Xu Qing had seen many laborers and stonemasons building "city defenses."

Some said that war had broken out in the northern prefectures, sending many displaced people flooding in. That was why the Prefect had ordered a city defense system to be built in Linhe Fang, a hub with well-developed land and water transport, to block any riots that might occur in the future.

Others said that the demonic cultists of the Tianxin Cult had colluded with Demonic Evils and Strange Creatures. They harbored ulterior motives and intended to raise an uprising in Jinmen, seeking to shake the foundations of the nation.

In short, there were many different stories, and none could be confirmed.

But one thing could be predicted: the sky over Linhe Fang—or Jinmen, for that matter—might truly be about to change.

Xu Qing still remembered what the soldiers overseeing the construction of the defenses had said when the pole bearers carried the coffin out through the ward entrance:

"If this were only Linhe, that'd be one thing. If you fellows were still in the prefectural city and wanted to leave, you'd definitely have to go through a proper verification. But even that's hard to say. Once the walls are up and the city gate opens, when you come again, I'm afraid they'll have to verify the identities of the living and the dead together before letting you out..."

Xu Qing remembered those words vividly. Great Yong already had regulations stating that anyone taking a dead person out of the city for burial had to register. The deceased's birth and death dates, along with the burial date, had to be written on a sheet of white paper in advance, making verification easier when leaving the city. The mourners' identities also had to be confirmed through their Identification Plaques and Travel Permits, to prevent oversights later and situations where someone could not be traced.

"Identification Plaques and Travel Permits..."

Xu Qing placed the sucked-dry eggshell on the counter and exhaled the peculiar, fishy sweetness of egg liquid.

"Looks like I'll have to find an opportunity to visit the tooth broker's and ask how much it costs to replace an Identification Plaque and Travel Permit."