February, Ganxiang.
Inside the Corpse Driver's Shop, a skinny gray mouse with a tuft of white fur atop its head squatted in a dish, clutching a slice of air-dried raw fish and wolfing it down.
A ray of sunlight slipped through the crack in the window and fell along the edge of the quiet worktable, while fine dust motes drifted through the air.
At that moment of serene silence, the Darkwood Coffin that had remained motionless beside the table suddenly gave a faint creak. The dust-covered lid revealed a clear slit.
The thieving gray mouse stopped chewing at once. It stared with a pair of black-bean eyes toward the direction of the sound, as still as a statue.
"Clang!" The sound of the coffin lid flipping open and crashing to the floor rang out abruptly. A slender hand, as if newly born, reached out from inside the coffin.
Five long, sharp nails protruded from the fingers of that outstretched hand, looking remarkably like the protective fingertip sheaths worn by Grand Ancestor Yang.
"Haa—" The long-absent sound of breathing rang out.
Xu Qing, who had slept for a long time, seemed to have dreamed. In his dream, he had become a cocoon hanging from an ancient green tree deep in the mountains, surrounded by clear skies, bright scenery, birdsong, and blossoms.
As the days passed and the skies cleared with the warmth of spring, he broke open the chrysalis and transformed into a butterfly.
At that moment, he felt his entire body become impossibly light, as though a gentle flap of his wings could carry him to the clouds.
Inside the Corpse Driver's Shop, Xu Qing, newly awakened from his great dream, reached out and gripped the edge of the coffin frame. The instant he exerted a little strength and sat upright, the bones and joints behind him involuntarily crackled.
He opened his eyes, and the world, once more growing clearer, came into view. Nearby, a frightened gray mouse squeaked frantically as it ran toward a corner.
He could even see each individual strand of fur on its body, as though it were right before him.
"I seem to have turned paler?"
Xu Qing lowered his head and looked at his arms. The skin in the shadows was extraordinarily fair, but the skin illuminated by that sliver of sunlight from the window reflected a metallic sheen like iron.
It was like the cold gleam reflected by blades and swords when one admired them by lamplight at night.
Xu Qing was not surprised by this. Instead, he was delighted. The Corpse Sayings had recorded that zombies advanced through five realms: Wandering Corpse, Buried Corpse, Unyielding Bone, Flying Corpse, and Corpse Immortal.
Wandering Corpses had three categories, while Buried Corpses had three transformations. The three categories referred to Ironclad, Silver Armored, and Gold Armored Corpses.
If one encountered these three kinds of zombies ordinarily, it was difficult to distinguish them with the naked eye. There was, however, a clever method: shine sunlight on their skin and determine the strength of the Wandering Corpse from the sheen reflected by its skin texture.
Sunlight was supremely yang and hard, precisely the opposite extreme from the yin-loving Wandering Corpses.
The sheen reflected from Xu Qing's skin at that moment was the sign of advancement into an Ironclad Wandering Corpse.
Apart from the Ironclad Corpse's ironlike cold gleam, a Silver Armored Corpse, when illuminated by the sun, would emit crystalline points of light like sunlight scattered across winter snow, as though dotted with silver stars.
A Gold Armored Corpse, meanwhile, would be like pure gold and jadeite diamonds set together, dazzling beyond compare.
Fortunately, the Corpse Nurturing Scripture contained a specialized solution for this situation. He only needed to sprinkle the medicinal powder used in conjunction with the Mute Dog Curse over his body to prevent the problem of sunlight refraction.
Xu Qing recalled the entire process of evolution. When he thought of a certain detail, his heart stirred, and his gaze involuntarily fell upon the two coffins in the western corner, their tops covered by ceremonial banners.
Come to think of it, whether Grand Ancestor Yang or Liu Youdao, that master-and-disciple pair had both spent their entire lives as Corpse Drivers. It was impossible that they only knew how to nurture ordinary walking corpses. Could they really never have tried cultivating a few Ironclad or Silver Armored Corpses?
Xu Qing put on his clothes and silently walked up to the two coffins.
The one on the left was still that pitch-black thousand-year-old Darkwood Coffin, bound with red cords three times horizontally and twice vertically.
The one on the right had a red body with black edges. It was not bound with rope, but with a "fake rope" made from Ink Square lines dipped in cinnabar water, with rooster blood flicked across them—a total of eighty-one lines.
The two coffins looked much heavier and sturdier than ordinary coffins. He did not know what kind of paper had been used for the various talismans pasted onto them. Even after so long, they remained as fresh as new, as though they had only just been drawn and pasted there.
Xu Qing had just personally experienced the process of refining and nurturing an Ironclad Corpse. The scene of him cocooning inside the small Darkwood Coffin seemed faintly to overlap with the two coffins before him.
"That old Liu Youdao couldn't have raised two Gold Armored Corpses in my shop, could he?"
If they were Ironclad Corpses, judging by the speed at which he had cocooned earlier, the two of them should have already lifted their coffins and risen!
Even Silver Armored Corpses should not have remained silent for this long.
Xu Qing circled the two coffins that clearly looked difficult to provoke and observed them for a while. Only after seeing that all the seals, including the talismans, remained intact did he relax slightly.
The shop had been left idle and uncleaned for many days. Dust had visibly accumulated everywhere inside.
Xu Qing made a rough cleanup. On the counter sat the water clock he had specifically bought for telling time, but all the water inside had long since dripped away.
Cultivation knew no years; enlightenment knew no age.
"Advancing into an Ironclad Corpse already took this many days. If I want to evolve into a Gold Armored Corpse someday, wouldn't the Great Yong Dynasty have already perished by the time I woke up from that sleep?"
Still sighing over it, Xu Qing passed through the rear courtyard and climbed over the wall to circle around to the front entrance. At that moment, Wu Yaoxing, who was squatting outside the Paper Craft Shop and tying a paper horse, suddenly froze.
"Brother Xu, you're back!"
Wu Yaoxing immediately set down his work and hurried over in three quick steps, looking him up and down.
"You're paler, and not as skinny as before. Looks like the family that hired you to watch their grave was quite wealthy. You must have eaten meat and fish every day, right?"
Xu Qing smiled. As he opened the door, he said, "You guessed right. That landlord's family had grain to spare and treated me well. Every few days, they slaughtered either a sheep or a pig. It would have been hard for me to stay thin!"
"Getting fatter is good. Then people can tell that we usually eat well. It'll also be easier to find a wife later. Otherwise, if people see that we're sallow and scrawny, who would want to marry us?"
"Speaking of which, Brother Xu, you should start a family too. How about I ask my family to play matchmaker and find you a woman?"
Xu Qing removed the two door panels. Sunlight mixed with dust streamed into the shop, stirring up a wave of old earth-and-wood smells.
"Forget it. You know me. If I'm not heading to Youlan Courtyard, I'm running to Cuiyun Tower. I still want to enjoy my freedom for a few more years. If I take a wife, how could I live this freely?"
What Xu Qing said was half true and half false. He did indeed want to visit Youlan Courtyard and Cuiyun Tower, but not for pleasure. He only wanted to experience the local customs and human character along the riverside.
He wanted to see whether the human warmth there was truly as considerate and attentive as the rumors claimed.
Besides, he had other reasons for not wanting to marry.
First was his identity as a zombie. If he married and lived with a woman day and night, he could easily expose himself.
Second, zombies had no lifespan limit, while beauties aged all too easily.
Women slowly grew old after the age of thirty. Could he really kill his own wife while she was still young and refine her into a zombie?
Even if he had such thoughts, she might not be willing.
This was not Twilight, and he was not a vampire.
Wu Yaoxing still wanted to persuade him, but Xu Qing steered the conversation elsewhere.
"Old Wu, has anyone come looking for me these past few days?"
"Yes! On the fourth day after you left, several constables from the patrol office came by. The one leading them was even a coroner. He was carrying two strips of cured meat and said he had just arrived in Linhe. He was an old acquaintance of your master's from Xiangyin County and wanted to come find your master for a chat and reminisce over old times."
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