The sky overhead was dark and dim, without a trace of light, while thin mist shrouded the yellow earth beneath his feet.
The winding dirt road ahead looked as though a great serpent had crawled over the sand dunes, plowing a narrow path through the woods toward the unknown.
Xu Qing still remembered what Liu Youdao had said before they set out: once the sun had gone down and they had eaten their fill, he would take them to Yi Zhuang.
As for what kind of place Yi Zhuang was, he had no idea.
Still, with a little thought, he could more or less infer what was going on.
Liu Youdao was a bona fide corpse peddler. He usually drove corpses around and sold them. Before, Liu Youdao had been able to sell them to the Cui Family Mill. Today, he might well be planning to resell them elsewhere, and that place was probably the so-called Yi Zhuang.
Just as Xu Qing was pondering this, Liu Youdao, sitting at the front of the stretcher, suddenly began shaking the bell more vigorously. At the same time, the lead zombie changed course and moved toward the right side of the path.
"Baa—"
From the left side of the path came a cacophony of bleating sheep.
Xu Qing's gaze was drawn over, and he saw an old shepherd by the roadside ahead.
The old man wore a large felt cloak made of yellowing, curly wool. He held a tobacco pipe in one hand, puffing at the mouthpiece while staring at the corpse-driving procession, looking exactly like an old farmer who loved watching the commotion from the edge of the village fields.
Xu Qing was filled with bewilderment. Who would take sheep out to pasture in the dead of night?
Yet what happened next left him even more puzzled.
As he passed the flock, Xu Qing did not smell even the slightest trace of grassy mutton stench. In his experience, whenever one passed a flock of sheep, that pungent odor could rush straight into one's head!
Once the corpse-driving procession had passed, the shepherd flicked his leather whip. Its crisp crack rang especially clear along the nighttime path.
Xu Qing's doubts only deepened. When he passed the old shepherd's familiar route, he deliberately kept an eye on the ground, but he did not see a single pellet of grass elixir.
Sheep had straight intestines; wherever they went, they left droppings behind. Wherever a flock passed, those elixirs would be scattered all over the ground.
Something was wrong with these sheep!
Xu Qing could not help recalling the Evil Technique from folk legends, the Beast Creation Art. This Evil Technique could turn living people into sheep capable only of bleating.
Just as his scalp was going numb, another figure appeared on the dirt road ahead. Dressed in red and floating with its feet off the ground, it drifted toward them.
"Sheep... delicious."
A sinister wind swept by, carrying a dreamlike murmur in a woman's voice.
By the time Xu Qing recovered, the red-clad figure had already passed him.
His nostrils twitched, and he caught the scent left behind in the air. It was the strange incense odor that came from burning paper money for the dead.
In this short stretch of corpse-driving, he had already encountered filthy things no fewer than three times. Xu Qing felt a chill creep through him. Just how many underworld creatures were there outside Linhe Fang?
Fortunately, after the red-clad woman had drifted away following the scent of the sheep, he encountered no more strange people or incidents.
It was around the second watch of the night. Everything was deathly still, as though even the insects and birds had grown weary and fallen silent.
The hollow bell chimes sounded like voices isolated beyond the world. Just as Xu Qing was wondering how much longer they would have to travel, a speck of light suddenly appeared on the pitch-black road ahead.
Xu Qing looked into the distance and vaguely saw lanterns and torches flickering, illuminating a cluster of buildings.
They were almost at Yi Zhuang!
At that moment, Liu Youdao, sitting at the front of the stretcher, put away the incense burner, and the entire corpse-driving procession instantly returned to its normal speed.
Yi Zhuang was right before them, and Liu Youdao's mind relaxed as well. He jumped down from the bamboo pole and ambled forward.
The other zombies carried the corpses on the stretchers, following behind him step by step.
But when they were only two or three li from Yi Zhuang, something unexpected suddenly happened!
A white-robed man drenched in blood burst out of the pitch-black woods beside the road.
His brows swept up toward his temples, and his long, narrow eyes were mostly white, shaped like slender moons.
Holding a ritual sword backward, he smiled as he blocked Liu Youdao's path.
"Old man, please wait. This junior has just arrived in your esteemed land and doesn't know the way. May I ask where we are? If I head north from here to Luojing, how far is it?"
Liu Youdao looked at the young man. Seeing his extraordinary clothes and appearance, as well as the bloodstains on him, he suspected that this was no ordinary person. Following the principle that one more matter was worse than one less, he replied amiably, "This is the Liu Village Yi Zhuang. Linhe is fifty li south of here. If you want to head north to the capital, follow the road through Liu Village eastward. After about a hundred li, you'll reach Jinmen Prefecture City. Once you arrive at the prefectural city, just keep heading north. Whether you take the waterways or the land routes, you can reach the Capital City directly."
"Thank you, old man! I'm in a hurry, so I'll be on my way first!"
With that, the blood-stained white-robed young man rose straight into the air as though wrapped in wings. At a speed too fast for the naked eye to follow, he shot northeast through the air.
Liu Youdao bared his old yellow teeth. From the white-robed youth's movement technique alone, he knew that the other man's cultivation was certainly far above his own.
Fortunately, he was experienced and never offended figures from the Jianghu without good reason. Otherwise, he might not have lived to this age.
After the brief interruption over directions, Liu Youdao set off again. Yet before he had gone even two li, another stranger from the Jianghu blocked the road!
And this time, there was more than one of them!
"My name is Zuo Zixiong. I am a Baihu of the Jingji Divine Machine Camp. May I ask, old sir, have you seen the Tianxin Cult's Evil Cultivator pass this way?" Zuo Zixiong spoke first. He wore light armor and carried Twin Sabers and Twin Swords on his back.
"This old man's eyes are dim with age. I haven't seen anyone."
"You old devil, how dare you keep your eyes open and spout lies!" Cui Yuanlong, who was also a Baihu, grabbed Liu Youdao by the collar and said fiercely, "I can still smell that Evil Cultivator on you from here. Could it be that you're in league with the Tianxin Cult and deliberately trying to shield him? If so, I'll take you back to the capital first and have you punished!"
Zuo Zixiong stepped forward and pulled Cui Yuanlong's hand away. In an even tone, he said, "Old sir, why don't you think more carefully? As long as you're willing to tell us the truth, we won't make things difficult for you."
As he spoke, however, Zuo Zixiong's palm seemed to rest casually on the hilt at his waist.
"..."
Liu Youdao had spent many years struggling in the trade of the dark gates. He had seen great ghosts and little ghosts, and all kinds of people. Officials, however, often stood between humans and ghosts, and were even more troublesome than ghosts.
After a moment of silence, he ultimately told them about the white-robed man asking for directions. Upon hearing this, Zuo Zixiong and Cui Yuanlong's thoughts instantly became clear.
What a case of hiding in plain sight!
They had come chasing him all the way from the capital, yet no matter how they racked their brains, they had never imagined that this Evil Cultivator would dare to turn back.
The two men immediately stopped hesitating, turned around, and pursued him toward the prefectural city!
Liu Youdao gazed in the direction where they had disappeared. For some reason, unease grew stronger in his heart. He could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.
He could not figure it out no matter how he tried, so he simply continued toward Yi Zhuang, which was already close at hand. As for what had happened that night, he would just let it rot in his stomach!
"Old man, where are you going?"
Just as Liu Youdao was about to set off, a familiar voice suddenly came from behind him.
"Senior, I really ought to thank you for giving away my whereabouts. If you hadn't, I might truly have had trouble shaking them off. But in this life, I hate nothing more than traitors who sell out others. Tell me, what should I do?"
Liu Youdao's withered body suddenly shuddered. He used all his strength to turn his head sideways and saw that the Tianxin Cult's Evil Cultivator who had asked him for directions had somehow appeared behind him.
Sword light flashed like a bolt of silk. He tried to explain, but could only produce a hoarse, leaking wheeze.
Then his vision began to tilt downward. During the descent, he saw his own neck pumping blood, his slightly hunched back, and the yellow earth road behind him.
The white-robed man with eyes as eerie as a ghost sheathed his treasured sword, then turned to look at the zombies standing motionless nearby, still carrying the stretcher.
"Jianghu tricks. They're unfit for the grand stage."
After leaving behind a contemptuous snort, the white-robed man glanced north, then flew southwest.
The night breeze brushed past, carrying a thick smell of blood from the front of the stretcher.
Xu Qing, who had witnessed everything, still had not recovered from the shock.
The Corpse Driver who had refined him into a zombie had just died?
Xu Qing held up the bamboo pole and stood rooted to the spot, not daring to move recklessly for the moment.
Only after confirming that the Corpse Driver whose head had been sliced off truly could not get back up did he dare shift his body.
The moon was cold and the stars sparse, and the surrounding air reeked of blood. It was hard to say whether this would attract something unclean. Xu Qing did not dare linger, but he had no idea where to go.
Yi Zhuang ahead was a place where corpse peddlers conducted their transactions. He definitely could not go there!
Could he really sneak into the woods and become a wandering corpse?
Xu Qing's thoughts raced. Suddenly, inspiration struck, and he turned his gaze toward Liu Youdao, whose head and body had been separated.
That was right! He still had the Duren Sutra. He could gain more information by saving the dead!
At that thought, Xu Qing felt as though he had parted the clouds and seen the blue sky once more!
He released the bamboo pole and approached Liu Youdao's corpse with a nervous yet faintly excited heart.
The thick smell of blood filling the air was like a hallucinogenic poison, making his Adam's apple roll up and down involuntarily.
So fragrant. Truly fragrant.
Xu Qing restrained the instinctive desire lurking within his body, held his breath, focused his mind, and tried his best to keep his thoughts clear.
Sticky blood still stretched and flowed from the neat cut across the Corpse Driver's neck. Even the dry yellow earth could not absorb it all.
Suppressing his discomfort, Xu Qing reached out and placed the Corpse Driver's head back in position, aligning it with the cut at the neck.
The sea of desire rose and fell, and the affairs of the world were impossible to predict.
As the Duren Sutra's pages turned, the Corpse Driver's life began winding backward, its gears clicking in reverse.
The Corpse Driver had no father or mother. The villagers all called him Tiedan, simply because he always liked to wander around the village in split-crotch pants.
On the day of the Qingming sacrifice when he was twelve, Tiedan, who had grown up eating at a hundred households, snuck out after dark to the graves not far from the village to mooch a meal, just as he did every year.
Whether it was dried meat, steamed buns, pastries, or candied fruit, as long as it had been offered atop a grave, he ate some and carried the rest away without the slightest courtesy!
To him, that day was even happier than the New Year. He could not understand what those adults were grieving about.
The wild child had no one to discipline him. He had never heard the old saying that walking night roads too often made it easy to run into evil spirits, much less understood that eating offerings could bring trouble!
On the night of the Qingming sacrifice, Tiedan was leaning against the grave of a wealthy household in the village and eating candied fruit when a pair of withered white hands with sharp fingernails suddenly emerged from the grave mound behind him!
How could Tiedan have known that the person in the grave had only just been buried, much less understood the danger of Corpse Transformation?
As the ghostly hands dragged him forcefully into the grave, all he knew was to cry and shout for his godmother to come save him.
A child with no parents or relatives, who had grown up eating at a hundred households—how could he have a godmother?
But believe it or not, he really did!
Only the godmother he spoke of was not a living person. She was the Old Willow Tree he had worshiped at the village entrance.
Hoping for a willow tree to run over and save him—wasn't that the stuff of delusion?
And yet, if one truly investigated the matter, there was something uncanny about it.
Just as Tiedan was about to be dragged into the grave mound, a Corpse Driver shook his bell and, like a heavenly god descending to earth, forcibly pulled Tiedan back from the Ghost Gate Pass!
The Corpse Driver told Tiedan that earlier, when he had passed the eastern end of the village, he had felt somewhat tired and leaned against an Old Willow Tree to rest. As he rested, he had fallen asleep and dreamed that an old woman in a green jacket, with luxuriant hair, struck up a conversation with him. She said that her godson had gotten lost while playing at the western end of the village and asked him to call the boy back when he passed by.
And so he had come.
After Tiedan heard this, he sniffled. From then on, he went nowhere else and did not even return to the village. He decided to follow the Corpse Driver and venture into the Jianghu.
The Corpse Driver had no apprentices or children. Seeing that Tiedan was a bright and clever child, he took him in.
Years passed. As the Corpse Driver grew more and more stooped with age, little Tiedan behind him slowly grew taller, and he began shaking the bell himself.
But Tiedan had been lively and quick-witted since childhood, unlike his master, who strictly followed the rules.
His old master had repeatedly warned him that corpse-driving had to be done with restraint. Those who had died of illness, drowned themselves, hanged themselves, been struck by lightning, burned by fire, or lost limbs could not be driven.
Those who had been beheaded and then sewn back together properly, or who had died by hanging or in a standing cage, could be driven.
In short, there was a profound art to it!
Tiedan agreed readily enough, but after seeing his own lame master through old age and death, he completely cast caution to the winds.
Whether they had died unjustly, been wrongfully killed, or been poisoned with arsenic by an adulterous man and his lover, he dared drive them home!
Besides that, he expanded the corpse-driving business, learned the methods of refining corpse workers, and began acting as a black-market middleman, peddling them everywhere.
Thus, his reputation grew greater and greater throughout Xiangyin. Naturally, he acquired a new name: Liu Youdao.
His surname was Liu because his godmother was an Old Willow Tree.
He was called Youdao because everyone said he was a True Cultivator with profound cultivation!
As the old saying went, people created good and evil themselves, and summoned blessings and calamities with their own hands.
Because Liu Youdao broadened his business, he earned plenty of fame and profit. But because some of the things he did were dishonorable, he secretly offended many people.
Once he grew old, he began fearing this and worrying about that, terrified that one day, while sleeping soundly, a pair of hands would suddenly drag him into a grave!
What could he do about it? After thinking it over again and again, Liu Youdao finally came up with a plan.
As the saying went, a tree died if it was moved, but a person could thrive by moving elsewhere.
At worst, he could pack his belongings and leave, going somewhere no one knew anyone else. He could open a shop for Spirit Relocation and Burial and fortune-telling. Wouldn't that be more comfortable than his current life?
Once he had made up his mind, he packed his belongings and, after wandering here and there, arrived at Linhe Fang. He opened a Corpse Driver's Shop on Jingxia Street, then, in only a few short days, used his outstanding business skills to take on several jobs.
The biggest one was the corpse workers needed by the Cui Family Mill!
By this point, Xu Qing basically knew what had happened afterward.
At the end, he sighed.
Liu Youdao had not died unjustly!
He had already decided to wash his hands of the business and never break the rules again. How could he have failed to control himself and gone back to making those conscience-stricken deals?
The Duren Sutra said: Human Way Values Glory, Always Born of the Heart; Immortal Way Values Life, Always Born of Fortune; Ghost Way Values Endings, Always Born of Misfortune.
Aside from immortals, whether human or ghost, everyone eventually reached the final page.
The Duren Sutra gave its final assessment of Liu Youdao's life: Earth-grade low-tier.
This was the first time Xu Qing had ever seen an Earth-grade rating!
Besides the rating being beyond his expectations, the rewards he received for saving the corpse were also extraordinarily generous!
A Soul Herding Bell, a Corpse Driving Whip, and several books imprinted in his mind: "Thirty-Six Corpse Driving Curses," "Book of Funerals and Mourning Customs," "Yingui Acupoint Locating Method," "On Corpses," and a copy of the "Corpse Nurturing Scripture."
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