In the days that followed, life grew leisurely again.
By day, Lin Shou recited the Classic of Burial and practiced his skills. At night, he stitched up corpses. He gained something every day and never tired of it.
Over the past few days, he had gotten a Strength Pill, a Dog Skin Plaster, a Snake Gallbladder, a Century-Old Ginseng, a Compendium of Materia Medica, a Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases, and a set of Ten Books on Yang Dwellings from the Record of Selling Corpses...
He had used the Strength Pill and the Dog Skin Plaster.
His physical constitution had improved once again.
At first, Lin Shou had felt that his body had reached its limit.
But after the Classic of Burial had given him inner power, he felt that the limit had vanished. He could continue strengthening his body.
That was probably what martial artists meant by complementing the internal with the external: cultivating one breath within and training the sinews, bones, and skin without.
This was the first time Lin Shou had gotten a Snake Gallbladder and Century-Old Ginseng from the Record of Selling Corpses.
He had gotten the Snake Gallbladder by stitching up a snake catcher. The man had gone into the mountains to catch snakes, only to be bitten by a venomous one and die. When he failed to return, his family went looking for him in the mountains. By the time they found him, wolves had eaten half his arm.
He had gotten the Century-Old Ginseng by stitching up an herb gatherer. The man hadn't died after encountering a wild beast in the mountains. Instead, he'd run into bandits robbing the road outside the city. They'd been targeting a merchant caravan, but the poor fellow had happened to be passing by and had been felled by a single slash.
Tsk, tsk. Two unlucky souls.
The Snake Gallbladder and the Century-Old Ginseng had similar effects. Each had given Lin Shou a whole year's worth of inner power.
With the current feng shui conditions, reciting the Classic of Burial gained Lin Shou only ten or twenty days' worth of inner power a day, depending on how diligently he practiced.
Yet one Snake Gallbladder and one Century-Old Ginseng had each given him an entire year. What good stuff!
Lin Shou felt the inner power in his dantian, now considerably fuller. He circulated it through his dantian and throughout his body, then threw a punch with all his might.
Clang! Crash!
The force of his punch sent the copper basin two meters away crashing to the floor.
He had only a little over two years of inner power, but his abilities had already surpassed the bounds of ordinary humanity.
Lin Shou was very satisfied.
Besides their main effect of increasing his inner power, the Snake Gallbladder and Century-Old Ginseng each had additional benefits.
The Snake Gallbladder increased his body's resistance to toxins and harmful substances, boosting his immunity. Put simply, it raised his poison resistance.
If he ate enough of these things and stacked his poison resistance high enough, he might even become immune to all poisons.
Besides increasing his inner power, the Century-Old Ginseng replenished his qi and blood, promoted his metabolism, and boosted his blood production. After eating it, he felt greatly nourished and full of energy.
These were all tonics he had gotten from the Record of Selling Corpses. The other rewards were various crafts and skills, including medicine and physiognomy.
The Compendium of Materia Medica taught him how to identify herbs and medicines, how to prepare prescriptions and decoctions, and covered water, fire, earth, metal, stone, herbs, grains, vegetables, fruits, trees, clothing, tools, insects, reptiles, shellfish, birds, beasts, and humans. From the tiniest to the largest, from the lowliest to the most precious, it collected information on the origins, forms, and harvesting of medicinal substances, along with prescriptions for treating the sick and saving lives.
With so much knowledge of Chinese herbs poured into him, Lin Shou could now be called a walking encyclopedia of medicinal plants.
Whether he was searching for and gathering herbs in the wilderness or filling prescriptions at an apothecary, he could do it all.
Combined with the other medical text he had acquired, the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases, he could even set himself up as a wandering physician and treat the sick.
Lin Shou had gotten the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases by stitching up the corpse of a down-and-out old physician.
From the Lantern of Life, he had seen that before his fall, the physician had had quite a distinguished career. He had once been the Late Emperor's court physician, and, like Lord Sun of the Bureau of Corpse Management, had held the rank of a sixth-grade court official.
Later, Prince Yi's consort came down with a strange illness, and the physician was summoned to examine her. He treated her for three years, but could not cure her.
Prince Yi flew into a rage and ordered the physician's head cut off.
In the end, the Late Emperor spared his life out of regard for his years of service. He dismissed him from office and let him retire to his hometown.
After being dismissed and sent home, the old physician had been in a daze ever since. He had spent his whole life serving the emperor, only to see his good name ruined in his old age and meet such a miserable end. In the end, one night, he got up to relieve himself, fell into a well, and died.
In fact, Lin Shou had seen in the Lantern of Life that the first time the old physician examined the consort, he had said her illness was incurable and that he could only prolong her life.
Doctors were not immortals.
Besides, as the old saying went, "Even the Great Golden Immortal himself would have trouble saving her." Even immortals weren't omnipotent, so why demand the impossible of a doctor?
But Prince Yi was a violent man who knew no reason.
Couldn't he cure his consort?
Then he was a quack! Kill him!
If the Late Emperor hadn't intervened out of old affection, the old physician would have died right then. Even though he had scraped by at the time, his reputation was already ruined. He didn't live much longer, either, and died in the well.
He had sold his life to the imperial house. Serving the emperor was like accompanying a tiger.
Under feudal rule, the weight of blind loyalty was enough to make one sigh.
The corpse had been rated seventh grade of the Black tier.
Heaven, Earth, Black, Yellow. Apart from that inexplicable Heaven-tier corpse he had gotten through sheer dumb luck, this was the highest rating among the corpses Lin Shou had stitched up normally—and the only one in the Black tier.
Naturally, the medical skill he had gained, the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases, was no small thing.
Now, as Lin Shou walked down the street, he could use the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases together with Subtle Perception to observe people and read their faces. That one coughs up phlegm; he must have caught a chill. That one's qi and blood are depleted; his kidneys aren't doing too well...
With the four methods of diagnosis—inspection, listening and smelling, inquiry, and palpation—he could identify ailments just by taking a few glances, without even feeling a pulse.
Tsk, tsk. If he learned a few more medical skills, he might be able to bring the dead back to life and give bones flesh, becoming a renowned physician of the land.
Among the Eight Trades of the Jianghu, the Skin Sect had its medical arts, and the Gold Sect had its physiognomy.
He had gained a great deal in medicine, and had also picked up a little of another trade: feng shui and physiognomy.
The Ten Books on Yang Dwellings.
That was the reward he had gotten for stitching up a feng shui master.
From the Lantern of Life, he knew that the man had no real skill. He was a heartless, shameless charlatan. But the rewards for stitching up and selling corpses granted genuine skills and abilities.
"Where a person lives, the land and rivers should be the chief consideration. Their courses and the force of their qi have the greatest bearing on a person's fortune and misfortune, and are of the utmost importance..."
Put simply, it was the art of feng shui for homes.
In a single night, Lin Shou absorbed the knowledge of the Ten Books on Yang Dwellings and mastered the basic Four Symbols Feng Shui Technique.
The Four Symbols were the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise, corresponding to the left, right, front, and rear of a building or dwelling.
A home with flowing water on the left was said to have the Azure Dragon; riches and honor on the right meant the White Tiger; an open terrace in front meant the Vermilion Bird; and hills behind meant the Black Tortoise. Such a place was considered most auspicious.
These four directions were the simplest and most fundamental principles of feng shui, though there were countless complex variations beyond them.
The scale could be as large as an entire city or as small as a single person.
On the scale of a city, the Capital City of the Great Jing Dynasty had the Azure Dragon Ward, White Tiger Ward, Vermilion Bird Ward, and Black Tortoise Ward. The four great wards divided up auspiciousness, baleful intent, wealth, and protection, bringing the capital's feng shui layout to life.
On the scale of a person, there was the Azure Dragon on the left, the White Tiger on the right, a chicken raising its head in front, and a tortoise drawn on the butt... Well, that was just for laughs.
That was more or less how the Four Symbols Feng Shui Technique worked.
Arrange the Four Symbols in their proper positions to improve the feng shui.
Lin Shou happened to give it a try at his little Corpse-Stitching Shop. Once he had set up the Four Symbols in their proper positions, he put out the ornaments he had bought.
The Azure Dragon on the left represented nobility and vitality; it favored flowing water and signs of life.
But Lin Shou had no way to make someone dig a river beside his Corpse-Stitching Shop. Besides, the Qingcheng Teahouse stood to the left of his shop, so he put out several potted plants to suggest vitality.
The White Tiger on the right represented wealth. Lin Shou had gone to look at things like treasure-gathering basins at a street stall, but they were expensive, tacky, and a rip-off. So he simply carved a wooden lucky cat himself and set it out.
The Black Tortoise at the rear emphasized stability and favored sheltering mountains. Lin Shou bought a landscape scroll and hung it on the back wall, in the Black Tortoise Position.
The Vermilion Bird in front emphasized openness and brightness. Lin Shou swept the area in front of the shop, where the Vermilion Bird was positioned, every day. Then he bought two big red lanterns and hung them at the entrance to light it up.
Lin Shou remembered that he had recently been looking for a way to upgrade his Burial Shovel and also needed to expand his business. So he turned the two red lanterns into neon signs and wrote his business ads on them.
After that,
the red lanterns outside the Corpse-Stitching Shop would glow in the dead of night. Chilling winds swirled, ordinary people dared not venture out, and even the neighboring kids cried in fright.
Two blood-red lanterns hung there, each with a message written on it.
One said, "Dig the pit."
The other said, "Bury the dead."
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