Soloing the Autumn Examination Instance

Deaths at the Examination Hall usually happened in the dead of night. The Bureau of Corpse Management's registrar would assign the bodies on the spot, sending them to various corpse-stitching shops.

Lin Shou watched from the side. Those two corpses were sent to No. 19 and No. 16 Corpse-Stitching Shops respectively, while that basin of bloody soup went to No. 1 Corpse-Stitching Shop.

After the clerks finished their work, the night had turned chilly. Lin Shou bought several bowls of steaming hot mutton paomo, borrowed a small cart from a vendor, and pushed it over to deliver them.

"Officers, have something warm."

"Ah, you're thoughtful."

The clerks had been working in the dead of night, cold and hungry. The delicious mutton paomo was just the thing to warm their stomachs—fragrant and savory, the mutton tender without being gamey, the broth rich without being greasy, the bread soft and fully soaked, perfectly seasoned. Eating it piping hot, warmth spread through their whole bodies. The clerks feasted together, their mouths shiny with grease, thoroughly enjoying themselves.

As they ate and chatted, Lin Shou asked the registrar how the corpses were usually distributed to each shop.

The registrar said it mainly had to do with fate. The twenty-four corpse stitchers weren't chosen at random; each corresponded to the birth chart of one of the twenty-four types of Sha Fate.

Birth charts carried the principles of yin-yang and the five elements, mutually restraining like metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The Bureau of Corpse Management generally assigned a corpse stitcher corpses whose birth charts they could suppress.

Of course, there were exceptions.

Birth charts were only part of what influenced fate. There were also various acquired factors—feng shui of the home, facial and palmistry features, things experienced, sins committed, people killed.

As folk tales went, there was a sickly child born with a short life. A fortune-teller read his palm and saw a longevity line that should have promised a hundred years, but it was cut off midway, meaning he wouldn't live past twenty. One day, the child accidentally cut his hand, leaving a scar that happened to reconnect the longevity line. A few days later, his congenital illness miraculously healed, and he actually lived to a hundred before dying of old age.

There was also an old bachelor who suddenly found romance after moving house, someone who offended the Grand Duke Jupiter and saw his fate plummet, a family whose fates clashed leading to kin-killing and fate-changing... There were many folk legends, and plenty of made-up nonsense too.

The Bureau of Corpse Management had an algorithm that graded a corpse stitcher's fate based on birth chart, facial and palm features, life experiences, and so on, thereby assigning them corpses they could handle. The more baleful one's fate, the better they could deal with difficult corpses.

Hearing this, Lin Shou was curious and asked:

"Officer, what grade am I?"

"Top-tier Heavenly Sha Lone Star."

"... "

Lin Shou was puzzled. Was he really that unlucky?

Of course, he didn't know that after he'd stitched up that tomb raider's corpse and walked out unscathed, the Bureau of Corpse Management had maxed out his rating.

According to the registrar, only Lin Shou's No. 9 Corpse-Stitching Shop and Old Blind Man's No. 1 Corpse-Stitching Shop now held that top-tier Heavenly Sha Lone Star rating.

Any corpses the other shops couldn't handle would be sent to these two shops.

Lin Shou also learned that the longest-surviving shop, No. 1, had the only blind corpse stitcher, and he was quite skilled.

He had little interaction with the No. 1 stitcher.

Mainly because he could never find the man. He only saw Old Blind Man once a month or so, sitting at a teahouse entrance listening to storytelling, then leaving after a while. On ordinary days, no one knew where he went.

Lin Shou took a sip of mutton soup and asked again:

"What about corpses that neither I nor No. 1 can stitch?"

"Then they're transferred to the Six Afflictions Pavilion."

Hearing the registrar's answer, Lin Shou recalled the leprosy case. He'd heard then that there were corpse stitchers in the Six Afflictions Pavilion. Now the registrar said that corpses the twenty-four shops in the Capital City couldn't handle could be sent there to be stitched.

Going by the Bureau of Corpse Management's fate theory, the corpse stitchers in the Six Afflictions Pavilion were probably no ordinary folk. Being able to stitch what they couldn't meant they were likely more formidable.

Lin Shou asked the registrar if he knew anything about the Six Afflictions Pavilion, but the registrar shook his head, saying he didn't.

The Six Afflictions Pavilion was a facility independently managed and operated by the Imperial Medical Academy. It housed patients with infectious diseases, plagues, and terminal illnesses, completely isolated from the outside world. Not even Bureau of Corpse Management personnel, let alone Imperial Medical Academy officials not assigned to the Six Afflictions Pavilion, necessarily knew what went on there.

High isolation, high secrecy.

Hearing the registrar say he didn't know, Lin Shou dropped the topic, but he made a mental note. His curiosity about the mysterious Six Afflictions Pavilion only grew.

As they ate mutton paomo and chatted, another announcement rang out from the Examination Hall:

"Room Number Twenty, Row B, dead."

Another person had died in the Examination Hall.

The corpse was thrown out. Lin Shou took a look—there was a terrifying, gaping bloody hole in the back of its head.

The registrar calculated the corpse's assignment based on birth charts and had the clerks deliver it to the shops.

Lin Shou watched a perfectly good corpse go to someone else's shop again, feeling a pang of regret.

After the registrar finished his assignments and sat back down, the clerk was about to deliver the corpse. Lin Shou's eyes darted, and he asked:

"Officer, since I'm a top-tier Heavenly Sha Lone Star, couldn't you send a few more corpses my way?"

The registrar was dumbfounded. What did he mean?

Corpse stitching was a dangerous, ill-omened trade. One misstep could cost you your life. Every corpse stitcher he'd ever met tried to avoid it, wishing they'd get fewer corpses assigned.

Especially during the Autumn Examination, when the most sinister corpses turned up. Every three years, the Autumn Examination would kill four or five corpse stitchers in just a few days.

Some stitchers even tried to sneak away as the Autumn Examination approached, but most were caught and beaten to death.

On ordinary days, the Bureau of Corpse Management might turn a blind eye to escapes, since they usually had enough hands and kept trainees in reserve. But during the Autumn Examination, with so many deaths already, too many runners would make things difficult. So anyone who dared run during the Autumn Examination was caught and beaten to death, as a warning to others.

Corpse stitchers feared the Autumn Examination so much that the Bureau had to resort to such heavy-handed measures to keep them in line. And now, what was the registrar hearing? Lin Shou was volunteering to take more corpses? Was he out of his mind? An idiot?

Oh, right—he'd almost forgotten. Lin Shou of No. 9 Corpse-Stitching Shop was indeed a simpleton with intellectual disabilities.

"You... what are you trying to do?"

"Officer, the other old brothers at the Corpse-Stitching Shop have always treated me well. I can't bear to see anything happen to them. You said I'm fated as a Heavenly Sha Lone Star, so stitching corpses is less likely to bring me trouble. I want to help my old brothers by stitching the corpses myself, to keep them out of harm's way."

Ah, the chief clerk's heart churned with mixed feelings upon hearing this. Lin Shou was a good child—simple-minded, perhaps, but his heart was far too kind. What a pity for such a good kid to be stuck in this precarious trade of corpse stitching...

"Officer, if you refuse to give me the corpses from the Autumn Examination and let my old brothers lose their lives because of it, I'll come to the Bureau of Corpse Management every day from now on and dump a bucket of shit at your door!"

"..."

The chief clerk looked at the simpleton before him—stubborn and foolish—and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. After being worn down by soft pleading for half the day, and with his mouth still tasting of the Mutton Paomo he'd eaten, he figured he might as well use the authority his position granted him. So he nodded.

"For these next few days, I'll try to give you all the corpses from the Autumn Examination."

A faint, barely perceptible curl tugged at the corner of Lin Shou's mouth. After playing the fool for half the day, he had finally convinced the chief clerk, who held the power to allocate corpses.

That's right—from the moment he learned about the Autumn Examination, Lin Shou had been eyeing these corpses. All his other talk was just an excuse.

With the Record of Selling Corpses in hand, Lin Shou's target had always been the bodies coming out of the Examination Hall.

Wait for the Bureau of Corpse Management to allocate him one or two corpses?

Of course not.

What Lin Shou wanted was all of them.

Today, this Examination Hall—Manager Lin was going to take the whole venue.

From the very start, he had planned to solo the Autumn Examination dungeon.