Beggar Scholar

The Duren Sutra can transfigure the departed, offering a glimpse into their lives.

Within the courtyard Xu Qing currently occupied, over a dozen zombies were at work. Judging by their attire, they were most likely Corpse Laborers with local residency.

In Xu Qing's eyes, their life stories were like historical records laid out before him, allowing him to quickly and effectively understand this world.

However, all of this hinged on whether the Duren Sutra could truly transfigure them.

Thinking without acting is useless. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Xu Qing rolled up his sleeves, tiptoed, and began to approach the nearest zombie.

Even though he was a zombie himself now, he still felt a bit apprehensive. If the zombie in front of him suddenly lunged and bit him, it would probably hurt quite a bit, right?

Xu Qing followed the zombie pushing the millstone step by step, battling with himself internally.

Screw it! We're all dead anyway, what am I afraid of!

After a brief deliberation, he made up his mind. A surge of boldness came over him, and he reached out to place his hand on the zombie's shoulder.

The zombie remained unmoved, continuing its task right in front of it.

Even donkeys can be stubborn, but these zombies were even more obedient than donkeys!

Seeing this, Xu Qing became even less fearful. Under the moonlight, he quickened his pace, getting ahead of the zombie. This time, he could finally see its true face.

It was a zombie in tattered clothes, its face filthy. Judging by its appearance, it hadn't been a respectable person in life; it looked more like a beggar from the streets.

The moon was now obscured by clouds, and the only sound in the courtyard was the grinding of the millstone. Xu Qing took a quick look around, saw no one, then retreated behind the zombie in front of him. He suddenly crouched down, hugged its legs, and performed a "dry land sprouting" move!

The downtrodden zombie fell over with a thud. Xu Qing seized the opportunity, straddled its back, and even so, the zombie beneath him managed to free an arm, reaching towards the millstone pole as if it had no other thoughts besides pushing the mill.

After finally controlling the zombie, Xu Qing faced another serious problem.

"How do I transfigure it again?"

He hadn't studied Buddhism or Daoism in his past life. Aside from physical methods, he really didn't know how to transfigure a person!

As if sensing his thoughts, the Duren Sutra in Xu Qing's mind suddenly shone brightly, and the ethereal chanting of the scripture resounded once more.

"The human path is vast, the immortal path is boundless, the ghost path is joyful... The gate of life for all beings, the immortal path values life, the ghost path values the end..."

As the Duren Sutra turned its pages, the memories of the deceased bloomed like frozen shore flowers on the path leading to the underworld.

People say the Three-Life Stone allows one to see memories from three lifetimes past. Xu Qing didn't have that ability, but he was now truly seeing the deceased's experiences in this lifetime.

The zombie's name was Feng Chunlai. In life, he was a disciple of the Yao Men, which in simpler terms meant he was a beggar.

There were eight gates in the martial world: the Outer Eight Sects were Thievery, Gu, Xaio, Feng, Qian, Wu, Xi, and Sha; the Inner Eight Sects were Jing, Pi, Piao, Ce, Feng, Huo, Jue, and Yao.

Among these, the Yao Men was the most profound, emphasizing the path of destitution. It was the most difficult of the eight gates to master.

Feng Chunlai was insightful. Even as a beggar, he adhered to the professional philosophy of "industry thrives through diligence, and stagnates through idleness." In the beggar community, he was always the first to go out begging and the last to return.

People say old wine tastes mellow and old people are wise.

After decades of working as a beggar, Feng Chunlai finally grasped the true essence of the Yao Men one night!

It was "Be adept at giving and taking from others; do not seek revenge or harbor ill will."

These ten short words represented the moral principles the old beggar had pursued and explored his entire life.

That night was New Year's Eve. It snowed heavily. A joyous Feng Chunlai got drunk and danced in the street. Inside the high walls, the Zhao family's dog provided him with accompaniment.

The next day, someone woke up early to clear the snow from their doorstep and discovered the old beggar's corpse.

He had died with a smile on his face.

Feng Chunlai had no parents, no children, and no grandchildren. The authorities collected his body publicly, but privately handed it over to a Corpse Driver.

Corpse Drivers, also known as "Corpse Masters," would accept money from families to transport the bodies of those who died away from home back to their hometowns, emphasizing the principle of "falling leaves returning to their roots." For unclaimed bodies, they would take them to a Yi Zhuang or a designated shop for safekeeping.

Some unscrupulous Corpse Drivers would refine unclaimed bodies into "Corpse Laborers" and sell them secretly.

This Corpse Driver clearly belonged to the latter category. After refining the old beggar into a zombie, he sold it to this mill to work.

Coincidentally, the Corpse Driver who refined the old beggar was the same "black market broker" who had picked up Xu Qing's corpse, refined him, and then resold him.

Profiting from the dead, how truly despicable!

As Xu Qing cursed internally, he had already finished reviewing the beggar's life story.

Afterward, the Duren Sutra provided an evaluation of the corpse: "Human, low grade."

He also received a reward for transfiguring the corpse—

Two verses for singing "Lotus Flower Fall" and "Rat Comes to Treasure," along with a set of exquisite clappers strung together with golden bamboo pieces.

The verses were not written on paper but directly integrated into his mind. As for the clappers...

Xu Qing bit them with his sharp, pointed zombie teeth. His teeth left marks.

They were made of real gold and silver!

However, could these high-purity clappers help him beg for food?

Xu Qing found them to be of little use. Food sustains people, but what use did a zombie have for these clappers? If he were alive, perhaps they could have eased his mortgage payments a bit...

Snapping back to reality, Xu Qing's gaze fell upon the subdued zombie beneath him. The old beggar's hand, which had been reaching towards the millstone, had now been lowered. Looking at its face, the corners of its mouth were curved in a smile, its eyes closed, just like its contented expression in death.

Xu Qing stood up and shook the old beggar's corpse. It was cold and stiff, showing no reaction.

He didn't believe it and placed the corpse back in front of the millstone, letting its hands rest on the mill handle.

Still, there was no movement.

Seeing this, Xu Qing's heart skipped a beat. If the mill manager found out tomorrow, it would be trouble!

But then he thought about it again and felt relieved.

What did the old beggar going on strike have to do with him?

Once he finished "saving" all the zombies in this courtyard, he'd pack up and leave in the dead of night. Then, let this black-hearted mill deal with its own troubles!

With that thought, Xu Qing was immediately filled with energy. He rolled up his sleeves and headed to the next workstation!

Zombies grow fat at night and thin during the day, hiding by day and coming out at night. The zombies in the Corpse Laborer mill were no exception.

During the day, the mill's actual craftsmen would come to clean the stone troughs and add the grains and medicinal herbs to be ground the next night. The zombies in the mill, meanwhile, acted as draft animals. Nourished by the moonlight, they worked tirelessly, doing the hardest labor in the mill, truly existing as perpetual motion machines.

In the blink of an eye, Xu Qing arrived at another circular mill trough, about ten feet in diameter. He followed the same procedure, subduing the Corpse Laborer before unfolding the Immortal Book of Saving Souls.

One scroll of the Duren Sutra reveals the events of a past life.

The zombie beneath him and the old beggar were from the same profession, but the zombie was a junior.

On the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, he and a group of beggars were huddled in an abandoned courtyard, drinking wine and gnawing on chicken legs. Who would have thought that a group of masked bandits would suddenly break in and clean out the entire beggar's den in a flash?

After reading through the beggar's life, Xu Qing received his reward: an iron rice bowl and a dog-beating staff.

As for why the young beggar had met such a violent end, he couldn't understand it at all.

Why would these bandits, ignoring wealthy merchants and rich families, come to a beggar's den during the New Year to cause trouble?

By the time the fourth watch struck, Xu Qing had "saved" seven or eight more zombies. Without exception, they had all been beggars who begged in the prefectural city during their lives.

Looking at the string of golden, silver, and iron clappers hanging from his waist, Xu Qing couldn't hold back any longer.

What kind of drop rate was this? Never mind kings and generals, wasn't there a single wealthy merchant, official, or bandit in this entire courtyard?

The drum struck for the fourth watch. Time was running out, but Xu Qing had only "saved" less than half the zombies in the courtyard.

"I'll pick a few more. No matter the reward, I have to stop in time!"

Afterward, Xu Qing, choosing the least disheveled-looking one among the short ones, picked one. Unexpectedly, this time he really struck gold.

This person had been a scholar from a declining family. Although he was alone in the world, he was well-read and educated. He set up a stall on the street, writing letters for people and doing some drawing and painting business. He could live a peaceful life.

Unfortunately, good times didn't last. The scholar fell in love with a courtesan named Su Hongxiu. This woman had grown up in a brothel, with a thousand faces and ten thousand schemes. How could a scholar like him control her?

Su Hongxiu would always pretend to have a headache or a fever to ask for medical expenses, or ask him for money for rouge and powder. In the end, she seemed to think the scholar could do anything for her, so she stopped bothering to make up excuses and simply asked for money openly.

For anyone else, this would be unacceptable, but this scholar was no ordinary person!

When Su Hongxiu asked him for money, he not only met her demands but also eagerly asked if it was enough, offering to earn more if it wasn't.

Even a dog wouldn't lick someone like that! A dog needs to be fed by its master before it has the energy to wag its tail.

Su Hongxiu was the top courtesan in the brothel, claiming to only sell her art, not her body. The scholar spent his days earning money to give to her, but in the end, he couldn't even get close to her, yet he still eagerly pursued her.

Not far from the scholar's stall, an old fortune teller couldn't stand it anymore. He pinched a lump of clay, placed a bamboo stick on it, hung a clay dog from the tip of the stick, and a clay rabbit at the other end.

As long as the bamboo stick was spun, the dog would chase the rabbit.

But no matter how long it spun, even if it wore down the lump of clay, it could never catch the rabbit.

And that rabbit was like Su Hongxiu.

The scholar, enraged after hearing this, pointed at the fortune teller and cursed him, calling him a busybody meddling in other people's business!

After more than half a year, Su Hongxiu, whose price had been driven up by the brothel, was redeemed by an Official and taken as a concubine. When the scholar heard the "bad news," he rushed to the Official's house, thinking he would risk his life to rescue his beloved from her suffering.

Arriving at the Official's house, the scholar intended to climb over the wall. Coincidentally, while on the wall, he saw Su Hongxiu flirting and being intimate with the old Official in the backyard.

That was an old man over sixty, how could she lower herself to kiss him!

The scholar refused to believe what he saw and heard. Instead, he rationalized it, thinking that Su Hongxiu was forced to endure it, that she was under someone else's roof and had no choice but to bow her head.

After the old master shakily left the garden, holding his back, the scholar finally had the chance to climb over the wall and enter the courtyard.

Facing Su Hongxiu, who looked astonished, the scholar's eyes reddened before he could even speak.

"Hongxiu, let's elope. I'll take you away from this hellhole and never let anyone bully you again!"

Su Hongxiu broke free from the scholar's hand, rubbing her wrist. "You're hurting me."

"Also, we shouldn't see each other anymore. I'm afraid my husband will misunderstand!"

She was a beautiful girl, but at that moment, she spoke words more decisive than a dagger piercing the heart.

The scholar forced a smile and gave Su Hongxiu all the money he had, which was meant for their elopement. Afterward, he didn't know how he left the Official's house. He only remembered that the sun that day was very cold, a coldness like falling into an ice hole!

He had spent all his savings, and the money he earned had been sent away with his sincere heart, but it never fully returned.

Passing by the river, the scholar suddenly remembered a saying—

A whore is heartless, an actor is unrighteous.

And he was a fool, a great fool!

After that, a corpse floated downstream in the icy river during the twelfth lunar month until it was fished out by a Corpse Driver.

"Such deep resentment, perfect for making a Corpse Laborer."

The scholar's past life came to an end here.

While Xu Qing sighed and shook his head, the Duren Sutra also gave out corresponding rewards.

A mid-grade "Book Scripture" and a Heart-Clearing Pill.