Examination Hall Hauntings

Seventh Master had suffered deeply from heartbreak, so he often reminded Lin Shou not to end up like him and to never let a good woman slip away. Eighth Master, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He often warned Lin Shou that women couldn't be trusted and that he had to stay on his guard.

Though Eighth Master had never spoken about his own past, and no one knew what he'd gone through in his youth, as it happened, Lin Shou did.

He'd once stitched up a corpse. It had been Eighth Master's son.

The old man wasn't alone in the world. He'd once had a son. As for why he'd become a corpse stitcher, that went back to what Lin Shou had seen in the son's Lantern of Life.

Eighth Master's son had been "blessed" with a pretty wife, which made him look good in front of everyone. But though his daughter-in-law was glamorous and beautiful outside the home, she was useless around the house. Every day, she either read frivolous storybooks or went shopping for rouge, powder, and clothes. She never helped with the housework. She was lazy and spent money with a lavish hand.

Eighth Master's wife had died early, leaving him only this one son. The old man doted on him. Seeing how much his son adored his wife, Eighth Master didn't like his lazy daughter-in-law, but he couldn't bring himself to say much. His son went out to work every day, so the old man took care of the household himself, washing clothes, cooking, and cleaning.

The old man had saved a little money on the side. He'd planned to give it to the couple after his son got married, so they could make a life together. But later, when he saw that his daughter-in-law was no good—lazy and wasteful—he didn't dare hand it over. He was afraid his foolish son would squander it.

But by an unlucky coincidence, his daughter-in-law saw him hiding the money one day. When she couldn't get him to hand it over, they got into a fight. Later, when her husband came home, she cried and accused his father of trying to sleep with her.

What a vicious, poisonous-hearted woman.

That stupid son treasured his wife like she was the most precious thing in the world. He believed every word she said, and flew into a rage on the spot. "How could I have such a shameless father as you? Get out!" He drove the old man from the house right then and there.

The old man ended up on the streets, his heart torn to shreds. He'd raised his son from childhood, yet one word from his wicked daughter-in-law had been enough to get him thrown out of his own home. He'd spent decades raising an ungrateful wretch.

After the old man eventually became Eighth Master of the Corpse-Stitching Shop, he never went back to that house.

But how had the "dutiful son" of Eighth Master died?

His wife had caught the eye of Young Master Wang, the handsome layabout next door. Whenever the dutiful son went out to work during the day, Young Master Wang would drop by his house.

As time went on, the dutiful son, though stupid, began to sense something was wrong. The neighbors kept telling him his wife was so hospitable, always inviting Young Master Wang over. When he asked his wife why Young Master Wang kept coming by, she told him not to overthink it. She'd recently taken on work sewing hats, she said, and Young Master Wang had come to help. The dutiful son said, "So that's what it is," and asked no further questions—except what color the hats were.

With their affair on the verge of being exposed, the wife and Young Master Wang agreed they couldn't go on like this. The wife said, "If only you could come at night, too." Young Master Wang said, "I can't. There are already two people in your bed at night. There's no room for me, too." Well then, they'd have to make room. They decided to kill him.

The adulterous pair poisoned the soup they served the dutiful son. He started convulsing as soon as he drank it. As he lay dying, his wife told him how she'd falsely accused his father of trying to sleep with her, and how she'd been having an affair with Young Master Wang.

The dutiful son's blood and breath rushed to his heart in a fury, and he died on the spot.

The adulterous pair later tossed the dutiful son's body into a dry well, then enjoyed themselves for a while. Their money soon ran out. They were both lazy dogs who had no idea how to earn a living, so they came up with a plan to run a honey trap: the woman would lure men to some secluded spot, and the man would charge in with a club and demand their money.

But their very first target turned out to be no pushover. The man had a knife hidden on him. You thought you could pull this on him?

Slash, slash—two cuts.

The adulterous pair each ended up with a bloody hole in their body, and died.

Good and evil both met their just rewards in the end. No one came to a happy ending.

The foolish dutiful son in particular died with no family or friends. If his body hadn't happened to fall into the hands of Lin Shou, who could see Lanterns of Life, no one would have known who he was.

Lin Shou still hadn't told Eighth Master that his son was dead.

The old man was happy now. There was no need to burden him with sorrow.

He might as well pretend he'd never had a son.

After Lin Shou cleared away the leftovers from the table, it felt as though he'd also cleared away the warmth and chill of human relations in the Capital City. He put out the light and went to bed.

The Autumn Examination began the next day.

Lin Shou made a point of walking around near the Examination Hall to see what the imperial examination system of this feudal society was all about. But when he got there, he found a lot of soldiers stationed outside the wall. He couldn't get any closer. They were there to prevent cheating.

As the country's most important means of selecting talent, the imperial examination was every bit as important as the college entrance examination in his previous life, if not more so. Cheating in the imperial examinations would ultimately harm the country.

Of course, that was precisely why so many people were willing to take the risk. Whether they hid cheat sheets in rice or cakes, found someone to pass answers in from outside the examination hall, or bribed the examiners, every sort of cheating method imaginable was used.

The scholars went to extraordinary lengths to pass.

Why was every other pursuit lowly, while reading alone was noble? Why did the young need to study hard, and why could writing establish one's place in the world? Why did excellence in learning lead to a career in government?

Because the imperial examination was the only chance for a hundred thousand scholars to soar into the clouds and become members of the elite.

The greater the temptation, the crazier the cheating.

It ranged from soldiers at the Examination Hall entrance being beheaded for carelessly missing cheat sheets, to high-ranking officials being executed for taking bribes and leaking exam questions. And still, the practice couldn't be stamped out. It only grew more rampant.

Right then, Lin Shou was cooling off under a nearby awning when he saw a pigeon flying toward the Examination Hall. Whoosh! An arrow pierced it through, and the pigeon fell. A soldier went to pick it up and found the answers to the exam questions tied to its leg.

Tsk, tsk. Lin Shou shook his head with a laugh.

During the day, officials from the Bureau of Merit Evaluation under the Ministry of Rites came and went. The imperial examinations were overseen by the Vice Minister of Rites. When night fell, people from the Bureau of Corpse Management arrived, too.

Once the Examination Hall gates were shut, candidates couldn't enter or leave for the duration of the exam unless there was a fire. Several clerks from the Bureau of Corpse Management showed up and stood outside the wall, waiting.

At first, Lin Shou saw them but had no idea what they were waiting for. Then, around the third watch of the night—

A piercing scream suddenly rang out from inside the Examination Hall!

It jolted Lin Shou wide awake. What was all that commotion?

Someone inside the Examination Hall called out:

"Room Jia No. 3. Dead."

"Room Bing No. 16. Dead."

"Room Wu No. 2. Dead."

Hiss. Good grief!

Listening to the calls, Lin Shou thought, That's downright eerie. He'd heard that people died every year during the Autumn Examination because the Examination Hall was haunted, but he hadn't expected it to happen so punctually. A whole batch died at once?

No wonder corpse stitchers feared the Autumn Examination. Who wouldn't?

After the room numbers were called, it seemed they began gathering up the bodies. Before long, Lin Shou saw corpses wrapped in straw mats being thrown out of the Examination Hall.

Once the Examination Hall gates were shut, no one could enter or leave. Besides, that one gate was for the living, not the dead, so the corpses were tossed over the wall.

From what he'd just heard, three people had died.

One corpse, then another corpse, then a basin of corpses...

Lin Shou looked at the basin of bloody soup, in which kidneys and intestines were soaking. The person had been smashed into chunks. Could anyone stitch that thing back together?