Murderers and arsonists wear golden belts, while those who build bridges and repair roads lie without corpses.
In this day and age, treacherous sycophants sat high in the imperial hall, while the loyal and upright slept beneath drooping eaves. The world was forever sighing over foals trapped in the valley, yet never heard the cry of phoenixes finding roosts.
Those who built bridges and repaired roads could not fill their bellies, barely managing three meals a day. Those who murdered and set fires, meanwhile, swaggered through the streets with fortunes wrapped around their waists.
These days, Linhe had a purifier who did not show himself in ordinary times or reveal himself to the outside world, yet often carried out the work of stopping killing with killing and fighting fire with fire. In time, though he had no achievements in bridge-building or road-repairing, he had made the murky world a little purer. That, too, counted as boundless merit.
The night fog was thick. After finishing his business, Xu Qing pushed his handcart out the door. He had not gone more than a few streets when he heard the Watchman calling out:
"Third watch of the night, peace and quiet—dong!—dong, dong!"
Immediately afterward came the watchman's clapper, striking once slowly and twice quickly to announce the hour.
The handcart creaked along. The Watchman came toward him, and when he saw Xu Qing, he raised his lantern for a closer look. The man seemed vaguely familiar, but he could not recall exactly who he was. He had probably seen him somewhere before.
Seeing Xu Qing glance over, the Watchman chuckled. "You look familiar to me. It's the middle of the night—are you still out here hauling business?"
Xu Qing looked at the bronze gong in the Watchman's hand and the clapper tube hanging at his waist. He thought that if the man lifted the cloth covering the handcart right now, the next thing he knew, the other party would be pounding the gong and screeching in a rooster's voice, "Murder! Robbers are out killing people! Everybody wake up! Watch out for thieves and burglars—"
Tsk, what a nuisance. No wonder thieves hated Watchmen and dogs most of all—their voices were unbelievably loud!
Xu Qing stopped the cart, rummaged through his jacket pouch, and pulled out a banknote from Heaven and Earth Silver Bank, the sort burned for the dead. He took out a charcoal pencil and began writing all over it.
When he finished, he handed the paper to the Watchman and bared his teeth in a grin. "To be honest, I just bought a new house yesterday, and I'm moving at the moment. But since you asked, this is my shop's main line of business. Why not take a look?"
The Watchman accepted the paper funerary money and gave it a rough glance beneath his lantern, but could not make sense of it.
"I can't read. Why don't you tell me what services your shop offers?"
Xu Qing gave a bashful smile and concisely explained all the services offered by his Corpse Driver's Shop.
In short, whether you're a living person wanting someone to inspect a grave or a dead person lying in a coffin, you're welcome to come! Even if you have no money, that's no problem. Our shop has also launched a new charitable-care service.
Even if you're a beggar who has ended up on the streets, penniless, freezing or starving to death, as long as someone brings you to us, we'll arrange a burial for free. We guarantee you'll be laid to rest, and when you're reborn, you'll want to come back again!
The Watchman's face turned green after hearing this. After asking around, he learned that this was the recently opened shop for the dead on Jingxia Street.
No wonder the man had seemed familiar. His second granduncle had died not long ago, and wasn't this the very person who had performed the rites and handled the funeral?
The Watchman thought, Could you please shut up already? What filthy nonsense are you willing to blurt out? Even if your shop for the dead came to invite me in an eight-bearer sedan, I wouldn't be interested in going!
And so the two men who worked the night shift parted on bad terms. Xu Qing returned to his new residence, only to find that the two pits dug in advance in the courtyard could bury just two people. With no other choice, he picked up the hoe and shovel again and dug two new burial pits. Only then did he manage to bury all the corpses he had transported on this trip.
In the dead of night, Xu Qing leaned on his shovel and gazed at the fertile earth before him. More than twenty corpses lay beneath it. Once the number reached a hundred, he only needed to wait for Killing Intent to gather and refine them before he could bear the fruit of the Ravager Generals and Nether Soldiers!
However, although the feng shui of the new residence was excellent, its potential had yet to be fully unearthed.
At dawn the next day, Xu Qing finished swallowing the moonlight's Yin energy. In that moment when the sky was brightening but had not yet fully brightened, he headed toward East Market Miscellaneous Goods Street.
At that hour, dying lamps still illuminated the market. With the faint light of dawn, one could vaguely make out the tall tiled towers in the distance.
Xu Qing entered Miscellaneous Goods Street. The vendors who rose earlier than chickens had already begun doing business.
All kinds of people were also moving through and stopping at the morning market.
Xu Qing walked from one end of the street to the other, only to discover that the materials needed to break through to Silverclad Wandering Corpse had reached a bottleneck. Though he had kept an eye out for a long time, he had still failed to collect the last few crucial items.
"Yin Ghost Jade, Old Cat Sha, Ghost Face Soil Three Feet Below Grave."
None of these things were common market wares. They could only be found through the channels of the Yin trades.
Xu Qing wanted to ask the hunter he had dealt with before about such matters, but that hunter had been nowhere to be seen for several days. He did not know whether the man had gotten those several dozen taels of silver and simply grown too lazy to come out and sell furs anymore.
However, he had not come to this morning market solely to search for corpse-nurturing materials. He also intended to find some objects that could improve feng shui and dig out a little more of his own haunted residence's potential!
All morning, Xu Qing pushed a handcart piled high with all kinds of strange objects.
There were Sophora Saplings that could nurture Yin and gather Baleful Intent, Dangling Bell Flower that could sense Corpse Qi and grow bells like those of parasol trees, Sha-Attracting Beasts, ox skulls, pig skulls, antique chairs missing legs, bizarre statues of unknown origin, and dressing mirrors with warped surfaces that twisted people's faces when they looked into them.
These gloomy, broken objects that ordinary people avoided like snakes and scorpions were, in his hands, wondrously useful.
After planting the Sophora Saplings in the courtyard and sowing the Dangling Bell Flower seeds, Xu Qing went to great lengths to hang the various beast heads in a ventilated spot. Once they naturally dried, they would make extremely beautiful decorations.
Outside the Corpse Driver's Shop, Xu Qing had just returned the handcart he had borrowed from the Coffin Shop at the end of the street. He had not even had time to open the shop for business when he saw an unfamiliar customer carrying cured-meat gifts and pacing back and forth outside his door.
The customer wore a gray long gown, with his graying hair tied into a wrapped topknot. In addition, a clean white cloth was draped over each of his shoulders.
Xu Qing's brow lifted at this outfit. He strode over and opened the shop for business.
Whoever it was, a guest was a guest. Surely he had nothing to fear?
"You're Master Liu's disciple?" the half-aged scholar carrying the cured-meat gifts suddenly asked.
"Yep!" Xu Qing removed the door panel and raised his chin, looking rather proud.
"..."
Wang Lingyuan let out a distant sigh, his face taking on a look of remembrance.
"I once studied under Master Liu for a time as well. Unfortunately, I never managed to enter his discerning eye. Yet I never imagined that he would take you as his disciple now."
"..."
This time, it was Xu Qing's turn to fall silent.
What kind of development is this? A former follower of Liu Youdao has come to find his current disciple and reminisce about the past?
After entering the shop, Wang Lingyuan gave it a cursory look. Before he could inspect it closely, he spotted the memorial tablets for Master Liu and Master Yang.
"So Master Liu really has passed..." he murmured. Then he turned to Xu Qing. "I studied under Master Liu, so in a way, he was half my teacher. May I trouble you to lend me two incense sticks, so I can pay my respects and express my reverence?"
Xu Qing naturally had no objection, and the two simply paid their respects together.
At the end, Wang Lingyuan was unable to hold back any longer and asked Xu Qing about the cause of Liu Youdao's death.
Xu Qing shook his head and sighed, grief and sorrow impossible to conceal from his face.
He only said that when a child wished to support his parents, they were already gone; that the fiends of the Tianxin Cult came and went without a trace; and that even as his teacher's disciple, he could not avenge his master and wipe away his hatred.
He truly felt ashamed in his heart, ashamed before his late teacher, and ashamed before Heaven and Earth.
Xu Qing recounted the past with seven parts truth and three parts falsehood. Wang Lingyuan felt it as if it had happened to him, his face likewise filling with grief as tears fell while he thought on it.
Fate truly enjoyed playing cruel tricks on people.
"Brother Xu, if you're on your own from now on and ever need a hand, come find me at the station anytime. Though your old brother is merely a corpse examiner, there are still things I can help with."
Seeing Wang Lingyuan's genuine emotion, Xu Qing simply went with the flow and did him a favor. "Senior Brother first studied under my teacher, so the two of you share a teacher-disciple bond as well. From now on, Senior Brother may as well call me Junior Brother. There's no need to be so formal."
"Then, Junior Brother?"
"Ah, Senior Brother!"
Wang Lingyuan's whiskers trembled with excitement. Xu Qing took advantage of the moment to ask, "Senior Brother examines corpses at the station, which is a livelihood skill in its own right. To be honest, I'd also like to learn another skill to support myself. I wonder if, in your spare time, I could follow you and become an apprentice corpse examiner..."
"Of course, I don't need wages. I simply enjoy learning this sort of craft. I have no other intentions."
"Junior Brother is truly so eager to learn. No wonder Master Liu took you as his disciple. I'm ashamed that I cannot compare." Hearing this, Wang Lingyuan sighed again. As for Xu Qing's request to study the craft, he naturally agreed readily.
Afterward, Wang Lingyuan began talking about his past experiences examining corpses and investigating crime scenes. His words were full of reverence for Liu Youdao.
Perhaps he still had some doubts about Xu Qing's identity. During the conversation, he intentionally or otherwise raised professional questions about how a Corpse Driver raised, collected, and refined corpses.
Xu Qing answered fluently from beginning to end, and his words contained many novel insights into corpses. Wang Lingyuan was likewise a fellow enthusiast who loved corpses. Whenever he heard something marvelous, he could not help praising Xu Qing repeatedly.
He kept saying that Xu Qing was truly worthy of being Master Liu's distinguished disciple. Though he was older, he had not learned even a fraction of what his Junior Brother knew.
And so, in just one or two short hours, two strangers who had never met before suddenly became as close as family simply by chatting about corpses and discussing the dead.
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