Night Blooms with Rose Fragrance, Heads Hang from Blade Tips

Eight Sects of the Jianghu.

This referred to eight types of livelihood trades in the martial world. After a few days of listening to storytelling, Lin Shou had a rough understanding of what each entailed.

Feng shui fortune-telling, practicing medicine and selling medicine, performing magic tricks, putting on monkey shows, martial escort masters, street busking, teahouse storytelling, opera singing, and the trades of beggars and courtesans selling smiles and pity...

And the small Yin-door trades Lin Shou worked in, like corpse-stitching, papercraft, coffin shops, and suona playing, along with paper-mounting and painting crafts.

Most of the mainstream "skill" trades in the martial world fell within these eight sects. Beyond that, some single-inheritance crafts or unique techniques, or outright illegal trades like swindling, theft, murder, and arson, were collectively called heretical paths.

The storyteller's rendition of Eight Sects of the Jianghu always followed a biographical format—telling tales like the divine doctor Liu Jinping healing the world, the great escort master Nie Yongzhen traveling a thousand miles alone, or the beggar king...

In short, it was all about these matters of the martial world, mixed with tales of adultery and murder, court cases, and battles between Gods and Devils. It was both down-to-earth and entertaining, and the common folk loved it.

Lin Shou thought they were just like those internet celebrities making short videos in his past life—storytellers with great skill and deep knowledge had fans chasing them and teahouses inviting them.

Big teahouses would hire famous storytellers, and the money they earned from a single session was no less than that of a top opera star.

Lin Shou mused to himself that if he ever couldn't make it as a corpse-stitcher, he could switch careers to storytelling.

He might be lacking in technique and experience, needing polish, but he had an advantage—his head was full of stories from his past life. Reciting the Four Great Classical Novels alone would be enough to last him a lifetime.

Lin Shou was just calculating whether he could also make a fortune by being a literary plagiarist.

Then he suddenly saw a young maidservant from the teahouse hurry past him, rush over to Shopkeeper Xia, and whisper something in his ear.

"Shopkeeper, the Second Miss is coughing again."

Hearing this, Shopkeeper Xia's face turned pale, and he hurried off to the private quarters in the back courtyard of the teahouse. Pushing open the door, he revealed a room with a peach-wood floor, burning incense, and a frail woman lying on a couch.

Once the door closed, Lin Shou could no longer hear the sounds from inside, and his mental imagery stopped there.

But from this brief glimpse of what little he had seen and heard, Lin Shou had already pieced together a picture in his mind.

Lin Shou sat in the teahouse, with Shopkeeper Xia about twenty meters away. The maidservant whispered in his ear, and Lin Shou couldn't hear the words, but he could see how her lips moved, and through lip-reading, he reconstructed what she said.

After that, Shopkeeper Xia rushed off to the back courtyard's private quarters. Lin Shou couldn't see the courtyard, but from the change in the sound of footsteps, he knew they stepped onto a wooden floor upon entering. The scent of incense wafted out, and he could tell from the smell that the ingredients were expensive.

Additionally, the "Second Miss" in the boudoir was coughing, with variations in pitch, leading him to deduce she was lying on the couch, lacking inner energy, and likely frail...

These scattered bits of information and clues integrated in Lin Shou's mind, vaguely forming a thread.

This ability for extended reasoning, comparable to Holmes's method of observation, was a reward Lin Shou had obtained from the Record of Selling Corpses after stitching up a constable's corpse that had died at Shallow Water Pier last night.

Corpse price: Yellow Rank Grade Six.

The Record of Selling Corpses rewarded Lin Shou with two spot-the-difference scrolls of Along the River During the Qingming Festival.

From the near to know the far, see the subtle to perceive the obvious.

Lin Shou spent an entire night playing spot-the-difference on the two scrolls of Along the River During the Qingming Festival, packed with dense crowds of people, and mastered the technique of "Subtle Perception."

After mastering Subtle Perception, Lin Shou clearly felt his observational skills and logical thinking had improved significantly.

Of course, it was still far from the inhuman, twisted logical ability of Holmes, who could see someone once and see through their entire ancestry.

The concrete effect was just like what had happened—using the method of interconnecting the five senses to reason and fill in the gaps.

Lin Shou thought it was acceptable for a Yellow Rank Grade Six.

Still, this attempt at Subtle Perception had unexpectedly let him glimpse some of Shopkeeper Xia's family affairs.

Lin Shou sat in the teahouse listening to the storytelling, waiting until the tea went cold and the sun set behind the western hills. It was getting late, time to head back.

He returned to the Corpse-Stitching Shop, waited and waited until dark, but no corpse was delivered.

Well, another day with no business.

Lin Shou closed the shop door, put up the door panels, and turned to the half-built stove against the wall.

A few days ago, he had reported to the clerk at the Bureau of Corpse Management that he wanted to build a stove in the shop. It was approved the day before yesterday, so he had prepared bricks and mortar and started working.

He rolled up his sleeves, pushed up his cuffs, and grabbed a brick. Since there was no corpse to stitch tonight, he might as well finish building the stove.

But just as he was about to start, someone knocked on the door, and a woman's urgent voice came from outside, crying for help:

"Shopkeeper, are you there! Help! Help! Some thugs are trying to assault me! Help!"

Hearing the voice, Lin Shou frowned.

The voice was urgent, the breath unsteady—it did sound like someone being chased, but it could also be faked if someone had the mind to.

He moved quietly to the door and peeked through a small hole in the window paper on the side. Sure enough, there was a woman outside.

She wore a dark black long robe with dark-thread embroidered peonies, barely concealing her graceful figure. Delicate white skin peeked through the black veil, and her disheveled hair covered her face.

Through the hole in the paper window, Lin Shou saw that the woman outside had a lovely figure. Though her face was hidden, it only added to the mystery.

Her coiled hair was as delicate as clouds, and her drifting sleeves carried the scent of roses.

If it had been anyone else, they would have definitely opened the door to help.

But unfortunately, she had run into Lin Shou.

Lin Shou saw that beneath the guise of lust, what was hidden was a bloodthirsty blade.

No more words were needed, just one sentence.

Lin Shou, that old lecher, also wanted to play the hero saving the beauty, but unfortunately, he recognized the clothes on the woman outside the door.

Where had he seen them?

On the corpse of the sixth corpse-stitcher—the one in the felt hat whose scalp had been cut off—in his Lantern of Life.

That's right, the one outside the door now was none other than the Scalp-Cutter, the wanted criminal behind the Twelve Capital Scalp-Cutting Cases.

"Shopkeeper, save me! Save me!"

The Scalp-Cutter, disguised as a frail woman, called out from outside the door.

Lin Shou held his breath and focused, not daring to answer.

The lamplight in the Corpse-Stitching Shop was bright and clear; anyone could tell someone was inside, but what could they do if he simply chose to play deaf and dumb?

There were plenty of cases in the martial world where people turned a blind eye to others in peril. The other party couldn't possibly guess that he wasn't opening the door because he recognized her as the Scalp-Cutter.

The woman outside knocked and pleaded for help a few more times, but got no response. Suddenly, the sound of rapid bootsteps echoed from the street.

Lin Shou's heart leaped with joy—it was the night patrol officers.

Sure enough, hearing the officials approaching, the Scalp-Cutter turned and quickly slipped away, as if frightened.

Lin Shou listened as the patrol passed by outside, and the Scalp-Cutter vanished without a trace. Only then did he let out a long breath, his mind relaxing.

The shop's doors and windows had been tightly shut the whole time. The Scalp-Cutter couldn't get in, so she couldn't harm him.

But then, Lin Shou suddenly heard a charming woman's voice ring out from behind him in the room, cold as a blade in an oriole's song:

"Dear sir, how cruel of you."