I Am Good at Nurturing My Righteous Qi

Night fell, and Lin Shou returned to the Corpse-Stitching Shop.

Inside the shop lay the five corpses delivered from the Examination Hall.

Tonight, he was doing a five-pull.

But Lin Shou's thoughts weren't on that tonight.

No matter how lucky he got with these five corpses, their rewards couldn't possibly compare to the one he'd just received.

An hour ago, he'd helped repair the Master Statue at the Examination Hall's entrance, gluing its head back on. Somehow, this had triggered the Record of Selling Corpses, earning him a "Heaven-Grade Rank Five" reward.

What corpse was there to sell? That stone statue?

It made no sense at all...

Lin Shou turned to look at the little trinkets he'd arranged in the White Tiger Position. He picked up a God of Wealth Wood Carving, apologized to it, chopped it in half at the waist, then stitched it back together with his needles.

He'd practiced the Corpse-Stitching Needle Technique until it was sublime, his skill nearly reaching the Dao. There was little in this world Lin Shou couldn't stitch. But after he finished and waited a while—

Hmm... nothing happened.

Lin Shou shook his head. So it wasn't enough to simply stitch a statue. Perhaps there was something special about the Master Statue at the Examination Hall's entrance?

Lin Shou had received Heaven-Grade rewards twice now. Neither time had he seen a Lantern of Life, and both rewards had left him baffled. The first was when he stitched that Tomb Raider's corpse—a corpse carrying two lives. The second was this headless Master Statue.

These Heaven-Grade valuations were truly bizarre.

Lin Shou studied the matter for a while but couldn't figure anything out, so he had to set it aside for now and look at the reward from this new Heaven-Grade valuation: an ancient, plain bamboo-scroll scripture.

The Classic of Haoran Qi.

"I am good at nurturing my righteous qi."

Ziyu once said: "Righteous qi is vast and unyielding. Nurture it with integrity and do it no harm, and it will fill the space between Heaven and Earth."

As Lin Shou recited the Classic of Haoran Qi, each word seemed to wash his body and mind with the wisdom of the ancient sages. The teachings of the saints poured into him like nectar, clearing his thoughts and filling his heart with righteousness.

The Classic of Haoran Qi was a method for cultivating qi.

The Classic of Burial cultivated the vitality of all things and the life force of the body. The Classic of Haoran Qi cultivated humanistic talent qi, as well as character and wisdom.

When Lin Shou finished reciting the entire Classic of Haoran Qi, the bamboo slips turned into scholarly qi that flowed through him. It gathered and wove itself together in his chest, eventually building a Temple of Literature within his heart.

The talent qi in Lin Shou's eyes subsided. A Temple of Literature had risen in his chest, and literary ink had taken root in his heart. A realization came to him, and he picked up the Confucian classics he'd obtained from stitching corpses a few days ago and began to study them.

The wisp of talent qi he'd once been unable to grasp now flowed into the Temple of Literature as he read. With a flourish of his brush and a splash of ink, it formed into essays that remained within the temple.

Lin Shou read until well into the night. After finishing all five Confucian classics, the Temple of Literature in his chest had grown to contain five essays' worth of talent qi, its righteous presence ringing clear.

The talent qi in Lin Shou's Temple of Literature and the power in his dantian shone upon each other, one literary and one martial.

One secured the body; the other established his destiny.

Now that the Classic of Haoran Qi had raised a Temple of Literature within him, every word and deed of Lin Shou's could give rise to righteous qi. He was open and upright, with no room for evil spirits—a man who seemed able to stand between Heaven and Earth on a single breath of righteousness in his chest.

Lin Shou took Ma Liang's Brush from Three Immortals Return to the Cave, infused it with the talent qi in his chest, and painted on the rice paper. As his literary ink flowed, flowers, birds, insects, and fish in ink wash sprang to life on the page!

But their fleeting beauty was like an epiphyllum blooming and fading. They withered and shriveled in the blink of an eye, turning back into a puddle of ink.

For now, the Temple of Literature in Lin Shou's chest held only five essays' worth of talent qi.

It wasn't yet enough to amount to much. If he wanted to make progress, he could read the classics of the ancient sages, study the teachings of the saints, and build up his cultivation.

Lin Shou played around for a while with this method of cultivating talent qi. He found it quite interesting. Before, he'd always been faintly aware of his talent qi but unable to grasp it. Now, with the Classic of Haoran Qi as a method to nurture it, he could gather and use it.

If the power cultivated from the vitality of all things in his dantian had enhanced and developed Lin Shou's physical abilities, then humanistic talent qi refined his character and temperament, improving his wisdom and literary talent.

With the classics of the sages in his chest and a belly full of learning, Lin Shou was now quite capable of speaking in polished paragraphs and debating Confucian scholars with the teachings of the Four Books, the Five Classics, and the ancient sages.

Every word and deed of Lin Shou's could now radiate righteous qi, like a light of righteousness shining upon the land, enough to cow wicked and heterodox paths.

So this was what people meant when they said that those with ink in their bellies seemed cultured in every gesture? Tsk, tsk.

Outside the Corpse-Stitching Shop, the night watchman struck the hour. Dawn was near.

Lin Shou set aside his research into talent qi and stitched the five corpses from tonight first.

Perhaps the Heaven-Grade valuation on the Master Statue that afternoon had used up all his good luck.

Tonight's five-pull had been a disastrous miss; all the rewards were Yellow-Grade.

Two Confucian classics, an Elixir of the Unbroken Tongue, a Spear of Lips and Sword of Tongue technique, and a Ruler of Preaching and Teaching.

After reading the two Confucian classics, Lin Shou's Temple of Literature gained two more essays. He now had seven essays' worth of talent qi.

Lin Shou placed the Elixir of the Unbroken Tongue in his mouth. It melted, and its medicinal effects seeped into his oral cavity. A moment later, he felt his teeth and tongue grow fresh and clear. His tongue became extraordinarily nimble—he could even tie a Chinese knot in a piece of string using only his mouth.

When he spoke, he could roll his tongue however he pleased, and he could easily handle dialects from every region. He could recite tongue twisters about eating grapes dusted with fertilizer ash backward without a hitch. He could rattle off ten thousand words in ten minutes without his mouth growing dry. What a truly unbroken tongue.

Paired with another reward, the Spear of Lips and Sword of Tongue technique, it was a method that recorded the art of speech and pronunciation: how to wield the mouth as a spear and the tongue as a sword, making every word a pearl and speech a weapon. With talent qi to guide it, one could even recite texts to shield oneself or kill with poetry.

A gentleman used words, not fists.

These two might only be Yellow-Grade rewards, but together they made a fearsome weapon for a silver-tongued loudmouth. Even the most foul-mouthed shrew in the village would probably lose against this one-two punch.

Lin Shou empowered himself with the talent qi in his Temple of Literature and tried berating the candle in the room with his Spear of Lips and Sword of Tongue. Then he talked the flame out.

Tsk, tsk. How interesting.

Lin Shou looked at the final reward: the Ruler of Preaching and Teaching.

The disciplinary ruler was made of two wooden pieces, one concave and one convex, the concave piece beneath the convex one. In ancient times, private tutors used it to punish their students. If a young student couldn't memorize an essay, he'd get a smack on the palm.

The Ruler of Preaching and Teaching was meant to help one serve as a teacher and pass on knowledge, teaching one's own skills to students.

After studying it for a while, Lin Shou found that although Yellow-Grade rewards weren't rare treasures, they were all interesting little items.

At dawn the next day, the Bureau of Corpse Management came to collect the corpses.

With nothing else to do, Lin Shou went to the Qingcheng Teahouse, intending to test out the Ruler of Preaching and Teaching.

The Qingcheng Teahouse kept a big black dog to guard the place. Lin Shou often heard it bark at night, but by day it simply lay outside, basking in the sun and sleeping. Today, Lin Shou had set his sights on it.

Lin Shou walked up to the big black dog.

The lazy dog glanced up at him.

Lin Shou took out the Ruler of Preaching and Teaching.

The big black dog stood up and glared at him warily.

Lin Shou soothed it, telling it to relax.

The big black dog bared its teeth and began to growl.

Tsk, how come he'd never drawn a dog-training skill before?

Lin Shou stopped pretending and laid his cards on the table. He used his formidable skills to restrain the big black dog by force, then gently tapped it with the Ruler of Preaching and Teaching, passing on some skills to it.