Household Connections

Other people took the County Examination to pursue fame and official honors, but Xu Qing took it purely so he could lie dead more securely. The two had entirely different motives.

"Brother Xu, what are you joining in on the fun for?"

"I'm going to lead my two nephews there. I know the yamen's roads well!"

Xu Qing did not mention that even this old hand was going to pursue official honors. It was nothing worth bringing up. He treated it as an ordinary matter: if he had the opportunity, he would sign up; when the County Examination and Prefectural Examination came around, he would close the shop, give himself a day off, and casually earn the title of licentiate. Then he would be done with it.

That way, whenever officials came to collect all sorts of miscellaneous taxes or ordered him to perform corvée labor, he could flash his licentiate's plaque.

See? He was a licentiate, at the very least!

On the first day of the third month, a fine drizzle fell over the eaves and streets. Even in such weather, plenty of scholars rushing to take the examination held oil-paper umbrellas, or simply ran through the rain to the yamen to register their names and native places.

Xu Qing led two young men not much younger than himself and sheltered from the rain in the yamen's main hall while waiting in line.

There were truly quite a lot of people here to register for the examination today. Handsome and ugly, dressed in brocade and finery or wearing patched clothes—the youngest had his hair tied into a sprouting-sky braid and was only eight or nine years old. They said he was a child prodigy from Shuiyan Academy, and this time he intended not only to pass the examination for licentiate but also to become a scholar!

Of course, there were also old scholars over fifty, their sideburns already streaked with white, who had come to register.

Judging by their appearance, they would probably crawl to the examination hall as long as they still had a breath left in them!

Wu Zhiyuan rose onto his tiptoes and peered inside, muttering, "If I'd known we'd have to wait this long, I would've brought a book to read when I left home. What's the point of standing around doing nothing? Haven't you heard that an inch of gold can't buy an inch of time?"

Wu Wencai chuckled. "It's only a day or two. Why not put the book down and conserve your energy? Surely you won't fail to make the list just because you read a little less today."

Xu Qing was listening to the two of them and was about to join in when a familiar shout came from ahead.

"Brother Xu, how did you end up in line too? Don't tell me you're also here to pursue an official honor?"

Xu Qing glanced to the side and saw Steward Tang waving at him with a broad smile.

Wu Zhiyuan and Wu Wencai watched as Xu Qing went over to chat with the yamen steward. They could not hear what the two were saying, but judging by their manner, the relationship between them seemed quite close.

After speaking with Steward Tang, Xu Qing returned to the main hall and lowered his voice as he said to the two brothers from the Wu Household, "There's no need to wait in line. Just follow me inside to register."

Wu Zhiyuan hesitated. "Is that really appropriate?"

At this, Wu Wencai lifted his elbow and nudged their honest elder maternal cousin in the waist, pointing his mouth toward somewhere ahead.

Following his younger maternal cousin's gaze, Wu Zhiyuan saw quite a few scholars and young masters in brocade and finery heading toward the passageway beside the front hall in unison.

They were all examinees taking the fast track to obtain their admission certificates for the Spring Examination.

Xu Qing chuckled. One of these two brothers was honest and down-to-earth, while the other was lively and adaptable. If they truly succeeded in earning official honors, who knew how different their paths ahead would be?

Once the three had finished registering and received their admission tickets, Xu Qing parted ways with the two of them and headed alone to the mortuary.

The yamen's Three Squads and Six Offices were originally all under one roof, so it was inevitable that one would run into familiar faces.

Sure enough, just after Xu Qing finished his business and had taken only a few steps out of the front hall, he came face-to-face with Zhao Zhonghe, who was leading a squad of runners outside.

They truly were enemies meeting on a narrow road. When the two incompatible men ran into each other, how could anything good come of it? Zhao Zhonghe's roughly drawn brows rose at once, as though he had seen a wild rabbit wander into a tiger's den, and his teeth immediately bared themselves.

"Stop! This is an important yamen site. Who told you to come in?"

"Could it be that you've committed a crime and come here to turn yourself in?"

Holding an oil-paper umbrella, Xu Qing looked up at Zhao Zhonghe, who was drenched from head to toe and steaming with heat.

What a dense aura of blood!

He could faintly sense that the other man's martial cultivation was at least at the inner-forging stage. It was even possible he had already touched the threshold of the Meridian Opening stage.

"Today is the day the yamen is registering scholars for the Spring Examination. How could Captain Zhao not know? I am unworthy, but I am one of the countless examinees. I can barely be considered half a scholar myself. I hope I haven't made a fool of the captain."

Captain Zhao choked for a moment before continuing, "You only need to go to the front hall for registration. Why are you going farther inside?"

"Wang Lingyuan, the coroner in the Clerk's Office, is my Senior Brother. We scholars are not bears, wolves, or other wild beasts, after all; we place the greatest importance on etiquette. Since I happened to come by, I naturally had to greet my Senior Brother."

Xu Qing's tone had remained calm from beginning to end, but to Zhao Zhonghe's ears, every word felt bristling with thorns.

Seeing that the answer was perfectly reasonable, he could not vent his anger. Only after Xu Qing had left did he turn to the runner beside him.

"Did that brat just say I was uncouth and inferior to those scholars?"

The runner shook his head. He had not heard him say that.

"Then did he say I don't understand etiquette and look like some kind of bear or wolf?"

The runner hesitated for a moment, then shook his head again, saying he had heard no such thing.

Zhao Zhonghe spat violently and cursed, "That fledgling only knows how to win with his tongue. If he ever falls into my hands, I'll beat him until he folds in half and see whether he can still run his sharp mouth!"

Elsewhere, Xu Qing ran the tip of his tongue over his tiger tooth and probed it with a finger.

His corpse tooth needed grinding again.

Outside, the fine rain continued without pause, but the mortuary remained dry and cold.

When Wang Lingyuan heard that Xu Qing intended to take the Spring Examination, he sighed again inwardly.

No wonder Master Liu had taken him as a personal disciple. That degree of diligence alone was beyond what ordinary people could achieve.

Xu Qing had no idea what Wang Lingyuan was thinking. At that moment, his mind was wholly occupied with how to deliver the few corpses in the mortuary from their suffering.

"Senior Brother, I'd like to try examining the case records and inspecting the bodies on my own, to see whether I can deduce the details of the case."

Wang Lingyuan thought for a moment, then pointed to two of the corpses. "I examined these two at the scene together with Captain Zhao. You may inspect them as you please. I'll see whether your conclusions match mine."

Hearing this, Xu Qing had already picked up some information.

In recent days, he had read quite a few of the autopsy books Wang Lingyuan had given him. The Great Yong Coroner's Manual stated that anyone gravely injured in a fight who could not walk again was not to be carried to the examination site. If the cause of death was strange and difficult to determine, or if the corpse was horribly mutilated, the local officials were to lead the coroner to examine it in person.

For Wang Lingyuan to say this meant that these two corpses must certainly not have met peaceful ends.

Xu Qing lifted the shroud. The moment he saw the deceased's face, he froze.

The corpse was very familiar. One of the runners who had previously sold corpses privately to the Corpse Driver's Shop was this very man.

He had wondered why so few people from the yamen had been delivering corpses lately, but he had never expected that the people delivering them had died.

Xu Qing moved closer and carefully examined the body from head to toe, discovering no wounds whatsoever.

He flipped up the eyelids and pried open the lips. After keeping himself busy for ages, he still could not find the cause of death.

Could it have been a heart attack, causing him to drop dead suddenly? But this did not look like a sudden death from a heart attack either.

After a storm of thoughts, Xu Qing finally straightened up, his expression unusually grave.

Sure enough, compared with deducing a case through autopsy, he still preferred watching the lantern show of a corpse's life.