Paoding's Ox-Carving Method

The whole affair was absurd.

The Fortune-Longevity Paste smuggling case implicated countless people. It was a matter of grave importance, shrouded in layers of suspicion, and everyone in the imperial court had their own hidden agenda, eyeing one another with mistrust.

The Three Judicial Offices wanted evidence. The Western Affairs Party wanted to find the Scalp-Cutter.

The bigwigs were locked in open and covert struggles over it, sparks flying and tempers flaring, until the entire Capital City was nearly in chaos.

But they would never have guessed that the key information they had yet to uncover—despite commanding a vast official organization and spending so much silver and time—was already known to the little fool at No. 9 Corpse-Stitching Shop in Caishikou.

Lin Shou had the smuggling evidence the Three Judicial Offices wanted, and he also knew where the Scalp-Cutter the Western Affairs Party was secretly searching for could be found.

It was no exaggeration to say that if Lin Shou walked up to the Censorate today and said a single word, he could easily overturn the current balance of power in Great Jing's court.

With one word, he could have over a hundred court officials lose their heads. The power over life and death was entirely in his hands.

However, Lin Shou wasn't interested.

He was only interested in the rewards he could squeeze out of the Record of Selling Corpses.

Of course, if he got to stitch up the corpses of all those hundred-plus officials, he might have taken some interest.

The Lantern of Life finished playing.

The long-haired, mole-covered corpse was not worth much, rated Yellow-Grade Eight.

The Record of Selling Corpses rewarded him with the Dice Cup Technique.

It was a method of cheating at dice, a skill for shaking dice in a cup that let him control the number that came up at will.

The skill was mainly useful for gambling, but Lin Shou wasn't very interested in betting money, so it probably wouldn't be of much use.

The next day, the sun was already high overhead when the clerk came to collect the body.

Lin Shou had been busy all night, so he went to bed.

He didn't wake until evening. Ning Luowei came to deliver tofu and, as usual, stuck close to him and flirted shamelessly. It seemed yesterday's mood had passed.

Lin Shou didn't ask her why. Everyone had their own private affairs. Prying into everything only made you annoying. If you were that curious, you might as well go into research.

With the fake Scalp-Cutter executed, the Fortune-Longevity Paste smuggling case had, for the time being, come to an end.

Although the Three Judicial Offices and the Western Affairs Party were still at odds, and trouble was bound to flare up again before long, it had nothing to do with Lin Shou for now.

After that, time flowed like water, and half a month slipped by in the blink of an eye.

Those two weeks were peaceful and leisurely.

When he wasn't stitching corpses, Lin Shou silently recited the Classic of Burial to cultivate. Whenever he had time, he would hoist his Burial Shovel and swagger through the streets, looking for funeral work.

Every now and then, he would get into fights with the new ruffians, but after he beat them up a few times, most of them stopped coming around to make fools of themselves.

Looking for funeral work as a burial laborer earned him a little extra money, so he added a few more things to the shop, raised some goldfish, and picked up a few ornaments.

Life was as carefree and lively as ever.

He had also gotten quite a few things from the Record of Selling Corpses.

The rewards from selling corpses lately included two snake gallbladders, two bear gallbladders, a Dog Skin Plaster, a copy of Paoding's Ox-Carving Method, the Snake-Returning Art, a Meridian and Acupoint Map, and some ordinary fishing and hunting skills.

He ate the snake and bear gallbladders, boosting his vitality and blood and maxing out his resistance to poison.

Lin Shou's power improved further.

With more supplements, along with his daily recitation of the Classic of Burial, he now had twenty years of internal power.

As for what twenty years of internal power meant, or how strong it made him, Lin Shou had no idea. He had never fought a martial arts expert, only thugs. However many came at him, he could take them all on.

After applying the Dog Skin Plaster, Lin Shou thoroughly tempered his whole body, from flesh to qi.

Supplements were good, but they were still organs from animals and plants, and the qi they provided wasn't as pure as qi gained through cultivation. As they increased his power, they also brought some impurities and toxins into his body. These posed no immediate danger, but over time, the accumulated poison would make him sick.

But with the Dog Skin Plaster to temper his body and expel impurities and toxins, it purified his qi until it was just as pure as qi gained through cultivation. It strengthened his foundation and completely eliminated the hidden dangers brought by the supplements.

Lin Shou felt the twenty years of power within him: deep, solid, and flawless.

He got the Meridian and Acupoint Map after stitching up the corpse of a country doctor.

The country doctor had been especially skilled in acupuncture. He had a heart for saving lives, often traveling through poor villages and counties to treat the people. But he had run into a wicked-hearted person who murdered him for his money.

It was a lamentable end for a kindhearted doctor with miraculous hands: he died at the hands of the very patient he had treated. It made one wonder how much a person's conscience was worth. As some young man from Lu Town had said in turbulent times, studying medicine couldn't save the people of Great Jing.

The Meridian and Acupoint Map taught Lin Shou the layout of the body's twelve main meridians, eight extraordinary meridians, and seven hundred and twenty acupoints. He now knew exactly which points to stimulate to cure illness and nourish the body, and which meridians to seal to cripple a person's arms and legs.

Lin Shou quietly tested it out while fighting thugs.

He could immobilize them by striking their acupoints, silence them so they couldn't speak, make their entire bodies itch unbearably, or weaken their legs. It was remarkably powerful.

The Acupoint Striking Technique was a highly practical fighting skill. There was no need for big, sweeping movements. He could strike discreetly, subduing someone with hardly any fuss.

Lin Shou liked the Acupoint Striking Technique very much.

He got the Snake-Returning Art after stitching up the corpse of a sorcerer from the Xiang Region in the southwest.

The Xiang Region had a long history and many ancient legends. Folk sorcery, Nuo rituals, and other local customs were widespread, and those who studied such arts became sorcerers.

The most famous were the Meishan Sorcery techniques, including healing with talisman water, Nuo magic, inviting spirits to possess the body, and summoning souls to calm the frightened.

The Snake-Returning Art was one of the spells in Meishan Sorcery.

The Xiang Region had many mountains and forests, and a humid climate. Venomous snakes and insects were common, and people were often bitten. Legend had it that the Snake-Returning Art was created by a Meishan practitioner who had once been bitten by a venomous snake.

If someone was bitten by a venomous snake in the wilderness, they could use the Snake-Returning Art. Before long, the snake that bit them would return with an antidote herb in its mouth. It was an astonishingly mysterious art.

Lin Shou was struck by how strange and mysterious the Snake-Returning Art was. It really was true that wherever there was a need, a market would arise. The Xiang Region in the southwest was full of venomous snakes and insects, and so the strange Snake-Returning Art had come into being.

But it had a fairly narrow range of uses, and Lin Shou wouldn't have many chances to use it himself. There weren't many venomous snakes in the north, and he spent his days in the Capital City, where the odds of being bitten by a snake weren't high. Besides, his resistance to poison was now stacked so high that ordinary snake venom couldn't hurt him.

It seemed he could only use the Snake-Returning Art to save others when they were bitten by an unknown venomous snake.

He was starting to feel more and more like a doctor...

As for the last technique, Paoding's Ox-Carving Method, Lin Shou had gotten it from stitching up the corpse of a butcher.

The butcher had been a pig slaughterer from Miyun Township. One day, bandits raided the village. The butcher was a hot-blooded man, so he grabbed his cleaver and charged at them alone, knife in hand.

Although he died in the end, he had managed to cut down five bandits by himself. He was truly a passionate and righteous man, a rare thing in an age when everyone was spineless and just trying to save their own skin.

The Record of Selling Corpses rated him Profound-Grade Nine. He was the only corpse Lin Shou had stitched up in the past half month to receive a Profound-Grade rating.

The Paoding's Ox-Carving Method he was rewarded with was simple and easy to understand.

The Way went beyond mere technique.

At first, when he began carving oxen, all he saw was an ox. After three years, he no longer saw the ox as a whole.

If one diligently practiced the skills mastered through Paoding's Ox-Carving Method, one's work would become more and more effortless, and one's skill would continue to improve.

Put more simply, Paoding's Ox-Carving Method broke through the ceiling of Lin Shou's talent for technique. With enough practice, he could master it.

As long as Lin Shou spent time diligently practicing, any underworld art or skill he knew could improve without limit.