I Cultivate My Righteous Qi

Night. Lin Shou returned to the Corpse-Stitching Shop.

Inside the shop, five corpses delivered from the Examination Hall were laid out.

Tonight was a five-in-a-row draw.

But Lin Shou's mind wasn't on that today.

No matter how lucky he got with these five corpses, they couldn't compare to the reward he'd just received.

An hour ago, while helping repair the Master Statue at the Examination Hall's entrance—gluing its head back on—he'd inexplicably triggered the Record of Selling Corpses and obtained a Heaven-Grade Rank Five reward.

Where had the corpse to sell come from? That stone statue?

It made no sense at all...

Lin Shou turned to glance at the trinkets arranged in his White Tiger Position, reached out, and picked up a God of Wealth Wood Carving. He muttered an apology, chopped it in half at the waist, then stitched it back together with Corpse-Stitching Needle.

His Corpse-Stitching Needle Technique, honed through long practice, had reached a level of mastery bordering on the divine. There was little in this world Lin Shou couldn't stitch. Yet after finishing, he waited.

Hmm... nothing happened.

Lin Shou shook his head. So it wasn't just any statue that worked. That Master Statue at the Examination Hall's entrance must have something special about it.

Lin Shou had received Heaven-Grade rewards twice so far. Neither had shown him a Lantern of Life, and both left him baffled. The first was stitching that Tomb Raider's corpse—one body, two lives lost. The second was this decapitated Master Statue.

This Heaven-Grade pricing was truly bizarre.

Lin Shou studied it for a while but couldn't figure anything out, so he set it aside for now. He'd first check the reward from this new Heaven-Grade pricing: an ancient, unadorned bamboo-slip scripture.

The Classic of Haoran Qi.

"I skillfully nourish my vast, righteous qi."

Ziyu once said: Vast, righteous qi is supremely great and supremely firm. Nourished with directness and without harm, it fills the space between Heaven and Earth.

As Lin Shou recited the Classic of Haoran Qi, each word felt like the wisdom of ancient sages washing over his body and mind, the teachings of saints enlightening him like a sudden awakening. His thoughts became unimpeded, his chest filled with righteous qi.

This Classic of Haoran Qi was a method for nurturing qi.

The Classic of Burial nurtured the Vitality of All Things—the life force of the body. The Classic of Haoran Qi nurtured Humanistic Talent Qi—the wisdom of the mind and spirit.

When Lin Shou finished reciting the entire scroll, the bamboo slips transformed into the wandering qi of scripture and talent, weaving together in his chest to build a Temple of Literature.

The talent qi in Lin Shou's eyes gathered and settled. The Temple of Literature rose in his chest, and the ink of literature lingered in his heart. With a flash of insight, he picked up a Confucian classic he'd obtained from stitching a corpse a few days ago and began to study it.

That elusive thread of talent qi he'd once failed to grasp now surged into the Temple of Literature in his chest as he read, splashing ink into articles that remained within the temple.

Lin Shou read until the dead of night. After finishing five Confucian classics, the Temple of Literature in his chest had grown by five articles' worth of talent qi, resonating with a clear, vast righteousness.

The talent qi in Lin Shou's chest and the cultivation in his dantian—one literary, one martial—shone in mutual reflection.

One settled his body, the other settled his destiny.

Now, with the Classic of Haoran Qi having raised his Temple of Literature, every word and action of Lin Shou's could generate vast, righteous qi from his talent. Open and upright, no evil could linger. He felt as if he stood between Heaven and Earth, sustained by nothing but the qi in his chest.

Lin Shou took out Ma Liang's Brush from the Three Immortals Return to the Cave, infused it with the talent qi in his chest, and painted on rice paper. With a flourish of ink, the birds, flowers, insects, and fish in the watercolor grew right out of the paper!

But like a fleeting bloom, they withered and faded in an instant, turning back into a pool of ink.

The Temple of Literature in Lin Shou's chest currently held only five articles' worth of talent qi.

Not yet enough to make a mark. To improve, he would need to read the classics of ancient sages, study the teachings of saints, and accumulate growth.

Lin Shou toyed with this method of nurturing talent qi for a while, finding it quite intriguing. The talent qi he'd vaguely sensed but couldn't grasp before could now be gathered and used, thanks to the nurturing technique of the Classic of Haoran Qi.

If the cultivation of Vitality of All Things in his dantian enhanced and developed his physical abilities, then Humanistic Talent Qi cultivated his mind and spirit, increasing his wisdom and literary grace.

With the classics of ancient sages in his chest, his mind full of learning and knowledge vast as a cartload of books, Lin Shou could now speak eloquently on the spot, debating with Confucian scholars using the principles of the Four Books and Five Classics and the teachings of ancient saints.

Every word and action of Lin Shou's now radiated vast, righteous qi, like the light of righteousness shining upon the earth, capable of intimidating heretical paths.

So this was what they meant by a man with ink in his belly—every move he made seemed cultured? Tsk, tsk.

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

Lin Shou set aside his study of talent qi for now and got to work stitching the five corpses of the night.

Probably that Heaven-Grade Master Statue from the afternoon had drained all of Lin Shou's luck.

Tonight's five-in-a-row draw was a shipwreck for the unlucky—all Yellow-Grade.

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

Lin Shou read the two Confucian classics, adding two more articles to the Temple of Literature in his chest. Now he had seven articles' worth of talent qi.

He placed the Elixir of the Unbroken Tongue in his mouth. The pill dissolved, its effects seeping into his oral cavity. After a moment, he felt his teeth and tongue clear and sharp, his tongue incredibly agile—he could even tie a Chinese knot in his mouth with a string.

When he spoke, he could roll his tongue, trill his R's, master any dialect with ease, rattle off tongue twisters about eating grapes and spitting ash backward, and rattle off a hundred thousand words in ten minutes without feeling parched. A truly unbroken tongue.

Paired with the other reward—the Spear of Lips and Sword of Tongue technique, which recorded the skills of speech and pronunciation, how to make the mouth a spear and the tongue a sword, every word a gem, words that could wound—and with talent qi to drive it, he could even recite texts to shield his body or chant poetry to kill.

A gentleman uses his mouth, not his hands.

These might only be Yellow-Grade rewards, but together they were a god-tier tool for verbal sparring. Even the most foul-mouthed old woman at the village entrance couldn't beat this combo.

Lin Shou, bolstered by the talent qi of his Temple of Literature, tried it on the candle lamp in the room. After a round of sharp-tongued scolding, he talked the lamp out.

Tsk, interesting, interesting.

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

A discipline ruler is made of two pieces of wood, one facing up and one facing down—the upward piece below, the downward piece above. It was used by private school teachers in ancient times to punish students; if a young pupil couldn't memorize a passage, they'd receive a slap on the hand.

The function of this Ruler of Preaching and Teaching was to embody the role of a teacher, imparting knowledge and skills, teaching one's own abilities to students.

Lin Shou examined it for a while. Although the rewards priced at Yellow-Grade weren't rare treasures, they were all interesting little trinkets.

The next morning, the corpse was taken away by the Bureau of Corpse Management.

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

Qingcheng Teahouse kept a big black dog to guard the premises. Lin Shou often heard it barking at night, and during the day, the dog would lie outside basking in the sun and sleeping. Today, Lin Shou had his eye on it.

Lin Shou approached the big black dog.

The lazy, sprawled-out dog lifted its eyelids and glanced at him.

Lin Shou pulled out the Ruler of Preaching and Teaching.

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

Lin Shou soothed it, telling it to relax.

The big black dog began to snarl and bare its teeth in a low growl.

Tsk, why had he never unlocked a dog-training skill before?

Lin Shou stopped pretending and came clean. Relying directly on his formidable physical prowess, he forcibly restrained the big black dog, gently tapped it with the Ruler of Preaching and Teaching, and imparted some skills to it.