Free Rider

Scatter silver, gather ownerless corpses.

The corpse before him, brought from the yamen prison, was wrapped in only a scrap of cloth. According to the constable, the man had died out of fear of punishment, taking his own life in the prison during the night.

But when Xu Qing unfolded the scrap, he found the corpse completely naked. From head to toe, there was not even a shred of cloth to cover his navel.

Looking again at the corpse's posture—both hands hugging his knees, his body curled into a ball—it was clearly death from cold and hunger. How could that be a death from fear of punishment?

With the thought of uncovering the truth, Xu Qing reached out and touched him, trying to awaken the Immortal Book of Salvation and read his life story.

But to Xu Qing's utter astonishment, the Duren Sutra in his mind showed no reaction whatsoever.

What had gone wrong?

Could it be that this corpse was fake?

Xu Qing immediately ruled out that possibility. Even if one could fabricate a human body, it would be impossible to do so with only four taels of silver, much less sell it to him!

Then the problem could only be that his method of salvation was wrong.

As he carefully recalled the process of saving the corpses in the past, Xu Qing suddenly understood.

Back when he had saved the corpse workers at the Cui Family Mill, those corpse workers had looked no different from ordinary corpses on the outside.

The only difference was that a complete corpse worker had to undergo layer upon layer of procedures, such as the Soul-Returning Curse and Corpse-Raising Curse. In the end, special Walking Corpse Talismans had to be inscribed on the body before a corpse could be given the procedural Mind Sense needed for labor.

Ordinary corpses, having undergone no treatment, would gradually lose their souls once enough time had passed.

The same had been true when he saved Liu Youdao. The other man had only just died, and his soul had not yet left his body, allowing Xu Qing to save him.

As for Master Liu a few days ago, that was because Liu Youdao had already planned to dig up his grave and refine his corpse into a corpse worker for a second profit before the Mourning Hall had even been set up.

By the time Xu Qing went to the Liu residence, Master Liu had already been subjected to a Corpse Driving Curse and was in a state of soul-returning preservation.

After reviewing his past experiences of saving corpses, Xu Qing seemed to have found the crux of the problem.

The corpse before him had clearly been dead beyond the period during which its soul would linger without dispersing.

In other words, he needed to summon its soul before he could save it.

Having found a solution, Xu Qing inexplicably grew excited.

This might be his first corpse-raising since becoming a Corpse Driver!

He shut the shop door, lit a stick of Spirit Incense, and waited until his emotions had settled. Then Xu Qing fetched the items needed for corpse driving, put on fish-skin gloves for protection, and laid everything out in a row along the edge of the plank bed.

The Soul Herding Bell, Corpse Driving Whip, Ink Square and ink line, Eight Trigrams Mirror, vermilion brush, cinnabar, and Purple Smoke Furnace.

Never mind whether he would use them. Just one glance was enough to make both laymen and experts alike exclaim that they were the genuine article!

Look at this equipment—all treasures collected over a lifetime of corpse driving. There probably wasn't much more than this. He had brought out everything!

"Green guards the soul, white serves the spirit, red nourishes the qi, black connects the blood. Let not his soul come, let not the dead soul depart. Listen quietly to my curse. The remnant spirit enters the dream, the Heaven Gate opens, the Earth Gate opens, the Golden Sparrow transforms into a spirit body, the wandering soul returns to see the body. Bind the soul from a thousand miles away, quickly return to your original nature!"

He took out the Soul Herding Bell and recited the Soul-Returning Curse from the Thirty-Six Corpse Driving Curses. When the bell and the incantation reached a certain frequency, a gust of yin wind suddenly poured through the windows and cracks of the Corpse Driver's Shop. The shapeless, colorless wind spiraled, sought out its destination, and finally settled upon the ownerless corpse.

The next moment, the curled and rigid corpse on the plank bed suddenly began to tremble. Crisp cracking sounds rang out as its bones stretched and shifted back into place.

When the sounds stopped and the limbs had fully flattened, the ownerless corpse abruptly opened its gray-white eyes. A hoarse, grating sound, like a waterwheel turning, came from its mouth.

"Cold. So cold! Lend me your skin to wear."

The strange change came without warning. Xu Qing was so frightened that nearly every strand of Corpse Hair on his body stood on end. The Thirty-Six Corpse Driving Curses had never said that the corpse would speak after the ritual!

Seeing the corpse on the bed spring upright and fling out its arms, about to claw his skin off, Xu Qing instinctively threw a punch!

Then came a second punch, a third punch—fists falling like rain!

Only after he had shaken the bed apart and beaten the "spirit-possessed" corpse into spasms did Xu Qing stop.

"That's it?"

He reached out and pinned the twitching frozen corpse beneath him. In Xu Qing's mind, the Duren Sutra began turning its pages.

The corpse was named Qu Zhicai. He had been a carefree rake skilled in eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling. Every day, he was either on the road to a gambling den or galloping down some unknown path through brothels and pleasure houses.

At twenty, newly come of age, Qu Zhicai set himself a lofty ambition: to visit every gambling den and brothel in the Great Yong Dynasty, then write a book and establish a school, becoming a figure like the founding Patriarch.

Put plainly, he simply wanted to gamble and whore—a good-for-nothing wastrel who had no intention of making something of himself!

After setting his great ambition, Qu Zhicai used the excuse of going to the commandery city to study hard and pursue an official career. He borrowed money and donations from every relative and friend he could find, then vanished without a trace.

Could it be that he had really gone to the commandery city to study diligently?

Believe it or not, he really did go study!

But after arriving in the commandery city, he studied neither poetry nor the classics. Instead, he learned how to throw dice and how to visit brothels!

Once he ran out of money or grew tired of playing in the commandery city, Qu Zhicai would borrow a sum from the good-for-nothings he knew there, claiming he would repay it in a few days.

But when the agreed-upon repayment date arrived, the creditors made inquiries—

Well now! Where in the entire commandery city could they find even half a hair of Qu Zhicai?

By then, Qu Zhicai had already rolled up the money and run off to another city to enjoy himself!

Over the next six months, he repeated this method again and again. He had actually begun to look as if his grand ambition might come true!

That day, Qu Zhicai—walking unsteadily as though he were about to ascend to immortality—arrived in the region of Jinmen. Once in Jinmen, it simply wouldn't do not to visit the famed Linhe pleasure boats!

There was no curfew in Linhe Fang. Even in the dead of night, all sorts of idlers still passed between the gambling dens and brothels.

Qu Zhicai was one of them.

For instance, if his luck was poor at the gambling den one day, he would cross the street to find a flower-house girl who made a living off her legs and rub some luck into his hands. Once he felt that the fishy fortune had arrived, he would switch back again.

Such a thing was nothing remarkable when done by a romantic wastrel. But Qu Zhicai had become possessed by a demon in his heart and committed a foolish deed that absolutely should not have been committed!

That day, his luck was poor, so he went to Cuiyun Tower to improve it. After he had finished improving his luck, he happened to glimpse the girl's jewelry box!

Inside were not only gold and silver hairpins, but also various pearls, jade, emeralds, and bits of gold and silver.

Qu Zhicai asked the girl, "Why have you saved so much money?"

The girl said, "Today is the last business I'll ever take. Once this is over, I'll take the money I've saved over the years and find my godmother to buy back my freedom."

She also said, "Young master, you're the last benefactor I'll meet on my road to freedom. I'll certainly serve you well."

In the girl's eyes, Qu Zhicai was the last wisp of wind and last grain of dust she would encounter on her journey through the pleasure quarters. So she used everything she had learned over the years, applying every technique—whether it could or could not be used—and served him with impeccable care!

After Qu Zhicai left, the girl took her jewelry box to her godmother. Just as she was about to buy her freedom and reclaim her contract, she suddenly discovered that every valuable in the box had vanished!

That was her life for the rest of her life!

The girl nearly stopped breathing on the spot. Fortunately, the madam of Cuiyun Tower had principles. After learning what had happened, she needed only to ask. From every street and alley, all the friends who had received the girl's bodily charity in their youth came rushing over!

The old, the young, those leaning on crutches, those carried on stretchers—anyone who could still draw breath came!

It was somewhat exaggerated, but it truly highlighted the Bodhisattva's connections!

The crowd seethed with righteous fury, cursing and swearing as they prepared to turn Linhe Fang upside down.

Such a commotion soon alarmed the patrol yamen and the soldiers stationed in the ward.

The constables had initially arrived brimming with irritation, wondering what this gang of whoremongers and gamblers was making such a fuss about in the middle of the night.

But once they reached the scene and heard the whole story, the anger in their hearts flared with a whoosh, burning even hotter!

This time, however, their anger was directed at that Free Rider!

As the old saying went, thieves did not steal medicine money, and thieves did not steal prostitutes' earnings.

The first meant that money taken to treat a sick person could not be stolen. The second meant that the money earned by women selling their bodies could not be stolen!

Even among the Lower Nine Trades, this was an ironclad bottom-line rule!

After all, stealing a prostitute's earnings was a grave moral offense. If word got out, ordinary people would find it disgraceful, and even petty thieves would consider it beneath them!

Just as a furious crowd was about to search for someone in front of Cuiyun Tower, something also happened at Lihua Courtyard, one street away!

It turned out that stealing once had not been enough for Qu Zhicai. After losing all his money at the gambling den, he had actually made another return attack. Although he had been more careful this time and chosen a different girl from Lihua Courtyard to rob, his luck was not merely bad—his romantic luck was bad too. The girl caught him red-handed.

In his desperation, Qu Zhicai could only leap from the upper floor and run away with his bare rear exposed.

Although it was not broad daylight, running naked beneath the moon was still no small matter. A constable on night patrol saw the scene and thought some notorious flower thief had committed a crime in the night. He immediately chased after the man without a second thought, like a dog seeing a cat.

The patrol chief and the soldiers stationed in the ward at the gambling dens and pleasure quarters also sprang into action. Everyone began pursuing him toward Lihua Courtyard.

They passed through Vegetable Market Gate and went around Tongzi Street. Only after chasing him to the outside of the Cui Family Mill did the patrol chief finally meet up with the night patrol constables.

"Where is he?"

"Reporting to the chief, that thief darted into the alley!"

"Oh? If I remember correctly, that should be a dead end."

"Follow me!"

Patrol Chief Zhao Zhonghe charged into the alley first to capture the Free Rider. But as soon as he entered, he saw someone beside the Free Rider, preparing to climb over the mill's tall outer wall.

This really was a case of "good things come in pairs—even thieves come in pairs."

Seeing the man about to retreat into the courtyard, Zhao Zhonghe drew the crossbow bolt he had prepared long ago without a second thought.

Xu Qing's vision went noticeably dark when he saw this.

That little crossbow had not been aimed at anyone else. It had been aimed at Xu himself!

Back when he had climbed into the alley from the Corpse Labor Mill while preparing to escape, he had encountered a group of soldiers charging into the alley. He had never imagined that, in the end, it had all been because of such a wretched affair!

Even then, Xu Qing's view of Qu Zhicai's "legendary" life had not yet ended.

It happened to be the coldest part of the first lunar month. Qu Zhicai, bare-bottomed, was escorted to the lockup.

After questioning him through the night, everyone learned from Qu Zhicai that he had taken all the girl's freedom money and used it to boost the gambling den's business!

Tsk, you were quite enthusiastic!

The gambling den's owner thought, How did this end up involving me too? If word gets out, what will become of our gambling den's reputation?

Thinking this, the gambling den's owner swallowed his anger and scraped together the girl's freedom money.

Look at that—even a gambling den owner had better principles than Qu Zhicai!

At that point, it was not only the pleasure quarters and gambling dens that were seething. The people in the lockup also had a vicious fire burning in their hearts, so they secretly plotted a nasty trick: they refused to give Qu Zhicai bedding or clothes.

The next day, when they looked through the bars, the perpetrator who had stolen a prostitute's earnings and gambled them away had already curled into a ball and gone completely silent.

After reading through Free Rider's life, Xu Qing also felt as though he had a bellyful of anger and wanted to kick the corpse a few times.

If Qu Zhicai had not run into the mill's alley, how could Xu Qing have been shot by the patrol chief?

He still remembered that, when he had encountered that chief two days earlier, the man had been holding his Dog Beating Staff and had said that Xu Qing reeked of cosmetics and was as girlish as a woman!

The more he thought about it, the more furious he became!

In the end, the Duren Sutra gave its evaluation of the corpse: Human Grade Low.

Seeing the rating, Xu Qing inexplicably felt somewhat relieved.

This was the first time he had hoped a corpse's rating would not be too high.

As for the Duren Sutra's reward, it was a witchcraft curse from Shu Land called the Green Cicada Money Return Curse.

The Southern Border Witch Records once recorded that there was an insect in the south called the green cicada. It resembled a cicada but was larger. Whenever a green cicada laid eggs on a tree leaf, if someone took away its larvae, the mother green cicada would follow the trail and fly to them no matter how far away they were.

A witch had turned this into a technique. Borrowing the trait that green cicada mothers and their young would gather again even after being separated, the witch smeared the blood of the mother and offspring onto money. After money bearing either the mother's blood or the offspring's blood was spent, it would fly back. This was the origin of the saying "the green cicada returns the money."

However, the Green Cicada Money Return Curse before Xu Qing required no blood from a mother and young green cicada. He only needed to form the hand seal for the Return Money Curse over silver, granting it the property of returning automatically.

After comprehending this method, Xu Qing remained speechless for a long while.

Wasn't this damn well still free riding?

The Free Rider's obsession with free riding was truly formidable. Even after death, the instinct born from it had not forgotten the path he had taken.