Liu Estate's Melon

Master Liu's Mourning Hall was arranged in the middle of the main hall. According to the Funeral and Memorial Book, the main hall was the most sacred and inviolable place in a residence, where ancestors and deities were worshiped.

Whenever someone died in a household, the deceased's relatives would move the body to the main hall and place it on a temporarily laid-out plank bed, so the dead would not lie in their own bed for too long.

A person spent half their life with their eyes closed in bed. If they remained on a bed too long after death, their soul might become bound to it and be unable to be reborn.

Therefore, whenever a family felt that an old person was nearing the end, they would carry them to the main hall and tend to them there. This was what people called dying peacefully in one's proper place.

The moment Xu Qing entered through the gate and reached the main hall, he could tell at a glance that this household had someone experienced in the trade.

Even if they had not come from the yin-profession circles, they had surely dealt with the dead before and had someone in the family with practical experience!

But experience was one thing; they had still violated a taboo.

Just look at the scene before him. Who would make a great ruckus and shove each other around in front of a mourning hall?

Xu Qing took a closer look and discovered that one of the two arguing women was an acquaintance he knew unilaterally—Su Hongxiu—while the other was a noblewoman dressed in white and wearing mourning clothes.

"That vixen still has the nerve to come here! You're the one who worked my lord to death, and now you've come here to cry crocodile tears over a dead rat! I think you'd long since plotted to harm him, just waiting for the day he died so you could come divide up our Liu family's estate!

"I'll make this clear today: as long as I have one breath left, don't even dream of taking a single copper coin!"

As she spoke, the two women could not help but start fighting again.

Xu Qing watched with amusement. He simply stopped moving forward and stood outside the mourning hall, enjoying the grand show unfolding inside.

One woman came from the pleasure quarters. She had a coquettish, delicate figure and had seen all sorts of strange people and oddities. The other came from a scholarly family, was comfortably well-off, and was the well-maintained wife of an affluent gentleman.

At that moment, one was grabbing the other's hair while the other was tugging at her clothes. Just as things were about to reach boiling point, the servant who had brought Xu Qing over suddenly shouted at the crucial moment.

"First Madam, Second Madam, please stop fighting! I've invited the man handling affairs on Jingxia Street. Let's send Master out with the funeral procession first..."

As soon as his words fell, the noisy mourning hall abruptly fell silent.

The Liu family's First Madam also stopped tugging at Su Hongxiu's clothes. She hooked a little finger around her disheveled sideburns, smoothed them once, and walked toward the entrance of the main hall as if nothing had happened.

Seeing how effortlessly she switched between expressions, even Sichuan opera's face-changing act probably could not have been this fast!

Xu Qing reached out to stop the young servant from shouting, but he was still a step too late.

Don't! Just pretend I don't exist and keep fighting. I'll find a little stool and wait until you finish handling your private affairs before I start working. I'm not in the slightest hurry!

Xu Qing felt a pang of regret. Su Hongxiu's red bellyband had just been exposed, and Madam Liu's shoulder was smooth as could be. How could they stop just like that?

"You're the one handling the arrangements?"

"That's right."

Madam Liu's original name was Li Xiangyun. She was around thirty-five or thirty-six, but because she came from a wealthy family and took good care of herself, she showed few traces of age. Instead, she possessed an even more mature charm.

Although she was now covered in fragrant sweat with disheveled sideburns, her bearing as she walked still held the reserve unique to a respectable young lady.

It was as if the foul-mouthed woman who had just torn at someone else's clothes had been an entirely different person...

"You've finally come, sir. I'm only a woman of the household. I can manage embroidery, supporting my husband, and raising children when asked, but all matters outside have always been handled by my lord and the steward. Now that my lord has left me behind, I feel as though my soul has been lost. I have no idea what to do..."

When she reached the emotional part, Li Xiangyun took out a handkerchief and wiped her tears while lamenting.

"Now I must ask you to make the decisions and let my poor husband be laid to rest as soon as possible..."

Xu Qing looked at the bereaved woman before him, so pitiful that anyone would feel sympathy, and thought that this woman was truly terrifying. One moment she was a fierce, vicious, food-guarding tiger; the next, she had turned into a delicate, timid, domesticated rabbit.

But say what he might and think what he might, he still had to handle the business at hand!

"Madam, please mourn in moderation. Leave the matters ahead to me."

While the two were speaking, the Liu Estate steward, who had gone to the coffin shop to hire men to carry the coffin, returned and asked a few questions.

After learning Xu Qing's identity, Steward Song Cai furrowed his brows. Though he said nothing, he was more or less distrustful.

As the saying went, a mouth without hair could not be trusted with important affairs.

The boy before him did not even have a single downy hair on his face. Could he really handle the Funeral Procession properly?

Xu Qing did not know what Song Cai was thinking. Otherwise, he would never have shaved the Corpse Hair from his face that morning. He would have liked to see whether the steward would still dare judge people by appearance!

By the time Xu Qing arrived at the mourning hall, nearly all of Master Liu's relatives and friends who could come had arrived. Those who could not attend because of other matters had sent letters and gifts to express their condolences.

Master Liu and Li Xiangyun's only son—the Young Master Liu—was kneeling on the ground, keeping vigil.

Before the Young Master Liu stood a superb nanmu coffin already coated in black lacquer. A white cloth screen covered the front of the coffin and concealed the deceased's face, with a large character meaning "Offering" written on it.

When the dead had not yet been buried, bowing was called an offering; after burial, it was called a sacrifice.

Put plainly, when the person was below, it was an offering; when the person was above, it was a sacrifice.

These were the most basic principles of funerals and mourning rites.

Arriving before the coffin, Xu Qing set down his shoulder bag and took out the tools for Emblaming. He was just about to powder Master Liu's face and comb his hair when Steward Song Cai suddenly stepped forward to stop him.

"Do you actually know what you're doing? Your master already performed the Embalming two days ago. Why are you making such a fuss again?"

Xu Qing turned around and stared at Song Cai for a while, as if he were an air-conditioner repairman interrupted while working.

When the other man frowned and began to feel uncomfortable all over, Xu Qing asked a question that struck straight at the soul.

"You washed your face two days ago, so you're not going to wash it today? Or would you like to do it yourself?"

Song Cai had brought the trouble upon himself and gained nothing from it, so he simply stopped interfering.

After sending away the idle onlookers, Xu Qing calmed his mind. The Duren Sutra began turning its pages in his mind.

Master Liu's original name was Liu Fuchun. He had once been a poor Temple Keeper in a remote village, able to earn only a meager income when believers and worshipers came to offer incense, make requests, or fulfill vows.

Until one day, the young lady of the Li family, which operated a cloth shop, passed by the small temple in a carriage and happened to offer a stick of incense to the deities worshiped there.

As the Temple Keeper, Liu Fuchun fell in love with the young lady at first sight. He felt that her legs were good, her hips were good—in short, every part of her had grown exactly in the shape of his heart's desire!

He wanted to associate with the young lady of the Li family, but he was penniless and had no family background. How could he win the beauty's favor?

What was he to do?

Liu Fuchun tossed and turned sleeplessly all night. In the end, he simply decided to stop suffering alongside the deities and plunged headfirst into the mortal world.

Perhaps because he had served the deities in the temple well over the years, Liu Fuchun's luck was not bad. Just after leaving the village, he encountered a wandering Daoist priest.

The Daoist saw that he had the makings of a cultivator and, after much persuasion, deception, and coaxing, lured him up the mountain to become his disciple.

At first, the wandering Daoist taught him two abilities: the Spirit Crane Nourishing Body Art and the Four Seasons Qi Guiding Method.

Liu Fuchun practiced for two months, but his mind was always elsewhere. He kept thinking of Miss Li's legs and hips...

When the third month arrived, the wandering Daoist suddenly called him over. With a sigh, he said that their master-disciple bond was shallow. His disciple's mortal heart had never faded, and even with a canopy of auspicious fate over him, he could not be forced to stay.

But for the sake of their time as master and disciple, the Daoist taught him another skill that could help him fight for wealth and honor in the mortal world. It was called the Art of Civil and Martial Geomancy.

This was a craft of Feng Shui Geomancy. In its civil aspect, it could increase one's fortune and household luck through auxiliary objects. In its martial aspect, it could alter the course of mountains and rivers and the direction of the land, dig canals and open roads, and divert the "canal waters" from all directions to add blessings and fortune to one's ancestral and living residences.

After obtaining this secret art, the first thing Liu Fuchun did upon descending the mountain was divert the yin and yang pond water from the local gentry and wealthy families to his own home. After saving up some money, he added objects that suppressed and protected the residence, such as the Scholar's Fortune-and-Luck Auspicious Beast and the Wealth-Attracting Twin Pixiu. If something could be used, he obtained a set of it...

Over the next short two years, Liu Fuchun, with fortune gathered around him, passed the examination and became the head of a county.

What he did not know was that the art of Feng Shui Geomancy placed enormous importance on one's fate and cultivation. If one's cultivation was shallow and one's fate insufficient, then even if this method brought wealth and glory, an unknown price would await in the future.

And sure enough, once Liu Magistrate had gained official status, he sent a matchmaker to propose and brought home Li Xiangyun, the cloth-shop young lady with whom he had fallen in love at first sight.

At that time, Liu Fuchun was in high spirits and everything went as he wished. The only blemish was that he still had no children.

What was he to do? The first solution Liu Fuchun thought of was to alter the Feng Shui layout. Strangely, no matter how he changed it, there was still no movement in Li Xiangyun's belly.

After pondering for a long time, Liu Fuchun began to suspect that his wife suffered from an illness that made her unable to bear children.

Thus, he took Li Xiangyun everywhere to seek medical treatment and divine guidance. He even began considering taking a concubine.

Strangely enough, two months after he casually mentioned taking a concubine, Li Xiangyun became pregnant.

Liu Fuchun gave it no further thought. He simply felt that Heaven had seen his sincerity and manifested a miracle!

As the days passed, the Young Master Liu began to become idle and incapable under the doting care of his parents. In ordinary times, he was either visiting brothels, gambling, and indulging in women, or bullying the innocent.

As the saying went, raising a son without teaching him was like raising a donkey; raising a daughter without teaching her was like raising a pig.

Liu Fuchun felt that things could not continue this way, so he began disciplining his son strictly. He even resigned from office to have more time to educate his child, went to Linhe to conduct business, and became a wealthy gentleman.

The tutor who had resigned alongside him in the past transformed with a shake of his body and became the steward of the Liu Estate.

From then on, Liu Fuchun's focus was completely placed on educating his child. However, every time his son made a mistake, before he could even prepare to scold or strike him, Madam and the steward would step forward to dissuade him.

As time went on, his own child became even more unruly than when he had been county magistrate.

Still, children and grandchildren had their own blessings. In the end, Liu Fuchun's heart grew tired, and he simply stopped managing that rebellious son and began indulging himself.

By day, he played chess and teased birds; by night, he followed his business friends to the pleasure quarters to listen to music. He lived as carefree as an immortal!

Later, he even threw away gold and silver to redeem Su Hongxiu, the star courtesan of Cuiyun Tower, and brought her into his household.

By then, Liu Fuchun had completely forgotten his master's warning. He felt that even if he neglected his cultivation, he was still strong enough to bear the blessings brought by Feng Shui Geomancy. How could there be any so-called price?

Xu Qing found nothing abnormal up to this point. Yet just as he also began to think that the Arts of Civil and Martial Geomancy had no side effects, Master Liu's life suddenly stopped on a certain day!

And it stopped in the most literal, physical sense!

On that day, Master Liu heard that a Bathing the Deceased establishment had opened near Shitang. The weather was cold as well, so he brought his wife, son, and the steward who had always followed him loyally to wash away the dust and bathe.

When they arrived at the baths, Li Xiangyun found a private room, where maidservants naturally attended to her Bathing the Deceased. Master Liu, meanwhile, rented a large pool with the steward and his own son. The three of them had not been this close for a long time, so they thought it would be just right to strip naked, sit in the pool, scrub one another's backs, and chat to strengthen their bonds.

But unexpectedly, the moment Steward Song Cai took off his clothes, Master Liu's expression changed drastically!

With a splash, he stood up from the pool, no longer caring about decorum. In furious rage, he shouted, "You bastard! You dared seduce my wife and make me raise your son for all these years! I'll flay you alive!"

Song Cai had once been a tutor and was not stupid. He immediately realized—

There were peach-blossom moles on his buttocks exactly like the Young Master Liu's, and there was even a pair of them. No one else in the world had the same marks!

In those days, adultery was a grave crime. Seeing that Master Liu had truly lost his temper and intended to punish him, Song Cai decided to go all the way and drown Master Liu in the bathing pool.

The Young Master Liu was watching from the side. How could he let the other man succeed? This was his own father!

But just as he was about to step forward and stop them, Song Cai shouted, "Don't come over! I'm your biological father. If you don't believe me, look at the peach-blossom moles on our father-and-son posteriors. Master simply doesn't have the ability to father children, and your mother knows about this too!"

"If we don't kill him today, do you think any of us will have a good ending once the matter is exposed?"

The Young Master Liu immediately stopped upon hearing this.

Not his real father? Then there was no problem!

And so, Master Liu was drowned in the bathing pool. When the Prefectural Yamen came to investigate, the Young Master Liu and Steward Song Cai gave remarkably consistent accounts. They both said that Master Liu had died at the hands of a Ghostly Shadow!

Beside the heavy nanmu coffin in the Liu Estate's Mourning Hall, Xu Qing, who had finished eating the Liu family's enormous melon, took a long while to recover.

The melon was simply too huge. He had nearly choked on it!

Who could have imagined that Master Liu, after sailing smoothly for most of his life, would suffer such a calamity on his final day?

The aftermath of this calamity was practically more explosive than a bolt from the blue!

Still, no one else could really be blamed. As the saying went, even an incorruptible official could hardly judge a family dispute, and even an immortal could not wash away a mortal-world calamity.

If Liu Fuchun had properly followed the wandering Daoist in cultivation instead of entering the mortal world, how could so many things have happened...

Once the Duren Sutra finished reading his life, it gave the corpse an evaluation: Human-grade High-quality.

The rewards were a Human-grade Mid-quality copy of the "Arts of Civil and Martial Geomancy" and a Human-grade High-quality Qi Gazing Technique.

After absorbing the knowledge of the Arts of Civil and Martial Geomancy, Xu Qing suddenly understood.

Feng Shui Appraisal lay in correcting bad layouts and adding suitable enhancements. Too much was as bad as too little. If someone arranged their household Feng Shui to a standard even higher than the imperial palace, they might suffer harm instead because their own fortune was insufficient.

Liu Chunlai was a classic negative example and had consequently suffered such a tremendous backlash.

By comparison, although the Human-grade High-quality Qi Gazing Technique could not see the evil hidden in people's hearts, it could reveal the transformations of humans, demons, and strange beings, as well as the purity and filth concealed between Heaven and Earth.

Xu Qing cleared his mind of distractions and circulated the Qi Gazing Technique within him. With his eyes half-closed, he entered a state of stillness, seeming to see and yet not see, his gaze reaching his heart.

In the next moment, he opened his eyes. Everywhere his gaze reached, he saw faint, light, misty clouds of colored haze slowly rising.

All five elements and all five colors were present.

Looking again at the people in the hall, he saw haze of different colors and varying depths above every person's head. Su Hongxiu and Li Xiangyun were both shrouded in ambiguous hues, while a faint bloody Killing Intent hovered above Steward Song Cai's head, clearly because he had killed someone recently.