Shoushan Town was famed for its mountain craftsmen!
This was because Shoushan abounded in strange stones. With a little carving and stacking, they could be made into artificial mountains, deeply beloved by wealthy nobles.
As the saying went: "Those grand peaks of exceptional beauty were not merely granted noble titles; some were even bestowed golden belts."
Thus, poor families from villages within dozens of miles often sent their children here to become apprentices who risked their lives for a meal.
If they caught a master's eye and were taught the craft, they might become firecrackers leaving the ground—soaring to prosperity.
Even villages beyond the mountain would sometimes hear the news and send their sons over.
Unfortunately, once the apprentice learned everything, the master would starve.
The old masters guarded the art of carving and stacking stones very tightly.
The apprentices who came to learn either went up the mountain to quarry stone or handled miscellaneous chores.
And at any moment, they might lose their lives.
Just a few days ago, two apprentices had died at Boyan Stone Records.
It was said that while quarrying stone in the mountains, one had missed his footing and instinctively grabbed his companion, sending both of them tumbling down the slope to their deaths.
The lives of mountain children were as cheap as grass. Boyan Stone Records paid some silver according to custom, and the matter was settled.
Yet transporting the corpses became a major problem.
The two apprentices' homes lay beyond the mountain. Taking the official road would require a full seven or eight days.
Not only did carriage companies charge exorbitant prices, but even if the silver was paid, by the time the bodies reached the other side in this blazing July heat, they would likely be crawling with maggots and reeking.
But if they took the mountain paths, never mind how rugged and difficult they were—who would dare carry corpses on their back?
Heh!
Where there was demand, there was a market.
There truly were people in this world who made a living from such a specialized trade.
They were called corpse drivers.
"Daoist priest, don't you think this is strange? Not only do they transport corpses without carrying them, they even line the corpses up and make them walk back on their own!"
"I saw it myself just now! There was a huge string of them, hopping and bouncing out of the mortuary, heading into the mountains!"
The gossip-loving farmer carrying a hoe bragged with flying spittle, his expression excited yet hiding a trace of fear.
Mo Chuan felt his interest stir at those words.
If he was not mistaken, this was most likely some sort of corpse-controlling art!
If he could learn it, it would count as a skill to establish himself and make a living.
"May I ask, brother, which direction did that corpse driver go?" Mo Chuan hurriedly asked.
"Daoist priest, are you going after that corpse driver?" The old farmer's whole body trembled.
"Haha, look at that blockhead of yours. The Daoist priest wants to avoid the corpse driver. Who would want to get close to that bunch of unlucky things?"
A man in blue beside them laughed. "Daoist priest, I saw it clearly. They headed down the Shuiqiao Stream trail in Shoushan."
Mo Chuan immediately cupped his hands. "Thank you for the guidance, brother!"
Then he looked at the tea stall owner. "Old sir, how much for the tea?"
The stall owner waved his hand. "You are too courteous, Daoist priest. Half a bowl of strong tea is free!"
Mo Chuan did not stand on ceremony. Reaching into his robes, he took out a Ghost Subduing Talisman and handed it over.
"Please keep this, old sir. Carry it with you in ordinary times, and little ghosts will not dare approach you."
"Good, good, good."
The stall owner hurriedly wiped his hands on his outer garment before reaching out to accept it.
"I have troubled you. Farewell."
Mo Chuan cupped his hands and strode away.
"How strange. This is the first time I've seen a Daoist traveling at night."
Watching Mo Chuan's retreating back, the man in blue shook his head. Then his expression abruptly changed. "Eh? Why is the Daoist priest heading toward Shuiqiao Stream?"
"Daoist priest, that's the direction of Shuiqiao Stream! Don't go, don't go—"
The stall owner looked over at the sound and found it was indeed so. He quickly opened his mouth to shout.
Under the dim twilight, the Daoist merely raised a hand to show that he had heard, then plunged headfirst into the vast night.
The night was empty and silent, shrouded in miasmic fog.
The wilderness trail, which still held a trace of human presence during the day, had become as deep and secluded as a graveyard's winding gut by night.
The strange stones of Shoushan, which people praised in wonder, lay casually piled beside the trail like lonely graves and wild burial mounds.
As the mountain wind howled, they swallowed clouds and spat mist, whispering among themselves as though picking the fat and choosing the lean.
"Jingle, jingle, jingle..."
Suddenly, the piercing ring of bells drifted faintly from the depths of the ancient forest, making hearts clench.
A moment later, the thick fog split apart.
A figure wearing a bamboo hat and a Daoist robe emerged, shaking a Soul-Quelling Bell in his left hand and holding a small gong mallet in his right. Accompanied by the bell's ringing, he struck the Yin Calling Gong at his waist with loud clanks.
Clang! Clang!
"Ghosts travel the road, the living step aside. If you refuse to avoid them, any mishap is your own responsibility..."
In the dim night, a bizarre procession trailed behind the gong-striking Daoist, slowly making its way along the winding mountain path.
Every person in the group had both arms stretched straight out, linked together in a line. They moved in unison, hopping and bouncing along, creating a scene that was bizarre and terrifying.
These people were none other than the corpse drivers the idle men at the tea stall had been discussing.
"Lead corpse driver, shall we switch?"
A tentative greeting came from within the hopping corpses.
"We've barely walked a few steps. It's still early. Don't try to slack off!"
The lead corpse driver turned back and scolded the junior corpse driver hidden among the corpses.
"Oh!"
A disgruntled grunt came from the corpse line.
Clang! Clang!
Two more beats of the gong rang out. The lead corpse driver continued as he pleased, striking the gong while trudging along the mountain trail.
"Lead corpse driver, stop striking it. We're deep in the mountains; there shouldn't be anyone around!"
The junior corpse driver spoke again.
"Hee hee, deep in the mountains—of course there's no one."
A voice answered him, and the hopping corpses abruptly stopped.
The voice was sharp and shrill, like a coquettish woman and yet like a wronged ghost. It seemed to lurk in the shadow-filled forest, watching the mountain path with ill intent.
"Who is it?"
The junior corpse driver's voice came from among the corpses.
"Silence!"
The lead corpse driver rebuked him. He hurriedly grabbed a handful of talismans from his charm bag and scattered them, chanting at the same time:
"Humans are separated by a layer of paper, ghosts by a mountain;"
"A thousand evils cannot make mischief, ten thousand evils cannot pass through."
As the talismans scattered, the forest seemed to fall silent.
The lead corpse driver listened closely for a while. When no more seductive voices came, he finally relaxed and raised his gong mallet, ready to strike.
"Hee hee, old Daoist, is that all you can do?"
Unexpectedly, the shrill voice returned, faintly accompanied by a burst of furtive ghostly laughter that chilled the blood and stirred panic.
"Go!"
The lead corpse driver's face changed at once. He said no more, pressed down his bamboo hat, and hurried forward with his head lowered.
The halted corpse line began hopping again, though their movements were much more frantic now.
Whoosh!
Something suddenly flew from the forest and struck the lead corpse driver with a smack.
The lead corpse driver's body paused briefly before he continued onward with his head down.
"Trying to leave? Leave behind your toll money!"
The sharp voice rang out again. Several points of emerald-green ghostfire rose in the woods, trailing alongside the corpse drivers' procession.
The lead corpse driver turned a deaf ear and did not stop walking. His pace only grew faster and faster.
"Hey! You swindling charlatan, take my blade!"
A sudden roar erupted from beside the strange-stone-strewn road.
The lead corpse driver jerked his head around in terror and saw a mountain-cleaving blade, reflecting the bleak moonlight, slash through the air!
A flash of cold light swept past.
A large head flew high into the air.
The bamboo hat followed after it!
Under the desolate moonlight stood a man thick with Killing Intent, blade in hand. Beside him, the headless corpse swayed unsteadily before collapsing to the ground with a thud.
"Master—"
An urgent cry came from the corpse line. Then a figure shot out and ran toward the lead corpse driver.
"Hahaha, perfect!"
The man was overjoyed at the sight. He took a step forward, and his mountain-cleaving blade swung down again.
Clang—
A sharp metallic collision rang out. The rushing figure had instinctively drawn a Xiangxi saber and blocked the fatal blow.
"Heh!"
Yet that strike only sent the man into a violent frenzy. He raised the mountain-cleaving blade and chopped down again.
This time, though the corpse driver wanted to raise his blade to block, he had no strength left to lift it. He could only stretch out his neck in despair and await the blow!
Pfft!
The blade sank into his neck, and another large head flew up.
The corpse driver's headless body swayed where it stood before finally crumpling to the ground with a thud.
At that moment, rustling sounds came from the forest.
The grass and trees parted, and two figures, one tall and one short, emerged. The night concealed their faces, making them impossible to see clearly.
"Old Biaozi, you were too impulsive. Why didn't you say anything first?"
The taller figure complained.
"Say my ass! I said long ago that these two charlatans dared put on this ghost-act business because they were surely bold as a fighting dipper. Better to chop them down in one stroke and be done with it!"
Old Biaozi looked utterly unconcerned. As he spoke, he patted his mountain-cleaving blade, his expression especially sinister and vicious.
"Enough, enough. Finding the money is what matters!"
The shorter figure tried to smooth things over while already impatiently searching the corpses.
"You two search first. I want to see how these charlatans drove corpses."
As Old Biaozi spoke, he casually walked to the line of corpses and poked one with his blade.
Unexpectedly, with that single poke, the corpse collapsed with a crash, knocking down the entire row of corpses behind it.
The repeated thuds of bodies falling made the two men searching the corpses jump in fright.
"Pah! What worthless trash. So this is how they drove corpses? They cut away the torsos and strung them up with bamboo poles."
Old Biaozi lifted one of the bodies with his blade and immediately cursed.
The other two hurried over for a closer look.
Sure enough, the driven corpses had only their limbs and heads remaining, their middles stuffed entirely with straw.
Once clothed, there was no way to spot the trick.
Two long bamboo poles ran beneath the corpses' armpits, stringing them into a line. The corpse drivers only needed to stand in the middle to easily lift an entire row of bodies.
Those hopping movements must have been the dangling legs swaying naturally.
"No wonder they hid by day and traveled by night. It was all a scam to fool people. Pah!"
"Damn it, this means we've rid the people of a scourge."
The bandits blocking the road cursed and swore, treating this bizarre scene as nothing at all. They were bold as tigers indeed!
"Find the money, find the money!"
"Third Brother, how much did you find?"
"Just one string of copper coins."
"I only found a few coins."
"Did you hide some for yourself?"
"Damn it, you suspect me?"
Before long, the three bandits began arguing, all because they had found so little money.
They had come prepared, after all.
It was said that this corpse-driving job was worth a full four taels of silver, but in the end, they had gotten less than a string of copper coins?
How could they not grow suspicious?
Amid a barrage of curses, the three bandits left unwillingly.
The wilderness fell silent once more.
Only the severed limbs and corpses littering the ground remained, waiting to frighten whichever passerby came next.
Tap, tap, tap—
The bandits had barely left when a sound of footsteps suddenly came from deep within the mountain path.
As thin mist drifted through the air, a young Daoist entered the scene of the murder with uncertainty written across his face.
"Did bandits strike here?"
Mo Chuan looked at the wreckage strewn across the mountain path. Even with all he had seen and known, his face changed drastically.
What kind of bandits dared to block the road in the dead of night?
Especially the road of corpse drivers from the Yin-Retrieval Sect?
"What a pity! If this poor Daoist hadn't drunk that bowl of leftover tea, I might have caught up."
Mo Chuan muttered, shaking his head with some regret.
He looked at the corpses strewn across the ground, wondering whether he should bury them.
He wanted to do it, yet his heart prickled with unease.
Wasn't that so?
Just imagine it: in the dead of night, amid desolate mountains and wilderness, beside a narrow goat-track, heads and severed limbs lay scattered everywhere. How could that not make one's heart tremble with fear?
Fortunately, he had seen plenty of demons and ghosts, tempering himself into a man with a stout heart.
Otherwise, before obtaining the Sacrificial Dao Furnace, this scene alone might have frightened him into a blank mind and stopped heart.
"Alas!"
Mo Chuan sighed, gritted his teeth, and rolled up his sleeves. He took an iron shovel from the Sacrificial Dao Furnace and began digging beside the mountain path.
With the Art of Ascending and Copying to assist him, digging graves was not hard labor for him.
Yet just as he began digging, an aged voice suddenly came from behind him, making his scalp go numb.
"Daoist, do not dig!"
He abruptly turned toward the voice and saw that a head rolling by the roadside had suddenly opened its eyes, looking at him with a kindly expression.
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