Opening Chests is Only Satisfying with Ten Consecutive Draws

Deep in the night, No. 9 Corpse-Stitching Shop.

Three corpses lay on the floor, with a fourth on the cold bier.

With four bodies in the room in the dead of night, the surrounding temperature seemed to drop a few degrees, an eerie chill seeping in that gnawed at bone and marrow.

Lin Shou gazed at the four corpses, his heart brimming with joy.

This was only the first day, and the Autumn Examination lasted nine.

It hadn't been wasted effort, talking his way into securing the exclusive rights to stitch corpses for the Autumn Examination from the registrar at the Bureau of Corpse Management.

These corpses could all be exchanged for rewards from the Record of Selling Corpses, so the more the better. Lin Shou immersed himself in this macabre atmosphere and took a deep breath.

Ah, corpses were still what got him excited.

Though the room held one living man and four dead, which seemed a bit unbalanced in yin and yang, heavy on the yin, Lin Shou was no ordinary man in constitution.

After days of silently reciting the Classic of Burial and digesting supplements, Lin Shou now had forty years of cultivation.

Qi coursed through his body, his blood and vitality vigorous, mutually nourishing the living qi of the four-aspect feng shui in this yang dwelling.

Lin Shou's yang energy alone was now enough to match several strong, energetic young men. If he were to stroll the streets in this state, he'd likely be fought over by every wealthy madam in the Capital City.

Of course, to Lin Shou, mere rich women were nowhere near as interesting as these dead bodies.

Three incense sticks burned to ash, and Lin Shou began stitching the corpses.

The Record of Selling Corpses appeared, and lanterns of life began to spin one by one.

The Yin-Yang Abacus clinked and clanked, setting prices from Heaven to Earth.

All the corpses were priced at the Yellow tier, and the Record of Selling Corpses rewarded him with:

A Confucian classic, a General Theory of Eight-Legged Essay Writing, a Regular Script Copybook, and an Enlightenment Pill.

The Confucian classic was plain and unremarkable, but reading it left one with a sense of something stirring in the mind, a ravine carved in the chest, like standing on a perilous boat amidst towering waves. Each reading steadied the boat a little more, strengthening the feeling of grounding and purpose.

Lin Shou faintly sensed a thread of qi, but couldn't grasp it.

That qi was different from the "Vitality of All Things" cultivated through the Classic of Burial in his dantian; it felt more like a wisp of "Humanistic Talent Qi."

Lin Shou read the Confucian classic several times over, but still felt that Talent Qi was elusive, like drawing water with a bamboo basket—he could never catch it. Shaking his head, he set it aside for now.

This Confucian classic, like the Burial Shovel, was a permanent item, not a one-time use. He could study it slowly later.

Lin Shou then picked up the General Theory of Eight-Legged Essay Writing.

This reward came from an old Confucian scholar who had read the sages' books his whole life. His parents had withered away, and he'd lived in poverty and despair, taking the exams for decades without ever passing the provincial level. He'd nearly gone mad. That night in the Examination Hall, he was writing his paper while wiping away tears. Someone came by, glanced at his work, and spat, "Mediocrity."

The old man broke down and hanged himself.

Lin Shou now studied the method of writing eight-legged essays. The Four Books and Five Classics formed the branches, the Way of Confucius and Mencius the trunk. Tonal parallelism, the eight-legged structure, forbade romantic flights of fancy, forbade Buddhist reasoning or Daoist principles. It adhered to the thoughts of the ancient sages, yet made it difficult to investigate things and extend knowledge.

When he finished reading the entire writing theory, it turned to green smoke and vanished. Lin Shou gained the knowledge—he could now write a perfectly structured eight-legged essay. The question was... what use was it?

He scratched his head. If this were a scholar, he'd be overjoyed. But Lin Shou had no desire for official rank or to sell his life to the imperial family. This was useless to him.

Well, another skill to gather dust.

Lin Shou then picked up the Regular Script Copybook. After tracing it once, he mastered a beautiful hand of regular script—strokes like iron hooks and silver lines, lean and forceful, form following rule, each brushstroke imbued with spirit.

This reward, at least, Lin Shou quite liked.

Chinese culture had always valued calligraphy. Seeing the writing was like seeing the person; characters were a person's second face, representing the subtle beauty within.

Even a crude commoner, if he wrote a fine hand, could often astonish and earn respect. Conversely, no matter how much makeup you applied, how much powder you dusted, how many fine clothes you wore, if your writing was like spring worms and autumn snakes—sloppy and weak—it only made you seem flashy and empty-headed.

Lin Shou's original handwriting wasn't ugly, but it was far from master calligrapher level. Now, as he traced each character of the Regular Script Copybook, his calligraphy improved by leaps and bounds, entering the hall of mastery.

Lin Shou picked up his brush and wrote out "Dreaming of Wandering the Tianmu Mountain: A Farewell" from memory. The small regular-script ink characters on the rice paper were robust in structure, each stroke meticulous and precise. Beholding them was like gazing at an ancient city with a long history, deep foundations, and a rigorously refined design.

If any lover of calligraphy or painting saw this, they would surely offer a thousand gold to buy it, take it home, and have it mounted.

Lin Shou put this piece away, planning to have it mounted tomorrow and hung on the back wall at the Black Tortoise Feng Shui Position.

The Black Tortoise Feng Shui Position emphasized two things: suppression and stability.

Master calligraphy and paintings, the classics of the sages—what could be more stable and weighty than these millennia-old cultural traditions?

Lin Shou thought that in the future, he could truly hone his skills in calligraphy and painting.

Though his regular script had already entered the hall of mastery and shown the bearing of a master, with his talent of "Cook Ding Butchering an Ox"—which allowed growth through diligent practice—there was still vast room for improvement.

Cultivating this literati hobby not only nourished the Black Tortoise Feng Shui Position but also cultivated his own character.

Having finished the Regular Script Copybook, Lin Shou picked up the last reward: an Enlightenment Pill. The small pill's surface was naturally engraved with dense sutra texts in miniature.

As the "Inscription on the Auspicious Stone" said: "The radiant spirit descends to the world, spreading dew to dispel ignorance; only the sage's benevolent domain, where treasure transforms and merges silently."

Enlightenment meant dispelling ignorance.

In ancient times, when children first entered school, the teacher would use the Three Character Classic and the Thousand Character Classic to teach them to read. Recognizing characters was the foundation before reading any sage's book—that was enlightenment.

Lin Shou swallowed the Enlightenment Pill.

The pill dissolved, transforming into a myriad of complex scriptures that surged into Lin Shou's brain like a tangible flood. The power of enlightenment nourished the folds of his cerebral cortex, exploring and unlocking the potential of human wisdom.

Lin Shou closed his eyes and rested, feeling the pill's medicinal power nourish his brain. After it was fully digested, he opened his eyes, and Talent Qi burst forth. In his gaze was the depth of one who had read all the sages' poetry, traversed the vicissitudes of time, and perceived the ultimate truths of the world.

Lin Shou blinked again, and all the talent qi in his eyes receded like a dragon hiding in the wild or a tiger returning to the mountains, vanishing completely.

The Enlightenment Pill had the benefit of nourishing the brain, and at the same time, Lin Shou vaguely sensed the elusive Humanistic Talent Qi, but he still couldn't grasp it.

Additionally, thanks to the Enlightenment Pill's nourishment and development of his brain, Lin Shou gained a new talent: Eidetic Memory.

No matter how many characters a poem or classic text had, as long as Lin Shou read it once, he could memorize it all in his mind and recite it fluently.

This skill for memorizing texts would make any college entrance exam candidate weep with envy.

One night, four corpses—a bountiful harvest.

Lin Shou was overjoyed. In the past, there was only one corpse per night, always a single draw. Now it seemed consecutive draws were far more satisfying.

He really loved the Autumn Examination, but unfortunately it only came once every three years.

This time, though, he was going to reap as much as he could.

Autumn Examination, second night.

Lin Shou looked at the ten corpses neatly lined up in the Corpse-Stitching Shop, grinning from ear to ear.

Tonight, a ten-draw streak.