Two-Faced, Three-Blade Art

No matter the dynasty or era, buying a house and land was a major matter. It wasn't as simple as handing over the money, opening one's mouth to agree, and having both sides walk away with the money and goods settled.

That would be child's play.

Here in the Great Yong Dynasty, anyone wanting to buy a house or land first had to have both parties draw up and sign a deed, then pay the deed tax. Only after receiving official approval was the transaction considered complete.

Xu Qing drafted a preliminary agreement with the brokerage manager, which was essentially a contract for the sale of the house. Then he went together with him to the government office, where an official responsible for household registration recorded everything in the ledgers.

After all that, he still had to pay out of his own pocket for several Official Deeds.

The Official Deed came in four copies, and every copy had to be bought with real gold and silver.

The official responsible for processing property deeds was clearly an old acquaintance of the brokerage manager. The moment they met, after exchanging greetings and asking about the house, the official's heart gave a little leap of joy.

He was only missing the cheeky line, Welcome back when Shopkeeper Xu sells the house!

"This house is truly no ordinary house. You must be blessed with incredible luck!" The official said this without the slightest embarrassment on his face, because when he had handled this house in the past, he had already used up all his embarrassment!

The official only concerned himself with the work at hand. As for whether the person buying a haunted house lived or died, that had nothing to do with him.

Even after the preliminary agreement was completed, the matter still wasn't over. Xu Qing had to make another trip to the Tax Department to pay the deed tax.

After going through the entire process, he didn't find it tiring. After all, if he considered even these things troublesome, where would he get a grand residence later to hide even more corpses?

The Great Yong Dynasty might have its flaws, but when money was involved, things moved quickly. Xu Qing had only gone to the Tax Department that afternoon, yet by evening the officially issued deed had already been delivered to the brokerage.

Seeing Xu Qing accept the house contract and deed with a grin, Fourth Master Li, who still had some conscience left, finally couldn't hold it in any longer.

Others might not know, but he knew the situation inside out!

Was Huang Laosan's house really sold for people to live in? It was plainly a haunted house whose corpses could "give birth to little ones" under his command and provide for his old age!

"Brother Xu, you don't look like a fool to me. Don't make a muddle of things. We know our own household's affairs best—the house really can't accommodate living people!"

Xu Qing thought to himself, I never said I was a living person!

Besides, no matter how fierce a haunted house was, could it be fiercer than a genuine zombie like him?

"I appreciate Fourth Master's good intentions, but I absolutely have to live in this house!"

Xu Qing ignored Fourth Master Li's warning and merely said that he knew a little about feng shui, so there was nothing to worry about.

The brokerage manager beside them followed up, "Fourth Master, Shopkeeper Xu is a capable man. Maybe he really can bring that house back to life."

Fourth Master Li shook his head repeatedly. Forget about whether he could bring it back to life—so long as no more dead people appeared inside in the future, that would be enough!

The sun sank into the dusk, and lamplight gradually bloomed.

Outside the Corpse Driver's Shop, Xu Qing borrowed a flatbed cart from Hu Baosong. He then placed the corpses from the coffin, whose value had already been squeezed dry, onto the cart and covered them with coarse cloth.

He was carefully tucking the cloth around the corpses on the cart when Wu Yaoxing of the Paper Craft Shop suddenly pushed open a door panel and called out to him.

"Oh, Brother Xu, you're finally back!"

"I haven't seen you all day. I heard some noise just now and came out to take a look. But seeing you like this, are you heading out again?"

Xu Qing finished tucking in the coarse cloth and said with a cheerful smile, "I just rented a courtyard. I was planning to move over the things the shop can't fit."

Wu Yaoxing came over and looked at the bulging cart, which seemed to be loaded with goods, but he didn't think much of it.

"You weren't here today, and two people came looking for you one after another. One was the morgue worker from the government office who came last time. The other looked rather unfamiliar. Judging from his funereal appearance, someone in his family probably died, and he came to ask you to handle the matter."

Xu Qing said indifferently, "Those with fate meet even a thousand miles apart; those without it don't meet even face-to-face. The time wasn't right, so we were bound to miss each other."

Wu Yaoxing smacked his lips and joked, "Brother Xu, you seem to have studied after all. You always have one polished saying after another. Why not take the Spring Examination together with my boy tomorrow and try for the degree of juren?"

Juren? Xu Qing laughed. He had once opened the Book Scripture on a scholar. That book gathered the finest of the Great Yong Dynasty's classics and essays. Forget becoming a xiucai—even passing the Juren Scholar examination would be child's play.

But passing the examination was useless to him. He had no intention of becoming an official. If he earned a xiucai's status, avoided miscellaneous taxes, and was exempted from corvée labor, that would at least have some practical value.

After the small interlude at the shop entrance, Xu Qing pushed the little flatbed cart with a creak and disappeared into the streets and alleys.

At that moment, clouds drifted across the sky, and the moonlight alternated between bright and dim. Fewer and fewer pedestrians remained on the street.

The new residence was roughly five or six li from the shop.

Xu Qing crossed streets and threaded through alleys. Just as he was nearing the halfway point, the sound of shifting rubble suddenly rang out.

He turned his gaze at the noise and saw cats walking and leaping along the eaves of the buildings lining the roadside.

Xu Qing withdrew his gaze and continued pushing the cart at an unhurried pace.

Before long, ethereal bell chimes drifted over from somewhere nearby, now distant and now close.

"That bell sounds a little familiar."

The cart's wheels stopped turning. Xu Qing held his breath and focused his mind. As his wide sleeves fluttered, a pair of knuckle-dusters slid onto his hands.

The wind was still. The night road was empty.

Suddenly, the sharp sound of shattering roof tiles burst out. Without a moment's thought, Xu Qing became like a cannonball fired from its chamber. His legs exploded with force, and he shot backward three zhang in a single burst!

At the spot he had occupied, an unidentified creature that had swooped down from above crashed heavily into the ground. A roar unlike a human's came from its body.

Xu Qing stood on full alert and looked over carefully.

Having dealt with corpses often, he saw the other's abnormality at a glance. His nostrils flared, and the Qi Gazing Technique unfolded.

Xu Qing smelled the familiar Corpse Qi drifting through the air and saw the gray-white haze emanating from the other's body.

Combined with the bell chimes he had heard earlier, he already had a rough judgment.

A fellow Corpse Driver wanted him dead!

As he retreated and dodged, another zombie appeared not far behind him and blocked his path.

The bell rang again. It was not any of the melodies from the Corpse Driving incantations, but an unknown spell filled with killing intent.

Watching the vicious zombies close in from both sides, Xu Qing thought calmly and abandoned the idea of using his knuckle-dusters to fight them head-on.

At first, he had thought that the one attacking him was a powerful Jianghu fighter or some bandit of the night.

But looking closely now, he saw that they were two thick-skinned, durable zombies controlled by a fellow practitioner. They had not even been refined into Ironclad Corpses.

As the two "lively" corpses reached him, Xu Qing silently took the Corpse Driving Whip from his satchel.

You like faking a corpse's resurrection at midnight to scare people, huh?

Xu Qing swung the Human-grade High-quality Corpse Driving Whip. A sharp crack exploded through the silent night, and the deep-red, black-tinged whip lashed out like a spinning top, smashing heavily into the charging zombie.

Anger simmered in his heart, and he put every ounce of strength into each swing!

Did they really think a Corpse Driver like him was blind and useless—that any corpse could come swaggering before him?

The two zombies had never encountered such a ferocious man. After a bout of "vine-twig stir-fried meat," the whipping severed even the bell chimes controlling them from far away.

While disciplining the two zombies trying to flee, Xu Qing activated the Qi Gazing Technique and searched for the controller's location.

At last, the sound of the whip stopped. Only two corpses remained on the ground, twitching incessantly.

Xu Qing put away the Corpse Driving Whip and walked straight toward the alley at the diagonal corner of the street.

When he was roughly two zhang from the alley entrance, a hoarse, low voice suddenly emerged from the deep darkness within.

"Young man, don't come any farther. Let today's matter end here."

Xu Qing's footsteps halted, and the hand wearing the knuckle-duster curled into a loose fist.

Then he continued walking forward.

Don't come any farther? You hid in an alley in the middle of the night, sent corpses over to scare people, and now that things are going badly, you want to run? How thick is your face?

"Enough!"

Seeing that he was still coming, the person hiding in the narrow alley seemed to grow genuinely anxious.

"Boy, you're new to Linhe, so I won't quibble with you. But as a senior, I have one word of advice: the corpses in Linhe don't belong to you alone. Other households need to leave themselves a bite to eat as well. You charge four taels for each corpse you collect, which has already cut off the livelihoods of other families. I'm kindly reminding you now—let tonight's matter count as settled. Neither of us owes the other anything, and I won't trouble you again in the future."

Xu Qing stared at the dead-end alley before him and asked a question straight from the soul: "Do you really think it could have ambushed me?"

Before his voice faded, Xu Qing's face suddenly twisted. Another face emerged on the back of his head.

At the same time, he bared his teeth in a grin at the Cat-faced Zombie that had crept up behind him.

Two-Faced, Three-Blade Art!