While Xu Qing was in seclusion, quite a few customers came to the Corpse Driver's Shop to inquire about Feng Shui Appraisal and funeral services. These were all minor matters to him. Unable to find the shopkeeper, they naturally went to other establishments.
The only thing worth his attention was, instead, the coroner from the yamen who had suddenly come calling.
"I originally thought that after Liu Youdao left his homeland and came to Linhe, no old acquaintances would come looking for him. I never expected someone would still track him down."
"I just don't know what kind of background this so-called old friend has."
After seeing Wu Yaoxing off, Xu Qing returned to the shop and began pondering and deducing what had happened over the past few days.
That old acquaintance from his master's sect, who worked as a coroner at the Patrol Office, had no connection with him whatsoever, but Xu Qing was not worried.
When he had inherited the Corpse Driver's Shop, he had already prepared his story. It was difficult for people to tell lies, but if a statement was seventy percent true and thirty percent false, even ghosts and gods would find it hard to distinguish.
His apprenticeship had been false, but his learning of the craft was real. As long as he possessed the Corpse Driver techniques passed down from his "master's sect," if he claimed to be a disciple whom Liu Youdao had accepted halfway through his journey, who would not believe him?
Moreover, the fact that Liu Youdao had died at the hands of the Tianxin Cult's fiends was true. Even on the surface, Xu Qing would be sworn enemies with the Tianxin Cult!
Because that was precisely the reaction and state of mind a disciple ought to have after his honored master had died.
With wisdom illuminating his judgment and proper conduct guiding his actions, one could avoid trouble. Xu Qing went over every possible problem he might encounter and thought of corresponding solutions before finally setting the matter aside.
The eighth day of the second month was the first day the Corpse Driver's Shop reopened for business.
After Xu Qing finished eating two candles and more than ten pounds of raw chicken eggs, he sat in the recliner before the counter and comfortably smoked a stick of Spirit Incense once his stomach was full.
"The Corpse Nurturing Scripture says that once an Ironclad Corpse is successfully refined, its entire body becomes as tough as bronze and iron. Blades and spears cannot penetrate it, and ordinary weapons cannot harm it. I wonder if that's true?"
After eating and drinking his fill, Xu Qing was bursting with energy and had nowhere to vent it. His eyes suddenly lit up. He rose and went to the kitchen, took out a kitchen knife forged from refined iron, and dragged its sharp edge across his palm, but it left behind only a faint white mark.
He gently rubbed his palm, and moments later even the white mark disappeared.
Seeing this, Xu Qing grew bolder. He simply placed his hand on the chopping board and continuously experimented with his strength. The kitchen immediately rang with the sounds of metal and iron clashing and colliding.
After a bout of slicing, chopping, hacking, and cleaving, the sharp kitchen knife Xu Qing had bought for three hundred copper coins was completely blunted and ruined. Looking at his own hand, he saw that apart from streaks of white marks, not a shred of flesh had been injured.
He estimated that with his current physical constitution, he was probably no weaker than those martial artists who refined their bodies externally. He might even be no inferior to martial artists who refined their bodies internally.
After testing his physical strength, Xu Qing felt the force contained within his body and could not help going to the rear courtyard to perform a set of Tiger Seal Dragon Elephant Fist.
After breaking through to the Ironclad Corpse realm, the Tiger Seal Dragon Elephant Fist he unleashed was astonishingly fierce. Whenever his fists tore through the air, the roars of tigers and the cries of dragons rang out, as though real tigers and dragons crouched within his fists, feet, and sleeves.
The pomegranate tree that had just sprouted in the courtyard was caught in the wind of his fists. Every branch in its crown trembled and rustled until he finished the entire set of punches, only then stopping its swaying.
Feeling his tangible rise in strength, Xu Qing decided it was time to settle some old debts that had been piling up for a long while.
Back when he had pushed the millstone at the Corpse Labor Mill, they had not settled even a single copper coin of wages with him!
Xu Qing's mind was neither especially narrow nor especially broad. When Heaven thundered and rained, he would not point at the sky and curse it. When the sky was clear, the sun warm, and the light just right, he would not give the heavens a thumbs-up either. Such things were all part of the cycles of heavenly justice, beyond the influence of ordinary people.
But aside from heavenly justice, matters among people were not so easy to simply let go.
That night, when the streets were silent and the night was deep, Xu Qing put on his knuckle-dusters and concealed a blade at his waist. His current state was utterly different from when he had fled the Cui Family Mill.
Back then, he had just started out and possessed nothing of value, and in his hasty escape he had cared only about running for his life. Now he carried deadly weapons and possessed a foundation of external body refinement comparable to that of an internal-refinement martial artist.
It was just the right time to turn back and investigate the black workshop at night, sending those dead souls who still could not rest in peace beyond this world.
The Cui Family Mill was quite large. Aside from the residential compound at the front, where the managers and laborers lived, the rear contained workshop courtyards divided according to the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.
Following the route in his memory, Xu Qing easily and familiarly arrived at the Bing-class production line where he had once worked.
Ever since the corpse labor refined by Liu Youdao had been sent back, the vacant workstations in the Bing-class line had been filled by corpse labor refined by other Corpse Drivers.
Xu Qing climbed over the tall wall. In the dead of night, there were no laborers or guards watching over the courtyard where these corpse workers stayed.
The mill itself probably was not afraid of thieves coming to steal from it. After all, anyone who climbed over the wall and saw a bunch of walking corpses pushing millstones in the middle of the night would be scared half to death. How could they still have the leisure to think about secretly stealing anything?
Anyone who did not flee with their pants full of shit and hide under the covers at home could already be considered brave!
There were ten corpse workers in the Bing-class courtyard. The adjacent Jia and Yi courtyards needed no further mention; together, they contained at least thirty.
Xu Qing saw through the night as though it were day. Under the moonlight, his eyes practically glowed green. The way he looked at those walking corpses was like that of a great monk who had abstained from meat and chanted Buddhist scriptures for decades, visiting Cuiyun Tower for the first time.
It was truly difficult to keep himself under control!
Tonight was destined to be a sleepless night.
He silently recited the Scripture of Salvation. As the Duren Sutra slowly turned its pages, it did not take long for the hearts, ghosts, realms, good and evil, gratitude, and grievances of everyone in the courtyard to emerge one by one.
After evaluation, all ten corpses in the Bing-class courtyard received Human-grade ratings. The rewards from the Duren Sutra were varied:
A book of palace secrets, a shriveled black Wine Bug, some mundane gold and silver, a bottle of Cooling Powder, and a Truth-Speaking Pill.
The palace secret was formally called the Thirteen Methods for Discerning Virginity. It described thirteen methods of distinguishing a woman's virginity. It was a palace secret once learned by a eunuch who, in his youth, had been responsible for recruiting palace maids and examining whether they were chaste.
Later, when the eunuch grew old, he was sent out of the palace. After many twists and turns, he eventually arrived in Jinmen Prefecture City. Unfortunately, his luck was poor. One day, his friend took a fancy to a marriage proposal and asked him to help determine whether the woman was still a virgin. The day after the results came out, the eunuch was beaten to death in the street by the woman's family.
With the attitude of studying, Xu Qing discovered that this palace secret technique was quite similar to the medical art of inspection, listening and smelling, inquiry, and palpation. However, what it inspected was a woman's figure and bearing; what it smelled was the scent of a virgin; what it asked about was the separation between men and women. As for the "palpation," it did not involve the beating of a pulse, but an actual practical method from the virginity techniques, similar to the way a wealthy household's young lady's dowry maid would test the groom's abilities when the lady married.
Here, however, the maid had been replaced by other methods or objects. The details of the techniques were an exclusive palace secret and naturally could not be spoken of to outsiders.
Aside from inspection, listening and smelling, inquiry, and palpation, the palace secret technique also contained a final trump-card art: the method of preparing and applying Vigorous Dragon Sand.
As long as someone was a virgin, the method of applying Vigorous Dragon Sand could be used to monitor their chastity over a long period.
After learning the miscellaneous arts for discerning virginity, Xu Qing wore a strange expression. What kind of bizarre nonsense have I been learning every day?
This secret technique might have some use for young people of marriageable age, but for someone like him, who devoted himself solely to Seeking Immortality and the Dao, it was far too eccentric.
Shaking his head, Xu Qing took out another reward. It was a Wine Bug that was pitch-black all over and shriveled like a dried plum.
Though it was called a Wine Bug, it was not any sort of scaled, armored, or naked worm. Rather, it was a Wine Bug that came from the body of a Drunkard Ghost.
Its function was to be placed in water, giving the water a rich, mellow wine fragrance.
Xu Qing considered the matter. He did not drink alcohol, and besides, what proper zombie would hug a wine jar and bounce around drunkenly all day?
Aside from the Wine Bug, he also had a bottle of Cooling Powder obtained from a Watchman. It could dispel fatigue and refresh the mind.
Well, it even came with after-sales service. He could use it to sober himself up!
Xu Qing was nearly angered into laughter. These two things were unimportant but perfectly matched. He could not say they had helped him much—he could only say they had been utterly useless.
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