The Examination Hall usually saw deaths in the middle of the night. The clerk from the Bureau of Corpse Management assigned the bodies on the spot and sent them to the various Corpse-Stitching Shops.
Lin Shou watched from the side as the two bodies were sent to No. 19 and No. 16 Corpse-Stitching Shops, while the basin of blood soup was sent to No. 1 Corpse-Stitching Shop.
Once the clerks had finished their work, Lin Shou noticed how chilly the night was. He bought several bowls of steaming mutton soup with paomo, borrowed a little handcart from the shopkeeper, and pushed it over to them.
"Officers, have a bite while it's hot."
"Hey, that's mighty thoughtful of you."
The clerks had been working through the middle of the night. They were cold and hungry, and a tasty bowl of mutton soup with paomo was just the thing to warm their stomachs. The fragrant aroma filled the air. The mutton was tender without being greasy, the soup rich but not cloying, and the paomo soft and filling. The seasoning was just right. As they ate the steaming meal, warmth spread through their whole bodies. The clerks dug in together, their mouths gleaming with grease as they ate to their hearts' content.
As they ate and chatted, Lin Shou asked the clerk how the bodies were usually assigned to the various Corpse-Stitching Shops.
The clerk said it mainly depended on one's fate. The corpse stitchers at the twenty-four shops weren't chosen at random; each was matched to a birth chart corresponding to one of the twenty-four kinds of Sha Fate.
A birth chart's fate was shaped by the balance of yin and yang and the five elements. Like metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, they counteracted one another. The Bureau of Corpse Management generally assigned a corpse stitcher the bodies whose birth charts his own could suppress.
Naturally, there were exceptions.
A birth chart was only one factor affecting a person's fate. There were all kinds of acquired influences, too: the feng shui of one's home, one's facial features and palm lines, the things one had experienced, the sins one had committed, and the people one had caused to die.
There was a folk tale about a sickly child born with a short life. A fortune-teller had read his palm and said his lifeline looked long enough for a hundred years, but, alas, it had a break right in the middle, meaning he wouldn't live to twenty. Then one day, the child accidentally cut his hand, leaving a scar that happened to bridge the gap in the lifeline. A few days later, his congenital illness miraculously vanished, and he really did live to a hundred before dying of old age.
There were also stories of an old bachelor who suddenly found love after moving house, people whose fortunes plummeted after offending the God of Tai Sui, and family members who murdered their kin to change their fates when their destinies clashed... There were plenty of folk tales, though many were just made-up nonsense meant to fool people.
The Bureau of Corpse Management had a method for grading a corpse stitcher's fate based on his birth chart, facial features, palm lines, and life experiences. They used the grade to decide which bodies he could handle. The more Baleful Intent a person had in his fate, the more difficult the corpses he could deal with.
Hearing about this, Lin Shou asked:
"Officer, what grade am I?"
"Top tier. Heavenly Sha Lone Star."
"..."
Lin Shou was baffled. Was he really that unlucky?
Of course, he didn't know that after he had stitched up the Tomb Raider's corpse and the man had walked out alive and unharmed, the Bureau of Corpse Management had raised his rating straight to the top.
According to the bureau's clerk, only Lin Shou's No. 9 Corpse-Stitching Shop and Old Blind Man's No. 1 Corpse-Stitching Shop had the top-tier Heavenly Sha Lone Star rating.
Any bodies the other shops couldn't handle would be sent to one of those two shops.
Lin Shou also learned that the oldest-serving corpse stitcher was at No. 1 Shop, and that he was the only blind man among them. Apparently, he had quite a bit of skill.
Lin Shou rarely crossed paths with the corpse stitcher at No. 1.
Mostly because he could never find the man. He only caught sight of Old Blind Man once a month or so, sitting at the entrance to a teahouse and listening to a storyteller. After listening for a while, he would leave. Lin Shou had no idea where he went the rest of the time.
Lin Shou took a sip of mutton soup, then asked, "What if there's a corpse even I and the man at No. 1 can't stitch?"
"Then it gets transferred to Six Afflictions Pavilion."
The clerk's answer reminded Lin Shou that, during the leprosy case, he had heard there were corpse stitchers at Six Afflictions Pavilion. Now the clerk had confirmed that corpses the twenty-four Corpse-Stitching Shops in the Capital City couldn't handle could be sent there to be stitched.
By the Bureau of Corpse Management's theory of fate, the corpse stitchers at Six Afflictions Pavilion must be extraordinary. If they could stitch corpses that the rest of them couldn't, they had to be more capable.
Lin Shou asked the clerk if he knew anything about Six Afflictions Pavilion, but the clerk shook his head.
Six Afflictions Pavilion was an independently managed and operated facility under the Imperial Medical Academy. It housed patients with infectious diseases, epidemics, and terminal illnesses, and was completely isolated from the outside world. Even people from the Bureau of Corpse Management—and even Imperial Medical Academy officials who didn't work in the pavilion—might not know what went on inside.
Strictly isolated and tightly guarded.
When the clerk said he didn't know, Lin Shou didn't press the matter. Still, he filed it away, growing ever more curious about the mysterious Six Afflictions Pavilion.
As they ate their mutton paomo and chatted, another announcement rang out from inside the Examination Hall:
"Room Twenty of the Yi Section. Dead."
Someone had died inside the Examination Hall again.
When they tossed out the body, Lin Shou took a look. There was a horrifying, gaping hole in the back of the man's head.
The clerk worked out the assignment based on the dead man's birth chart and told a runner to deliver the body to a Corpse-Stitching Shop.
Lin Shou watched a perfectly good corpse go to a shop other than his and felt it was a real shame.
After giving his instructions, the clerk returned and sat down. The runner was about to take the corpse away when Lin Shou's eyes flicked, and he asked, "Officer, since I'm a top-tier Heavenly Sha Lone Star, could you send more of these bodies to my shop?"
The clerk froze. What did he mean?
Corpse stitching was a dangerous trade, full of unknown dangers and more likely than not to cost you your life. One wrong move, and you could be dead. Every corpse stitcher the clerk had met tried to avoid it; they all wished they could be assigned fewer bodies.
And the Autumn Examination was especially notorious for strange corpses. Every three years, when the autumn exams were held, four or five corpse stitchers died in just a few days.
Quite a few corpse stitchers tried to flee when the Autumn Examination drew near, but most were caught and beaten to death with staves.
If they fled at other times, the Bureau of Corpse Management might turn a blind eye. They usually had enough manpower, and were always training replacements. But the autumn exams were different. People already died in droves, and losing even more workers would be a problem. So anyone who dared flee during the autumn exams was beaten to death if caught, as a warning to the others.
Corpse stitchers feared stitching bodies during the autumn exams so much that the bureau had no choice but to use such brutal measures to keep them in line. And now the clerk had heard what? Lin Shou was asking to be assigned more corpses? Was he trying to get himself killed? Had he lost his mind?
Oh, right. He'd almost forgotten that Lin Shou of No. 9 Corpse-Stitching Shop was intellectually disabled, a little fool.
"Why would you want that?"
"Officer, the older brothers at the other Corpse-Stitching Shops have always treated me well. I can't bear to see anything happen to them. You said I have the fate of a Heavenly Sha Lone Star, and that I'm unlikely to get into trouble stitching corpses. I want to stitch the bodies for my older brothers, so they don't get hurt."
Oh dear. The clerk was overcome with conflicting feelings. Lin Shou was a good kid. He might be a little dim, but he had a heart of pure gold. It was a shame such a good kid had to work as a corpse stitcher, never knowing if he'd live to see tomorrow...
"Officer, if you won't agree to send me the autumn exam corpses, and my older brothers end up losing their lives, I'll dump manure all over the Bureau of Corpse Management's doorstep every day!"
"..."
Looking at the stubborn little fool, the clerk didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Lin Shou pestered him for a long while, and since the clerk had eaten his mutton paomo and couldn't very well refuse him, he decided to use the authority his position afforded him and grant the request. So he nodded.
"For the next few days, I'll send as many of the autumn exam corpses your way as I can."
The corner of Lin Shou's mouth twitched upward, almost imperceptibly. After playing the fool and putting on an act, he had finally persuaded the clerk who controlled the body assignments.
That was right. Ever since he'd heard about the Autumn Examination, Lin Shou had been eyeing its corpses. All his other excuses were just that—excuses.
With the Record of Selling Corpses in hand, Lin Shou had always set his sights on the bodies that came out of the Examination Hall.
Wait for the Bureau of Corpse Management to assign him one or two corpses?
Of course not.
Lin Shou wanted them all.
Today, Boss Lin was taking over the whole Examination Hall.
He'd planned from the very beginning to solo the Autumn Examination dungeon.
Before you continue