Burial Shovel Upgrade

The next day, at Qingcheng Teahouse.

The storyteller, his words slurring, finished a session, and the patrons scattered like birds and beasts. Xia Ruzhen noticed a piece of paper left on the counter, picked it up, and read.

"Your younger sister's life hangs by a thread; she may not survive past next spring. Meeting is fate, so I leave this prescription to extend her life by a year..."

Shopkeeper Xia's mind buzzed.

Few knew of Li'er's illness.

As for it being severe enough that she wouldn't live past spring, only one person—a disciple of an Imperial Medical Academy physician, brought in through many connections—had discerned that, and he'd only left behind a word: accept fate.

Now, someone had not only seen through Li'er's illness but could also extend her life! The one who left this prescription was a master!

Shopkeeper Xia gripped the prescription, watching the departing crowd, gritted her teeth, and rushed to the teahouse entrance.

Facing the people streaming out, she knelt.

"Please, sir, show yourself and save my sister!"

Shopkeeper Xia, the daughter of a wealthy Shu Region merchant, knelt openly before a crowd of ragged commoners, her head touching the ground, all to beg the master to appear and save her sister's life.

The crowd paused briefly, unsure what was happening.

"Please, sir, show yourself and save my sister!"

Shopkeeper Xia knelt in the middle of the doorway, bowing and kowtowing.

The crowd murmured for a while, but no one stepped forward to ask. Instead, after a moment, they shuffled their feet, numbly sidestepping around Xia Ruzhen and dispersing on either side.

"Please, sir, show yourself..."

Each swept their own doorstep. The onlookers before the teahouse had long vanished, leaving Xia Ruzhen's solitary figure kneeling prostrate. This life-saving plea, in the end, went unheeded, unanswered.

"Shopkeeper! What are you doing!" the teahouse's attendants and maids called out, quickly helping her up and brushing the dirt from her clothes.

Xia Ruzhen told them not to worry about that, but to hurry and prepare some silver to go with her to the pharmacy for medicine.

Thus, the matter of An Yunli, the second daughter of a Shu Region tea merchant, afflicted with a strange illness, came to a temporary close.

An Yunli, sneaking out at midnight, was scared back by the fool from the Corpse-Stitching Shop.

A "master" in the Capital City left a prescription at the teahouse to extend her life.

An Yunli's fate, destined to end next spring, was, through this twist of coincidence, extended by another year.

Inside the Corpse-Stitching Shop.

Lin Shou was leisurely fussing with the greenery at the Azure Dragon Position.

He'd originally just wanted to set out a few pots of plants, but the more he tinkered, the more addicted he became.

Pothos, peace lilies, bamboo palms, aloe vera... Now the entire Azure Dragon Position was lush and vibrant. Lin Shou spent his days with a little shovel loosening soil and a watering can sprinkling.

Then there was the White Tiger Position. Early on, Lin Shou had carved a Maneki-neko, and recently he'd added a small pine tree hung with ribbons, bells, and various trinkets—it looked quite festive.

When a clerk from the Bureau of Corpse Management came to deliver a body and saw it, he asked curiously what it was. Lin Shou said it was a Western holiday decoration called the Western Seven-Treasure Marvelous Tree.

Every time this holiday came, a red-robed, white-bearded old immortal rode a deer, came in through the chimney, and granted you what you wished.

The clerk went home, studied his stove for a while, and thought, with all this smoke and soot, how could anyone think to come in through there?

Seems that foreign immortal wasn't too bright.

The Four Symbols Feng Shui Position in the Corpse-Stitching Shop was better arranged now. The feng shui was cultivated, and naturally, the cultivation of the Classic of Burial sped up.

Now, one cycle increased his power by ten days' worth.

Thus, a few leisurely days passed.

Lin Shou stitched up some more rustic villagers, earning rewards from the Record of Selling Corpses. He got Tiger Heart and Bear Gallbladder, supplements similar to Snake Gallbladder that boosted cultivation when eaten, along with effects for nourishing yin and strengthening yang...

Over several days, between the supplements and silently reciting the Classic of Burial.

Lin Shou's dantian now held ten years' worth of power.

With that power, one finger could punch through a copper basin.

Don't ask how he knew—ask him why he had to go to the market tomorrow to buy a new basin. He really hadn't expected it.

He'd never practiced martial arts, let alone knew any techniques for projecting qi outward. He simply channeled the power into his body, enhanced his strength, poked, and shattered the copper basin.

Good thing it was a copper basin. If that punch had landed on a human head—well, exploding watermelon.

His cultivation had yielded significant gains, but his skills were middling. Lately, he'd only stitched up rustic farmers and common folk, earning rewards for hunting, farming, and livestock production.

Still, not bad. More skills never weighed anyone down.

The accumulation of such basic knowledge was actually terrifying, especially since it enriched the Subtle Perception database.

Lin Shou noticed that as he learned more and more, Subtle Perception's functions grew stronger.

He remembered that at first, it could only simply share the five senses. Now, with a richer knowledge database, Subtle Perception could observe faces, deduce a person's profession, background, recent life circumstances, and so on.

Subtle Perception—the little Sherlock Holmes of deductive reasoning.

Finally, there was the Burial Shovel.

This upgradeable divine weapon, the Future Warrior.

To support it, Lin Shou had specially expanded his business, taking on jobs digging pits and filling graves for burials.

In his past life, this work was all done by excavators. This era had no such advanced tools—everything was manual labor. A single funeral required several strong young men, and most people would just hire the Pallbearer Guild to handle it, paying an extra funeral fee for their help.

Lin Shou had practically set a precedent—a corpse-stitcher butting into that business. Around the Capital City, you could always see a corpse-stitcher carrying a shovel, wandering between various funeral sheds and mass graves.

He'd sling that big shovel across his shoulder, drape his elbows over it, striking the same pose as the Great Sage carrying his Golden Cudgel. Strolling along, he looked even more arrogant than a street thug.

The neighbors at Caishikou would say, "That little fool from the Corpse-Stitching Shop is having another bout of madness."

But Lin Shou's antics had really pissed off the local punks and ruffians. "We're the coolest kids on this street—if you steal all the swagger, what's left for us?"

And that's the Capital City's spirited youth for you—their brains worked nothing like ordinary folks'...

Every time those thugs saw Lin Shou on the street, they'd chase after him looking for trouble. In this era, street fights were common; as long as no one died, the authorities couldn't be bothered.

Then they got beaten up.

Every day they'd swagger over swinging bricks, then slink back with black eyes and aching bodies, grimacing through the pain. They'd think to themselves, "That little fool from the Corpse-Stitching Shop looks scrawny, but who knew he could fight like that?"

After losing enough times, the local thugs no longer dared to mess with that little fool from the Corpse-Stitching Shop.

Lin Shou couldn't help feeling a bit wistful. Ah, my free punching bags for daily practice are gone.

This little storm rose and fell lightly, stirring no waves, insignificant. But back to the Burial Shovel.

In recent days, Lin Shou had run over a dozen funeral gigs, helping people fill graves and bury the dead. Each time he buried someone, faint gray smoke seeped into the Burial Shovel, and after several uses, it seemed sturdier and more durable.

What was once a common, rotten iron shovel head—one that could chip from a cleaver's strike—had now been upgraded. When smashed against a tempered Hundred-Refined Blade, it could knock several big notches into the blade, while remaining pitch-black, glossy, and gleaming like new.

Lin Shou held it in his hands. It felt more and more natural.