Rebellion Tax

The two senior and junior brothers had hit it off from the moment they met, and it was not until the sun had climbed high into the sky that Wang Lingyuan remembered he still had to report to the office for work.

Compared with reuniting with his junior brother, missing half a day of work was hardly worth mentioning.

Before leaving, Wang Lingyuan did not forget to warn him, "A few days ago, some unfamiliar Corpse Drivers came to the Patrol Office to collect corpses. In my opinion, they don't look like they're from Xiangyin. They're probably wild operators from somewhere else."

"You should know that when people in the same trade meet, their eyes burn with special jealousy." Wang Lingyuan spoke earnestly. "The unclaimed corpses at the Patrol Office are worthless trash to begin with. Even if sold to Yi Zhuang, they fetch no more than one or two taels of silver. But you bought them for four or five taels each, which has already aroused the displeasure of some people in the trade. They didn't look like people who would be easy to provoke. I'm afraid they'll take their anger out on you and bring you trouble. You're still young and don't know how sinister Jianghu can be, so you must be extra careful from now on. Don't let those people from the shadowy side of the trade find an opening."

How could Wang Lingyuan have known that the corpses of those fellow tradesmen he spoke of had long since gone cold? In a few more days, they would probably be nothing but a pile of rotted earth and decayed bones. How could they possibly still have the ability to cause Xu Qing trouble?

No matter how sinister Jianghu was, could it be more sinister than his junior brother?

Though Wang Lingyuan's warning had come a little late, kindness was never too late.

Xu Qing gratefully accepted his concern and escorted him all the way to the entrance of the Coffin Shop before stopping.

Before leaving, Wang Lingyuan even promised that he would look after his business more in the future. Whenever there were unclaimed corpses, he would find a way to send them here first.

Xu Qing thought, This could count as a monopoly in our line of work, right?

At the thought of corpses continuously being sent his way in the future, he could not stop grinning.

Seeing him like this, Old Man Hu, at the Coffin Shop at the end of the street, assumed that something happy had happened.

"Kid Xu! Why are you grinning so wide? Did something good happen? Could it be that wedding bells are about to ring and your household is going to gain another member?"

Xu Qing raised his brows when he heard that. Wasn't his household indeed about to gain another member? It just would not be a living one.

At the shop entrance, when Hu Baosong learned that the two were merely senior and junior brothers, his spirits immediately wilted again. "I've lived on this street for over sixty years. The people in the various shops have come and gone, and the number of acquaintances I've made in between can't even be counted on both hands. I've attended who knows how many wedding feasts. Now that I'm old and can see that I don't have many days left, I wonder whether I'll ever have the chance to drink a cup of your wedding wine."

At this point, Hu Baosong suddenly became interested, and even his dim old eyes brightened a little.

"Kid Xu, you look like a steady, hardworking fellow. Since you aren't in a hurry to marry and don't have an elder by your side, why not become my adopted son? From now on, you and I, one old and one young, can make do and live out our days together."

Xu Qing hurriedly cut him off when he heard that!

I treat you as a neighbor, yet you want to be my father?

"Uncle Hu, I know you're all alone and are eager to find someone to care for you in your old age and send you off when you die. But you don't need to be so anxious. To say something unpleasant, even if you really passed away one day, I wouldn't mind paying for white mourning cloth and a burial coffin to take care of your funeral."

Over there, Uncle Hu, who was lying in a chair and basking in the warmth, laughed and cursed, "Take care of my funeral? Are you planning to refine this old man into a Corpse Driver's corpse and sell me to a coal mine to dig coal?"

This old man—

Xu Qing suppressed the astonishment in his heart and said with a smile, "That wouldn't do. With your old arms and legs, even if you were sold, you wouldn't fetch much. Besides, I've always been an honest and upright person. We're all neighbors here. Helping with your funeral arrangements is nothing."

Hu Baosong clicked his tongue twice and said, "Fine. If I personally come looking for you to arrange my Funeral Procession when the time comes, don't regret it."

"."

The more Xu Qing listened, the more wrong it sounded. Why did those words become so creepy when they came out of Old Man Hu's mouth?

Two days passed in the blink of an eye. On this day, Xu Qing heard that two murder cases had occurred around Changdeng Street. During that time, Wang Lingyuan had even made a special trip to the Corpse Driver's Shop, saying that if Xu Qing wanted to learn the techniques of examining corpses and solving cases, he could wait until the Patrol Office closed and look for him in the morgue.

With such an invitation hanging over him, Xu Qing was distracted the entire day, feeling as though every day lasted a year.

He had not touched a corpse for two whole days. His heart was being scratched by cats and pawed by dogs, and his hands were already unbearably itchy.

The child from Wu Yaoxing's household next door continued reciting classical passages in a singsong voice. He was presumably making his final push for the Spring Examination a few days away.

The proprietress of the Incense and Candle Shop across the street was carrying a basket of needles and thread. She stood at the shop entrance in the bright daylight, rubbing a thread shuttle and winding thread onto a winding board.

Only Xu Qing had nothing to do. He leaned against the counter, bored stiff, and gnawed on a candle.

However, the candle he had bought today was rather sharp on the tongue. Perhaps the proprietress of the Incense and Candle Shop had changed suppliers.

The more Xu Qing ate, the more wrong it tasted. In the end, he marched straight over to demand an explanation.

The proprietress was struggling to rub the thread shuttle when she suddenly felt the light before her dim.

She looked up and saw that the young Shopkeeper Xu from across the street was standing at the entrance with a solemn expression.

"Is something wrong?"

"Of course something's wrong! Look at this. I just bought this candle from your shop. Smell it, and look at the color of the wax. It's clearly not right!"

Xu Qing handed over a snapped-off piece of candle, looking like an old scholar who had just come out of a candle workshop.

After rambling on for quite a while, Xu Qing finally said earnestly, "Even if incense and candles are burned for Divine Statues and the dead, we still can't be careless, can we? After all, who can guarantee that one day those incense and candles won't be burned for ourselves? So we must have professional ethics. We absolutely cannot cheat people by skimping on the weight and do business that damages our virtue."

The proprietress was thoroughly scolded, but she could not refute him. After all, she was indeed in the wrong this time.

But now that she thought about it, it really was strange. She had only bought this much cheaper batch of new goods from the candle workshop yesterday. There was nothing unusual about their appearance at a glance, so how had the young shopkeeper across the street spotted the problem immediately?

After much persuasion, the proprietress finally agreed, her face flushed with embarrassment, that she would split her future purchases into two batches. The good candles would still be sold at the original price, while the slightly inferior ones would be sold more cheaply.

Just as Xu Qing finished dealing with the candle issue, he saw a group of uninvited guests arrive at the end of the street.

Jingxia Street was famous as a funeral street. Apart from passersby, ordinary people rarely came wandering around, but this group was not merely wandering. They were going from shop to shop.

Seeing them come out of Hu Baosong's Coffin Shop and then make a racket at the Funeral Clothes Shop, Xu Qing asked in confusion, "Why have those people from the Tax Department come again? Don't they have anything better to do?"

The proprietress of the Incense and Candle Shop could no longer spare a thought for her needlework. She rose onto her toes and took a look, then her expression suddenly changed. "They must be here to collect money again!"

"Collect money? It isn't New Year or any festival, and it's not time to collect taxes either. What money are they collecting?"

The proprietress was clearly a veteran of the neighborhood's information network and knew quite a few matters concerning the nation.

"What else could it be? It must be the Rebellion Tax!"

What the hell? Xu Qing's brain failed to process it for a moment. The Rebellion Tax? What strange thing is that?

Fortunately, the proprietress explained.

"These past few days, some outfit called the Tianxin Cult has been secretly throwing money and little booklets into the courtyards of households all over the neighborhood. Every household got at least half a string of coins, and some got a whole string. They say Old Mother Tianxin is acting in accordance with Heaven's will, and that the current Son of Heaven is a fake."

The proprietress quickly stopped herself after saying this, then changed the subject. "How would ordinary folk like us know what the Tianxin Cult is all about? The authorities have stepped in and declared them rebels. The money they handed out is also rebellion money meant to confuse the people. We can't keep it. It all has to be collected."

Xu Qing finally understood. So that was the rebellion money they were talking about!

As the two spoke, the Tax Department's people had already reached the Paper Craft Shop diagonally across the street.

Faced with the tax clerk's questioning, Wu Yaoxing wore a troubled expression. "Sir, the booklet distributed by the Tianxin Cult was burned by me. I truly can't produce it."

"Burned? You say you burned it, and that's supposed to be enough? Could you have hidden it and become a follower of the Tianxin Cult?"

Wu Yaoxing waved his hands repeatedly. "I wouldn't dare! To tell you the truth, my boy is taking the Spring Examination this year. The moment I saw that booklet, I was afraid it would bring disaster upon us. If this matter delayed my child's pursuit of an official career, wouldn't that be a grave sin? So I threw it into the stove and burned it."

The Tax Department's people let it go in one ear and out the other, not caring in the slightest whether it had really been burned. Anyone who had the booklet paid two strings of dirty money.

If you had burned the booklet, or used it to wipe your backside until it was missing pages, you had to produce four strings of money. Otherwise, you were a follower of the Tianxin Cult, and at worst it was treason—a capital offense that could get your head chopped off and your household confiscated!

Xu Qing had somehow already come close. Hearing what they were saying, he thought, This isn't collecting the rebellion money the Tianxin Cult distributed to win over the people. This is clearly just a roundabout way of robbing them of their hard-earned silver!

Seeing that things were going badly, he hurried back to the shop and brought out several taels of Green Cicada silver and several strings of Green Cicada Coins, just enough to make up eight strings.

At the entrance of the Paper Craft Shop, while Wu Yaoxing went inside to fetch the money, Xu Qing handed over all eight strings, without shorting them by a single coin.