Classic of Burial

The morning rooster crowed at daybreak, and a good dog barked at the bright sun.

Early in the morning, the Bureau of Corpse Management began its shift.

A clerk arrived at the side room holding the grave robber's corpse and unlocked the door—it had been locked overnight for fear the corpse stitcher might flee.

As he opened the door, he called to a colleague nearby for help, ready to load the corpse stitcher's body into a cart and send it to the Public Mortuary for storage. He'd done this job for three days now, familiar and routine.

But he never expected that when the door swung open today, the clerk stomped his foot and stumbled back seven or eight paces, letting out a startled shout:

"Aiya! Are you man or ghost!"

Inside the room, Lin Shou was tidying up his corpse-stitching kit, walking out while grinning "foolishly" at the clerk and asking:

"Officer, the corpse is stitched. Can I head back?"

"Hey! You!" The clerk was three parts dazed and seven parts terrified. Seeing Lin Shou step out of the side room and stand unharmed under the bright sun, his fear ebbed by a mere three parts. He swallowed hard and asked:

"You're alive?"

Lin Shou laughed heartily at that. "Officer, what a thing to say. I can jump and move—how could I be dead?"

"Strange..." the clerk muttered under his breath, then asked, "Did anything unusual happen last night?"

Lin Shou shook his head. "No. I stitched the corpse and went to sleep, slept straight through till now."

"The corpse is fully stitched?"

"Fully stitched."

"..."

The clerk went inside, keeping his distance from the corpse as he craned his neck for a look. The stitches on the neck were complete—it was indeed finished.

The clerk scratched his head, even more baffled.

Stitching corpses wasn't something to be watched. One person, one corpse—that was the balance of yin and yang. If that balance tipped, trouble was more likely. That's why the Bureau had never found the cause of the corpse's haunting; they only knew whoever stitched it died.

In the clerk's view, Lin Shou was as good as dead. He'd already prepared to collect his body this morning. But unexpectedly, that little fool from Shop No. 9 had gotten lucky and survived.

Lord Sun, the Bureau's chief, had gone to the morning court session. Last night, he'd only said to send the corpse to the Public Mortuary if the man died by morning.

But now, the man wasn't dead. What to do?

"Officer, can I go back?"

"Uh... go on back for now, but don't wander far today. When Lord Sun returns from court, if he summons you, you need to be here."

"Got it."

Lin Shou cheerfully left the Bureau of Corpse Management and returned to his corpse-stitching shop.

The moment he got back, he saw several corpse stitchers peeking and poking around his shop door, muttering "he must've run off..."

Last night, they all knew Lin Shou had been called to the Bureau.

Eight times out of ten, his life was forfeit.

But oddly, they'd never heard the Obituary Bird cry in the dead of night.

So early this morning, they came to see if "Little Nine" had skipped town yesterday.

Lin Shou found them amusing. He let out a mock-angry shout, startling the few peeking around his shop. They turned to find Lin Shou.

"Little Nine, you didn't run?"

"Why would I run? The officer called me to the Bureau."

"You went?"

"I went."

"And you're still alive?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"But Little Fifteen and the others all died... What did the officer want you at the Bureau for?"

"To stitch a corpse. What else would a corpse stitcher do? Alright, alright, I'm dead tired from the night. I'm going to sleep. You all scatter now."

Lin Shou smiled and shooed away the few corpse stitchers, then went back into his shop.

He sat down in a chair, set down his stitching kit, and returned to his familiar little rundown room. Tsk, home was still the most comfortable.

Lin Shou rested a moment, then began to tally up his gains from the Bureau corpse-stitching job.

First, to dig a grave and bury a man, you must first sharpen your tools.

Lin Shou pulled a large shovel from his stitching kit.

This was a reward priced at Yellow Grade, First Rank in the Record of Selling Corpses, barely qualifying as... a divine weapon?

The Burial Shovel.

It was an ordinary shovel, but when used frequently, it would grow more and more suited to its wielder. The souls buried beneath its blade would all become fodder to hone the Burial Shovel.

Simply put, for now, it was just an ordinary shovel.

But it can be upgraded through burials—a growth-type weapon.

And its growth potential seems to have no upper limit; as long as you bury enough, it can become stronger.

Lin Shou weighed the Burial Shovel in his hand. Although its current function was mediocre, no different from an ordinary shovel, anyone with half a brain understood what the words "infinite growth" meant.

Unlimited potential, a future to look forward to—a true future warrior.

Yellow Grade, First Rank. To get such a fine item was a massive profit, an incredible bargain.

Lin Shou's only real dissatisfaction was that it was a shovel, not a blade or a sword. Using this as a divine weapon would hardly look cool!

Forget it, forget it. A person should know contentment and not ask for too much.

If it wasn't cool, so be it. Practicality would do.

Lin Shou propped the "future divine weapon," the Burial Shovel, against the wall and began studying the other reward he had obtained.

A reward priced at Heaven Grade, Third Rank!

A Heaven-grade reward, surprisingly, wasn't as flashy as expected. It didn't have the nitpicking version of Along the River During the Qingming Festival like with Subtle Perception, nor the Human-Faced Beast-Heart Fruit like with the Beast-Making Art, nor the bizarre Corpse-Stitching Needle Manual...

Instead, it had a quality of simplicity returning to the essence, of the grand path stripped bare.

The Record of Selling Corpses was priced at Heaven Grade, leaving behind a single scripture:

The Classic of Burial.

"Burial means concealment, riding on the breath of life."

The plain scripture was deeply engraved in the altar of his mind.

Lin Shou silently recited the Classic of Burial in his heart and felt the qi of all things around him slowly being drawn into his body.

This qi expanded his extraordinary meridians, warmed his muscles and bones, nourished every acupoint, swept clean his spiritual altar, calmed his heart and focused his mind, and finally gathered in his dantian, forming cultivation power.

The Classic of Burial seemed like a cultivation method.

But it also appeared different from ordinary martial arts inner energy techniques.

Lin Shou didn't need to sit in meditation or circulate his energy deliberately.

He only needed to silently recite the Classic of Burial in his heart, and it would spontaneously draw the surrounding qi, circulate it through his meridians, and channel it into his dantian to form cultivation power.

Each full circulation granted one day's worth of cultivation power.

Lin Shou silently recited the Classic of Burial, the qi cycling through his meridians, feeling the cultivation power in his dantian slowly grow. His physical constitution was clearly and comprehensively strengthening.

From dawn reciting the Classic of Burial until dusk, when the lanterns first lit and the sky turned a deep blue, the qi had completed ten full circulations.

Lin Shou threw a punch that carried the wind, now possessing ten days' worth of cultivation power.

This Classic of Burial cultivation method was quite interesting.

Lin Shou marveled. But that wasn't all.

A Heaven-grade cultivation method was obviously not that simple.

The Classic of Burial had another miraculous property: its cultivation speed was not constant but varied with the feng shui of the surrounding environment.

This so-called feng shui included the almanac, architecture, landscapes, objects, canals, carriages and horses, people, fortune and misfortune, birth charts, weather, life and death, yin and yang, Sha spirits, qi fortune, and so on—all things, myriad phenomena, both material and spiritual.

Under the current feng shui environment, one circulation of Lin Shou's qi fortune could increase his cultivation power by one day.

If he changed the surrounding feng shui layout, he could accelerate the cultivation speed—one circulation could increase it by five days, ten days, a month, a year, ten years...

Theoretically, the better the feng shui treasure land, the faster the cultivation speed.

Such divine wonder was the true value of the Classic of Burial.