The Decapitation Trick

That day, Lin Shou had just finished a funeral job in Tianqiao.

He had helped bury an old man who'd made a living through small-time trading. He'd been frugal and had amassed a bit of property.

Ten years ago, the old man had been hit by a carriage and badly injured his legs. From then on, he'd been bedridden, just when he needed someone to care for him. Yet his five children had all vanished as if they'd dropped off the face of the earth.

A young servant had been the one to help look after him. The old man and the boy had relied on each other to survive. Later, the old man had gone into small-time trading and, through sheer luck, earned some money and built up a little property.

Today, when the old man died and was laid to rest, his dutiful sons and daughters—who hadn't shown their faces in ten years—suddenly appeared. It was hard to say how they'd all gotten the news so quickly.

One by one, they ran to the mourning hall and wept buckets, giving Lin Shou a fine show of filial devotion right there before the ancestral tablets.

After they'd finished crying, they started asking about the old man's small business and who'd inherited his property. Then they learned that the old man had left everything to that young servant.

How could those dutiful sons and daughters possibly accept that?

What? I cried my eyes out at your funeral, Father, and you didn't leave us a single thing? What kind of father does that? So we cried for nothing?

You old man, you really forgot your own sons once you had money! You got rich and suddenly couldn't remember your children!

The mourning hall erupted into a brawl. The dutiful sons started flipping tables and cursing, and even tried to beat up the servant. They nearly tipped over the old man's coffin.

What a disgrace to the family. If the old man could've known what was happening from beneath the ground, he'd probably have thrown open his coffin on the spot and come back to life from sheer anger.

Lin Shou watched the commotion for quite a while. It was hilarious.

He wasn't particularly surprised. The Small Yin Sect dealt with matters between the living and the dead, and you couldn't judge the people or the things involved by the standards of ordinary folk.

Between life and death, it was as if the ghosts in people's hearts were let loose. Anything bizarre could happen.

The longer you worked in this trade, the more absurd things you saw.

People fighting over an inheritance in front of a mourning hall, burying the living alongside the dead, white-haired parents burying their black-haired children, burying empty tombs to plant life foundations, corpses lying face-down with their faces pressed against the bottom of their coffins, people climbing into coffins to fight over a body...

Funerals were far more entertaining than weddings.

After finishing the job, Lin Shou hefted his increasingly lustrous Burial Shovel and stopped at a cool tea stall near Tianqiao. He drank some cold tea to soothe his throat, then got ready to head back to the Corpse-Stitching Shop.

As he drank, he turned to watch the street performers.

Tianqiao was a place for grand performances and amusements. Put simply, it was where the common folk at the bottom of society came to have fun. The streets were packed with all kinds of entertainers: monkey trainers, magicians, and other performers.

It was one of the places most revered by everyone in the jianghu trades in the Capital City, young and old alike.

Whether you wanted to make a name for yourself or earn money...

As long as you could make a name on Tianqiao, where skilled performers of the jianghu hid like crouching tigers and coiled dragons, people across the jianghu would recognize you wherever you went.

Money could press down on a servant, but skill could press down on the masters of the trade.

Unlike being an official or a merchant, where you needed money and connections, or farming, where sometimes you had to depend on the weather and risk droughts or floods, the rules of this trade were simple.

If your skill was greater than that of every other person in the trade, you were the master. You stood at the very top.

If two stalls featured performers who smashed stones on their chests, and you could break a five-pound rock while someone else could shatter a five-hundred-pound lump of iron, then that other person deserved the reward—and earned the right to eat.

So, though Tianqiao was a small place, it represented the prestige of all the trades among the Eight Sects of the Jianghu.

Newcomers who set up stalls here couldn't get a foothold without genuine skill. Take the magician who'd arrived a few days ago, for instance.

An old man, accompanied by his son.

The old man was rather rough-looking, and his son was ten years old.

The father and son had only one trick, and they performed it once each day. It was called the "Decapitation Trick."

How did the trick work?

The old man had his son lie on the ground, then picked up a large cleaver and chopped off the boy's head... Mm, what a loving father and filial son.

Of course, it was a trick. He wasn't really putting on a show where a father chopped off his son. Under the Great Jing Law, killing someone in broad daylight in the street meant immediate execution by beheading.

While the spectators were gasping in amazement, the old man carried a tray around to collect silver from them. Sometimes he recited a little spiel: "Please, have mercy on us. Our family's poor and can't afford to eat. This is the only trick we know, just to entertain you fine gentlemen. If you'd spare us enough for a meal, you'd be our parents and our benefactors, giving us a new lease on life. Please, have mercy."

In the middle of a performance, you had to include a bit asking for donations. You made your living through your skill, so of course the show wasn't free.

There was a knack to asking for donations, too. You had to play on the audience's curiosity. If you performed the whole thing in a muddle and finished it all at once, they'd lose interest. You had to stop at the most captivating moment, when they were itching to see what happened next. Cut it off with a snip and ask for money. Then they'd be anxious to find out what came next and naturally be willing to pay.

Just like now: a living person had been decapitated and laid on the ground, and the audience was desperate to see what happened next. That was the perfect time to ask for silver.

The old man's performance was entertaining and exciting. It didn't take long for his tray to fill with silver. Everyone loved watching him.

Once he'd collected enough, the old man continued the performance. He put his son's head back on and called out, "Rise!"

And hey, the boy stood up.

His head was perfectly intact, and he was full of life.

From beginning to end, nobody could figure out how the trick worked. They couldn't understand how the boy, whose head and body had clearly been separated, could come back to life with a single "Rise!"

Incredible, incredible.

The spectators all around cheered.

The old man and his son had only been here a few days, but this one dazzling trick had drawn huge crowds to Tianqiao. Every day, the silver they collected was enough to make people green with envy.

Over the past two days, Lin Shou had seen several other magicians lose their business to them. Whenever the old man set up his stall, everyone flocked over to watch.

His act was novel. Nobody had ever seen anything like it.

In any other place, if a bunch of performers had mediocre skills and couldn't compete for business, there was nothing they could do.

But this was Tianqiao in the Capital City, a place where crouching tigers and hidden dragons abounded.

There was always a higher mountain beyond the one you'd climbed, and no deep pool was without its dragon.

For three days, the old man had made easy money with his Decapitation Trick. His stall was packed, with a constant flow of carts and horses, and spectators crowding around it in layers.

Other magicians were left with empty stalls and poor business. They could only pay a few members of the Beggar Sect to act as an audience and keep up appearances.

This went on until the fourth day. Lin Shou had just finished burying the old man, and was watching the magician perform from the tea stall, when something went wrong.

As usual, the old man performed.

He chopped his son with the big cleaver, then asked the crowd for donations.

Once he'd collected the money, he turned to his son and called, "Rise..."

Huh? He didn't stand up?

The boy's corpse lay on the ground, completely motionless.

The old man's expression shifted. He tried again: "Rise..."

Still no movement. His son lay on the ground as if he were dead.

The old man's face changed completely. He bowed with cupped hands toward the gathered spectators, bending deeply as he said:

"I've only just arrived in the Capital City and don't know the rules. I failed to pay my respects to the masters and elders here, so I beg your forgiveness. Your powers are vast, and you've rendered this humble trick of mine useless. Please, show mercy. I'm willing to honor you as my master."